Core Curriculum Courses
The NYUAD Core Curriculum asks students to grapple with profound and enduring questions about the human and social condition while developing essential intellectual skills. Core classes introduce varied modes of thinking and forms of human creativity, from science and technology to literature and music; improve foundational skills in expository writing, public speaking, analysis, and quantitative reasoning; consider the range of cultural traditions in relation to one another; and probe basic questions about the meaning of life and our place in the world.
Students are required to take eight courses in the Core Curriculum. Five of the eight courses should be taken in the first two years. The Core Curriculum is divided into four areas: Pathways of World Literature; Structures of Thought and Society; Art, Technology and Invention; and Ideas and Methods of Science. Students take two courses in each area, and in Ideas and Methods of Science, they take one course in each of the two divisions: Experimental Discovery in the Natural World, which has a laboratory component, and Science, Society and History.
The Core courses also provide in-depth focus on oral and written expression. Students are required to take one Writing Intensive Core course in the first year; these courses include a weekly writing workshop. The small class size and emphasis on discussion enable students to practice and improve their ability to articulate ideas clearly and persuasively.
- Art, Technology, and Invention
- Catastrophe
COREA-AD 12
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
TR 11:20-12:35
Seung-hoon Jeong
How does the idea of catastrophe shape artistic studies in the 21st-century? This interdisciplinary course explores catastrophe through a variety of disciplinary thematics. Students use films and literary texts to explore a range of real or fictional disasters. Can catastrophe serve as a lens to understand notions such as capitalism, globalization, network theory, and ecology?
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Expressive Culture (Morse Academic Plan) credit.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Collaborative Arts: Creativity and Social Experience
COREA-AD 08
This course is a practical exploration of collaboration as fundamental creative working method. Taught by a collaborative artist, the course looks at collaboration as it has emerged from the recent history of art, literature, and science to become an essential method of contemporary social experience. Course projects and materials are based around the use of the iPad. Working with the device on creative, co-authored projects, students gain first-hand experience in considering how collaboration is structured and managed in the production of creative works and how a consideration of collaborative and interactive methods changes the way we think about the nature of the finished creative project.
Students in the NYUNY Steinhardt Studio Art Dept: This course counts is equivalent to ART-UE 1910 Interdisciplinary Projects
- Communication and Technology
COREA-AD 19W
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
UTW 1:10-2:25
Shawn van Every
Writing intensive
The ability to communicate has been central to humanity from the beginning of time. While speech may have been the first great revolution in human communication it certainly is not the last. Throughout our history, the forms of communications we have employed haven’t been limited to our innate capabilities but have been extended by technology. Technology has allowed humans the ability to overcome time and distance enabling ever more sophisticated and rich forms of communication. In this course we examine the history of human communication culminating with the current state of communication technologies that are being developed online and in the mobile world. Professor Jim Savio will teach the writing workshop.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Computers and Music
COREA-AD 23
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
UW 1:10-2:25
Godfried Toussaint - Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
TR 2:35-3:50
Godfried Toussaint
This course introduces the students to basic concepts in music information retrieval, music classification, computer music recognition, music theory, music perception, and music cognition, from the mathematical and computational points of view. Topics to be covered include music notation systems; representation of music in a computer; features of rhythm; features of melody; features of timbre; measuring music similarity; measuring music complexity; searching music data-bases; designing composition tools, automatic generation of music; optical music recognition; phylogenetic analysis and evolution of music; models of tonality; beat tracking; music segmentation; meter induction, and the design and analysis of human listening tests using computer software tools.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Conviction and Doubt
COREA-AD 24
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
MW 9:55-11:10
Gail Segal
Of what can we be certain? The course explores the role of doubt throughout history and in various cultures. It will explore the capacity of doubt to endow human experience and knowledge with complexity and dimension. While belief can provide the scaffolding of a life, a community, and worldview, doubt has, throughout history, and in every part of the world, wrestled firmly held beliefs toward new invention and discovery creating pivotal moments of scientific, cultural, social and personal development. The course will also focus on the role of conviction and doubt in storytelling, examining precepts and dramatic principles that employ conviction and doubt toward a greater plurality. Through our readings and discussion students will examine the role of doubt and conviction in their daily lives. Close readings of select essays, texts, fables, koans, poetry, novels, plays, short stories and films will serve to map this exploration. Texts include Plato, Timaeus and Critias; Aesop's Fables; Mahabarata; Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty; Athol Fugard, The Road to Mecca; and John Patrick Shanley, Doubt.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Cosmopolitanism and Popular Culture
COREA-AD 07
Popular culture—culture that appeals to or reaches a mass audience—can help connect people of divergent nationalities, experiences, and identities, thereby facilitating cosmopolitan ideals. In this seminar, we look at the changing role of the artist as world citizen over the course of the late 20th and early 21st century. The main thrust of the course is music: we deal with the rise of the “world music” concept in the 1980s, and students investigate postcolonial musicians who have grappled in differing ways with the challenge of cosmopolitanism. We also look at cosmopolitanism as it is deployed in contemporary film, television, literature, and food; and the impact of emergent technology forms on globalism. Students engage with the cosmopolitan sounds and sights of the region as we stop to consider the evolving contemporary
pop cultural scenes of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. - Creativity and Innovation
COREA-AD 27
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
M 2:35-3:50, W 3:30-6:00 (in CSE)
Douglas Cook
This course will probe the heuristics of human innovation as understood by ancient and modern inventors and philosophers. The central question of this course are the following, What are the sources, requirements, and factors that influence human ingenuity? Is creativity a gift or a skill? How does creativity differ from innovation? To address these questions, we will consider the earliest human inventions such as spears and simple tools; technological innovations that affected the course of human history; and inventions that shape our modern world. Throughout the course, a strong emphasis will be placed on developing a personal philosophy and methodology for creativity.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Cultural Encounters
COREA-AD 15
This course discusses the contexts, dynamics and products of cultural encounters from the perspective of anthropology and art history. Focusing on pivotal moments of cultural interaction—in conquest, travel, pilgrimage or trade—it analyzes the processes of imposition, opposition, appropriation, and assimilation and the hybridized and disjunctive art forms that characterize such encounters. The course examines case studies from the Middle East, Europe, and Africa ranging from the 16th century to the 21st.
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Expressive Culture (Morse Academic Plan) credit.
- Fame
COREA-AD 28
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Jason King
Historian Leo Braudy notes that: “the history of fame is also the history of the shifting definition of achievement in the social world.” We will track early discourses of heroism and immortality as they pertain to mythologized figures like Alexander the Great to the chatter around today’s reality celebrities like Kim Kardashian. Beginning with concepts of fame in antiquity, we investigate Virgil’s The Aeneid, The Bible, Homer's The Odyssey, and Shakespeare’s King Richard III. Ultimately, we study the rise of contemporary stars across film, television, and theatre, and we think about the ways in which celebrities help manage historically conditioned categories of classification, such as gender, sexuality, race, class and nationality. Do celebrities register and reflect changes in the way we understand identity or do they have a powerful hand in shaping those very changes? In addition, we’ll engage case studies of non-Western celebrities, as we consider the formatting of modern stardom in Asia (Jackie Chan and Jet Li), Africa (Fela Kuti), and the Middle East (Umm Kulthum). By the end of the course, students should be well equipped to analyze a celebrity as an embodied social text and to consider the way celebrities contribute to, or distract us from, the progressive negotiation of human freedoms.
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Gardens of Eden
COREA-AD 04J
The Garden of Eden haunts the history of the peoples of the Book—Jews, Christians, Muslims—as primal site of creation, bounty, betrayal, and loss, as spur to repentance and redemption, as preview of heaven and model of earthly Utopia. The exile of Adam and Eve from the garden that God planted for the first man and filled with all the Earth's creatures and plants set their descendants on an infinite quest to find, describe, and recreate it. The course studies the efforts by people of the Abrahamic religions to specify the site, form, and meaning of the first Garden, in theology, literature, visual art, film, and garden design. It seeks convergences and differences among these interpretations across millennia and media, and ask whether the Gardenof Eden continues to hold productive meanings today. All students participate in a garden design project. This course includes field trips to gardens in Abu Dhabi and abroad.
- Gesture in Speech, Poetry, Music, and Dance
COREA-AD 21
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
MR 11:20-12:35
Walter Zev Feldman
Gesture lies at the interface of the verbal and the non-verbal in human communication and expression. Through bodily movement, intonation, and stress gesture can transcend the distinctions between normal speech, poetry, song, and dance. Gaining a deeper understanding of the multiple meanings of gesture in a variety of media across different cultures enables the student to approach fundamental means of human expression, and to learn to recognize constants in human communication within the myriad of culturally specific conventions of language, prosody, music, and dance.
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Expressive Culture (Morse Academic Plan) credit.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Idea of the Exotic
COREA-AD 25
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Ella Shohat
Desert Odysseys, Dark Continents, Virgin Lands, Harem Fantasies; this interdisciplinary course explores the role of visual culture in shaping our outlook of “other” geographies and cultures as “exotic.” We analyze the role of the diverse technologies in mediating between distant geographies, and making the unknown known. Moving across various texts, arts, media, and institutions – museums, maps, photographs, films, TV programs, and digital spaces – the course reflects on how our imagination of ourselves is intertwined with the ways that we imagine other places. The reading includes: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe; Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad; David F. Dorr, A Colored Man Round the World; Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days; and The letters of Gertrude Bell.
