Faculty of Arts & Sciences

Studies contemporary poetry as a cultural practice that requires and perversely challenges visual, linguistic, geographic, and aesthetic borders. Main topics are translation (poems crossing borders), emigration/exile (poets crossing borders), and poetry and other arts (poems with music, film, photography). Texts by Charles Bernstein, Allen Ginsberg, Bei Dao, Joseph Brodsky, Paul Celan, Barbara Guest, Susan Howe, Yang Lian, Valzhyna Mort, Henry Parland, Vladimir Nabokov, W. G. Sebald, Cesar Vallejo, Zafer Şenocak, and C. D. Wright, alongside sound recordings, photographs, films, and poetry performances.

Surveying 300+ years of poetry in America, from the Puritans to the avant-garde poets of this new century, the course covers individual figures (Poe, Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, Williams, Hughes), major poetic movements (Firesides, Modernist, New York, Confessional, L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E) and probes uses of poetry across changing times. Who, and what, are poems for? For poets? Readers? To give vent to the soul? To paint or sculpt with words? Alter consciousness? Raise cultural tone? Students will read, write about and also recite American poems.

Explore the arts as social and professional resources! Whether you pursue medicine, law, engineering, business, government, etc., the arts will enhance your work and your citizenship. Active citizens construct opportunities for positive social change. A lecture series by a range of professionals demonstrates that change in practically any field depends on art. Theoretical readings (Schiller, Kant, Dewey, Freire, Gramsci, Ranciere, Mockus, Boal, Nussbaum, Pasolini, inter alia) are grounded in concrete cases of agency. The final project will be a design for a creative social intervention, including reflections on creating the design.

Just as a pine or a willow is known from the shape of its branching, so human culture can be understood as a growth-pattern, a ramifying of artistic, intellectual, and political action. This course tries to find the center of the Modernist movement (1872-1927) by studying the literature, music, and painting of the period, to see whether some congruence of effort in all these media can be found. By looking at the range of artistic production in a few key years, we come to know this age of aesthetic extremism, perhaps unparalleled in Western history.

Rhetorical theory, originating with Aristotle, in contemporary applications. The nature of rhetoric in modern culture; practical examples drawn from American history and literature 1765 to the present; written exercises and attention to public speaking; the history and educational importance of rhetoric in the West; stresses theory and practice as inseparable.

In an age of mechanical - and now virtual - reproduction, we have lost sight of the basic visual unit that structures our experience of the book: the opening. Employing old and new technologies, this course focuses on medieval books, their decoration and their readers in the Middle Ages (ca. 300-1500), when the book as we have known it, along with allied institutions, such as the university itself, first came into being.

A study of poetry as the history and science of feeling: readings in major lyric poems of England and America. Emphasis on problems of invention and execution, and on the poet's choice of genre, stance, context, and structure. Other topics to be raised include the process of composition, the situating of a poem in its historical and poetic contexts, the notion of a poet's development, the lyric as dramatic speech, and the experimental lyric of the 20th century.

A study the poetry of Virgil, his interaction with Homeric and other Greek poetry, and with attention to the literary, artistic, and musical traditions that flow from his work, throughout the history of western literature. Major focus on the Aeneid in its artistic, historical and political contexts, its reception by Dante, Milton, Eliot, and others. Readings of Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics, and on their place in the traditions of European pastoral and lyric, from Spenser to Tennyson to Heaney. Aims to provide an understanding of important literary and cultural achievements of the last two millennia. All readings in English.

This course examines a wide variety of literary texts representing 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 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. Focus is on the European tradition and the Harlem Renaissance.

A study of five famous pieces of music, both as timeless works of art and as moments of cultural history. Close attention is given to techniques of musical listening, and to the details of the first performance of each work, with a consideration of the problems involved in assembling such a picture. Works studied are Beethoven, Symphony no. 9; Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique; Stravinsky, Le sacre du printemps; Handel, Messiah; Monteverdi, Orfeo. The course concludes with the first performance of a new work especially commissioned for this course.

Introduction to performance studies as it intersects with studies of gender, sexuality, and race. What does it mean to say gender is "performed"? How does performance-both on- and offstage-construct and deconstruct power? Topics include transgressive and normative gender, feminist and queer theatre, athletics, gender in everyday life, drag, AIDS, and weddings. Texts include Eve Ensler, Ntozake Shange, Judith Butler, Anna Deavere Smith, Cherrie Moraga, David Henry Hwang, Bertolt Brecht, Guillermo Gomez-Pena.

Great works of fiction become universal and remain able to surprise, delight, inform, or otherwise overwhelm current readers. What gives them this power? How do writers become adjectives like Babelian, Bellovian, or Kafkaesque? This course moves through the twentieth century through the literature of a multilingual people, with works in Hebrew, Yiddish, German, Russian, Italian, and English. We see how variously Jewish writers interpret modern history and their own situation within it.

An exploration of love in five genres of classical South Asian literature-epic history, story literature, plays, poetic miniatures, and court poetry. We will pay particular attention to the nature of literary genres and practices and how they were theorized by South Asian intellectuals. Especially relevant are theories of poetic language, aestheticized emotion (especially love), and literary ornamentation.

During much of the 20th century, the Broadway musical stood at the center of American culture, producing tunes and tales that became the hits of their day. It commented-wittily, satirically, relentlessly-on the ever-shifting social and political landscape, with subjects ranging from new immigrants to poverty, power, westward expansion, and issues of race. This course explores the musical artistry and cultural resonances of a cluster of iconic Broadway musicals on stage and screen, including Shuffle Along, Show Boat, Stormy Weather, The Cradle Will Rock, Oklahoma!, and Pacific Overtures. Readings focus on primary sources drawn from Harvard's illustrious Theatre Collection.

The novel is often thought of as a distinctively modern form, but Greco-Roman antiquity had its own version. Fictional prose narratives about adventure and romance in exotic lands were immensely popular in antiquity. We will explore this tradition by reading the five surviving Greek novels, the Golden Ass of the Roman Apuleius, and selected other texts, along with works by contemporary theorists and critics. Topics include: definitions of the "novel"; ancient representations of desire; gender and class politics; relationships between secular and religious narratives.

This course is designed to enable students to analyze a wide range of Japanese cultural creations-including the traditional Noh theater, modern Japanese paintings, and contemporary anime-by illustrating the influence of Buddhism both on their forms and at their depths. The first part of the course is a study of major Buddhist philosophy and its impact on Japanese literature. The second part observes Buddhist ritual practices and their significance for Japanese performing arts. The last part traces the development of Japanese Buddhist art, and considers the influence of Buddhism on diverse contemporary popular Japanese art media.

A course on the structure of the Bible, which William Blake called "the great code of art." Major themes include the invention of God, the invention history, and the invention of the city (or rather, of two cities, that of the devil and that of God). About two-thirds of the Authorized Version (King James) of 1611 will be read.

What makes a story prevail through time? We will visit the most beloved, enduring works in the Chinese tradition and discover cultural icons from the Handsome Monkey King to the Nobel prize-winning novel Soul Mountain. We will explore the cultural trends and themes that have been the stuff of popular Chinese novels, TV, cinema, and thought. This course offers a comprehensive, yet unique and unconventional window into Chinese tradition and modernity, past and present.

An introduction to ten iconic monuments of the Islamic world from the beginning of Islam to the early modern period. The course introduces various types of building-mosques, palaces, multifunctional complexes-and city types and the factors that shaped them, artistic, patronal, socio-political, religio-cultural, and economic. Each case study is divided into two lectures. The first presents the monument or city by "walking" through it. The second is devoted to themes elicited from the example, developed in light of comparative monuments, sites, and/or written sources, and to problems of patronage, production, audience and meaning as they pertain to architectural history.

A study of the emergence of a secular literary tradition in the Russian imperial period. Focus on cultural institutions (religion, art, literature), issues of the aesthetic and social critique, and problems of interpretation for contemporary and modern readers. Analysis of novels by Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy.

What is the function of literary texts in moments, from Plato to the Russian Revolution, that promise total, enlightened societal transformation? Each week, this course will focus on two texts related to selected "revolutionary" moments, one philosophical and one literary. Literary texts do not participate easily in the revolutionary order. They resist the textual simplicities of philosophy. Which do we trust: philosophy or literature? Texts include many found in traditional "Great Books" courses: Plato, Virgil, Augustine, Dante, Luther, Milton, Swift, Rousseau, Twain, Kant, Marx, and Chekov, among others.

