Explore the list of offered courses at NYUAD with a focus on sustainability and environment.
This list reflects courses that have been offered at least once. Check with the division that offered the course to see if it is currently open to enrollment or if it will be in the future.
This course provides an overview of the issues surrounding global energy supplies, oil’s unique economic properties, and its role in shaping the political economy of the Middle East and US strategic interests in the region. We begin by discussing the basic science and availability of energy sources, the state of technology, the functioning of energy markets, the challenges of coping with global climate change and the key role of the oil reserves in the Middle East. The second part of the course focuses on the history of oil in the Middle East and its impact on societies in the region.
Previously taught: Spring 2013
How is life organized? The study of ecology answers this question by investigating how the environment and interactions between organisms drive the distribution, structure, and functioning of life at increasingly complex levels (individuals, populations, communities, ecosystems). This course will use a combination of literature, government data sets, and field excursions to develop an understanding of how ecologists investigate the patterns of community development through ecological survey approaches, and how manipulative experiments are designed to deduce processes structuring organisms in highly dynamic field conditions. Emphasis will be placed on quantitative analyses, interpretation, and reporting using both empirical and modeled data.
Previously taught: Fall 2017
In November 2014, Volvo Race’s boat Vestas did not find her way to Abu Dhabi port and got stranded on a reef in the Indian Ocean instead. What went wrong? Is it still possible to get lost today, in the age of ubiquitous and democratized GPS? What does it mean to find one’s way? How do different environments create unique problems, as well as provide solutions? How do we find those solutions ourselves, and how can we intervene in the design of our working and living environments, in the design of our navigational practices, in order to avoid getting lost? What tools do we have? How do they work? What can we learn from navigation before GPS? Informed by new technologies, the demand for sustainability, and the inputs from cognitive studies, “wayfinding” has grown to become a field of research in its own right, related to both architecture and design. It studies the ways in which people orient themselves via the organization of sensory cues from the external environment. The course explores visual design components and theoretical ramifications and will include workshops on campus signage systems, with a focus on accessible design.
Previously taught: Spring 2021
How do we feel about robots? With technological developments in capability, performance, autonomy, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness, robots have arrived in everyday life. This course considers the history and ethics of human-robot interaction and explores unsolved hurdles we face as robots assume a ubiquitous presence in our lives. How are robots currently integrating into human-centered, civic industries such as education, heath, and smart cities? What roles might robots play in the future of these industries? What are the economic and labor implications associated with robotic integration? How will consumers respond to the increased use of robots in daily life? How have popular media representations over the last century influenced the way we experience these changes? Topics will also include the miniaturization of robots and their use in situations such as focused drug delivery within the human body, save-and-rescue missions, or military combat. Students will assemble and program several Lego Mindstorm robots capable of carrying prefabricated objects and will also assemble a small house.
Previously taught: Fall 2020
How might a utopian city be designed? This multidisciplinary class departs from students' experiences with urban living to imagine the city of the future as an ideal space of mobility, access, and inclusion. Exploring critical questions about everyday urban design and architecture, students will engage with theoretical concepts, practical tools, and experiences such as digital cartography, sound ecology, psychogeography, soundwalks, conceptual mapping, and critical tourism to create a unique urban prototype. Hands-on introductions to drawing, sculpture, video, and sound design will expose students to space- and time-based media for artistic expression. Readings will include material drawn from disciplines including art history and practice, urban studies, sound studies, sociology, ethics, and media studies. Participants become spatial design consumers and makers, learning to analyze, explore, manipulate, and self-consciously negotiate public relations through discussion, presentations, and assignments, including 2D and 3D projects.
Previously taught: Spring 2020
How has our relationship with building materials shaped human civilization, and in return, how does our use of materials actively reshape the planet we live on? Materials have played a major role throughout human history, from providing basic clothing and shelter in prehistoric times, to fueling the industrial revolution, and enabling today's global consumer culture. In the process, material use and discovery have given rise to many branches of science and commerce, resulting in even greater demand for more material. The consequences on society and the environment haven't always been positive. This course explores our relationship with material as engineers, scientists, consumers, and traders. Basic laboratory sessions on material characterization will explore material processing techniques ranging from simple resin casting to advanced 3D printing.
Previously taught: Fall 2020
The garden is one of the oldest modes of human intervention in the environment, but what has made it such a productive and enduring symbol and practice? This course explores the garden as a major art form by focusing on pictorial and spatial representations of the Garden of Eden. The Edenic Paradise of Genesis and the Qur’an where Adam and Eve transgressed against God gives access to thought about gardens in the ancient Middle East. As a foundational idea in Judaic, Christian, and Islamic theology, the Garden of Eden spawned a history of interpretation that helped differentiate these religions. The history of Eden in the art of the Peoples of the Book is closely entwined with that of garden design, and this seminar examines both. The course introduces fundamental methods of art history as students examine gardens in ancient Mesopotamia, Medieval Christianity, Arabian courtyards, Renaissance altarpieces, Enlightenment cities, Persian court miniatures, Mughal tomb complexes, and early American towns. Field trips, once public health regulations allow, include outings to gardens and collections in the United Arab Emirates, and the seminar concludes with a collaborative garden design project in Abu Dhabi.
Previously taught: June-Term 2021
What would a world without plastic look like? How does the world look because of it? Plastic Fantastic looks critically at plastic’s ubiquity in global consumer cultures. Students will consider plastic’s predecessors and contemporary alternatives and engage with a range of topics, from the environmental politics of plastic debris in oceans, to the ethics and values of plastic surgery, to the proliferation of cheap plastic toys and fashion trends. Based on these discussions, and inspired by the original meaning of the Greek term plastikos (to grow, to form), the class will develop and create a product using recycled plastic waste in NYUAD’s Plastic Recycling Research Lab. In addition to the completed project, to be displayed in an exhibition at the end of the class, students will leave with a personal philosophy of Art, Design, and Technology as well as a sense of how mutually reinforcing and beneficiary a mix of these fields can be for future problem solving. NOTE: This course is open only to NYU Abu Dhabi students.