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Instruments of World Cultures
COREA-AD 03
Musical instruments have been created by humans for at least 35,000 years. How do diverse musical cultures view the significance of the sounds and playing techniques of musical instruments? From instrumental story-telling in Siberia, Central Asian shaman-bards, dervish flutes, folk, Gypsy and classical fiddling, dulcimers, psalteries and keyboards to drumming in several parts of the world, the course examines why musical cultures need instruments; how these instruments interact with or take the place of vocal music; where they are connected to dance and where they have evolved far from dance; how diverse cultures attribute positive or negative moral values to different instruments and their players; and how a single musical culture may feel the need to exchange, develop or exclude particular musical instruments over time.
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Expressive Culture (Morse Academic Plan) credit; For the NYUNY Music Dept: This course counts for Music ethnomusicology elective credit
- Inventions
COREA-AD 22
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
T 2:00-4:30, R 2:35-3:50
Leonard Retel Helmrich, Nikolaos Mavridis - Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
U 3:30-6:00 (CSE) W 4:00-5:15
Leonard Retel Helmrich
Inventions have played a pivotal role in the development of history, mankind, and culture. Inventors articulate problems and find creative solutions, often by combining concepts that are not typically linked. This class examines inventions and the process of inventing through case studies. We consider the historical context of inventions and how the use of inventions can change from one culture to another. Some of the inventions we explore are the bow and arrow, the lever, the bicycle, dynamite, the fax machine, and the computer. Students are presented with problems and asked to create prototypes and invent new tools.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Maps
COREA-AD 13
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
UW 11:20-12:35
Dale Hudson
What are maps, and what do they tell us? From prehistoric cave paintings to Mercator projection maps to contemporary mobile apps, maps combine the innovation and rigor of art and science. Maps interpret space in and over time. This course examines maps from the ancient and modern worlds, alongside reinterpretations of mapping in paintings, films, video games, and new media, to understand ways that maps produce knowledge visually.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Performing Body in History
COREA-AD 29
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Edward Ziter
This class examines the representation and theorization of the human body as evident in acting theory and performance practices. We will be particularly attentive to the international circulation of ideas of the body. To what extent are the commentaries of Ibn Rushd (Averroes) on Galen and Plato important to Renaissance Europe’s understanding of
the performing body? How has Tadashi Suzuki’s interest in Noh, Kabuki , and Ancient Greek theatre informed his collaborations with major figures of the European theatre? Authors will include: Ibn Rushd, Plato, Zeami, Shakespeare, Diderot, Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, Brecht, Suzuki. - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Photography and Narrative
COREA-AD 06
This course explores photography’s relationship to language and narrative by examining photography’s rich interactions with literature and film. How do images complement, replace, challenge, or exceed language in narrative works? Can images create alternative forms of narrative? What kind of narratives do photographs generate in fiction? What is the relationship of photography and memory in works of autobiography or of photography and witnessing in social documentary? In what form are such dialogues present in films? We look at a variety of works from around the world which are entirely or almost entirely visual; works in which images and text are combined in creative partnership; and works which are about photographs but in which no images are actually reproduced.
- Reinventions of Love
COREA-AD 09W
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Rubén Polendo
Writing intensive
This course explores how the mythology, poetics, imagery, and emotion associated with romantic love have varied dramatically over time and in different cultures. Spanning several millennia and many continents, our material challenges us to think about gender, family, biology, and faith as manifestations of an attempt to reconcile human needs and desires. We work with ancient texts like the Ramayana, the Upanishads, and the Song of Songs; the poetry of Kalidasa, Rumi, and Neruda; plays by Zeami, Euripides, Shakespeare, Lorca, Tennessee Williams, and Sarah Kane; the music of PJ Harvey, Antony & The Johnsons, and Thom Yorke; the photography of Cindy Sherman; and the films of David Lynch. Students move towards creating their own inventions, employing creative writing, physical improvisations, ensemble performance, and photography.
COREA 9 - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Renaissance Orientations
COREA-AD 20
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
UT 8:30-9:45
Alexander Nagel
Scholarly approaches to Renaissance art have traditionally focused on what it inherited from the Roman world. What happens to our understanding of the Renaissance when we highlight its relationship to Jerusalem, Constantinople, and other cultural centers in the Eastern Mediterranean? This course investigates the interpretive implications of this shift in orientation, exploring the West’s fascination
with objects and images produced by Byzantine and Islamic artists, and the complications of identity produced by pilgrimages to the east, both real
and imaginary.Students in the NYUNY Art History Dept: This course counts for Art History elective credit.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Representations
COREA-AD 30W
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Writing intensive
This course will consider representations of social and historical realities within which notions of cultural identity, citizenship and power are imagined and presented. Using examples from the performing arts, film and photography, we will explore formal technologies of creating representations and cultural modes of interpreting them, and compare how reality is abstracted and codified by representations from different parts of the world. Some of the examples are films such as Lawrence of Arabia, Mother India, Xala and Al Za’eem; plays such as The Road, Al-Malik huwa I-Malik, and St Joan; photographs by Annie Liebovitz, Brian Duffy and Yousef Karsh. Basic semiotic, materialist and reception theories will offer prisms for our study. Key essays such as “Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for the Pastness of India” by Dipesh Charkravorty, “Fictions of the Pose” by Harry Berger, “Imperialist Nostalgia” by Renato Rosaldo, and “Theorizing the Male Gaze” by Edward Snow will be read side by side videos of performances, films and slides of photographs.
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Ritual and Play
COREA-AD 18
Sections
- Spring 2 2012; 7 Weeks
MR 1:30-4:10, T 7:30-9:30pm
Richard Schechner - Spring 2 2012; 7 Weeks
MR 9:55-12:35, T 7:30-9:30pm
Richard Schechner
Underlying performances of all kinds—theatre, dance, music, the performances of everyday life, sports, and popular entertainments—are ritual and play. These must be understood from multiple perspectives. In the course, we investigate roots
of human ritual and play in animal behavior; human religious and social rituals; and children and adults at play. Examples include the Taziyeh of Shi’a Islam, the Ramlila of Hinduism, the Olympic Games, Noh Drama of Japan, American baseball, “deep” and “dark” play. - Spring 2 2012; 7 Weeks
- Scapegoat
COREA-AD 10
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Lamar Sanders
The scapegoat, however unwillingly, has played a role in human culture since the earliest times. This course examines the phenomena of scapegoating from both a historical and psychological perspective, and examines its treatment in films, literature, music, and new technology. Tracing the origins of scapegoating as a tribal rite and as one of the defining aspects of Greek tragedy, this course ultimately poses the question—what is it, in the human psyche, that causes us to demonize and dehumanize the “other,” and demand, in the most extreme cases, witch trials throughout the centuries, mob lynchings, the Holocaust, and the more recent genocide in Rwanda. This course also touches on the technological forms of scapegoating such as cyber-bullying and examines how the Internet itself is often used as a scapegoating device.
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Technology, Arts, & Media
COREA-AD 16
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
TR 1:10-2:25
Abdulmotaleb El Saddik
The course explores how technology has influenced the arts and investigates the use of technology by artists over the ages. “Media arts” and other concepts such as “digital arts” are discussed as modern manifestations of the merging of technology with arts and media. A broad historical, cultural and technological understanding of main achievements of use of media in relation to arts is provided. New technologies and their use and influence on media and arts are surveyed.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- The Idea of the Portrait
COREA-AD 02
Sections
- January 2013
TBD
London, England
Shamoon Zamir
The course explores the portrait as a pivotal human artifact for artistic expression, private identity formation, and public self-fashioning. It traces a series of thematic issues central to the idea of the portrait through history in different cultures, media, and techniques. Themes to study are: image and likeness from antiquity to Facebook; the portrait as real and surrogate presence; portraiture and psychology; the “face of power”; portraits without a face; the work of art as self portrait; digital identity and the private portrait in the public domain; animal portraits and their owners; masks and casts; the unintended portrait; anthropomorphisms and readymades; the better self: face-lift and Photoshop; after life and afterlife.
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Expressive Culture (Morse Academic Plan) credit.
- January 2013
- The Nature of Code
COREA-AD 17J
Sections
- January 2013
TBD
New York City
Daniel Shiffman
Can we capture the unpredictable evolutionary and emergent properties of nature in software? Can understanding the mathematical principles behind our physical world world help us to create digital worlds? This class focuses on the programming strategies and techniques behind computer simulations of natural systems. We explore topics ranging from basic mathematics and physics concepts to more advanced simulations of complex systems. Subjects covered include forces, trigonometry, fractals, cellular automata, self-organization, and genetic algorithms. No computer programming experience is required; the course starts with the basics of code using the Processing environment.
Students in the NYUNY ITP Dept: This course is equivalent to ITPG-GT 2690 The Nature of Code
- January 2013
- The Voice
COREA-AD 01
Sections
- January 2013
TBD
New York City
Martin Daughtry
This course explores the sound and significance of the human voice. We examine a number of ways in which the voice has been framed as the result of a complex physiological process; as a quasi-mystical aesthetic object; as a vehicle for communication; as a gendered, racialized, and essentialized text; as a technologically mediated commodity; and as a master trope for identity, human agency, immediacy, and truth. Students read a number of seminal texts on voice; write several focused essays; complete a multimedia project; and, more importantly, use their own voices to make a chorus of sounds in class.
Students in the NYUNY Music Dept: This course counts for Music elective credit
- January 2013
- Ways of Seeing
COREA-AD 26
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Robert Stam
This seminar is devoted to the interrelated issues of colonialism, postcolonialism, comparative race, and multiculturalism as apprehended through diverse disciplines, media, and colonial histories. Throughout our focus will be comparative, transnational and transdisciplinary, mingling the theories and methods of media studies, literary studies, philosophy, and social studies. The goal is to reflect in a polycentric way on a multicultural world still shaped by the legacies of (post) colonialism, as reflected, refracted, translated and resisted by the media.