Examines the visual culture of the Ottoman Empire straddling three continents (Asia, Europe, Africa), together with cross-cultural artistic interactions with Western and Asian Islamic courts (Safavid Iran, Mughal India). Ottoman urbanism, architecture, miniature painting and decorative arts studied in their socio-political contexts that informed their production and reception. The selective fusion of Ottoman-Islamic, Byzantine and Italian Renaissance elements in the codification of a distinctive visual tradition that helped processes of multicultural empire building and identity formation is analyzed. Earliest representations of the East by European artists working in the "Orientalist" mode are also considered.

The course examines the relationship between art and politics in twentieth century Russia and Eastern Europe through visual culture, literature, and film. We move chronologically from the Russian revolution and the period of artistic experimentation to the art of Stalin's era, Gulag and the Cold War, examining writer's trials and dissent in Russia and Eastern Europe as well as the non-conformist art of the late twentieth century. Emphasis is placed on close analysis and aesthetic interpretation in a broader political and historical context. We read works by Malevich, Chagall, Eisenstein, Babel, Brodsky, Mandelstam, Mayakovsky, Havel, Kundera, Arendt, Vajda and Nabokov.

This course introduces a unique dimension of Chinese modernity: amorous engagement in fiction and lived experience, its discursive and visual representations, and its institutional implementation (gender, marriage, family, law, nation/state, etc.), censorship, and transgression. It examines how the modern lure of free will and emancipated subjectivity drove Chinese to redefine terms of affect, such as love, feeling, desire, passion, sexuality, loyalty, dedication, revolution and sacrifice. It also looks into how the moral, legal and political consequences of affect were evoked in such a way as to traverse or fortify consensual boundaries and their manifestations.

The medieval imagination was the ambiguous mediator between the world and the mind: a mental space in which either prophetic truths or dreams and diabolic deceptions might be experienced, in which material and spiritual realities were reflected as in a mirror, and in which those complex constructs we call "fictions" found their source. This course investigates dream poetry and visionary writing in the context of medieval psychological theory. Texts to be read include Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, The Romance of the Rose, Dante's Divine Comedy, John of Morigny's Book of Flowers, and works by Augustine, Julian of Norwich, and others.

Examines the relationship between literature and medicine through creative texts that question understandings, shatter binaries, and reconceptualize notions of normality/disability, health/disease, and life/death. Pays particular attention to the work of physician-writers and narratives by patients.

This course provides an in-depth exploration of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, from the standpoint of the history of Western poetry, language, religious belief, geography and science. Particular attention is paid to Dante's dialogue with ancient authors such as Plato, Aristotle, Virgil and Ovid, as well as to imaginative mappings of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. One of the course's highlights is a multimedia web-based competition in which all enrolled students compete for the annual Bedeviled Harvard prize.

Examines German and Austrian art and literature of the Turn-of-the-Century (c. 1880-1920) with a focus on the dominant topics of sexuality, gender, and language that are articulated theoretically in the work of Nietzsche and Freud and insistently exemplified thematically and formally in both the art and literature of the age. The examination of this period, these theories, this art, and this literature serves the primary purpose of developing skills in the interpretation of literary texts and the plastic arts, as well as exploring the possibilities and productivity of bringing these arts and the interpretation of them to bear on one another.

The course surveys the literary and artistic dimensions of the devotional life of the world's Muslim communities, focusing on the role of literature and the arts (poetry, music, architecture, calligraphy, etc.) as expressions of piety and socio-political critique. An important aim of the course is to explore the relationships between religion, literature, and the arts in a variety of historical and cultural contexts in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Europe, and America.

The early comedies, tragedies, and histories, considered in the context of the origins of the English stage and the conventions of Elizabethan drama. Particular attention paid to Shakespeare's development as a dramatist, and to poetic expression, thematic design, stagecraft, and character portrayal in plays.

The late comedies, tragedies, and romances, with some attention to the prevailing literary traditions of the Jacobean period. Particular attention paid to Shakespeare's development as a dramatist, and to poetic expression, thematic design, stagecraft, and character portrayal in the plays.

This class familiarizes students with popular films produced during crucial junctures in the modern history of the United States, from the Great Depression and World War II through the Cold War, McCarthy era, and the 1960s. More specifically, we will study how Hollywood's dream factory responded to dramatic challenges that states of crisis and emergency posed to the founding ideals of our democracy. We will look at the wide range of functions that commercial fantasy productions assumed, how they at times legitimated and bolstered the status quo, but at others also interrogated, exposed, and even indicted social inequity. Course films provide a representative sampling of classical American features from 1932 to 1969, including Scarface, It Happened One Night, The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, High Noon, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Manchurian Candidate, and Easy Rider.

The course examines the defining moments in the development of modern European and American art from the eighteenth- through to the twentieth-century. Anchored by a significant date, each lecture focuses on the relationship between a major artistic event and the social, political, cultural, and technological conditions of its emergence. A wide range of media, from painting, sculpture, and print-making to photography, photomontage, video, installation, and performance art, will be considered. Situating the key aesthetic transformations that defined art's modernity in a broader historical context, the course explores the fundamental role of advanced forms of artistic practice in the formation of modern culture and society.

As thinking beings we consider the limits of human potential and wonder what is the worst. The Nazis obsess us because they were masters of extremity who brought to the world unprecedented violence, destruction, and murder. They were also masters of propaganda who engineered sophisticated techniques of mass manipulation; in this endeavor cinema and modern media assumed a seminal role. This course considers why films proved to be so essential to the Hitler regime and so captivating to German audiences of the Third Reich. It also reflects on the continuing allure of Nazi sights and sounds for contemporary mass culture.

The course will examine seminal literary works (with forays into film and art) from Eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century with special attention to their response to convention, censorship and totalitarian strictures as well as "high modernist" experimentation and a "low modernist" focus on popular genres and a new poetics of trash. Focus on Kafka, Zamiatin, Bulgakov, Capek, Nabokov, Platonov, Witkacy, Schulz, Gombrowicz, Vertov, Dovzhenko and others.

A critical investigation of the genre's enduring popularity, beginning with Austen's satirical Northanger Abbey and three novels credited with providing narrative templates for contemporary romances (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights). We will then read twentieth-century revisions of these works (Rebecca, Wide Sargasso Sea, Bridget Jones's Diary). Topics: the female writer and reader/consumer of literature; moral warnings against romance, "sensation," and titillation; the commodification of desire; Harlequins; the relationship between high culture and low.

This course examines American youth culture in the "long" 1960s through the lens of music in California. Both "popular" and "art" music will be considered, including early minimalism, songs from L.A. and the Laurel Canyon crowd, and San Francisco psychedelia. In addition to understanding musical forms, performance styles, and the effects of technology (radio, recording, electric instruments), the class will delve into the politics of race, gender, resistance, and the draft.

This course introduces major works, genres, and waves of East Asian cinema from the silent era to the present, including films from Mainland China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. We will discuss issues ranging from formal aesthetics to historical representation, from local film industries to transnational audience reception. This course does not assume prior knowledge of East Asian culture or of film studies, but rather seeks to provide students with a basic understanding of modern East Asian cultural history through cinema, and with an essential toolkit for analyzing film and media, including narrative, cinematography, editing and sound. In addition to critical approaches, students are strongly encouraged to creatively respond to course materials by collaborating on their own short films, beginning with the illustration of film terms in the first two weeks and culminating in the Oscar-like "Golden Monkey Awards."

Comparative historical exploration of the striking differences and unexpected similarities between traditional conceptions of the body in East Asian and European medicine; the evolution of beliefs within medical traditions; the relationship between traditional medicine and contemporary experience.

A short history of the Bible. Questions addressed include how the Bible became a book, and how that book became sacred; the advantages and burdens of a sacred text; Jewish-Christian disputations; how interpretive efforts helped create and reinforce powerful elites; how that text became the object of criticism; and how the Bible fared after the rise of criticism.

A culture's understanding of what it is to be human interacts with its understanding of what is sacred. Great works of art in the culture typically reflect or articulate these notions. This course will explore the themes of human being and the sacred as they are manifested in some of the greatest works in the history of the West. Readings chosen from among Homer, Aeschylus, Virgil, the New Testament, Augustine, Dante, Luther, Pascal, Kant, Melville, and others.

Examines major forms of folklore (e.g., myths, legends, epics, beliefs, rituals, festivals) and the theoretical approaches used in their study. Analyzes how folklore shapes national, regional, and ethnic identities, as well as daily life; considers the function of folklore within the groups that perform and use it, employing materials drawn from a wide range of areas (e.g., South Slavic oral epics, American occupational lore, Northern European ballads, witchcraft in Africa and America, Cajun Mardi Gras).