Previously taught: J-Term 2020
Gardens are as diverse as cultures, but the idea of the garden is common to various cultures through the ages and across continents. What do gardens tell us about the human condition? How do gardens relate to the individual and the idea of community? How do they reflect philosophical ideas? In which ways do the real and imagined interfere with each other? Is a garden a representation of nature or culture or both? How does a garden relate to spiritual needs and sensual experience (smell, sound, sight, tactile and kinesthetic bodily feeling)? How is the idea of the garden distinguished from but related to the notion of a natural landscape? We will look at Zen-gardens and rooftop gardens, monastic and palace gardens, sculpture and pleasure gardens, mythic gardens in various religious traditions. The course is conceived as neither a historical survey nor a typological compilation but chooses diverse examples and representations of gardens from various cultures and historical periods in order to explore the ways in which gardens reflect the human condition.
Previously taught: Spring 2018
This course introduces students to a wide variety of cultural perspectives on the ways that nature is conceived in its relation to human agency, social organization, and political behavior. As we become increasingly caught up in a new and ever-changing dynamic of climate change that is transforming cultures and societies globally, understanding our relation to nature becomes a pressing global challenge. How are we to confront the environmental changes caused by industrialization and continuing technological change? How have our views of nature and of ourselves been transformed by urbanization and technological change? Does the global character of production inevitably lead to the dilution of individual and local identities together with previous conceptions of nature? Constructed around a series of discrete problems that will be contextualized historically and culturally, the course strives for a unifying, global perspective on the environmental crisis and will address a range of today’s most pressing eco-critical dilemmas.
Previously taught: Spring 2021
For the first time in human history, the weather is about us. Growing scientific evidence of catastrophic — and anthropogenic — climate change brings new urgency to an old question: how do we humans conceive of our relationship to “nature”? This course explores how imaginative writers have situated the human in relation to Earth’s many landscapes, plants, climates, and species. How have they depicted meaningful encounters between humans and the other animals? What have they suggested about humans’ responsibilities to the countless other living beings with whom we share this planet? How have they “mapped” the slippery and shifting conceptual ground that lies between the “man-made” and the “natural”? And how might a renewed engagement with this vast theme help us deal with the heavy weather ahead? Readings include Gilgamesh, Genesis, The Bacchae, Narrow Road to the North, Walden, Island of Dr. Moreau, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Life of Pi.
Previously taught: Spring 2020
Water is the life blood of existence. Across time and place it has sustained society, nourished crops, made war, diffused networks of trade and cultural exchange, delimited political jurisdictions, and powered machines. Whether tranquil, in motion, or in modes of manipulation, water has also inspired many worlds of artistic practice. This course uses examples from the visual and performing arts to highlight the subject of water as element, energy, human right, bridge between cultures, and instrument of war. Films include Drowned Out by Arundhati Roy, Even the Rain by Icíar Bollaín, Water by Deepa Mehta, and Black Water. Performing arts include plays such as Fire on the Water, a fast-paced series of short plays inspired by a pivotal moment in Cleveland's history created by diverse playwrights; Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes; and The Water Carriers by Michael Williams. These works highlight representations of water, the technologies deployed to shape such representations, and their larger role in illuminating big questions about the human condition.
Previously taught: Spring 2020
The desert has been imagined as a barrier, a dry ocean, a bridge, and a hyphen between various ecological and cultural spaces across the globe. Drifting, parched tides of sand and vast, empty landscapes have made it seem uninhabitable and a metaphor for exile, difficult journeys, spiritual reflection, and death. This course explores the ways in which the desert has been depicted and experienced in various historical, cultural, and geographic contexts - from the Sahara to the Mojave, from the origins of Abrahamic religions to Burning Man, from desert oasis to urban food desert. This course will also consider the future of deserts and global challenges posed by climate change, desertification, and resources (water, oil, solar). Students will encounter the desert through diverse sources that include film, literature, soundscapes, musical performances, environmental and social history, artistic production, field trips, and travel writings. So, even while the desert is an environmental reality that makes inhabitation difficult, it is still a space of demographic, cultural, and economic activity and exchange.
Previously taught: Spring 2020
From space, there is no view of Earth without blue — water is everywhere. From the ground however, there are many places — and many times — where there isn’t enough to go around. Water is critical to our bodies, to the growth of our food, and to flushing away the wastes of human, economic, and industrial development. However, as the number of human feet on the planet increases and their economic footprints grow, the sliver of Earth’s water that is available to us is spread thinner, and the distinction between water as a human need and right, and water as a scarce and precious resource, is blurred. To understand how to manage water in a way that respects both its scarcity (managing for efficiency) and the needs of those who use it (managing for equity), it is important to understand the myriad modes and scales through which water shapes the world we live in.
Previously taught: Spring 2021
Water is the life blood of existence. Across time and place it has sustained society, nourished crops, made war, diffused networks of trade and cultural exchange, delimited political jurisdictions, and powered machines. Whether tranquil, in motion, or in modes of manipulation, water has also inspired many worlds of artistic practice. This course uses examples from the visual and performing arts to highlight the subject of water as element, energy, human right, bridge between cultures, and instrument of war. Films include Drowned Out by Arundhati Roy, Even the Rain by Icíar Bollaín, Water by Deepa Mehta, and Black Water. Performing arts include plays such as Fire on the Water, a fast-paced series of short plays inspired by a pivotal moment in Cleveland's history created by diverse playwrights; Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes; and The Water Carriers by Michael Williams. These works highlight representations of water, the technologies deployed to shape such representations, and their larger role in illuminating big questions about the human condition.
Previously taught: Spring 2020
Oil is obviously a matter of huge importance in Abu Dhabi and globally. But what is oil? Is it a mineral formed by long-decayed microorganisms or volcanic activity? Is it a source of power (the fuel derived by cracking it into gasoline) or a source of geopolitical power? Does oil bring wealth - or, as some researchers argue, a "resource curse"? What is oil for Arab states? For the planet? And what happens if or when it runs out? This Core Colloquium addresses these and many related issues from multidisciplinary and global perspectives, drawing on materials and concepts from geology, history, political economy, film, and literature.
Previously taught: Summer 2021
Water is fundamental to life and to fundamental human rights such as adequate food and livelihood. Water's availability and quality have shaped civilizations; its place in our contemporary lives bears on global societal issues such as health, food security, gender equality, and economic policy. Despite making up most of the Earth's surface, water remains a precious resource to which billions of people have little or no access. This colloquium takes a multidisciplinary approach to the connections between water and society, including scientific, social, and economic perspectives. How does the availability of safe drinking water relate to health and sanitation? How are water, food, and energy linked? In what ways do human actions affect water-related ecosystems? What role does the water industry play in job creation? What recent advances have been made in water harvesting and desalination? Learning to weigh and synthesize multiple forms of evidence, students will develop the skills needed to address these and other questions and challenges posed with respect to water and society.