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Catastrophe
- Ideas and Methods of Science
- Experimental Discovery in the Natural World
- Coastal Urbanization and Environmental Change
COREI-AD 25J
Sections
- January 2013
TBD
Sydney, Australia
John Burt
Over 80% of the Australian population lives within 100 km of a coast and virtually all major Australian cities occur on coastlines. As a result, Australia's coastal environments have been substantially modified to suit human needs. This course will use the built and natural environments of Sydney, Australia's largest city, as a case study to examine the environmental and ecological implications of urban development in coastal areas worldwide. Using Sydney's terrestrial, marine, and built environments as a natural laboratory for field research, students will collect environmental data throughout the city and use geographic information systems (GIS) to examine the spatial patterns of human impacts to Sydney's environment and to compare their results with patterns observed in other coastal cities.
- January 2013
- Gadgets and Gimmicks
Do you want 720p or 1080p resolution? How many gigabytes of memory do you need? This system has dual lasers. These questions and statements are common when you purchase a new television, audio system, or computer. But what do they mean? How do televisions work? When does sound technology reach a level of reproducibility such that the human ear becomes the limiting factor in perception? This course focuses on the science underlying modern gadgetry. Laboratory exercises foster an understanding of common technology and the limits of human perception.
- Genomes and Diversity
Genomics, the study of all the genes in an organism, provides new insights into the amazing diversity of life. This course introduces the fundamentals of DNA, genes, and genomes. Students explore microbial diversity, with an emphasis on how genomics reveals many aspects of organisms, from their ancient history to their physiological properties and ecological habitats. Animal and plant diversity is then examined, focusing on domesticated species, such as dogs and tomatoes, to identify genes that underlie new or otherwise interesting traits. The course concludes by considering the societal implications of the ability to alter the genomes of crop plants, livestock, and, potentially, humans. The lab focuses on bioinformatic approaches to the wealth of data about the genomes of organisms.
- Heuristics
COREI-AD 24J
Sections
- January 2013
TBD
Many problems in science, business, and politics require heuristics -- problem solving techniques that often work well even if not perfectly. This course teaches heuristics as they have applied in the design of scientific experiments, the solution of problems global power politics, and in the resolution of economic negotiations. While being exposed to heuristic techniques, students will work in small teams that will compete with one another to design strategies to solve new puzzles better than other teams. You will be given computational tools as needed, but the course has no programming prerequisite. To take this course, you should love to think both qualitatively and quantitatively. Among the specific problems we will tackle include the design of currencies, leasing strategies for oil exploration, optimal matchmaking, and efficient experimental design. The intent is to make you better able to face complex problems in any field you choose.
- January 2013
- Microbes, Meals, and Metagenomics
COREI-AD 15J
Sections
- January 2013
TBD
Ignatius Tan
Yeasts are among the world’s oldest industrial microbes. These single-celled organisms are involved in the preparation of various foods, most notably bread and beverages. Indeed, the use of yeast in the baking industry is found
in many societies throughout the world. In this course, the diversity and functions of yeasts are examined using modern experimental approaches. Students begin by learning the fundamentals of the biological molecules that comprise the cell, such as DNA, RNA, proteins, and carbohydrates. In the laboratory, students then use a variety of methods, including DNA isolation, polymerase chain reaction amplification, gel electrophoresis, sequencing, and metagenomic analysis to study these microorganisms that are so globally important in providing fundamental sustenance. - January 2013
- Mutations and Disease
COREI-AD 13
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
U 1:10-3:50, MW 1:10-2:25
Alexandra Dimitri
The very word “mutations” tends to raise fear and apprehension since it is so often associated with physical deformities or exposure to harmful agents, including radiation. Perhaps such fear is warranted since many human diseases, including cystic fibrosis and cancer, are caused by “mutations”, which are mere changes in the genetic information in DNA. Starting with basic concepts, this course explores important cellular macromolecules, such as DNA, and proteins as well as their three-dimensional structures that endow them with their specific functions. In fact, understanding how mutations induce alterations to macromolecular structures often sheds light on the characteristic symptoms and prognoses of some human diseases and syndromes. Laboratory projects, which focus on introduction to computer modeling, emphasize visualizing in a three-dimensional environment the normal and altered macromolecules associated with some common but complex human maladies.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- The Desert: Life in an Arid Environment
COREI-AD 01
While seemingly inhospitable to life, the desert teems with animals and plants that have evolved to cope with an arid environment. This course addresses fundamental questions related to desert climates and the species that populate them. What geographic conditions generate a desert terrain? How rapidly does the terrain change over time? What are the special attributes of the plants and animals that thrive in desert climates, and how do these populations change as the desert changes? This course uses the local terrain as a laboratory to address these questions, and team projects requiring field work form the core of the learning experience.
- The Domain of Crystals
COREI-AD 17
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
MR 9:00-12:00
Wael M. Rabeh - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Wael M. Rabeh
Knowing the three-dimensional structure of a molecule is important for understanding its functional properties. Is it indeed possible to visually analyze a molecule and use the observed experimental data to build a three-dimensional model? This structural information can be obtained using a variety of analytical techniques such as X-ray crystallography, and can lead to significant breakthroughs in pharmaceutics. Students grow crystals of different colors, shapes, and sizes and harvest them for physical and morphological characterization in order to understand the basic principles of atomic structure and theory, chemical bonding and reactions, thermochemistry, periodicity, and solution chemistry.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- The Language of Computers: Introduction to Programming Using Python
COREI-AD 12
Sections
This course provides a gentle introduction to the fundamentals of programming, which is the foundation of Computer Science. It is intended as a first course for students from different disciplines; no prerequisite is needed. Programming has revolutionized every aspect of our lives from art and other media to education, business, and the core sciences. Students learn the basics of how computers “think” and how computer programs (software pplications) are created. We develop simple and fun applications involving graphics, sound, text processing, animation, basic interactive game techniques, networking, and web interfaces. Students produce short programs and one final project using Python, a relatively easy programming language with powerful visual and graphics capabilities.
Students in the NYUNY Computer Science Dept: This course is equivalent to CSCI-UA.0002 Introduction to Computer Programming
- Where the City Meets the Sea: Studies in Coastal Urban Environments
COREI-AD 16
Sections
Over half of the human population lives within 100 km of a coast and coastlines contain more than two-thirds of the world’s largest cities. As a result, the world’s natural coastal environments have been substantially modified to suit human needs. This course will use the built and natural environments of coastal cities as laboratories to examine the environmental and ecological implications of urban development in coastal areas. Using data from multiple coastal cities, student teams will use field-based studies and Geographic Information System (GIS) data to examine patterns and processes operating in coastal cities. This course uses the local terrestrial, marine, and built environments as a laboratory to address these issues, and team projects requiring field-work form a core component of the learning experience. As part of the NYU Global Network University initiative this course is being offered simultaneously in New York and Abu Dhabi and students will be collaborating extensively with students from their sister campus through the duration of this course.
- Coastal Urbanization and Environmental Change
- Science, Society, and History
- Evolution: The Incredible Human Journey
COREI-AD 27
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
TR 2:35-3:50
Azim Shariff
What we consider modern human society represents a tiny and very peculiar blip in the very long history of human beings on this planet. Whether we consider the 10,000 year history of settled civilization, the 200,000 year history of anatomically modern humans, or the 6 million year history of “proto-humans” since our divergence from our closest species relatives, to fully understand human society is to consider the incredible journey that has led our species to where we are now. In this class we will explore this deep history of our humanity alongside the more recent intellectual history of the idea of evolution. Using films, myths, historical texts and scientific research we will at once explore the epic journey of our species, the legacy it has left on us, and how this controversial story of human origins has battled its way to acceptance, and redefined how we look at our world and ourselves.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Genetics: Successes, Challenges and Implications on Society
COREI-AD 19
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
MR 9:55-11:10
Rana Al Assah Saadeh - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Rana Al Assah Saadeh
When the gene was discovered and our ability to manipulate it became apparent, a new era in science began. The Human Genome Project, completed in 2003, led to the identification of the genes in human DNA. As a result, gene therapy, genetic food modification, and organismalcloning emerged, all with the hope of improving the social, economic, and physical quality of human life. This course travels through the world of genetics and examines the successes, controversies and challenges of genetic research, with a particular focus on the Human Genome Project.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Immortality
COREI-AD 05W
I want to live forever! Since antiquity, humans have confronted physical immortality in song, literature, theater, and science. Indeed, the alchemists sought an elixir of life with curative powers that would prolong indefinitely the lives of those who consumed it. And even as alchemy gave way to chemistry, and science evolved into a modern discipline that focuses on understanding the natural world through strict rules of experimentation, the notion of immortality did not disappear. In fact, biologists often asked—and continue to ask—the related question: Why must we die? The results are often surprising. This course examines immortality and, by necessity, death, principally from the view of science, but also using literature and film. In doing so, fundamental human concerns are confronted—birth, growth, aging, sickness, and death—as the course explores immortality and the human desire to live forever.
- Innovation in the Ancient World
COREI-AD 14
This course probes the heuristics of human innovation in the ancient world. We study the earliest human inventions such as spears and simple tools; ponder the methods that might have been used in the construction of monolithic structures such as Stone Henge, Egyptian obelisks, and pyramids; and explore examples of technological innovations that affected the course of human history. Throughout the course, the emphasis is on developing personal approaches to creativity and innovation by studying specific examples of these attributes from the ancient world.
- Knowledge, Inference, Uncertainty, Probability
COREI-AD 08
We often don’t know for sure whether something will happen (or has happened). Probability provides a way of thinking about the uncertain. We look at the fundamentals of the mathematics of probability, including such important results as the Law of Large Numbers and the Central Limit Theorem. We study the inferences that one should make, and the decisions that one should take, when the evidence leaves it uncertain what is true. We also examine some of the foundational philosophical issues about the concept of probability—is it something objective or subjective? And does genuine randomness exist in the world?