Gladiatorial combat, beast fights, staged hunts, mock naval battles, and exposure of criminals to wild animals were defining features of the culture of ancient Rome. Examining texts and images from across the Roman world, this course seeks to identify and probe the values, attitudes, and social, political, and economic factors that contributed to the popularity of institutionalized violence as public entertainment for six hundred years from the Punic Wars until the Christianization of the Empire.

The course is an introduction to the fundamental concepts of Islam and the role that religious ideas and institutions play in Muslim communities around the world. Its main concern is to develop an understanding of the manner in which diverse notions of religious and political authority have influenced Muslim societies politically, socially and culturally. Through specific case studies of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, the course considers the role played by ideologies such as jihad, colonialism, nationalism, secularism, and globalization in shaping the ways in which Muslims interpret and practice their faith today. The course briefly considers the contemporary situation of Muslim minorities in Europe and the United States. The course, through on-campus and on-line options, allows those enrolled to engage with students from all over the world.

Examines from an historical perspective one of the central themes in the Western intellectual tradition: the desire to reconcile rational philosophy with religious and biblical authority. Discusses the transformations in conceptions of reason, science, biblical interpretation, and divine intervention (among other themes) in the context of the long period of change from medieval to modern. Readings emphasize primary sources-including, for example, Augustine, Aquinas, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and Darwin.

This course explores the arts and cultures of Andean South America from the Pre-Columbian through Colonial periods. Emphasis is on the place of objects-textiles, ceramics, sculptures, and books-in the construction of meanings, identities and values as these changed over time. Readings are drawn from archaeology, ethnohistory, ethnology, art history and original sources. Students will work with Pre-Columbian and Colonial Andean artifacts in the collections of the Peabody Museum.

This course takes a close look at the human condition, as viewed through the lens of classical Greek civilization (and some modern comparanda).The readings, all in English translation, are the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, seven tragedies (Aeschylus' Oresteia Trilogy, Sophocles' two Oedipus dramas, and Euripides' Hippolytus and The Bacchic Women), and two dialogues of Plato (the Apology and the Phaedo, both centering on the last days of Socrates); also, selections from the dialogue On Heroes by an eminent thinker in the "second sophistic" movement, Philostratus.

The Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians call the "Old Testament" and Jews call the "Bible," are the basis of both Judaism and Christianity. In this course we shall survey how this work of literature, through interpretation and re-interpretation, spawned two different cultural systems. Topics to be surveyed include: canon and prophecy; exegesis and Midrash; Shabbat and Sunday; temple, synagogue, church; the Oral Torah and the Logos; sin and righteousness; messiah and redemption.

This class studies the basic elements of Buddhist thought, practice, and historical communities, and their vision of human flourishing. We will study Buddhist classic writings as well as later works from South, Central and East Asia on meditation, discipline, and creativity. Key themes of our readings are the relationship between self and other, the education of the emotions, paths of self-cultivation, and the (im)possibility of perfection. We will be especially attentive to how the approach to such things has shifted as Buddhism spread through Asia, and more recently to the rest of the world, as received by the 19th century Transcendentalists, the Beat poets, and socially engaged religion. Throughout the course we will consider the relevance of this material to our own views of the world and how we should lead our lives.

Can we trace an "authentic" Jewish identity through history, as distinct from many "cultures" of Jews in the multitude of times and places in which they have lived? This course provides an overview of major trends in Jewish civilization from biblical times through the early modern era (to approximately the 17th century), with this and related questions in mind, by engaging in close readings of traditional Jewish sources on the one hand and seeking contextual understandings of Jews and Judaism within various non-Jewish settings on the other.

An exploration of the narratives and arts of the Hindu tradition focusing on the great gods-Vishnu, Krishna, Shiva, and Devi-the images through which the gods are envisioned, the temples and pilgrimage places where they are worshipped, and the ways in which they give expression to a profound vision of the world. Readings include the Ramayana, the Bhagavad Gita, the Gita Govinda, the Shiva Purana, and the Devi Mahatmya

Modern society is unthinkable without the photograph, and yet we rarely have occasion to ponder what photographs are, what they do, and how they do it. In this course, we will consider photography from its origins to the digital era, paying particular attention to its role as an engine of belief in various cultural domains. Our goal will be to understand more incisively how photographs define and shape relations between their subjects and their viewers.

This course offers an introduction to perennial themes in the philosophy of Western religion while situating those themes in a broad historical context. Students read central works by Plato, Augustine, Anslem, Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali, Aquinas, Pascal, Spinoza, Hume and Nietzsche. Topics include piety, evil, free will, sin, devils, angels, the soul, immortality, mysticism, faith, reason, and God's nature and existence.

Explores themes of journey and quest in world literature and the interplay between their literary and religious dimensions. Considers the relationship between physical and interior journeys, home and exile, quest and peregrination. Emphasis will be on careful reading of, and thoughtful essays on, texts such as Gilgamesh, the Bible, Quest of the Holy Grail, Walden, and works by Tolkien, Dante, Teresa of Avila, Ashvaghosha, Hesse, Basho, Shusako Endo, Charles Johnson, Virginia Woolfe, and Cormac McCarthy.

This course provides an introduction to the study of East Asian religions. It covers the development of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism and Shinto. It is not a comprehensive survey, but is designed around major conceptual themes, such as ritual, image veneration, mysticism, meditation, death, and category formation in the study of religion. The emphasis throughout the course is on the hermeneutic difficulties attendant upon the study of religion in general, and East Asian religions in particular.

Psychiatry is one of the most intellectually and socially complex and fraught fields of medicine today, and history offers one powerful strategy for better understanding why. Topics covered in this course include the invention of the mental asylum, early efforts to understand mental disorders as disorders of the brain or biochemistry, the rise of psychoanalysis, psychiatry and war, the rise of psychopharmacology, the making of the DSM, anti-psychiatry, and more.

Incest and parricide, cannibalism and self-blinding: classical mythology has fascinated artists, writers, and thinkers throughout western civilization, and this course will serve as an introduction to this strange and brilliant world. We will move from the very first works of Greek literature through to the classic Greek tragedies and the Roman tales in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Along the way, we will confront the question of what "mythology" is and how it works, and we will discuss how these traditional stories changed over time to fit different cultural circumstances. We will also consider ancient rationalizations of myth, the relationship of myth and politics, and the reception of classical myth in the modern world.

When the natives of Medieval Rus (later Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians) accepted Orthodox Christianity in the 10th century, their nature-based paganism gave way to a powerfully sensual belief system that made good use of the visual and the verbal to prepare these newest Christians for the coming Apocalypse and Last Judgment. We investigate this transformation from the conversion of Saint Vladimir and the excesses of Ivan the Terrible through the Time of Troubles and the modern turn of Peter the Great. The class features close analysis of architecture, icons and frescoes, ritual, folklore, literature, and history to understand this shift in worldview, including the role of women. Special attention is devoted to the ways in which Medieval Rus is portrayed in film, opera, and ballet.

This course is a survey of the major books and ideas of the Hebrew Bible (commonly called the Old Testament). The course will also treat the historical contexts in which the Bible emerged, and the Bible's role as canonical scripture in Judaism and Christianity.

This course examines "popular culture" as a modern, transnational phenomenon and explores its manifestation in Chinese communities (in People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and North America) and beyond. From pulp fiction to film, from "Yellow Music" to "Model Theater", from animations to internet games, the course looks into how China became modern by participating in the global circulation of media forms, and how China helps in her own way enrich the theory and practice of "popular culture".

This course will focus on how concepts of woman and gender have defined meanings of religious and national communities in the Islamic Middle East and North Africa. It will survey changes in these concepts historically through reading a variety of sources-religious texts and commentaries, literary and political writings, books of advice, women's writings, and films-and will look at how contemporary thinkers and activists ground themselves differently in this historical heritage to constitute contesting positions regarding gender and national politics today.

What was Communism, and how did it shape the intellectual life of East Central Europe after World War II? How do artists and writers counter the ideological pressures of the state? This course examines how the intense political pressures of invasion, occupation, and revolution shape a country's cultural life and are shaped by it in turn. We look at Czechoslovakia's literature, drama, film, and music from the 1948 Communist takeover, through the Prague Spring and Soviet invasion of 1968, to the 1989 Velvet Revolution, a hallmark of the peaceful overthrow of Communism in Europe. We consider works by Milan Kundera, Bohumil Hrabal, Vaclav Havel; films of the Czech New Wave (Milos Forman, Vera Chytilova, Jiri Menzel); clandestine publishing and underground art; and theories of political dissent under authoritarian regimes.