Previously taught: Spring 2021
We've all heard the truism: "You are what you eat." But are we also how we eat and how we procure what we eat? In an era of industrial food production and global climate change, we may need to ask what should we eat, in order to meet the challenges of food security and sustainable development. This colloquium asks what and how food can tell us about individual and community identities. It also asks how the ethics of individual food choice relates to the world's food systems. From the global Slow Food movement to novel approaches to food security and sovereignty here in the Gulf, what are the cultural politics of food? Is responsible eating a privilege or a human right? How do patterns in the production, distribution, and consumption of food promote such subjectivities as race, class, gender, and nation? How can asking what to eat serve as a vehicle for understanding the construction of such categories or contradictions in consumer behavior? How do scholars in various disciplines research local foodways in the context of the global food system? And what is food’s future in a world marked by increasing inequality, social injustice, and the devastating consequences of climate change?
Previously taught: Spring 2021
How do agricultural developments affect human population and demographic regimes? What constraints of traditional agriculture shape pre-industrial societies? Does human population, as the famous British political economist Thomas Malthus argued in 1798, increase faster than the means of subsistence, and if so, what are the implications? People need food and the production of food needs people (and land). The world’s population grew slowly, with major setbacks, from perhaps 200 million people in AD 1 to about 600 million in 1700 and to 2.3 billion on the eve of WWII. In just seventy years, it has soared to 7.7 billion, and the UN projects a total of 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 in 2100. How, then, has the per-capita intake of calories not declined worldwide and the balance of nutrients arguably improved? If past population growth was made possible by unprecedented agricultural expansion, will the future require a comparable increase? This colloquium offers broad economic and historical perspectives to approach practical dilemmas and ethical questions related to sustainability and global justice as students ask how best to feed the world’s current and future inhabitants.
Previously taught: Spring 2021
Over 80 percent 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 uses 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 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.
Previously taught: J-Term 2018
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 uses 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 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 this course is being offered simultaneously in several NYU sites globally and students are collaborating extensively with students from their sister campuses through the duration of this course.
Previously taught: Summer 2021
Sustainable development is the most significant global challenge of our time. In fact, humanity’s survival depends on finding ways to maintain societal progress while living healthily within the carrying capacity of the Earth. This course introduces students to the concepts, literature, sciences, methods, data, and practices of sustainable development both globally and locally. We start with history and global observations, and gradually work our way to regional and local issues involving people, industries, ecosystems, and governments. Topics include the use of energy, water, and other resources, emissions, climate change, and human and ecological health impacts. We review the economic implications of pathways to a sustainable future. In all our discussions, societal impacts such as equity and justice are considered, and discovery of data needs and analysis are explored. After taking this course, students will understand the current state of sustainable development and become equipped with knowledge frameworks, methods, tools, and data analysis skills in order to ask as well as answer important questions in their professional careers and everyday life.
Previously taught: Summer 2021
Billions of people on earth lack adequate access to water, food, and energy. What might be gained by recognizing the interdependencies that exist between these resources? It is well known that water is fundamental to agriculture and to the entire agro-food supply chain. Moreover, it is clear that energy is required to produce and distribute water and food: to pump water, to power irrigation machinery, and to process and transport agricultural goods. But a global society requires industry and policymakers to take even broader views. For instance, how are water security, energy security, and food security linked, so that actions in one area will likely have impacts in one or both of the others? How will population growth, economic development, and climate change affect international efforts to eradicate poverty? Additionally, what roles might renewable energy technologies play in providing access to cost effective, secure, and sustainable energy supplies? Students will approach these questions through multidisciplinary lenses and cultivate the skills required to address the social, economic, and environmental challenges posed by the water-energy-food nexus.
Previously taught: Summer 2021
“Better living through chemistry” is a riff on an advertising slogan that DuPont used from the 1930s to the early 1980s that has been used to promote the use of science to better our everyday lives and as a cynical criticism of the use of chemicals. Viewed either way, it unequivocally highlights the fact that chemistry plays an enormous role in life on earth, and knowledge of chemistry is essential for addressing many societal issues, such as climate change, clean water, air pollution, healthcare, food production and safety, recycling, energy generation and storage, and sustainability. This course explores the connections between chemistry and society, weaving the science together with major global societal issues and how data, evidence-based thinking, and the scientific method can be used to address the world’s most pressing problems.
Previously taught: Spring 2019
Community-Driven Development (CDD) aims to empower local communities to work together to identify and meet their own needs. In contrast to top-down efforts that have long dominated the international development landscape, donors and governments are now investing heavily in CDD and placing much confidence in its ability to improve livelihoods, governance and social cohesion. Centered on a field study of Philippines, where the professor has been part of a five-year evaluation of a large-scale CDD initiative, this course examines (1) the theory and goals behind CDD, (2) the practice of CDD in Philippines and around the world, and (3) the data that help us determine if and how the approach works, or doesn’t. Alongside reading of academic and policy documents, students will participate in in-person and virtual visits with CDD donors and practitioners and visit with communities that have participated in CDD. By working with primary quantitative and qualitative data, students will have the first-hand opportunity to delve into a data discovery process and contribute to understanding and improving the practice of international development.
Previously taught: J-Term 2020
Pandemics share much in common with other disturbances in human-environmental systems —tipping points and non-linearities that make behavior counter-intuitive and hard to predict. Some processes change quickly or are very local; others shift slowly and reshape entire regions or nations. This mix of scales and connections affords the opportunity to ask (via models) a range of questions about people, their interactions, and their relationships with the environment. However, models must always be used with caution. They are built to answer particular questions and represent a set of assumptions about how a system behaves. Understanding how those assumptions shape and limit the range of inferences that can be made is critical for any model output to be treated as knowledge. Applying models critically across a wide range of problems, students will ask when we should (or shouldn’t) model, and what our models can and can’t tell us. No coding experience is necessary, but students should expect to make use of algebra and basic statistics.