- Life in the Universe
COREI-AD 02
Why is Earth the only object in the solar system with obvious signs of life? How did the building blocks of life form on Earth? What is the likelihood that there are other forms of life out there? This course addresses these questions and more, by covering the chemical evolution of the Universe, the formation of our solar system, the search for and study of extra-solar planets, and the possible cosmological implications of life’s existence.
- Quantum Theory and Relativity: The Impact of a Scientific Revolution
COREI-AD 10
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
MW 2:35-3:50
Federico Camia
At the beginning of the 20th century, a scientific revolution started that was destined to change radically the way we think about the physical world. Einstein’s theory of relativity completely altered notions of time and space, laying the theoretical foundation for the use of nuclear power. At the same time, a new quantum theory was developed to describe the behavior of atoms and nuclei. It led to great technological advances, with much modern technology crucially exploiting quantum effects. But the revolutionary advent of relativity and quantum mechanics came with significant consequences: Physics became detached from the public’s everyday experiences and intuition. Challenging that notion of inaccessibility, this course analyzes some of the basic concepts of relativity and quantum theory.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Science and Society
SRPP-AD 123
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
MR 11:35-12:50
Ann Morning
Social scientists who study science often make a simple, but controversial claim: that science is fundamentally shaped by social forces. This premise challenges contemporary understanding of science as producing true, objective knowledge that is independent of culture and social structure. We study debates about the nature of science versus religion, Western versus non-Western knowledge, and the physical versus social sciences in order to form our own conclusions about the relationship between science and society.
Students in the NYUNY Sociology Dept: This course counts for Sociology elective credit
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Serendipity in Science
COREI-AD 21
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
UTW 9:55-11:10
Joel Bernstein - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Joel Bernstein
In 1754 the antiquarian Horace Walpole coined the word serendipity based on the Persian fairy tale “The Three Princes of Serendip,” whose heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.” In the ensuing centuries, the word has had a colored history. Many of the major scientific and technological developments that shape our modern economy and culture had serendipitous components, including X-rays, penicillin, nylon, vulcanization of rubber, Post-Its, Velcro, saccharin, Nutrasweet, Teflon, insulin, the Pap test, super glue and a host of others. In this course we examine the history of serendipity, the synergism between the scientific background and experience of the individual scientist and researcher, and some of the many serendipitous breakthroughs that have changed and extended our lives and continually improve our standard of living.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Social Issues in the New Biosciences
COREI-AD 06
While the 20th century has often been characterized as the Century of Physics, many have already named the 21st century as the Century of Genetics. Important markers highlight the speed and drama of the molecular genetic revolution. These include the technique of somatic nuclear cell transfer
(with the realization of mammalian cloning and the specter of human cloning) and germ-line gene therapy (with its specter of altering the genetic makeup of future generations). Alongside these markers is the promise of stem cell cures for many human ailments and diseases, and DNA identification technology to exonerate the innocent and convict the guilty. But this is only the beginning, since the newest developments promise to go far beyond “cure” to delve into human “enhancements” of mental acuity and physical prowess. This course examines these and other developments, lodging the heated debates that each generates in both social and cultural histories and current incarnations.Students in the NYUNY Sociology Dept: This course counts for Sociology elective credit
- State and Fate of the Earth
COREI-AD 11J
What is the current state of Earth in terms of human well-being and human impact on Earth’s natural systems? Issues such as energy, CO2, climate, agriculture, water, and material fluxes are intricately tied together as a global system that has expanded by about 3% per year. This growth rate will lead to a world in 2050 in which the average world citizen will have a life approximately equal to that of the average European or Japanese today and about four times the average Chinese today. Will this be possible and what will be the implications for the issues above? In this inquiry-based seminar, substantial portions of the course will require students to conduct research by locating, using, and sharing technical papers and data bases, synthesizing facts and viewpoints, making presentations, and writing short technical papers that will be peer-reviewed by the other “researchers” in the class. The course includes field trips relevant to the topics above.
- The Atom and Energy
COREI-AD 20W
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
MTR 9:55-11:10
Ingyin Zaw - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Ingyin Zaw
Writing intensive
E=mc2: One simple equation encapsulates the power to grant life and death in equal measure. Life associated with fusion in the sun, radiation therapy, and nuclear energy; death via nuclear bombs and nuclear disasters. This course uses nuclear physics as a prism for exploring science as a human endeavor, focusing on the physics of the atomic nucleus and its technological applications. Arguments for and against nuclear power plants are analyzed, while the power and threat of nuclear weapons are assessed. The international treaties designed to limit the spread of nuclear weapons are scrutinized, emphasizing the challenges that lawmakers and citizens face in determining and guiding the uses of nuclear power as we grapple with the moral responsibility that all of us—scientists, politicians, and citizens—must bear for ourselves, our nations, and ultimately, for humanity.
Students in the NYUNY Physics Dept: This course counts for Physics and Astronomy minor credit
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- The Copernican Revolution
COREI-AD 23
Sections
- Fall 2 2012; 7 Weeks
MW 1:10-3:50
Timothy Maudlin
Before Copernicus, the earth was regarded as the stable center of the universe. Coming to accept the earth’s rotation and motion around the sun was one of science’s greatest shocks to humanity’s understanding of our place in the order of things. We investigate the structure of the theories that preceded Copernicus, and the various sorts of arguments—empirical, conceptual, and even religious—that were made for and against his account. Our aim is to appreciate how scientific theories of the world are constructed, criticized and defended. Texts include relevant parts of Aristotle and Ptolemy, Galileo’s Starry Messenger and On The Two Chief Worlds Systems, Thomas Kuhn ‘s The Copernican Revolution, Bertold Brecht’s Galileo, and Paul Feyerabend’s Against Method.
- Fall 2 2012; 7 Weeks
- Trust, Risk and Deception in Cyberspace
COREI-AD 22W
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
MTR 2:35-3:50
Nasir Memon - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Writing intensive
Cyberspace is playing an increasing role in our lives, and our society is rapidly becoming structured around the 24/7 availability and trustworthiness of information systems. We already entrust cyberspace with our privacy, national security, physical safety, and digital identities. Maintaining an orderly, peaceful, safe, and productive society will increasingly depend on maintaining trust in information systems. However, trust cannot be realized by technology alone.
This course adopts the viewpoint that cyberspace is essentially a social system that relies on important technical components. The course will begin with a discussion of trust, risk and deception as developed in the social sciences and examine how traditional notions apply or fail to apply to interactions in cyberspace. In the second part of the course we will examine the technical underpinning of cyberspace and the mechanisms that have been developed to create trustworthy systems. In the third and final part of the course we will examine the interplay between the technical and social aspects and see how better policy and systems can be developed to tackle cybercrime, cyberespionage, cyberwar and cyberterrorism. A computer science or engineering knowledge is not necessary for taking this course. - Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Evolution: The Incredible Human Journey
- Experimental Discovery in the Natural World
- Pathways of World Literature
- A Thousand and One Nights
COREP-AD 01W
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
UMW 9:55-11:10
Paulo Lemos Horta
Writing intensive
For centuries The 1001 Nights (or Arabian Nights) has served as a point of encounter between Middle Eastern literary traditions and the cultural politics of Western literary and artistic production and translation. This course examines the much-debated history of the Nights and the cross-cultural exchange that has seen the tales adapted for distinct audiences in medieval Egypt and Syria, modern Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East.
Students in the NYUNY MEIS Dept: This course counts towards MEIS literature requirement
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Becoming Human: Literatures of the Nature-Culture Borderlands
COREP-AD 04
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
From a timeless classic such as The Bacchae to an international bestseller such as The Life of Pi, literature has used stories of non-human encounters to articulate both the limits and the possibilities of human nature. We read some of the world’s most imaginative mappings of the borders between human beings and the “others” in contrast to whom they define themselves: gods, animals, nature, and machines. We look at creation myths and foundational epics, such as Gilgamesh, The Ramayana, and Genesis; we explore the varieties and meanings of anthropomorphism in such works such as Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; we read literary accounts of solitary nature, such as Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Thoreau’s Walden, and counter-edenic fables, like Huxley’s Brave New World.
- Cities: Writing the Urban Space
COREP-AD 10
Cities hold a special fascination for writers as the most complex form of social organization. This course investigates the various ways in which writers have represented the dynamics of city life. Topics to be investigated include the use
of cities as philosophical points of departure by such thinkers as Plato and St. Augustine; the development of mnemonics as a response to the challenges of urban space; the decline in representations of the city during the European Middle Ages; the inescapability of the city in post-Enlightenment Western Literature; and the depiction of cities in non-Western texts and films.Students in the NYUNY English Dept: This course counts for English advanced elective credit
- Contagion
COREP-AD 24W
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
UTR 11:20-12:35
Bryan Waterman
Writing intensive
How do we respond to news that some among us are ill, and that the illness is, perhaps, contagious? Are the healthy ethically obliged to tend to the sick? What are the relationships between contagious disease and verbal communication: rumors, medical information, stories about the dying and the dead? How has illness literally and metaphorically participated in the reimagination of community, kinship, and sexuality in different times and places? This course examines the intersections of contagious disorder and storytelling in a range of cultures, settings, and forms, from ancient Greece to contemporary South Africa, from the Black Death, influenza, and AIDS to the proliferation of zombies and vampires in global popular culture today.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Discovery and Recognition in Narrative, Film and Drama
COREP-AD 02
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
UW 11:20-12:35
Philip Kennedy
Across all cultures, stories are fashioned to withhold information at first, holding our attention through suspense. They then produce disclosures at crucial moments of denouement. For Aristotle, this dynamic movement from ignorance to knowledge is essential, especially when it takes the form of the discovery—or recognition—of previously unknown identity. Tracing an arc from the ancient world to the present day, students study how the epistemology of modern storytelling across cultures disturbs the familiar patterns of clear and comforting revelation associated with classic genres. Readings include: Aristotle’s Poetics; Oedipus Rex; selections from the Odyssey, the Jacob and Joseph stories from the Old Testament; the Gospels of Mark and John; selections from the Qur’an; the Arabian Nights; Shakespeare’s King Lear; Naguib Mahfouz; and films from the 1940s to the present.