Everyone who uses English has experienced its idiosyncrasies. Why is pronunciation at odds with spelling? Why so many irregular verbs? What happened to "thou"? What did Shakespeare sound like? How do we know? What about the current stature of English as a world language? This course addresses such questions as it surveys the long history of the language. While the topic is fascinating on its own, a historical knowledge of English gives critical and creative writers more command over the medium of their craft; it also sharpens reading skills. Lectures will be supplemented by exercises from the course website.

This course focuses on the arts of sound practiced by Muslims and on debates associated with "music" in a range of Islamic contexts. The purposes are to understand from a musically informed perspective a set of interrelated musical practices that cut across regions (especially South and West Asia); and how different ideologies, philosophies, and texts-associated with Islam locally, nationally, and internationally-shape local understandings and constructions of sound. The content of classes will include lectures, discussions, live musical demonstrations and careful review of audio-visual materials. Students will also have the opportunity to learn to play or sing Persian music.

Why is evolutionary theory so controversial in the public sphere? This course looks to the history of cultural changes in the West for answers. We cover the intellectual structure and social context of evolutionary ideas as they emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries, emphasizing Darwinism as a major transformation in Western thought. Topics include key aspects of Darwin's ideas; the comparative reception of Darwinism in Britain, US, Germany, Russia and France; social Darwinism, eugenics and racial theories; early genetics and the search for the gene; religious controversy then and now. The course alternates with Culture and Belief 20.

An examination of the biblical book of Job along with related texts, ancient, medieval, and modern, that allow us to establish the literary and philosophical traditions in which Job was composed and the literary and philosophical legacy it has left. Particular focus on the ways the texts play off one another in literary form and expression and in their treatment of such themes as divine justice, human piety, and the nature of the divine-human encounter.

This interdisciplinary course examines the rich tradition of progressive protest literature in the US from the American Revolution to the rise of Hip Hop, globalization, and modern-day slavery. Using a broad definition of "protest literature," it focuses on the production and consumption of dissent as a site of progressive social critique, using a wide variety of print, visual, and oral forms. We examine the historical links between modes of protest and meanings of literature, and explore how various expressions of dissent function as aesthetic, performative, rhetorical, and ideological texts within specific cultural contexts. "Readings" range from novels to photographs and music.

What happened in the last half century in European culture and politics? How can we read history through culture, and culture through history? This undergraduate lecture survey offers a general overview of European history since 1945, with a primary focus on some of the greatest works of postwar European film and literature. We will interrogate major trends in cinema and literature (e.g., expressionism, existentialism, neo-realism, minimalism, the New Wave, the realist political dramas of the 1970s, and so forth); in conjunction with new modalities of political discourse concerning communism, democracy, colonialism, and sexuality.

This course offers a general introduction to the cultures and beliefs of medieval Europe. We focus on a variety of artifacts and cultural productions as the centerpieces of a broad and interdisciplinary exploration of medieval studies. Using specific objects and texts as points of entry into a vanished world, we encourage students to explore those areas that interest them most, teasing out the cultures and beliefs of the past while simultaneously developing their skills in research and writing. Through collaborative projects and a creative exploration of texts, images, and collections at Harvard and beyond, students will be invited to make their own Middle Ages.

The purpose of the course is to investigate the evangelical tradition from its origins in the religious revivals of the eighteenth century to its contemporary role in American culture, society and politics. Notwithstanding its often stereotypical characterizations, the evangelical tradition is surprisingly eclectic and complex. A central objective of the course, therefore, is to explore that complexity in relation to gender, ethnicity, social class, and political culture. The course will make use of primary and secondary materials to shed light on evangelical theology, spirituality, and cultural expression in America and in a global context.

Tracing poetry from its origins in religious practice, the course examines the process of secularization and the ways in which modern poems retain traces of sacred texts. As poets grapple with an increasingly secular world, the emergence of modernity is revealed in vivid ways. Class discussions will explore the extent to which reminiscences of the sacred form part of the deeper appeal of poetry and its ability to shape meaning in the modern world.

The Enlightenment creates modern ideas of the self, a just society, and reformed institutions. The course explores six interrelated developments: (1) taking nothing on authority, a spirit of critique examines knowledge, religion, and government; (2) the spread of general knowledge to populations of increasing literacy; (3) debates about human nature-naturally selfish or sympathetic, altered by race or gender, innate or learned? (4) new institutions for equity and justice, even using violent revolution; (5) efforts supporting abolition, women's rights, and religious toleration; (6) self-consciousness in philosophy, art, and psychology. Thinkers include Pope, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, Johnson, Rousseau, Burke, Lessing, Gibbon, Smith, Kant, Burney, and Wollstonecraft.

The course asks how cultural products, including literature, theater and film have captured the spirit of capitalism-fuelling its fantasies, contemplating its effects, and chronicling its crises. More than just an economic system, capitalism created new habits of life and mind as well as new values, forged and distilled by new forms of art. Core readings by Defoe, Franklin, O'Neill, Rand, Miller, and Mamet and background readings by Smith, Marx, Taylor, Weber, Keynes, and Hayek.

This course addresses the representation of religion in Japanese popular culture, with emphasis on anime, manga, and film. The course examines depictions of religious figures, themes, and human dilemmas in contemporary popular culture as a gateway to understanding the significance of religion in Japanese society and history.

Disease and healing pose pragmatic and moral challenges for individuals and societies. Artists and writers have struggled to make sense of these tragic and transcendent experiences through fiction, poetry, art, and music. Scholars can explore these archives of the illness experience to understand not just disease and medicine but also what it means to be human. This interdisciplinary course examines how the medical humanities can change how we think about suffering, resilience, and care-giving, an endeavor relevant to anyone who expects to encounter these problems in life (i.e., everyone). In 2014 the course will focus on death and dying. Future offerings will address epidemics, chronic disease, mental illness, or caregiving.

A thematic and comparative exploration of questions of identity in Athens of the fifth to fourth centuries BCE and Rome of the 1st cent. BCE to 1st cent. CE, emphasizing connections with our own society and world-view. How did the ancient Athenians and Romans, and sub-groups of ancient Athenians and Romans, imagine connections and differences between themselves and others peoples? How far did the societies of classical identity have concepts of race, ethnicity, citizenship, nations or gender identities and sexualities that correspond at all closely to our own? Why do these issues matter to us, and what can we learn from these ancient societies?

An exploration of the classical texts, spiritual teachings, epic narratives, and religious movements that have shaped a complex civilization for some three thousand years, from the Indus Valley to today. Readings in primary sources - Vedas and Upanishads, Buddhist and Jain teachings, the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita, Bhakti and Sufi poets, Sikh gurus and Muslim kings. Attention to the creation of a rich and composite civilization and the ways in which these sources continue to be of significance to the understanding of modern India.

Why are women well represented in some fields of scientific study but not others? Do gender beliefs influence the content of scientific knowledge? How is gender encoded in the practices and norms of science? This course explores the intersection of gender and science from Bacon's seventeenth century call to raise a "masculine" science to the present. Topics include: girls, boys, and science education; gender and technology; women in the science professions; bias and objectivity in science; and gender and science in literature, film, and popular culture.

What is meaning, and how do we use it to communicate? We address the first of these questions via the second, presenting an interdisciplinary approach to the study of human languages. We investigate language as the product of a natural algorithm, that is, a computational facility which grows spontaneously in our species and enables us to expose our thoughts and feelings. Our investigation uses formal models from logic, linguistics, and computer science. These models will also shed light on human nature and basic philosophical issues concerning language.

A commonsensical survey of rational theories of politics comprised of: (1) individual choice, (2) group choice, (3) collective action, and (4) institutions. The underlying theme is that politics may be described and understood as rational, goal-seeking behavior by citizens, politicians, bureaucrats, and interest groups in various settings. Students are encouraged to think deeply about current events, history, and public life generally, as well as to analyze the politics of private life--in families, clubs, firms, churches, universities, even Harvard Houses--since private politics, like public politics, may be understood in terms of rational behavior. Instruction is by lecture, small-group section interactions, and experiments.

This course has three objectives: to learn to calculate probabilities precisely, when we can; to learn how to estimate them, when we can't; and to say exactly what we can and can't infer from these calculations. The course is not mathematically demanding--we assume no mathematical background beyond high-school algebra--but the goal is serious: given that we're asked every day to make consequential decisions on the basis of incomplete knowledge, an understanding of basic probability is an essential tool for life.