Previously taught: Spring 2021
What is the current state of the Earth in terms of human well-being and human impact on the Earth's natural systems? Issues such as energy consumption, CO2 emissions, climate change, food production, water, and material fluxes are intricately tied together as a global system. The economic trend of this system can be used to project a world in 2050 in which the world’s lifestyle will be approximately equal to that of many developed nations today. Will this projected state of the world be possible, given the environmental issues above? Investigating this topic in Sydney gives us perspective from a developed nation with unique climate, resources, and world-famous biodiversity. Substantial portions of this inquiry-based seminar require students to compare environmental issues in Australia to those in their home nations, other developed regions, and the world, in order to look at how conditions and solutions in Australia might be generally applicable to shared challenges.
Previously taught: J-Term 2017
Taught in Sydney, Australia
What is “the environment” and how can we conceptualize its history? Many historians are concerned with questions of voice, agency and power. How do we deal with these questions when writing about non-human actors like donkeys, cotton and coral reefs? Does focusing on the roles of non-human actors obscure other human dynamics like class, race, gender and sexuality? Further, the scholarly consensus on climate change and the varied responses to that consensus have motivated historians to contribute to the public discussion more actively. What is the relationship between understandings of environmental history and environmental activism? We will address these and other questions using the Middle East region as a case study, paying particular attention to how historians have approached these challenges in conversation with ecologists and other natural scientists. Students will also have the opportunity to write short environmental histories based on field trips, interviews, and sojourns into the digital humanities in the final part of the course.
Previously taught: Fall 2019
Why do humans continue to build and flock to cities? What makes a city work? How do we measure qualities of urban life? This course sheds light on the complex process of urbanization. It begins with debates about the different recent trajectories of urbanization in light of economic and political dynamics. Why have some trajectories been more successful than others? What factors have shaped a certain trajectory? What lessons we can learn from them? The focus will then shift to a myriad of contemporary cases from around the globe. The aim is to deconstruct common conceptions of dualities: development/underdevelopment, wealth/poverty, formality/informality, and centrality/marginality. The course material is structured around themes that highlight the main challenges that urban dwellers and policy makers face in the following areas: the economy, income inequality, marginalization, service provision, housing, infrastructure, immigration, safety, and the environment. These themes will allow students to engage with various forms of contestations and to consider the role of urban social movements.
Previously taught: Spring 2021
Transportation systems connect people, goods, places, and ideas. They both shape and respond to urban growth. Moreover, their environmental footprints are immense and expanding. Most contemporary problems facing cities and regions — congestion, pollution, energy dependence, climate change, social equality, employment opportunities, and even the obesity epidemic — are in some way tied to how we design, operate, manage, and price urban transportation systems. This course probes the potential role of green mobility and urban planning in advancing sustainable transportation futures across a range of global contexts. What transportation investments, technologies, operational enhancements, urban designs, institutional reforms, and pricing regimes offer the most promise in bringing about sustainable urban growth and mobility in coming decades? How might urban planning combine with emerging technologies to promote green mobility and sustainable, resilient cities? Drawing from international experiences and best practices, this course challenges students to draw upon social-science knowledge to take on these and similar questions.
Previously taught: J-Term 2020
We now have considerable evidence that the design of our cities, neighborhoods and buildings affects how we feel, how we behave, and how much physical activity we get, and these have a direct influence on our health and well-being. Drawing on literatures and approaches from public health, urban planning, architectural design, sociology, psychology and neuroscience, students will be challenged to consider the effect of the built environment on our well-being. A social justice framework guides the analysis of technical issues. The insights gained will benefit future designers, but also those who choose careers as policy makers and health practitioners; who employ architects for residential and workplace projects; and who, as citizens and activists, hope to make the places in which they live, work and relax better for everyone. Readings include case studies from Europe and North America, and new research from the Gulf. Students will learn through interactive classroom lectures; student-led discussions and presentations; the screening and discussion of documentary films and TED talks; two field visits in Abu Dhabi; and by conducting two small ethnographic projects on campus.
Previously taught: J-Term 2020
70 years ago today's metropolises of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah were little more than village-like settlements on the shores of the Arabian Gulf. In the wake of the oil boom, however, these settlements quickly transformed into modern cities, later becoming — due to the massive influx of expat workers — large-scale urban agglomerations (with 1 to 3M inhabitants). The UAE’s metropolises stand out due to the tremendous pace with which they globalized, but these developments have also given rise to a variety of social problems and challenges. This seminar approaches these problems by examining the social fabric in each of these cities. How are UAE urban spaces marked by differences of social class, gender, ethnic and national affiliations, and religion? What kind of community spaces have emerged in past and present? What can their built environments teach us about local histories of inter-ethnic relationships? In what ways do urban built environments reflect state politics? Can UAE cities expand endlessly, and with what consequences for natural and social environments? What can these cities teach us about the social politics and future of urban life in general?
Previously taught: Spring 2019
Why is property key to so many societies and social institutions? How do various understandings of its origins, definitions and limitations, distributions and regulations sit at the core of current debates about the environment, fairness and equality, the public and the private, the private and the commons, and more broadly the future of liberal societies? Focusing on the western legal tradition and its increasingly global implications, this course critically approaches various theories of property while constantly attending to contemporary debates about the institution and its legitimacy. The method is genealogical. After a brief presentation of premodern conceptions, the course will follow the rise and triumph of the canonical definition of Property as a subjective, absolute and exclusive right, through the careful study of conflicting theories about its nature, origins, grounds, purposes. What challenges have these canonical definitions faced — whether through social, analytical, or realist critique — and what implications do current ways of theorizing property have for its future?
Previously taught: Fall 2019
The poor, immigrants, and people of color - who are increasingly clustered in global “mega-cities” - are exposed to a disproportionate share of environmental hazards. In this course, we trace the origins of the uneven distribution of environmental problems across urban geographies, examine ways to measure environmental inequality, and analyze how environmental issues shape social inequality. We also survey the historical emergence of the global environmental justice [EJ] movement, led by residents of underserved urban communities who felt excluded by mainstream environmentalism, and explore how political and technocratic visions for achieving sustainability mitigate or worsen inequality. The readings span the social sciences and history. We will explore case studies of environmental inequality and EJ initiatives from around the globe, with special attention to the UAE. Of particular interest is Masdar City, the UAE’s attempt to construct the world’s first carbon-neutral city. Based on a site visit, analyses of plans, and a critical reading of the literature regarding Masdar City, we will ask what Masdar can teach us about achieving EJ in the 21st century.