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Texts and Ideas (Morse Academic Plan) credit.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Doubles and Masks
COREP-AD 23
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
MW 8:30-9:45
Judith G. Miller
Among the more significant activities of human beings is that of giving shape to fears and desires through art. All cultures participate in this form of emotional exteriorization, including creating “doubles” and “masks” through myths, literature, and other media. Concentrating on doubles and masks in several different cultures, we will chart the meaning and impact of the archetypal masked figures of the commedia dell’arte in French and British theatre; the obsessive concern with the grotesque (the monstrous mask) in French romanticism and in Haitian magical realism; zombification, carnival figures, and ghostly doubles in Latin American, North American, and African cultural forms. We will build a repertory of approaches to interpreting and uncovering the many layers of masking and doubling by reading in anthropology, psychoanalysis, aesthetics, and literary theory.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Enchantment
COREP-AD 28
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Paulo Lemos Horta
The advent of the novel marked a break with a magical way of thinking. "A magic curtain, woven of legends, hung before the world," writes Milan Kundera, "Cervantes sent Don Quixote journeying and tore the curtain." Is enchantment possible after modernity? And if so, what form might it take? A reenchantment as foreseen by religious cosmography, in which the human realm intersects with that of jinn or other supernatural beings? Or might the discoveries and technologies of the modern world--including the laws of physics and breakthroughs in science--themselves be conceived as enchanting? This course looks at attempts from various cultural vantage points to reconcile magic and realism in the aftermath of secularism and modernity. Must enchantment survive only as an escape from reason? Or might it be compatible with the Enlightenment and scientific inquiry? We will look at responses to the riddle of magic in modern society in the art, theatre, film and fiction of Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East. (Note: this course is unlikely to be available to students who have already completed LITCW-AD 120 Magic Realism)
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Families
COREP-AD 21
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
UW 1:10-2:25
Wolfgang Neuber
The family has often been described as the nucleus of society. The course studies the representation of families—both biological and symbolic—as a source of blessings and burdens, bonding and betrayal in literary texts from around the world, starting with the Odyssey and moving on through the Middle Ages to modern writing. The course also investigates modern theories of the family as found in the works of such thinkers as Engels, Freud, and Foucault.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Global Shakespeare
COREP-AD 27
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
TR 11:20-12:35
Cyrus R.K. Patell
This course offers a comparative approach to the work of Shakespeare, a world author whose influence can be felt throughout many cultures. In addition to exploring Shakespeare’s plays and poetry, the course also examines texts and films (e.g., Cesaire’s A Tempest, Robbins’s West Side Story, and Kurosawa’s Ran) that appropriate, rewrite, or write back to Shakespeare’s work and consider the processes that have made Shakespeare into an institution of culture worldwide.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Global Traffic
COREP-AD 06
Globalization, the acceleration of transportation and information technologies, transforms the experience of distance, producing perceptions of proximity and inter-connectedness across nations. It foregrounds movement and simultaneity, blurring boundaries between “real” and “virtual” worlds. Through texts emphasizing home, homelessness, migration, diaspora, transnationalism, tourism, we examine how literature, film, games, graphic novels, and new media guide readers in this new landscape by charting new concepts of space and place, community, and global citizenship.
Students in the NYUNY Comparative Literature Dept: This course counts for Comparative Literature elective credit or for the Literary and Cultural Studies Track
- Interracial Learning
COREP-AD 22
Sections
- Spring 1 2012; 7 Weeks
UW 9:55-12:35
Werner Sollors
This course examines a wide variety of literary texts on black-white couples, interracial families, and biracial identity, from classical antiquity to the present. Works studied include romances, novellas, plays, novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction, as well as some films and examples from the visual arts. Topics for discussion range from interracial genealogies to racial “passing,” from representations of racial difference to alternative plot resolutions, and from religious and political to legal and scientific contexts for the changing understanding of “race.”
- Spring 1 2012; 7 Weeks
- Journeys
COREP-AD 03W
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
MTR 1:10-2:25
Sheetal Majithia
Writing intensive
The search for knowledge has been linked historically to the traveler’s experience of new places and peoples. Travel necessitates the creation of translations that reveal how knowledge of otherness necessarily involves comparison to home and self. Drawing on texts that represent travel in realistic, figurative, and fantastic terms, we explore the idea that a journey entails the discovery, not only of a destination, but also of the self. As Rilke wrote, “There is only one journey. Going inside yourself.”
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Texts and Ideas (Morse Academic Plan) credit.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Law and the Imagination
COREP-AD 13
Sections
- Spring 1 2013; 7 Weeks
Catharine Stimpson
There is no life without law. Nature has its laws. Religions have theirs, societies theirs, families theirs. Business has its rules and contracts. How do people understand the laws that are as much a part of life as the weather? Literature—the work of the imagination—guides our great journey towards understanding. Writers dramatize the relations among law, justice, and freedom. Writers also show the effect of law on the fates, fortunes, and feelings of people. The course explores the power of literature to show us what the law is, what it should not be, and what it might be.
- Spring 1 2013; 7 Weeks
- Magic Realism
LITCW-AD 120
How do global cultural forms emerge? This course charts Magic Realism, a staple of global art, film, and fiction at the start of the new millennium. We trace how this malleable form has served different historical moments, cultural contexts, and political ideologies, and ask why magic realism has been privileged as a global form. We look at art, art criticism, film, and fiction from Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East.
Students in the NYUNY Comparative Literature Dept: This course counts for Comparative Literature elective credit or for the Literary and Cultural Studies Track
- Mortal & Immortal Questions
COREP-AD 30
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
TR 8:30-9:45
Phil Mitsis
We will be reading a wide-ranging selection of works from different cultures and chronological periods that have framed in memorable, though often contradictory, ways some basic questions about human existence, the problem of death, the nature of religion, the value of our emotional attachments to others, and the benefits and dangers of human knowledge. Throughout the semester, students will have the opportunity to become more practiced in understanding the nature of aesthetic argument and in what used to be characterized as the proper use of one's solitude, that is, examining what it means to be a human being faced with death. Readings will include Homer, Ramayana, Cao Xueqin, Proust, Sophocles, Euripides, Ibn Tufayl, Teresa of Avila, and Tolstoy.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Myth, Magic, and Representations of Childhood
COREP-AD 19W
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
UTW 9:55-11:10
Deborah Williams - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Deborah Williams
Writing intensive
Using some classics of children’s literature from countries around the world, including several novels from the Harry Potter series, students examine the ways in which children’s literature offers insight into contemporary culture, particularly concerns about power and politics. Course readings include fairy tales and myths from around the world, as well as writings from theorists and philosophers who have used these “children’s stories” to analyze and explain aspects of the human experience. Focusing on questions of genre, influence, and intertextuality, students explore how—or if—“children’s literature” ultimately offers a more cosmopolitan perspective than literature intended solely for adults.
Students in the NYUNY English Dept: This course counts for English advanced elective credit
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Nation and Narration
COREP-AD 31
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
TR 2:35-3:50
The nation is as much cultural concept as political ideology. The formulation ‘nation and narration’ envisages both the construction of the nation as narration and the imaginings of the nationin narrative (historical and literary). To capture a sense of the wide-ranging connections between nation and narration we will track, through a variety of texts across cultures, periods and genres, the spread of the idea of the modern nation from Europe to the rest of the world; the struggles of anti-colonial nationalisms; the birth of postcolonial nation-states; their subsequent trials and tribulations; the rhetoric of nationalism; the critiques of nationalism; the voices of minorities, immigrants and indigenous peoples that disrupt a homogeneous ‘national culture’; the phenomena of transnationalism and globalization and their implications for the future of the nation-state. Readings and films to be studied include: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun; Assia Djebar, Fantasia, an Algerian Cavalcade; Dave Eggers, What is the What; D.W. Griffith, Birth of the Nation; Michael Ondaatje, English Patient; Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children; William Shakespeare, King Henry; and Rabindranath Tagore, Home and the World.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Other Worlds: Cosmography, Utopias, Travel Accounts
COREP-AD 11
This course investigates the representation of other worlds in texts and films. Whether depicted as matters of fact (as in cosmography), as a projection of ideal conditions in opposition to one’s own world (as in utopias), or as a mixed blessing when a person meets with circumstances that put everything he knows about the world at risk (as in travel accounts), other worlds offer the opportunity to investigate the encounter with difference as a fundamental aspect of human experience.
- Our Monsters, Ourselves
COREP-AD 12W
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
UMW 1:10-2:25
Deborah Williams
Writing intensive
We examine work from the past two hundred years as a way to consider the profound transformations that have occurred during this tumultuous period. Some of the issues we consider have to do with very basic questions: What does it mean to be human—and who do we include in our definitions of "human?" What is the relationship of people to their landscape and environment? What is the relationship of technology to cultural production? How do gender and sexuality define or liberate us? And, ultimately, does the artist have an obligation to address any of these issues in her work? As a guide to our explorations, we look at the ways in which monsters and the monstrous illuminate particular cultural moments and reflect on whether the monsters of two centuries ago shed light on our own cultural preoccupations.