This course explores the statistical reasoning underlying everyday life: learn to inform ordinary decisions with statistical understanding and critically assess information reported in the news. Topics include the implications and validity of medical studies; the interpretation and common pitfalls of surveys and election polls; the motivation for diversifying stock portfolios; the strategies behind online dating websites; and the optimal design for wine tastings. The course also unravels fallacies and paradoxes that often mislead. Students will develop the ability to identify, appreciate, and question the frequent appeals to statistical principles encountered in real life.

The concepts and principles of symbolic logic: valid and invalid arguments, logical relations of statements and their basis in structural features of those statements, the analysis of complex statements of ordinary discourse to uncover their structure, the use of a symbolic language to display logical structure and to facilitate methods for assessing arguments. Analysis of reasoning with truth-functions ("and", "or", "not", "if...then") and with quantifiers ("all", "some"). Attention to formal languages and axiomatics, and systems for logical deduction. Throughout, both the theory underlying the norms of valid reasoning and applications to particular problems will be investigated.

There is the mathematics behind statistics, and then there are the concepts - without a proper grasp of which you will all too likely fall prey to confusion, error, and even outright deception. This course will teach you a bit about the math, and a lot about the concepts. Take it and achieve enlightenment about such topics as the difference between probability and risk, the nature of statistical inference, and the connections between correlation and causation.

As data sets get larger and larger, visual tools for exploring them become even more important. "The Art of Numbers" focuses on the insight into quantitative information offered by graphs, tables, charts, maps, and other illustrations. The course explores which graphical tool(s) are best for communicating what kinds of data, and why? Ideas about causality, approximation, statistical significance, credibility, and dimensionality are addressed by analyzing real data and their display. Examples are drawn from epidemiology, astronomy, sports, social-science, finance, geography, politics and economics. Approximately one-half of the course material focuses on web, interactive, and live presentations of data. Textbooks include classic work by Edward Tufte.

Health and medical care pervade every aspect of our lives. This course uses quantitative methods (graphical analysis, algebra, data analysis) to examine issues related to health, disease, and systems for delivering health care. Topics to be covered include differences in health between rich and poor countries, differences in types of medical care and who receives it, and the political context for reforming health care policy. Techniques for analysis will be developed and demonstrated in class and section. The course uses examples from a variety of international settings, but focuses mainly on health and health care in the US.

Maps are often the most effective way to stimulate spatial reasoning and provoke new understandings about our world's phenomena. This course introduces contemporary map design, geographic informations systems (GIS) and spatial analysis; our emphasis will be on the concepts and techniques that empower new spatial insights into our world.

What we eat determines our well-being every day, our mental and physical performance, and our long-term health and disease prospects. Understanding how to optimize our diet requires in-depth knowledge of the impact of foods and nutrients on our body. In this course we will evaluate scientific research on nutrition and health. We will discuss diet recommendations in the U.S. and abroad, how nutrition policies are created and how food policies can generate controversies. Learn how to evaluate nutrition paradigms and how to separate myths from science. Acquire skills to assess your own diet and make relevant nutrition choices to maintain long-term health.

What are human rights? Why would individuals have such rights? How can rights be universal, and what rights are universal? How can human rights rhetoric be criticized? This course will approach these and related questions philosophically, but with an eye to international politics.

Criminal trials have served throughout history to enforce revolutionary change, to impose conformity and stifle dissent, or, alternatively, to advance democracy. Students examine trials in their historical and moral context to weigh such issues as who can prosecute; can crimes be defined after the fact; can punishing speech be justified? Cases include Socrates, Louis XVI, General Dyer, the Soviet purges, Nuremberg, Eichmann, American cold-war hearings, and today's international tribunals and truth commissions.

How is human freedom possible? Does acting freely mean acting in accordance with reasons or acting arbitrarily, or neither? Are values chosen, discovered, or invented? How is self-knowledge possible and how is it different from the knowledge of others? Specific issues to be discussed include: self-deception and bad faith; the nature of freedom and autonomy; subjectivity and our relation to others; rationality and irrationality. Readings, which will provide an introduction to a few of the major texts of Existentialism, will be drawn from Kant, Sartre, Dostoevsky, and various contemporary writers.

This course will examine the ways in which a concept of God has informed Western moral discourse trying to help students engage the literature as they consider why one might think "if there is no God, all is permitted" and why one might think if there is a God, human moral achievement is impossible.

Predicated on the assumption that global concerns are manifest in highly particularized cultural and religious circumstances, this course seeks to understand Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian framings of and prospective solutions to the problem of communal violence in the contemporary world. Topics examined in each tradition include: conceptions of moral subjectivity, frameworks for moral education, close reading of novels that grapple with the moral challenges (especially new forms of violence) wrought by colonization and globalization, and explicitly religious responses to such violence in the work of Mahatma Gandhi, Buddhist monastic communities in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

What is the best way to live a fuller and more ethical life? Concretely what should we do to begin to live in a more flourishing and inspiring way? Questions such as these were at the heart of philosophical debates in China. The answers that classical Chinese thinkers developed in response to these questions are among the most powerful in human history. Regardless of whether one agrees with them or not, they should be studied and taken seriously by anyone who cares about ethics, politics, and the ways to live life more fully.

An inquiry into basic moral beliefs and their metaphysical assumptions in the high cultures of Western and Eastern civilizations. The background concern is our struggle, in philosophy, religion, and art, with nihilism: the fear that our lives and the world itself may be meaningless. The foreground theme is the contrast between two answers to the question about how to live one's life: stay out of trouble and look for trouble. How speculative thought has dealt with the limits of insight into what matters most. Exemplary writings from several traditions: modern European, ancient Greek, Chinese, South Asian.

An examination of moral questions that arise in the context of social protest in the US during the 20th century, including the central question of political philosophy: How can political authority be justified? After studying the Attica prison revolt of 1971, we will consider the following questions: Is there an obligation to obey the law? What, if any, are the moral limits to this obligation? Can civil disobedience be justified, and does it always need to be? Texts include classic excerpts from Plato, Hobbes, Rawls, and Marx.

This course considers how Tolstoy and Dostoevsky take up moral inquiry in their fiction, introduces students to philosophical texts that informed their major fiction, and asks why the novel as a literary genre may be a good forum for the discussion of ethics. We will read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and The Brothers Karamazov, as well as selected texts from Rousseau, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and others.

A sustained discussion of the obstacles and the opportunities that the established traditions of Western philosophy, social theory and the humanities present to those who see time as real, history as open, novelty as possible, and social and cultural transformation as imperative. The central theme is how thought deals with the creation of the new. Special attention to three European philosophers -- Hegel, Marx, and Bergson, as well as to those strands in contemporary philosophy and social thought that bear most closely on our concerns. No prerequisites other than willingness to consider a wide range of problems, materials, and ideas.

Globalization is changing the world. What do wealthy countries have to do to contribute towards the creation of a just world? We start by exploring different approaches to the question of whether obligations of justice apply only to those who share a country. We will then assess whether the global order harms the poor. Next we look at human rights and ask whether liberal values should be promoted as universal human rights. We will complete the course by exploring three additional subjects: moral obligations arising from trade (specifically whether labor standards should be linked with human rights standards), immigration, and environmental justice.

Philosophers and politicians alike struggle to set the terms for living a good life in a world of conflict. How do court counselors and professional philosophers speak truth to power? How do rulers - and citizens like ourselves - weigh the competing demands of liberty and order, self-fulfillment and self-restraint? Moving from Plato and the Bible to responses to Hitler's Mein Kampf, this course will examine particularly rich examples of relations between the pursuit of wisdom and the pursuit of power, from the extremes of conflict (the executions of Socrates, Jesus, Sir Thomas More) to the opposite dream of the philosopher king.

The term "security" has enjoyed a complex and ambivalent career. Broadly defined as a "removal of care," security leaves its subjects either carefree or careless. Pursuing an itinerary from the Stoics to psychoanalysis, from international relations to feminist theory, the course draws out the ethical implications of the persistent concern to be free of concern. Does "security" make us vigilant or negligent, confident or complacent? Does it promote more fear than it assuages? Is a security purchased with freedom or human rights morally viable? Such questions broach a more informed, nuanced, and critical engagement concerning our civic, professional and personal lives.