Previously taught: J-Term 2020
This course introduces the students to the modern analysis of economic growth by addressing questions such as: What explains the considerable growth in incomes per capita that advanced economies have experienced since the late eighteen century? Why are some countries so much richer than others? Will poor countries close the gap with rich countries? What is the driving force of growth in the long run? Are the benefits of growth equally shared between different social classes? How does government policy affect growth? How do the underlying characteristics of an economy — such as its institutions, skill distribution, and demographic trends — affect its growth rate?
Previously taught: Fall 2021
This course introduces students to the science and art of statistical model development using field and experimental data. The course is divided into three parts: 1) review of statistical inference, 2) linear regression models, and 3) models with limited dependent variables. The first component focuses on a review of statistical estimation methods, properties of estimators and hypothesis testing. The second component presents linear regression methods, with an emphasis on the statistical properties of the Ordinary Least Squares estimators under idealized conditions, and on appropriate correction methods when these conditions are violated. Systems of Linear Models are discussed with emphasis on identification. The third component extends the discussion to models with limited (discrete and censored) dependent variables, with emphasis on Logit and Probit models for categorical and ordinal data, and stochastic duration models for censored data. The course also covers models for count dependent variables, and models with discrete-continuous dependent variables. Sampling strategies are introduced.
Previously taught: Fall 2020
Real-world engineering problems require engineers with theoretical mastery of their chosen field as well as dexterity with a broad range of conceptual and practical tools. Professional ethics as well as the concepts and practical applications of field research and ethnography are introduced. Students research, discuss, and analyze relevant aspects of engineering ethics case studies and apply learned techniques of cultural discovery to reflect on the challenges, opportunities, and aspirations of communities within which students will be embedded as active participant observers.
Previously taught: Spring 2021
This course introduces application of engineering and scientific principles to protect and preserve human health and the environment. It embraces broad environmental topics and concerns, including mass and energy transfer, environmental chemistry, mathematics of growth, water pollution, water quality control, air pollution, global climate change and solid waste management; and laboratory analysis of water and wastewater samples and treatment process tests. Students gain an understanding of the interrelatedness of environmental problems around the world and how different socioeconomic, technological, ethical, and other factors can impact both the environment and the approach to solving environmental problems. Factors and parameters affecting design of environmental systems are discussed and design in environmental engineering is introduced.
Previously taught: Fall 2020
The course introduces students to fundamental concepts that underlie highway design, traffic operations and control, and transportation systems. The course begins with vehicle performance and the role it has on road design. We later cover the fundamentals of traffic flow theory and operations. In combination with such fundamentals we also discuss the use and collection of traffic data, as well as more advanced concepts on traffic safety, public transportation, and traffic management and control. Moreover, we look at clear applications of the concepts covered in class with a real-world student led project.
Previously taught: Fall 2021
This course introduces students to the concepts of design related to solving problems in environmental engineering. It provides an exposure to real-world problems in water systems and wastewater treatment. Students work in small teams and experience the design process, including the definition of the design objectives and constraints, formation of the design concept, synthesis, and analysis of design options, as well as the development and testing of the proposed solution.
Previously taught: Fall 2018
The course introduces the concepts and principles of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), techniques. This course covers state-of-the-art GIS methods and tools including: spatial and terrain analysis, geostatistical analysis, time series analysis, and development of GIS models. The projects provide experiential insight to geographic information system concepts, and require students to use existing tools to create and build prototypes of real-life applications.
Previously taught: Fall 2016
This course covers the principles, technologies, methods and applications of biosensors and bioinstrumentation beginning with an examination of the ethical, legal, cultural, religious, and social implications of nanotechnologies. The objective of this course is to link engineering principles to understanding of biosystems in sensors and bioelectronics. The course provides students with detail of methods and procedures used in the design, fabrication, and application of biosensors and bioelectronic devices. The fundamentals of measurement science are applied to optical, electrochemical, mass, and pressure signal transduction. Upon successful completion of this course, students are expected to be able to explain biosensing and transducing techniques; design and construct biosensors instrumentation.
Previously taught: Fall 2020
The course provides a basic descriptive overview of key urban infrastructure systems and technologies with reference to management, operation, and maintenance of these systems. These systems include infrastructure of water supply; solid and liquid waste treatment and disposal, mass transit, power, communication networks, and buildings, roads and bridges.
Previously taught: Spring 2018
Desalination is an important process in the management of water resources and it has a large societal, economic and environmental impact. This course will give engineering students a solid grounding in desalination and related separation processes. It presents thermal desalination and reverse osmosis as well as other emerging techniques used on both small and large scales to desalt brackish water and seawater. The course introduces to the students a design concept of desalination processes. This will prove invaluable for a future career in many areas of engineering.
Previously taught: Spring 2020
This course explores advanced topics of special interest in smart cities and applications and is designed to aid students in gaining extra knowledge in an area not covered in the program's mainstay courses. It may be repeated for credit. The course is open to junior and senior students. Students must obtain permission from their faculty mentor.
Previously taught: Spring 2021
This course focuses on the analysis and design of energy-conversion systems. It introduces students to power generation systems. Topics covered include gas and vapor power systems and their components; refrigeration and heat pump systems; combustion; boiling heat transfer characteristics; design of heat exchangers and cooling systems. Students gain an understanding of the fundamentals of such systems and the issues related to their operation from economic, environmental, ethical and safety points of view.
Previously taught: Spring 2021
By taking this course, students gain the tools and knowledge to develop a comprehensive new venture that is scalable, repeatable and capital efficient. The course helps students formulate new business ideas through a process of ideation and testing. Students test the viability of their ideas in the marketplace and think through the key areas of new venture. The first part of the course helps students brainstorm about new ideas and test the basic viability of those ideas through of process of design and real world tests. After an idea is developed students work towards finding a scalable, repeatable business model. The course covers customer discovery, market sizing, pricing, competition, distribution, funding, developing a minimal viable product and many other facets of creating a new venture. The course ends with students having developed a company blueprint and final investor pitch. Course requirements include imagination, flexibility, courage, getting out of the building, and passion.
Previously taught: J-Term 2016
In this seminar students are introduced to the data and models that are the basis for our current understanding of Earth’s climate, and how it is changing. Major topics will include the atmosphere, world ocean, ice sheets, carbon cycle, paleoclimate, global warming, sea-level change, global climate models, and future energy. Physical laboratory fluids demonstrations and introductory-level computer simulations will reinforce theoretical concepts covered in class. The course focuses on quantitative analysis and understanding but also weaves in elements relating to human impacts, economics, and policy-making.