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Expressive Culture (Morse Academic Plan) credit.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Placeless Modernism
COREP-AD 16
This class considers case studies in a global history of modernism in relation to two competing models of place: the ethnographic turn toward place that began in the late eighteenth century and continues in a wide array of projects today and, on the other hand, the idea of frictionless internationalism manifest in early twentieth-century modernism, and most of all in the slightly later concrete poetry movement.
Students in the NYUNY English Dept: This course counts for English advanced elective credit
- Reading the Body: Physiognomy, Body Language and Facial Expression
COREP-AD 29
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
MW 1:10-2:25
Wolfgang Neuber
Reading the body in terms of physiognomy used to be a respected field of (natural) philosophy as well as common practice from ancient times onwards and around the globe. A (pseudo-)Aristotelian treatise and Pliny’s extensive writing on the subject in his ‘Natural History’, Chinese Tang-period perceptions and Japanese/Korean scholarship (as documented in ‘The Tale of Genji’) give sufficient proof of the ubiquity of the subject’s dignity. The course will trace physiognomic patterns as a means to establish individual identity (e.g. Genji, Parzival) as well as otherness (e.g. Polo, Staden), starting with these texts and continuing through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It was only in the age of Enlightenment that severe criticism arose, branding physiognomy a pseudo-science and leaving only body language and facial expression as serious fields of empirical study. Modern cognitive science, however, has brought the subject back with a vengeance.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Reinventions of Love
COREA-AD 09W
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Rubén Polendo
Writing intensive
This course explores how the mythology, poetics, imagery, and emotion associated with romantic love have varied dramatically over time and in different cultures. Spanning several millennia and many continents, our material challenges us to think about gender, family, biology, and faith as manifestations of an attempt to reconcile human needs and desires. We work with ancient texts like the Ramayana, the Upanishads, and the Song of Songs; the poetry of Kalidasa, Rumi, and Neruda; plays by Zeami, Euripides, Shakespeare, Lorca, Tennessee Williams, and Sarah Kane; the music of PJ Harvey, Antony & The Johnsons, and Thom Yorke; the photography of Cindy Sherman; and the films of David Lynch. Students move towards creating their own inventions, employing creative writing, physical improvisations, ensemble performance, and photography.
COREA 9 - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Speculative Fiction
COREP-AD 20
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
MR 8:30-9:45
Cyrus R.K. Patell - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Cyrus R.K. Patell
This course uses texts and films to explore the speculative impulse behind narrative. Through the analysis of science fiction, utopian and dystopian narratives, texts from political theory, and even works considered to be “realist” in their orientation, students consider the ways in which works of fiction present their readers with thought experiments that pose different kinds of “what if” questions. Is it possible to conceive of speculative fiction as, in fact, the type of all fiction?
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Texts and Ideas (Morse Academic Plan) credit; For the NYUNY English Dept: This course counts for English advanced elective credit
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- The Cosmopolitan Imagination
COREP-AD 14
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
TR 9:55-11:10
Cyrus R.K. Patell
Originating in the idea of the world citizen and conceived in contradistinction to nationalism, cosmopolitanism can be understood as a perspective that regards human difference as an opportunity to be embraced rather than a problem to be solved. Does this perspective lie behind all "great" literature, which asks its readers to experience otherness by opening themselves up to another person's words and thoughts? This course uses novels, poems, plays, and films to explore the cosmopolitan impulses behind the literary imagination.
Students in the NYUNY English Dept: This course counts for English advanced elective credit
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- The First Historians
COREP-AD 25
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
TR 1:10-2:25
Mark Swislocki
What is the relationship between history and storytelling? How do we fashion meaning in epics, chronicles and historical accounts, and interpret other civilizations? This course looks for answers to these questions in the first great works of history, Herodotus's Histories and Sima Qian's Records of the Historian. Addressing the civilizations of Greece, Persia, and China and their neighbors, these works gave historical narrative a textual authority previously enjoyed only by epics and chronicles. They also yielded model accounts of cultural difference that have influenced other narrative forms in fiction and non-fiction, textual and visual culture - to this day. In addition to Herodotus and Sima Qian, readings include selections from Homer and early Chinese chronicles, as well as contemporary historical fiction (such as Gore Vidal’s Creation), the films Hero and The Emperor and the Assassin, and journalist Ryszard Kapuściński's memoir and travelogue Travels with Herodotus.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- The Postcolonial Turn
COREP-AD 18W
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Sheetal Majithia
Writing intensive
In postcolonial literature, representation and revolution intersect, as writers re-invent literary forms and seek to reconceive colonialism, nationalism, and modernity. We compare British, Caribbean, Latin American, South Asian, and African texts, including travelogues, whose maps envision fantasies of the other; adaptations and translations of novels, in which mimicry and magical realism reveal how “the Empire writes back”; and memoirs and short stories, whose fragmentary and experimental forms express how memories of violence, displacement, and exile shape individuals today.
Students in the NYUNY Comparative Literature Dept: This course counts for Comparative Literature elective credit or for the Literary and Cultural Studies Track
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Tragedy
COREP-AD 15
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Shamoon Zamir
Tragic drama originated in ancient Greece and it has been central to both the aesthetic and the philosophical traditions of the West. At the same time, many classic works of Western tragic drama have been adapted by cultures all over the world for their own ends. This course examines key works of Greek and Shakespearean tragedy, critical, historical, and philosophical reflections on these works, and versions of some of these works from non-Western cultures, especially in film.
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Expressive Culture (Morse Academic Plan) credit.
Students in the NYUNY Comparative Literature Dept: This course counts for Comparative Literature elective credit or for the Literary and Cultural Studies Track
Students in the NYUNY English Dept: This course counts for English advanced elective credit; For the NYUNY Comparative Literature Dept: This course counts for Comparative Literature elective credit or for the Literary and Cultural Studies Track; For the NYUNY English Dept: This course counts for English advanced elective credit
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- A Thousand and One Nights
- Structures of Thought and Society
- Animals, Culture, and Society
CORES-AD 07W
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Mark Swislocki
Writing intensive
This course considers the intellectual, ethical, and political stakes of incorporating animal-centered perspectives into frameworks of social scientific inquiry. We examine how animals are socially or culturally constructed in “traditional” and “modern” societies, and consider proposals for studying animals as minded social actors. Readings include religious, scientific, philosophical, and political texts from Arabic/Islamic, Chinese, and Judeo-Christian literatures.
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Texts and Ideas (Morse Academic Plan) credit.
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Athens and Jerusalem
CORES-AD 08
In this seminar, we will explore one of the great intellectual encounters that has shaped the history of Western thought. On the one side are the pagan Greeks, with their ideas of wisdom and excellence, and their belief in the eternal order of the world. On the other are the children of Abraham &emdash; those who affirm the existence of a transcendent creator God; who deny the eternality of the world; and who insist on the supremacy of will over reason. Since Tertullian in the second century CE, the clash between these two systems of ideas has been known as the conflict between Athens and Jerusalem.
- Consciousness
CORES-AD 30
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
The philosophy and science of consciousness.Topics covered may include: The concept of a neural basis of consciousness and how we could discover what it is; whether there are different kinds of consciousness; the relation between consciousness and attention, cognitive accessibility, intentionality and agency; the function of consciousness; the unity of consciousness; whether the representational contents of perception are just colors, shapes and textures or include “rich” properties such as facial expressions and causation. The course will also cover some theories of consciousness such as mind/body dualism, behaviorism, functionalism, physicalism and theories of consciousness as representation. Readings from philosophers such as Thomas Nagel and David Chalmers and neuroscientists such as Hakwan Lau and Stanislas Dehaene.
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Cultures and Modernities
CORES-AD 22W
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
UTW 8:30-9:45
Nathalie Peutz - Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
UMW 4:00-5:15
Nathalie Peutz
Writing intensive
“Culture,” wrote Raymond Williams, “is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.” Modernity, arguably, is another. Moreover, “culture” and “modernity” are often held to be at odds with one another; if modernity can be defined by its claim to universal applicability, then culture(s) mark the disjunctures and discrepancies that repeatedly disrupt this narrative. This course examines the (cross-) cultural politics and imaginaries of “modernity” to ask: What does it mean to be modern in the global present?
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Disease and Society
CORES-AD 06W
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
UTW 11:20-12:35
Lauren Minsky - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Lauren Minsky
Writing intensive
How have diseases, and efforts to control them, shaped the nature and course of human societies? Are diseases actors in their own right? What determines who falls sick and who dies? This course explores the complex relationship between disease and society, between the natural and social worlds. Our focus is on understanding how people have explained, argued about, and responded to diseases in different social contexts over time. The course readings consist of books drawn from a range of disciplines.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Enlightenment and Its Institutions
CORES-AD 20J
Sections
- January 2013
TBD
London, England
Clifford Siskin
With astonishing speed—mere decades in the middle of the eighteenth century—Enlightenment not only transformed how we think about ourselves, through new concepts of individuality and community, liberty and verifiable truth, it also remade Britain’s cities and institutions. Imagine London without the British Museum (1759) or the Royal Academy (1768). Imagine our curriculum without Johnson’s Dictionary (1755) or the Encyclopedia Britannica (1768). 250 years later, we will use the resources of the Global Network University to recover how this revolution in methods, tools, and institutions recast inquiry and enterprise in the West and to consider what we might do with our Enlightenment inheritance now. Behind-the-scenes adventures into London’s museums, galleries, and civic societies allow us to add our own tracks to the intellectual map we will be drawing in class.
- January 2013
- Faith in Science, Reason in Revelation
CORES-AD 11W
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
UMW 8:30-9:45
Justin Stearns
Writing intensive
We live simultaneously in an age of science and an era of great religious faith, when reason and revelation are often depicted as being in inherent and eternal tension. In this course we trace the history of the relationship of religion and science in Christendom and Islamdom from the Middle Ages to the present day, drawing on primary sources and secondary readings from religious studies, the history of science, and anthropology.