Disease and medicine have generated ethical dilemmas that have challenged patients and doctors for centuries, from abortion and euthanasia to informed consent and compulsory treatment. Although moral philosophy can clarify the relevant issues, resolution often depends on the details of the specific clinical and social contexts. Taking a historical approach to medical ethics, this class explores how the moral discourse in health care has changed over time in order to understand how social factors influence the persuasiveness of moral arguments. The focus will be on medical practice in the United States in the twentieth century.

What is liberty? What considerations justify taking away an individual's freedom? All modern political philosophies and all forms of government claim to be liberating individuals or groups from oppression, but can these claims withstand critical scrutiny? Is power in the hands of the state the best way to secure the freedom and happiness of individuals? Beginning with an intellectual history of ideas of freedom in the Western tradition, the course proceeds to examine a series of issues and debates that invoke the value of freedom in the modern world: taxation, private property, public speech, and government attempts to shape and regulate the individual's behavior and morality.

Ethical relations among people have always implied (whether directly or covertly) a preferred connection between people and nature. This course offers a critical and historical analysis of selected texts that identify human beings as a distinctively ethical species within the natural world, with particular attention to the emergence of normative theories that rank people with and against other natural beings. Topics include: definitions of wilderness and property; social hierarchies based on "natural" differences; agriculture, modern science, industrialization, and consumer economies as historic redefinitions of the human place within nature; animal rights; and environmentalism and its critics.

Institutions make modern life possible by organizing human interactions on a massive scale. We generally benefit from the incentives, norms, and information that institutions provide. However, if corrupted, institutions can cause grave harm. This course will introduce students to "institutional corruption" and equip them with the intellectual tools needed to diagnose, understand, and address its problems. The first half of the semester will draw on economic theory, political philosophy, psychology, and sociology to understand institutional corruption. The second half will examine cases of institutional corruption in medicine, finance, politics, courts, journalism, and academic research and further explore strategies for reform.

What is the power of a story? For several thousand years Adam and Eve were the protagonists in the central origin myth of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim worlds. That myth was the arena for ethical reasoning about transgression and innocence, sexuality, gender roles, labor, suffering, and death. Jointly taught by History of Art and Architecture and English, our course focuses on this enigmatic story and its spectacular elaborations in theology, philosophy, literature and art. Above all, looking closely at some of the greatest achievements of European art and literature- from Durer, Michelangelo and Rembrandt to Milton's Paradise Lost- we will compare the possibilities of the verbal and visual arts in portraying human being.

Is there a point to life as a whole? That is the question about the "meaning of life," a question that is notoriously hard to make precise but has animated much literature, art and philosophy. Philosophers have provided both very disheartening answers and more uplifting ones. Serious scrutiny of such answers should be of interest to anybody who wishes to make reflection on her/his life as a whole part of her/his education. This class is wide-ranging, but its main focus is on contributions by relatively recent thinkers in the Anglo-American analytical tradition of philosophy.

What should be the role of money and markets in our society? Are there some things that money should not be able to buy? For example: Should people be permitted to buy sex, votes, babies, citizenship, or college admission? What about buying and selling the right to pollute, procreate, immigrate, discriminate, or to hunt endangered species? Should we use markets to allocate health care, education, and military service?

Is morality found or made? Every belief comes from someplace and somewhere, but we rarely think this affects its truth. (Was the theory of relativity false before Albert Einstein discovered it in a particular place and time?) But perhaps morality is not like this, and is not neatly separable from the pathways and contexts thanks to which it comes to our attention. Taking contemporary human rights norms, laws, and movements as a case study, this course examines this possibility.

Molecules form the basis of heredity, govern how our bodies develop, allow us to respond to changes in our environment, and carry our thoughts. This course explores the roles of molecules through case studies of our bodies' messengers, modern drugs, and the future of medicine. Examples include sexual development, metabolism, diabetes, nerve transmission, psychiatric disease, infectious disease, cancer, aging and stem cells. Students will connect to lecture material in discussion section through hands-on activities and role-playing scenarios.

An interdisciplinary exploration of Darwin's ideas and their impact on science and society. The course links the history of Darwin's ideas with the key features of modern evolutionary biology. We review the development of the main elements of the theory of evolution, highlighting the areas in which Darwin's ideas have proved remarkably robust and areas in which subsequent developments have significantly modified the theory. By also analyzing the historical context of the development of evolutionary thought beyond Darwin, the course emphasizes the dynamic interplay between science and society.

Developmental Psychology explores, first, how universal human capacities arise in ontogenesis and, second, how people come to have their unique suite of skills and personalities. First, the origins and development of space perception, mathematical capacity, moral judgments, and concepts of objects, agents, and social relations are studied in relation to two larger time scales: biological evolution and historical/cultural change. Second, the course looks at individual differences in IQ, executive functioning, and social relationships. The interplay between psychological and biological levels of analysis in accounting both for universal development and for individual differences is discussed throughout.

How and why did humans evolve to be the way we are, and what are the implications of our evolved anatomy and physiology for human health in a post-industrial world? Why do we get sick, and how can we use principles of evolution to improve health and wellbeing? To address these questions, this course reviews the major transitions that occurred in human evolution, from the divergence of the ape and human lineages to the origins of modern humans. Also considered are the many effects of recent cultural and technological shifts such as agriculture and industrialization on human health.

The course emphasizes neural, cardiopulmonary, endocrine, and reproductive human biology, with a focus on important public health issues. Students will explore critical determinants of their own health as well as the health of diverse communities in rich and poor countries. Topics include the normal functioning of the human body and its responses to infection, injury, and environmental stress. We will discuss the relative power of diagnosis and treatment of disease (medicine) versus primary prevention of disease (public health) in promoting global health. Activities include lectures, demonstrations, 3 guided laboratories, and a directed term paper.

This course will introduce students to nutrition and global health problems through exploration of demographic, epidemiological, biological, social, political, and economic determinants of nutritional status. Emphasis will be placed on the role of nutritional status and dietary intake, both as a determinant and as a consequence, of these health problems. Students will be encouraged to think critically about the major challenges to improve nutrition and health at a global level, with a focus on nutrition and infectious diseases, maternal and child health, and chronic diseases. Nutritional assessment, study design, and efficacy of nutrition interventions, will be explored in detail.

An introduction to the sciences of mind, including foundational concepts from neuroscience, evolution, genetics, philosophy, and experimental methods, and specific topics such as perception, memory, reasoning and decision-making, consciousness, child development, psychopathology, personality, language, emotion, sexuality, violence, morality and social relations.

Many important marine fish stocks are over-harvested and their futures are in doubt. Other human activities, such as pollution and anthropogenic climate change, are also affecting the stability and productivity of marine ecosystems. This course will ask what we need to know about the causes and effects of anthropogenic change to best protect marine ecosystems and ensure sustainable harvests from the sea.

Forests cover nearly one third of the earth's land surface area. They provide a vast range of products and services to human civilization, and are important for economic and cultural reasons. This class will provide students with an introduction to the biology and ecology of forest ecosystems. An overarching theme throughout the course will be to understand how climate change will affect forests and the ecological services we derive from them, and in turn how forests can affect their own growth environment and climate change itself.

This course will review the devastating impact of representative infectious diseases on wars, politics, economics, religion, public health, and society as reflected in history, literature, and the arts. We will study how infections spawned revolutionary epidemiologic and scientific advances in detection, treatment, and prevention. We will address the gaps between discovery and implementation, including ethical, social, economic, and health systems barriers to progress. We will confront challenges posed by microbial mutation (e.g., antibiotic resistance, evasion of immunity, and adaptation of animal viruses to humans). By weaving together knowledge from science and the humanities, students will understand the historical and contemporary impact of infections and potential solutions to the challenges they pose.

Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods, claim thousands of lives and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage each year. Moreover, changes in Earth's climate are raising sea level, changing precipitation patterns, and likely causing an increase in the occurrence of damaging storms, putting more of our increasing exposed global population at risk. In this course we develop an understanding of these natural hazards from an earth science perspective, and examine several case studies to assess their catastrophic impacts. Given our scientific understanding of these phenomena, we examine ways to assess and forecast future natural disasters, and to mitigate the adverse impacts to our societies. Sections will emphasize the use of GIS technology to measure the impacts of natural hazards.

Sound and music are integral parts of all human cultures, and play critical roles in communications and social interactions. In this course, we reach a high level of understanding for the production, transmission, and perception of sound, including psychoacoustics, with the aim of expanding communication, musical, and artistic horizons. The course is front loaded with class demos and hands on tools for the student to discover by exploring. Student selected projects (with staff consultation) are an important part of the course. The course book, written by the professor, Why You Hear What You Hear, is a full-fledged resource and guide.