Previously taught: Spring 2020
In this course, we will examine how major industrial powers are decarbonizing their economies and deploying their new green industrial strategies; the nature of contemporary resource competition; the way policy decisions are influenced by political rhetoric and public opinion; and the overall economic and political impact of climate change on global political re-alignments and relations between the developed and the developing world.
Previously taught: Fall 2014
What are the major causes of deforestation, pollution, and climate change? When and where did these, and other pressing environmental concerns, have their origins? What can history teach us about how we might best address these issues in the present? This course offers a comprehensive overview of the world’s environmental history with a focus on the period from 1500 C.E. to the present a time marked by a dramatic intensification in the use of land, water, and energy resources. The course’s central goal is to understand the relationships between globalization, natural resource and energy use, and environmental change, and to explain how these relationships unfolded, and continue to unfold, differently in major world regions, including the Gulf. By incorporating material from the fields of ecology, biology, geology, demography, economics, political science, and anthropology, this course also provides students with important historical grounding in the multidisciplinary field of global environmental studies.
Previously taught: Fall 2010
This introductory level course on renewable energy examines the historical and legal origins of energy regulations and emerging policies. The course provides an introduction to the renewable sources and basic terms and concepts, regulatory trends and other emerging issues. The primary focus of the course will be on renewable energy policies and laws of the developing countries. We will spend considerable time with Africa, Small Island States, United Arab Emirates, and examples from other countries. The centerpiece of this course is to focus on a specific renewable energy project (in a developing country) completed with international cooperation and assistance. The course will also focus on global institutions and policymaking, the divide between industrialized countries and developing countries, the nexus between global climate change and renewable energy, sustainable energy sources, and challenges that global policymakers will face in future. The course will look at the wide variety of local and regional laws, regulatory techniques, and policy objects.
Previously taught: Spring 2020
Over half of the world's population now lives in cities, this share has been forecast to increase to close to 70 percnet by 2050. With growing urbanization, cities and their residents have become major consumers of natural resources. However, if urban growth is managed properly, cities also have the potential to be efficient and sustainable users of natural resources, especially in this era of advanced technology that allows for remote monitoring and control of resource use. Recognizing the challenges that cities face and their potential, one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is to "make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable" by 2030. This seminar will analyze innovative sustainability policies implemented in leading cities around the world and examine the opportunities — and potential drawbacks — to allowing global cities to play an increasingly significant role in environmental regulation. The seminar will feature in-depth case studies of seven mega-cities (Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Berlin, London, New Delhi, New York, and Shanghai) in an attempt to find common features to cities' environmental initiatives.
Previously taught: Spring 2020
Social Entrepreneurship is a dynamic and growing field that may be defined in various ways, yet at its core is about using evolved business thinking and practices to change the world. This course provides an introduction to the topic through discussion of how social entrepreneurs develop their ideas of social and environmental innovation, how they fund/finance their ventures, the ways in which they overcome the challenges of integrating various levels of economic performance with social/environmental impact and the types of organizations social entrepreneurs create (for-profit, non-profit, cooperative, hybrid, etc.). Through a "deep dive" case study of a leading social enterprise, Sekem Group in Egypt, students will explore the relevance of social entrepreneurship in a changing world and heighten our understanding of the potential we each hold to be "change makers."
Previously taught: J-Term 2013
Immigration in Europe, demographic change in the United States, accumulation of inequalities around the world, democratization in developing countries-these are transformative processes that force societies to confront issues of cohesion amidst ethnic, religious, and gender diversity. This course will prepare students to apply a social scientific mindset in thinking through these issues. It will allow students to engage with cutting-edge theoretical, experimental, and observational approaches to understanding the psychological and rational bases of intergroup conflict, processes through which people react to diversity, and ways that institutions promote or stall movement mitigating conflicts. Class assignments allow students to work with data using surveys, laboratory, and field techniques.
Previously taught: J-Term 2020
This course examines the United Nations’ origin, processes and impact within both global and local contexts. The UN system, comprised of multiple organs, programs, funds and agencies, is a critical actor in international politics. It performs a large variety of daunting tasks ranging from keeping the peace in war-torn countries to fighting the spread of contagious diseases and facilitating negotiations to limit climate change’s impact. While its status as the preeminent international organization is undisputed, its member states limit the UN’s authority and both governments and NGOs frequently critique its structure and effectiveness. This course rigorously explores why the UN was established in 1945, how it has evolved, what challenges it faces today and whether avenues exist for meaningful organizational reform. The course will provide students with a better understanding of both the theory and the practice of the UN’s activities and will encourage students to use different theoretical approaches and available empirical evidence to think creatively about how the UN can more effectively address global challenges.
Previously taught: Spring 2017
This course focuses on the politics of nuclear weapons. Why do states seek nuclear weapons? What advantages do they provide to states in international crises? What explains the variation of states' reactions to another state’s pursuit of nuclear technology? When do non-proliferation deals emerge, and what explains their content? To answer these questions, we will review the relevant academic literature on the spread of nuclear weapons, and study the histories of various nuclear programs. While some of the literature we will cover uses game theory, there are no prerequisites for this course.
Previously taught: Spring 2018
In 2015, Heads of State gathered at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in New York to agree seventeen goals, to be delivered over fifteen years, with the aim of furthering peace, prosperity and the sustainability of the planet. The aim of this course is to explore how, between now and 2030, the global community can fulfill this promise. The course will explore the impact of the climate crisis and the influence of governance, state fragility, conflict, and migration flows and explore whether the existing multilateral framework can overcome current pressures to make the Sustainable Development Goals agenda a reality. We will consider both the changing political environment and the fiscal constraints in donor countries to identify and understand their effect on government support and public attitudes towards the delivery of the SDGs. The course will evaluate the role of both public sector and private sector finance, and will challenge students to consider how governments, businesses, organizations, institutions and individuals can help deliver the SDGs over the coming decade.