Students in the NYUNY MEIS Dept: This course counts towards MEIS history requirement; For the NYUNY Religion Dept: This course counts for Religion elective credit
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Family and Kinship
CORES-AD 16
Being part of a family and of being related, or kin, to other human beings is a universal human experience; it is fundamental to our sense of ourselves. Yet what we mean by family or by kinship changes dramatically across societies and through time. This course introduces social scientific approaches to and methods for understanding and analyzing this diversity; it therefore asks students to explore the relationship between the universal and what is specific to particular societies and cultures.
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Societies and Social Sciences (Morse Academic Plan) credit; For the NYUNY Sociology Dept: This course counts for Sociology elective credit
- Family, Gender, and Modernity
CORES-AD 13
This class examines a few universal, global patterns in the history of families and the many ways that families are culturally diverse. We begin with a historical survey, from the “traditional” families that once dominated throughout the world, to the “modern” (industrial) and “post-modern” (post-industrial) family values that appear today. Then we focus on particular aspects of family life: childhood; dating and courtship; sex and reproduction; husband-wife relations; old age; female-headed and other nontraditional families.
Students in the NYUNY Sociology Dept: This course counts for Sociology elective credit
- Financial Systems as Social Forms
CORES-AD 23
Sections
- Spring 1 2012; 7 Weeks
UW 10:10-12:50
Mary Poovey
Financial systems direct flows of capital between savers and borrowers, but they also shape contemporary values and understandings of the self and others. This course compares the theories implicit in the U.S. and UAE financial systems and describes how they work in practice. Whereas credit and interest are central to U.S. banking, Shari’ah law forbids interest, so Islamic banking uses profit- and loss-sharing to organize investment. By comparing these two systems, we seek to understand how financial systems mediate competing values in a global context.
- Spring 1 2012; 7 Weeks
- Gender and Globalization
CORES-AD 21
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
MW 8:30-9:45
Rahma Abdulkadir - Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
TR 1:10-2:25
Rahma Abdulkadir
What does gender as category of analysis indicate? How does gender intersect with other axes of identity such as class, nation, and ethnicity in a globalized world? This course considers the ways women around the globe have responded to both the benefits and costs of globalization through political, economic, and social lenses. We begin with a review of the debates that surround globalization emphasizing their gendered nature. The course introduces students to select women’s issues – employment, political participation, reproductive rights, and healthcare -- that have emerged in the global context and the international debates around them. Lastly, the course looks at the relevance of women’s representation to address gender issues in the ‘democratic process’ as well as the shortcomings of democratic mechanisms to achieve women’s rights and some proposed solutions to these limitations.
Students in the NYUNY Sociology Dept: This course counts for Sociology elective credit
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Gift and Exchange
CORES-AD 25W
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
UTR 9:55-11:10
Marzia Balzani
Writing intensive
Gift giving occurs in all cultures. A gift can be a material object or money, but it can also be an act of kindness or love. A gift is free but it can also come with the expectation that it will be matched by a return gift. Gift giving is therefore part of a complex structure of economic and social exchange. This course considers gift giving from the perspectives of anthropology, history, and the arts; it explores gift exchange through ethnographies as well as texts on market economies and art, gender, death, altruism, risk, and the impacts of colonialism on traditional exchange societies. Readings will include seminal works on gift exchange by Marcel Mauss, Bronislaw Malinowski, Franz Boas, and others.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Global Justice and Authority
CORES-AD 32
Sections
- Fall 2 2012; 7 Weeks
UMW 4:00-5:15
Jules Coleman
Political governments claim to exercise authority and not merely power. What is the distinction between authority and power, and the basis of governmental claims to legitimately exercise authority? The course will examine theories of legitimate authority. Some claim that political authority derives from God. Others hold that political authority derives from the consent of the governed. Still others argue that political authority is never legitimate. We shall explore the classical views of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and the anarchist tradition embodied by Robert Paul Wolfe, and read in both western and non-western traditions, secular and the non-secular traditions.
- Fall 2 2012; 7 Weeks
- Globalization and Education
SRPP-AD 113
What is globalization, and what are the implications of living in a “global world” for education? How can education be used as a tool to promote global social justice and prosperity? This course explores these questions by first examining various theoretical perspectives on globalization, then analyzing several major themes associated with globalization and education. Case studies from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America provide concrete examples of how global forces are changing the content and context of education internationally.
- Ibn Khaldun and Political Theory
CORES-AD 28
Sections
- Spring 1 2013; 7 Weeks
Stephen Holmes
Written by the Maghrebian Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun and usually dated around 1377, the Muqaddimah is often described as the founding text of the philosophy of history and the history of civilizations. Its themes include the secular and religious sources of social solidarity, why individuals identify with their group and subordinate their interests to its norms, why they accept the authority of their political leaders, the tensions between nomadic and sedentary or desert and urban societies, organizational and tactical factors in military success, the division of labor and the economic transition from subsistence to surplus, demographic expansion and collapse, luxury and the decay of tribal solidarity in urban conglomerations, and the social conditions of scientific and artistic flourishing. The course will involve a close reading of the six chapters of the Muqaddimah (on general social theory, the theory of Bedouin society, the theory of political authority, the theory of urban society, the theory of economic development, and the sociology of science) and will draw upon Western political and social theorists, such as Adam Smith and Emile Durkheim, for clarification and perspective.
- Spring 1 2013; 7 Weeks
- Knowledge, Inference, Uncertainty, Probability
COREI-AD 08
We often don’t know for sure whether something will happen (or has happened). Probability provides a way of thinking about the uncertain. We look at the fundamentals of the mathematics of probability, including such important results as the Law of Large Numbers and the Central Limit Theorem. We study the inferences that one should make, and the decisions that one should take, when the evidence leaves it uncertain what is true. We also examine some of the foundational philosophical issues about the concept of probability—is it something objective or subjective? And does genuine randomness exist in the world?
- Landscapes of Memory
CORES-AD 24
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
UW 9:55-11:10
Nadine Roth
This course explores the ways in which urban landscapes have traditionally served as fragile repositories for collective memory from the first monuments of Near Eastern civilizations to the modern architecture of contemporary global cities. Some cities seek to preserve their pasts, while others aggressively brush aside older forms and structures to make way for the new. Students examine the “politics” of urban memory, exploring historical and contemporary debates about the conflicting demands of preservation and modernization in a variety of cities from around the world.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Legitimacy
CORES-AD 26
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
MW 1:10-2:25
Adam Ramey
What are the foundations of political legitimacy and to what extent do governments abide by them? In this course, we will explore these questions using both classical and contemporary accounts. The first half of the course will focus on political systems in Ancient Greece, Rome, Medieval Europe, and Early Modern Europe through the lens of great thinkers, including Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Burke, Weber, and Marx, as well as a series of primary source documents . We then proceed to the “post-1789” world and discuss legitimacy in the context of democratic government. Topics covered include the role of legislators, issue representation, descriptive vs. substantive governance, and the ongoing debate between advocates of majoritarianism and those of proportionalism.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Love, God and Politics
CORES-AD 12
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
MW 4:00-5:15
Roger Friedland
The course grapples with love, a blind spot in social theory, and its relation with religion, transcendence, sacrifice, and faith. On the one hand, sexuality and gender have become objects of intense concern, politicized by religious movements around the world from the fundamentalist Christians in America to Islamists and pietists in the Islamic world. On the other hand, for large numbers of young people in the Western world not only has sexuality become increasingly unhinged from love, but love has become a troubling category, something uncertain and dangerous to believe in. This course examines the relation between love, sex, and religion as they reverberate in both the private and public spheres.
Students in the NYUNY Sociology Dept: This course counts for Sociology elective credit
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Metropolis: Culture and Politics in the 21st Century
CORES-AD 33J
Sections
- January 2013
TBD
Buenos Aires, Argentina
This course provides an overview of key issues in the culture and politics of urban life, with a focus on modern Buenos Aires. We engage class and contemporary urban questions such as: How does city-living shape our minds and shift our patterns of social interaction? How does the built environment our relationship to the local ecology and our experience of everyday life? How are civic and political institutions addressing emerging problems related to massive population growth, sprawl, pollution, and polarization? Students should be prepared for rigorous critical thinking and vigorous participation.
- January 2013
- Metropolis: Culture and Politics in the 21st-Century City
MDURB-AD 116J
This course provides an overview of key issues in the culture and politics of urban life, with a focus on modern Buenos Aires. We engage class and contemporary urban questions such as: How does city-living shape our minds and shift our patterns of social interaction? How does the built environment relate to the local ecology and our experience of everyday life? How are civic and political institutions addressing emerging problems related to massive population growth, sprawl, pollution, and polarization? Students should be prepared for rigorous critical thinking and vigorous participation.
- Peace
CORES-AD 27W
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Martin Klimke
Writing intensive
This course traces the development of philosophical, religious and secular theories of peace from antiquity to the present. It explores questions of peace and justice, nonviolence, the idea of a “just war,” as well as notions of peace in international relations, economics, and psychology, examining how those spurred peace activism and the ideology of pacifism. To that end, students analyze literary, visual, and organizational representations of peace across national and cultural boundaries and the emergence of peace and conflict studies as an academic discipline. Readings include works by Laotse, Thucydides, St. Francis of Assisi, Immanuel Kant, Henry David Thoreau, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., A.J. Muste, Johan Galtung, Alma Myrdal, and Petra Kelly, among others.