The story of Earth from the inception of the universe at the Big Bang to the revolution in planetary function and capability associated with the rise of human civilization. The aim of the course is to place human beings in a universal and planetary context, and to see the steps in planetary evolution as an essential perspective on how we relate to Earth today. Topics covered include the Big Bang, origin of the elements, formation of minerals, origin of the solar system, formation of planets, climate regulation, origin of life, co-evolution of ocean, atmosphere, solid earth and biosphere, development of plate tectonics, the modern Earth as an interconnected system, and the human era and its consequences for the planet. Current environmental problems can then be considered in a planetary context. Finally we consider whether Earth may be a microcosm reflecting laws of planetary evolution that may be common to a class of planets throughout the universe, or alternatively may be a low probability accident.

Albert Einstein has become the icon of modern science. Following his scientific, cultural, philosophical, and political trajectory, this course aims to track the changing role of physics in the 20th- and 21st- centuries. Addresses Einstein's engagement with relativity, quantum mechanics, Nazism, nuclear weapons, philosophy, and technology, and raises basic questions about what it means to understand physics and its history. This is a hybrid course that will combine online lessons with an active, participatory class structure.

We study how our understanding of time and of related issues, such as the predictability of the future, have evolved over the past three centuries. We start with Newtonian mechanics, which envisions a universal time, symmetric between past and future. This leads to the concept of a clockwork universe. We then see how developments in the 19th and 20th centuries destroy this view of time. In the 19th century, the distinction between past and future emerges from considerations of statistical processes. In the 20th century, the theory of relativity forces fundamental changes in the concept of time. Time ceases to be universal and becomes entangled with space and gravity. Quantum mechanics limits the predictability of the future and introduces verified effects so weird that Einstein wrote of them, "No reasonable definition of reality could be expected to permit this."

The nature and history of matter revealed by astronomical observation and experimental physics. Explores the Big Bang and the accelerating universe, stellar evolution and supernova explosions, evidence for invisible matter and dark energy, and the development of structure in the universe. Demonstrates the physical principles used to interpret astronomical data and to construct a history of the evolution of the universe on the microscopic and cosmic scales. Examines the way microscopic properties of matter determine properties of people, stars, galaxies, and the universe as a whole.

This course views life through multiple lenses. Quantum physics involves uncertainty and randomness, and yet paradoxically it explains the stability of molecules, such as DNA, that encode information and are critical to life. Thermodynamics is about the universe's ever increasing disorder, and yet living systems remain ordered and intact. This course will examine how these physical laws underpin life and how life itself has diversified since originating 3.5 billion years ago.

Direct measurements of the stars and Sun with telescopes at the Science Center to learn how we can understand our solar system, Galaxy and the distant Universe from stars, the basic building blocks and markers of cosmic evolution. In small sections, students conduct both visual and computer-assisted telescope observations to measure key properties of stars and formulate their own cosmic understanding from simple physical laws. Solar observations are done in class on clear days; stellar observations use the 16in computer-controlled Clay Telescope on the Science Center rooftop in weekly 1hour evening sections, which include data analysis and discussion of lecture and readings.

Science is like well-woven, ever-expanding fabric, designed to (un)cover Nature's secrets. This course emphasizes the strong connections between subfields of science, showing it as the never-ending and greatest detective story ever told, with evidence always the arbiter. These characteristics are exhibited in the semi-historical treatment of three themes: unveiling the universe, the earth and its fossils, and the story of life.

From the digital revolution to bio informatics, from global warming to sustainability, and from national security to renewable energy, technology plays a critical role in shaping our lives. In this course, the students will be exposed to applied science and engineering concepts that span disciplines and examine broadly how technology shapes society and vice versa. It will emphasize both qualitative and quantitative analysis, modelling, and the importance of a conceptual understanding of science and technology in tackling the grand challenges facing global society.

The course provides an historical account of the evolution of the modern energy system, from early dependence on human and animal power, to the subsequent use of wind and water, to more recent reliance on fossil fuels - coal, oil and natural gas - and even more recently to the development of the ability to tap the energy contained in the nucleus. It will discuss the important historical advances in the applications of energy, notably in the production and distribution of electricity and in the transportation sector - where oil-derived products provide the motive force for cars, trucks, trains, ships and planes. It will highlight the energy related problems we confront today, with particular emphasis on air pollution, on the threat of global climate change, on the hazards of nuclear proliferation, and on the risks to national security imposed by our increasing reliance on imported sources of oil. It concludes with a discussion of options for a more sustainable energy future.

We use the theme of primitive navigation to open the eyes of students to the physical world in a direct and palpable manner. Basic principles include human cognition of physical and mental maps, dead reckoning, direction finding from nature. The course includes the basics of astronomy, including planetary orbits, meteorology, thermodynamics, bird behavior, electromagnetic radiation, optics, waves, tides, ocean currents, and fluid dynamics. Navigational practices of Pacific Islanders, Norse, medieval Arabs, and early western Europeans provide a focus. Some facility with algebra and trigonometry is useful. A series of hands-on projects are employed to understand navigational practices discussed in lecture.

This course is a collaboration between world-class chefs and Harvard professors. Each week, a chef will lecture about some aspect of gastronomy. This lecture will introduce and motivate a lecture about the science of soft materials by a Harvard professor. The course will cover the basic concepts in the science of soft materials, providing a solid understanding of their properties and behavior. All food is made of soft materials, and cooking relies on many of their fundamental properties. The course will also include laboratory work that uses concepts of cooking to understand and motivate experimental measurements on soft materials.

What we perceive as "reality" is the best effort of our senses to interpret a deeper, largely invisible, reality that is unnervingly strange. This course will survey the world of very small things, objects with dimensions of nanometers and micrometers. The behaviors of these objects are often entirely counterintuitive; they can also be quite useful. Micro- and nanostructures are the basis both of fundamentally new science, and of ubiquitous technologies: quantum dots, computers, the biological nanomotors that power muscle, buckyballs, tools for examining single mammalian cells, lasers. The course will describe these objects and how they function; it will also touch on issues of commercialization, economics, public policy, and ethics that spring from the avalanche of discovery and invention in this area.

This course will examine future climate change in the context of Earth history, and then consider various strategies for what might be done to deal with it. The likely impacts of continued greenhouse gas emissions will be explored, emphasizing the scientific uncertainties associated with various predictions, and how this can be understood in the context of risk. In the latter third of the class, the question of how to mitigate climate change will be discussed, including an examination of various options for advanced energy systems.

This course considers the relationship between life and the planet on which it resides. It examines the scientific quest to understand where life might thrive beyond Earth. On Earth, life was born of planetary processes and has been sustained by plate tectonics and other physical processes. Through evolution, life has in fact emerged as major influence on our planet's surface. Fundamental features of terrestrial life and evolution are addressed in the context of astronomy, planetary physics and chemistry. These, in turn, provide a basis for the exploration for other habitable planets, both within our solar system and in the greater universe.

The course provides an overview of the energy resources that we use to sustain our global economies, and explores the impact of these activities on our environment. We address the full life cycle of each energy resource, including its origins, methods used to explore for and exploit it, how it is used in our economies, and the environmental impacts of these activities. Topics include coal, petroleum (conventional and unconventional), nuclear power, geothermal systems, and renewable energy options (hydro, tidal, solar, wind power). Lectures and labs will introduce students to data and methods used in these energy and environmental sectors.

Modern China presents a dual image: a society transforming itself through economic development and infrastructure investment that aspires to global leadership; and the world's largest and oldest bureaucratic state, with multiple traditions in its cultural, economic, and political life. The modern society and state that is emerging in China will bear the indelible imprint of China's historical experience, of its patterns of philosophy and religion, and of its social and political thought. These themes are discussed in order to understand China in the 21st century and as a great world civilization that developed along lines different from those of the Mediterranean. This year the course introduces a variety of new online learning features.

Japan is a collection of islands, but its past and present unfolds through continuous interaction with wider worlds. This course places Japan in contexts of Asian and global history. It begins with the people, institutions, and ideas of premodern Japan, from the emergence of a court-centered state 1500 years ago to a warrior-dominated society centuries later. We then examine the tumultuous process of change from the 19th century through the present and explore how people in Japan have dealt with the dilemmas of modernity that challenge us all.

Less than a century ago the British Empire ruled a quarter of the world. This course surveys the empire's extraordinary rise and fall from the American Revolution to World War II. Course presents a narrative of key events and personalities, introduces major concepts in the study of British imperial history, and considers the empire's political and cultural legacies for the world today. Includes multimedia presentations, hands-on digital assignments, and engaging readings ranging from Niall Ferguson to Mahatma Gandhi.