Previously taught: J-Term 2010
Many of contemporary environmental challenges are global in scope: issues, such as climate change, air pollution, biodiversity loss, clean water access, ozone layer depletion, overfishing and deforestation, transcend borders. Addressing these environmental threats requires international cooperation. This can be difficult since there is no global authority to enforce agreements between countries or to ensure that all countries contribute to international efforts. This course will analyze the nature of environmental problems and differences between countries in their domestic demand for environmental protection. The course will then consider cross-national characteristics of environmental problems and their implications for global action, as well as the effect of international political and economic conditions on environmental cooperation. The goal of the course is to explore how ideas, interests, interactions, and institutions shape global environmental politics.
Previously taught: Spring 2020
Do abundant natural resources undermine democracy? Do they have a positive or negative effect on economic development? Is there a relationship between natural resources and interstate or intrastate conflict? This course will explore the politics of natural resources. It will analyze the effect of natural resources on a variety of economic and political issues, including growth, inequality, corruption, political stability, violence, human rights, and democracy. The course will also investigate how political institutions and economic conditions modify the effect of natural resources. Several contemporary issues, such as sustainable resource use and alternative energy, will be considered in detail. Recent empirical research on the politics of natural resources, as well as case studies from different regions of the world, will provide foundation for discussion.
Previously taught: Fall 2019
Foundations of Science 1: Energy and Matter provides a comprehensive introduction to these two fundamental concepts that are so famously unified in the equality E=mc2. Following an introduction to the physical sciences, the course focuses on velocity, acceleration, forces, and energy, while simultaneously introducing students to atoms and molecules. Chemical reactions are examined, and the energy changes associated with them are investigated via a thorough analysis of the three laws of thermodynamics. Laboratory exercises focus on the guiding principles of the scientific method and an introduction to experimental design, and scientific presentation, including technical writing. Weekly discussion sections are designed to hone proficiency at solving problems in a collaborative, team environment.
Previously taught: Fall 2018
Rising income and wealth inequalities in many countries around the world, combined with the very high levels of concentration of wealth in the world economy, have become a topic of growing concern for social scientists and media commentators. For example, some estimates suggest that the richest 100 people in the world control half of all of the world’s wealth, while billions of people around the globe survive are forced to survive on less than $2 a day. Our course will interrogate some of the key questions raised by rising inequality from a variety of perspectives. We will use our location in Accra as a laboratory for this investigation, taking advantage of the opportunity to both observe inequality and poverty up-close as well as exploring some of the ways in which governments and NGOs are attempting to ameliorate the worst of its effects. But we will frame our investigation in the global context: what happens in Accra is heavily shaped by larger global trends. We will ask: who is rich and who is poor, and how they are related to one another? To what extent is inequality (and even poverty) beneficial, harmful, or both to entire societies or key groups within them?
Previously taught: J-Term 2018
Despite the significant progress made towards achieving globally set targets for health in some countries, others — particularly in sub-Saharan Africa — are falling behind. This course introduces students to the main concepts of the public health field and the critical links between global health and social and economic development. Lectures explore major themes in global health, including the social determinants of health, the global distribution of disease burden and risk factors, key measures to address the disease burden in cost-effective ways, and the role of health systems and diverse global actors in responding to the health needs of populations worldwide. The course is global in coverage, but with a focus on low- and middle-income countries and on the health of the poor.
Previously taught: Fall 2013
This course examines the relationships among poverty, disease, health and development. The class will consider the role of health in the context of socio-economic development and the Millennium Development Goals, and will explore where health falls among competing social service and development priorities. Students will discuss the promotion of pro-poor health policies and healthcare investments as a strategy to achieve poverty reduction and economic growth. The course will examine the practical constraints and challenges of fragile healthcare systems, and lessons from the experience of countries at different stages of economic development.
Previously taught: Spring 2017
This course is designed to give an introduction to the law, policy, philosophy, institutions, and practice of modern international human rights. Human rights have a history that is national, regional, and international. Part I of the course presents an overview of the theory, history, and legal frameworks of the international human rights movement. Part II will explore these themes through the lens of the Argentinian experience. Students will study human rights violations during the Dirty War and national and international responses that sought to expose abuses, marshal human rights institutions to take action against them. This course also will examine efforts within Argentina over the last 30 years to balance reconciliation and accountability for past abuses. In Part III, this course will examine current human rights challenges facing governments, civil society groups, international organizations, and businesses today.
Previously taught: J-Term 2016
Taught in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Goal 11 of the 2015-2030 global Sustainable Development Goals is new on the global development agenda and focuses on cities and human settlements (Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable). The goal reflects the global demographic shift towards urban residence (over half of the world's population now lives in cities). This course will consider innovations from around the world in making cities sustainable for children and youth, who represent the future of sustainable societies. In addition, urban innovations for sustainability will be reviewed. Fieldwork abroad will provide opportunities for the observation of programs as well as meetings with NGO staff, youth and other urban leaders, and will supplement the readings and discussions. Topics covered will include supporting youth livelihoods, learning and health programs, arts programs, infrastructure investments, environmental sustainability, transportation, migrant-origin youth, governance and innovation.
Previously taught: J-Term 2018
The course offers an overview of the causes and consequences of social inequality. Topics in this course include: the concepts, theories, and measures of inequality; race, gender, and other caste systems; social mobility and social change; institutional support for stratification, including family, schooling, and work; political power and role of elites; and comparative patterns of inequality, including capitalist, socialist, and post-socialist societies.
Previously taught: Fall 2019
The spectacular development of Gulf cities in the second half of the 20th century was accompanied by great demographic and social change. This course, conceived as an introduction to the field of Gulf studies, explores the transformations of Gulf urban societies in the modern and contemporary periods, as well as their social, political, and economic outcomes. Departing from dominant paradigms such as the rentier state theory, we will rely on social history and anthropology in order to explore these processes at the level of urban societies themselves. We will first probe the materiality of Gulf cities, exploring the power relations which govern the production of space, from the role of State-mandated experts in urban planning to the multiple appropriations of urban space by city-dwellers. We will then turn our attention to the diversity of populations resulting from historical and contemporary migrations to the Gulf, looking at the complex questions they raise in terms of belonging and citizenship. From there, we will examine how social change has affected relations between generations and gendered roles, and how these are embodied in daily urban life through language or clothes.