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Politics and the City
CORES-AD 15W
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
UTR 2:35-3:50
Pascal Menoret
Writing intensive
Cities are probably the most efficient social networks. They allow for increased communication and innovation. They are natural spaces for deliberation and collective action. This course explores the reasons why cities rise and decline, the mechanisms of formal and informal urban planning, skyscrapers and suburbs, urban nature and urban design. In-class sessions will alternate with workshops on Abu Dhabi, visits to the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council, and mini-fieldwork in the city.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Politics and the City
CORES-AD 15
Writing intensive
Cities are probably the most efficient social networks. They allow for increased communication and innovation. They are natural spaces for deliberation and collective action. This course explores the reasons why cities rise and decline, the mechanisms of formal and informal urban planning, skyscrapers and suburbs, urban nature and urban design. In-class sessions will alternate with workshops on Abu Dhabi, visits to the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council, and mini-fieldwork in the city.
Students in the NYUNY MEIS Dept: This course counts for MEIS elective credit.
- Prejudice
CORES-AD 04W
Writing intensive
This course covers historical and contemporary scientific approaches to understanding prejudice, specifically prejudice that exists between social groups (for example, ethnic prejudice, religious prejudice, etc.) across different cultures. Readings draw from multiple social scientific perspectives, and cover topics including the origins of prejudice, the justification of prejudice, the different forms of prejudicial expression, the identification of prejudice in individuals and institutions, the consequences of being a victim of prejudice, and the value (or not) of different prejudice reduction strategies.
Students in the NYUNY Psychology Dept: This course counts for Psychology elective credit
- Property
CORES-AD 29
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
UW 11:35-12:50
Maximilian Mihm
The institution of property describes one of the fundamental relationships between people: the relationship between people as it pertains to things. In this seminar, we explore how understandings of property have been influenced by cultural and ethical norms in different civilizations; how property rights have evolved with technological progress and changes in the demands of the environment; how property is affected by and influences the sphere of individual freedom, the relation between the individual and the state, and the organization of productive activity. As examples, we will look at property in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and consider the views on property expressed in Christianity and Islam as well as the role that changing views on property played in the Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution. We will use our insights to debate contemporary issues in property rights of interest to seminar participants. These might include intellectual property rights, rights to genetic material, inheritance, airwaves, financial regulation, the rights of indigenous tribes of the Amazon rainforest, claims on the Arctic, or the trade-off between rights to privacy and freedom of the press.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Religion and Society
SRPP-AD 117
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
MW 10:10-11:25
John O’Brien
In this seminar, students will explore the diverse and dynamic manifestations of religion in social life – as a personal and collective experience; an individual and group identity; and a code for moral behavior – and examine how these social uses of religion impact various spheres of society. After considering classic social theories of religion, we will look at substantive cases from the United States, Egypt, Iran, China, and Venezeula to investigate how and why religious meanings and identities come to matter (or not) in arenas of gender equality, political mobilization, nation-state structures, everyday intergroup interactions, and the law and punishment. Overall, this course aims to provide students with the theoretical frameworks and substantive background necessary to analyze the workings of religion and religious identity in modern societies.
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Science and Society
SRPP-AD 123
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
MR 11:35-12:50
Ann Morning
Social scientists who study science often make a simple, but controversial claim: that science is fundamentally shaped by social forces. This premise challenges contemporary understanding of science as producing true, objective knowledge that is independent of culture and social structure. We study debates about the nature of science versus religion, Western versus non-Western knowledge, and the physical versus social sciences in order to form our own conclusions about the relationship between science and society.
Students in the NYUNY Sociology Dept: This course counts for Sociology elective credit
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Self-Representation
CORES-AD 14
There are many different ways in which human beings represent themselves. I represent myself as a living being, as belonging to a given society and culture, as having a given character, and so on. But do I have a representation of myself as the author of those representations? Exploring this question casts light on central questions of philosophy, for instance the relation between mind and body, the relation between self and other, or the belief that we have freedom of the will. Readings may include selections from Western philosophy and Buddhist philosophy as well as neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis, and literary works.
- Snap Judgments
CORES-AD 31
Sections
- Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
TR 8:30-9:45
Susanne Quadflieg
Daily experience attests that the briefest of glances at other people often suffices to furnish a wealth of socially relevant information about them. From minimal visual cues, for instance, we can infer group memberships (e.g., sex and age), emotional states, personality traits, and even a person’s intentions. The dexterity with which humans deduce such knowledge has fascinated ancient philosophers and contemporary thinkers alike. As a result, much thought has been dedicated towards a process that typically unfolds within less than a second. Based on this work, films, literary texts, and scientific evidence will be
presented to explore the perceptual, cognitive, and emotional mechanisms that underlie common snap judgments in person evaluation. The accuracy of these judgments, their neural foundation, and the societal consequences of rapidly assessing others will be discussed. - Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
- Social Scientific Study of Religion: Religion, Nation-State and the Politics of Gender
SRPP-AD 117
This seminar will examine the vexed relation between the divine and popular sovereignty, religion and the nation-state, particularly as these involve issues of gender, sexuality and patriarchal authority. We will seek to compare instances of the politicization of religion as a basis of collective identity, state legitimacy and legislation in both Christian and Muslim countries: the United States, France, Turkey, Iran and Egypt. The seminar will also examine social theoretical understandings of the institutional relation of religion and nation-state in the works of Max Weber, Jose Casanova, Craig Calhoun, Talal Asad and Rogers Brubaker, among others.
Students in the NYUNY Religion Dept: This course counts for Religion elective credit; For the NYUNY Sociology Dept: This course counts for Sociology elective credit
- The Miracle of Florence
CORES-AD 19J
In the 15th and 16th centuries, the city of Florence was a center of immense creativity in every area of human understanding and endeavor. It was the center of that extraordinary moment we call “the Renaissance”—the revolution in art, architecture, politics, philosophy and science that has shaped our view of the world, and the place of human beings in it. In this seminar, we read representative writings from several of the great Florentine thinkers of the period—Alberti, Machiavelli, Pico, and Galileo. Our goal is twofold: to discover what was original in each, and to grasp how all were connected by a shared set of ideals and beliefs. Our readings and discussions are supplemented by visits to the main cultural monuments of Florence, where we see (among other wonders) the palaces and churches that Alberti designed, the telescope through which Galileo spied the moons of Jupiter, and the tomb where Machiavelli lies.
- The Relationship of Government and Religion
CORES-AD 05
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
UW 10:00-12:00
Angela Migally - Fall 2012; 14 Weeks
John Sexton - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
John Sexton
This course examines the relationship between government and religion. To this end, the course concentrates on the interpretation, meaning, application, and wisdom of 16 words from the American Constitution: "Government shall make
no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." These 16 words serve as a starting point for the course because they broadly prohibit government entanglement with religion while simultaneously bestowing government with the responsibility to protect religious freedom. The primary texts of the course are the opinions of the United States Supreme Court, the highest Court in the United States, and final authority on interpretations of the Constitution. Prior knowledge of the subject matter or the United States is not a prerequisite for this class. This course is continued into the second semester.Students in the NYUNY Politics Dept: This course counts for Politics in the political theory field
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- The Social Life of Finance
CORES-AD 18J
This is a course about how and why finance matters. From credit derivatives to pyramid schemes, home mortgages to credit cards, finance both underwrites the aspirations and lines the underbelly of the contemporary economy. Finance also shapes the urban environment, producing new city forms and social structures. Drawing on sociology, anthropology, fiction, and film, our seminar examines finance as a mode of social relations and cultural meaning in contemporary capitalism. We pay special attention to the financial turbulence in Argentina, and visit sites in Buenos Aires where citizens, economic experts, and political officials engage important questions about culture and economy.
- The Wealth of Nations
CORES-AD 02
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Mario Chacon
This course examines the determinants of economic development in the modern world. The course is divided into two parts. The first reviews theories that place factors of production such as labor and technology as the main cause of cross-country differences in economic wealth. The second part of the course investigates the role of institutions, culture, religion, geography, and luck as deeper causes of comparative development. The main questions addressed throughout the course are: Why are there such large differences in income per capita across countries? Why have some countries developed steadily over the past 200 years while many others have not? Why do some governments adopt policies that promote economic development while others set up barriers to economic activity? These questions are analyzed from a theoretical and empirical perspective.
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Tolerance and Relativism
CORES-AD 01W
Sections
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
MTR 2:35-3:50
Matthew Silverstein - Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Matthew Silverstein
Writing intensive
Most of us agree that we should be tolerant. Often the call for tolerance is grounded in relativism—the thought that there isn’t a fact of the matter. After all, on what basis could we insist that others share our beliefs if those beliefs are subjective, a function of upbringing or our peculiar tastes and concerns? But should we accept relativism? Can relativism justify tolerance? If not, then how can we justify tolerance?
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Texts and Ideas (Morse Academic Plan) credit.
- Spring 2012; 14 Weeks
- Truth
CORES-AD 03
The course focuses on the concept of truth, addressing such central questions as whether there is such a thing as “absolute” truth; what truth is; why it is worth searching for; and how we can find it. Answers from a variety of intellectual and cultural traditions are considered. They are assessed for their adequacy in dealing with a range of domains in which truth is at issue—including science, morality, politics, religion, and aesthetics.
- What is Man?
CORES-AD 10
Sections
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
Amir Minsky
The human sciences, born of the Enlightenment’s quest to recreate Man in its image, gave rise to a paradox. In brokering reconfigurations of the essence and boundaries of the human, new models for socio-political organization, and claims to inalienable human rights, they also demarcated and fortified the supposedly ‘natural’ fault lines between sexes, races, cultures, and peoples. The course provides an interdisciplinary exploration of the nature of cultural distinction and the historical development of the Image of Man in a variety of global case studies, from the eighteenth century to the present.
Students NYUNY: This course counts for Societies and Social Sciences (Morse Academic Plan) credit.
- Spring 2013; 14 Weeks
- Animals, Culture, and Society
- Art, Technology, and Invention