Previously taught: Spring 2015
This course explores theoretical and empirical connections between economic development, urbanization, urban poverty and distress and state/non-state responses to urban poverty and distress. The course begins with an exploration of theoretical and conceptual perspectives on urbanization and welfare state policies, then moves on to examine illustrative cases from global north and south cities that challenge and complicate reigning theories and concepts. Students will be asked to compare and contrast historical and contemporary patterns of urban poverty across global north and south regions, with a focus on the limits and possibilities of social policies (state- and non-state-sponsored) for addressing urban distress.
Previously taught: Spring 2015
As Abu Dhabi strives to position itself as a global capital city, it is embarked on ambitious plans for urban, economic, and social development. Since 2007, Plan Capital 2030 laid the foundation for a new vision with sustainability as an overarching principle. The course will introduce a full understanding of the evolution of the city, its planning history, critically examine Abu Dhabi current plans and their progress, and identify the main urban actors and the forces shaping the growth of the City. Through reading key texts in urban theories, site visits, walking tours, guest speakers, presentations, and debates, students will be able to understand the complexity of city planning and development in rapidly developing cities and key challenges in comparison to other regional and global examples.
Previously taught: J-Term 2017
This course provides an introduction to key themes in urban studies, focusing on a selected set of issues that are particularly relevant for New York City but important for cities throughout the world. Students will read classic and important contemporary works, including selections from great books in urban scholarship whose significance transcends any one discipline. This course will include readings from authors such as Weber, Jacobs, Ballon, Mumford, Simmel, Sennett, Wirth, Jackson, and Sassen, as well as several case studies of emerging issues, particularly questions regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation, sustainable development, and urban inequality. This course culminates with an intensive study of how New York City can respond to the challenges posed by climate change.
Previously taught: J-Term 2016
Taught in New York City
This course is an introduction to the role of urban design in global sustainability. The first step is to understand how cities affect climate and how climate affects cities by examining New York as a model. New York is a coastal city faced with the simultaneous requirement to grow its population by a million people yet to improve the quality of its civic life when climate events threaten both its urban fabric and critical infrastructure. How New York uses urban design not just to survive but to thrive is the subject of this course. This course will introduce the people, products and processes of urban design. The city itself will frequently serve as classroom, with students exploring and recording examples of urban design through the neighborhoods they transform.
Previously taught: J-Term 2014
Taught in New York City
Shanghai has evolved markedly through key stages in the history of urban form, vestiges of which are found within the city today: an old walled “Chinese city;” tree-lined boulevards and commercial avenues of 19th and 20th century foreign settlements; and suburban development in Pudong. This class examines each key stage, combining readings with in situ urban inquiry. Readings in this course cover Chinese reflections on the city in general and Shanghai in particular, as well as urban studies classics like Lewis Mumford’s The Culture of Cities. Trips take students to historically significant cultural spaces, including the old City God Temple, Fuzhou Road Bookshops, alleyway houses, The Peace Hotel, the Great World amusement park, People’s Park, the Moganshan Road contemporary art complex, as well as nearby waterway towns that illustrate aspects of Shanghai’s history before urbanization.
Previously taught: J-Term 2016
Taught in Shanghai, China
Public spaces play an essential role in the life of cities and their residents. Public squares and parks, streets and esplanades-these are often the signature spaces that constitute a city’s distinctive identity. They are also the settings of everyday life, mixing bowls where a city’s diverse communities interact, forums for individual as well as collective action and expression. This course explores the nature of public space in cities around the world, with attention to their physical character and design, their history, their pictorial and literary representation, and the political and social practices that activate public space. This course will explore three overarching questions. What do we mean by “public” and “public space”? What are common characteristics of public spaces and how do people use them? And why are public spaces important to city life? In addition to historical and contemporary squares and streetscapes of Europe and the Middle East, the course will draw upon case studies in Sydney as well as the hometowns of the students.
Previously taught: J-Term 2015
Taught in Sydney, Australia
This course explores the ways that class, race, ethnicity, and religious difference have shaped modern western cities, with attention to the spatialization of inequality in London and the British Empire. This course is interdisciplinary, bridging past and present and combining historical and social scientific approaches to urban change. We will explore patterns of segregation and residence, the history and geography of difference, and political economy. We will discuss the role that planners, architects, investors, activists, and policymakers have played in shaping metropolitan areas over the last century, with attention to key policy debates, and planning and policy interventions involving immigration, urban redevelopment, gentrification, community control, and suburbanization.
Previously taught: J-Term 2019
This course guides students through the many facets of graphic design and visual communication, with a focus on the cross-cultural visual environment of Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates. Students explore multiple aspects of visual design from aesthetics to user interfaces and usability, with special consideration of signage in Abu Dhabi. They also develop graphic designs that respond to the Abu Dhabi environment. Practical exercises that emphasize visual communication skills are central to the class. Students become familiar with the design procedures at the core of successful visual identity systems, thus developing their skills in research methodologies, data gathering, analysis, decision making, brainstorming and creative solutions, team work and monitoring. Above all, the practical aspects of the course allow NYUAD students to contribute to the emerging Abu Dhabi design style.
Previously taught: J-Term 2013
Idle weather chit-chat was once the essence of a banal neighborly ritual; today, philosopher Timothy Morton argues that global climate change has loaded these pleasantries with existential fear and wonder. Asking if it’s “Hot enough for ya?” in 2018, after a decade of escalating temperature records, means contemplating nothing less than the end of the world. Set aside, for a moment, fears of rising seas, failing monsoons, and ancient pathogens released from soggy permafrost: how do we rewrite the stories we tell about our place in the world, now that we’ve grown big enough to break the weather.
Previously taught: Spring 2018
We often think of cities as collections of buildings, streets, and people. But what if we see them as living entities, with their own histories, identities, and subcultures? This FYWS sets out to investigate and map three distinct cities: Mumbai, Kampala, and Abu Dhabi. Considering each city as shaped by the ways citizens “practice” their everyday activities, students will examine different ways each city is represented in film, fiction, travel narratives, and scholarship from such fields as media, literary, and postcolonial studies. In the case of Abu Dhabi, students will also experience the city as pedestrians. Writing assignments include one essay on each city, each increasing in complexity, and each following different lines of inquiry: How is the city represented and shaped in different media? What are its stereotypes? Its conceptions of otherness or cosmopolitanism? What is urban culture and how does it differ from national culture? Who gets to claim a city as home? In the final research project and oral presentations, students will choose a method of inquiry and point of interest in Abu Dhabi, and in the process have to consider their own identities as its inhabitants.
Previously taught: Fall 2021