Focus on the insurrectionary war, the consolidation of power, Fidel Castro's role, the role of organized labor and the peasantry, the US-Cuban conflict, the alliance with the Soviet Union, the choice of economic strategy, the "remaking of human beings," the role of intellectuals, and the support for revolutions in Africa and Latin America. The instructor debates himself, presenting two or more views on each topic. Readings include original documents in translation.

This course examines Europe from the aftermath of the world's most destructive war to today's euro crisis. Using the idea of "trials" both literally and figuratively, we will address the major themes of postwar retribution, the Cold War, decolonization, new social movements, the fall of Communism, the expanding European Union, and the dilemmas facing a pluralist and postcolonial Europe. The roles of vigilante justice, terrorism, social justice and economic welfare will also be explored. Students will study the transcripts and accounts of political trials to examine how these themes occurred and recurred in post-war Europe.

From the scientific revolution to the industrial revolution, from representative government to the consumer society, from capitalism to nationalism and socialism, the ideas and institutions of "the West" (meaning Europe and its colonies of settlement) came to dominate the world in the five centuries after around 1500. But what were the mainsprings of Western power? Taking a comparative historical approach, this course seeks to identify the key economic, cultural, social, political and military differences between the West and "the Rest."

A general overview of the patterns of social life in China and how these have changed since the revolution in 1949. The socialist transformations led by Mao Zedong after 1949 and the market and other reforms led by Deng Xiaoping after Mao's death receive equal emphasis. Topics covered include political institutions, work organizations, village life, cities, religion, family life, population control, gender relations, inequality, and schooling.

How did we come to live as we do? Why do we eat what we eat, wear what we wear, play the games that we play, take the SATs? The roots of a surprisingly large number of things that we now take for granted, as parts of everyday American life, lie deep in the Asian past. In this class you will learn to perceive global history in the American present, and more importantly, to make new historical discoveries yourself. You will master powerful new tools of research and presentation that will allow you to uncover the hidden ties binding our lives here and now with Asia centuries or even millennia ago, and to broadcast your original findings. No prior knowledge of Asian history or languages required. Limited enrollment.

This course introduces the global health challenges posed by failure to adequately reduce infections, malnutrition, and maternal-child health problems in the most vulnerable populations, escalating rates of non-communicable diseases/injuries, and emerging health risks that cross national boundaries. We will assess social responses to these challenges at the community, national, and global levels. Through an understanding of population health measures, we will examine patterns of disease/mortality between and within countries, capture important time trends, and identify determinants of health inequalities. While emphasizing science driven policy, comparative case examples will illuminate influential systemic factors, health system performance, and the economic/social/political climate.

Examines, through lectures and case-based discussions, a collection of global health problems rooted in rapidly changing social structures that transcend national and other administrative boundaries. Students will explore case studies (addressing AIDS, tuberculosis, mental illness, and other topics) and a diverse literature (including epidemiology, anthropology, history, and clinical medicine), focusing on how a broad biosocial analysis might improve the delivery of services designed to lessen the burden of disease, especially among those living in poverty.

Understanding Africa as it exists today requires an understanding of the broader historical trends that have dominated the continent's past. This course will provide an historical context for understanding issues and problems as they exist in contemporary Africa. It will offer an integrated interpretation of sub-Saharan African history from the middle of the 19th century and the dawn of formal colonial rule through the period of independence until the present time. Particular emphasis will be given to the continent's major historical themes during this period. Selected case studies will be offered from throughout the continent to provide illustrative examples of the historical trends.

This course seeks to provide a broad historical context in which to understand the contemporary political division on the Korean peninsula. It examines key historical forces that have created and shaped the two Koreas before, during, and after the actual partition of the country in 1945. Topics include nascent nation-building efforts between 1876 and 1910, the impact of Japanese colonialism and the Cold War, and North/South development and interaction after 1948. The course interweaves political, socioeconomic, and cultural themes within an historical framework centered on nation-building while also highlighting a number of major historiographical issues in modern Korean history.

This course studies the relationships between scientific study, aesthetic representation, and imperial power. Students will examine documentary and visual records of encounters between indigenous peoples, agents of rival empires, and the physical environment along the vast Siberian and Pacific frontiers.

Explorations of the mythical and social origins, glory days and political collapse of the Aztec Empire and Maya civilizations followed by study of the sexual, religious and racial interactions of the "Great Encounter" between Mesoamerica and Europe. Focus on the archaeology, cosmovision, human sacrifice, divine kingship, the mystery of 2012 and rebellion in Mesoamerican cities and in colonialism. Hands-on work with objects at the Peabody Museum aid in examining new concepts of race, nation and the persistence of Moctezuma's Mexico in Latino identities in the Mexico-US Borderlands.

Alternative ways of thinking about contemporary market economies and their reconstruction, explored in three contexts: the recent worldwide financial and economic crisis and the struggle for recovery, the effort to advance socially inclusive economic growth in richer as well as in poorer countries, and the character and consequences of globalization. Special attention given to the relation between institutional alternatives at the level of the economy as a whole and organizational alternatives at the level of the firm. In considering these substantive themes, we also explore the nature of economics as a discipline: its past, present, and future. Students should have some acquaintance with economics, but no advanced training is required.

Tokyo has been one of the world's great metropolitan centers since the 17th century, both the urban hub of Japanese society and culture, and the place where Japanese domestic society and global influences have intersected. This course examines trajectories of change in Tokyo's urban culture, lifestyles, social structure, and spatial environment across the city's history, using ethnography, history, literature, diaries, architecture, photography, art, cartography, animation, film and the Internet to explore Tokyo as an urban culture in comparative perspectives drawn from anthropology, history, and other social sciences.

Caribbean societies are largely the economic and political creations of Western imperial powers and are among the earliest products of globalization. Though in the West, they are only partly of it, and their popular cultures are highly original blends of African, European and Asian forms. The course examines the area as a system emerging through genocide, piracy, plantation slavery, colonialism and globalization, from a situation of great social and cultural diversity to the present tendency toward socio-economic and cultural convergence. Patterns of underdevelopment and government are explored through national case studies (Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica & Haiti) and selected, region-wide modern issues (hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters; migration & transnationalism; crime & drug trafficking), as are cultural adaptations through studies of Afro-Caribbean religions, folkways, and music. America's special role in the region is emphasized.

This course is a study in the relations between majorities and minorities in modern Europe, using the Jews as a focus. It will examine the ways in which the equal status of a minority is negotiated through cultural and political interaction, both subtle and blunt. It will further focus on the role that such negotiations have in the formation of identities of both the majority and the minority. Finally, it will examine the ways in which majorities can exercise control over minorities rendering them conditionally rather than fully equal participants in the national projects of the age.

This course provides the historical depth and the comparative context in which to understand contemporary South Asia through an historical inquiry into the making and multiple meanings of modernity. It explores the history, culture, and political economy of the subcontinent which provides a fascinating laboratory to study such themes as colonialism, nationalism, partition, the modern state, economic development, refashioning of religious identities, center-region problems and relations between Asia and the West. Significant use of primary written sources (in English) and multi-media presentations.

This course introduces the emigration of people from China to other parts of the world over the last five centuries. It considers the causes of emigration, the ties that emigrants retained to China, and the communities that Overseas Chinese created abroad. It compares the experiences of emigrants and their descendants in Southeast Asia and in North America. Last, it tries to situate the recent wave of Chinese migration to North America in global and historical context.

Surveys ancient Egyptian pharaonic civilization. Emphasizes Egyptian material culture: pyramids, temples, tombs, settlements, and artifacts. Explores major developmental themes that defined the Egyptian state: the geographical landscape, kingship, social stratification, and religion. Follows a chronological path with excursions into Egyptian art, history, politics, religion, literature, and language (hieroglyphs). Also touches on contemporary issues of object repatriation, archaeology and cultural nationalism, and the evolution of modern Egyptology. Includes field trips to the Egyptian collections of the Peabody Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, along with immersive 3D computer models in Harvard's Visualization Center. No prior experience in Egyptology expected.

This course guides students on an exploration of the largest and most complex civilization of Pre-Columbian America-the Inca Empire of Andean South America. We will address such questions as how did a civilization emerge and thrive at 12,000 feet above sea level? How could a state-level society exist without markets, the wheel, or writing? In addition to lectures and discussions, students will experience the products of Inca civilization through hands-on study of artifacts in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

This course will examine the emergence of medieval civilization from the ruins of the ancient world, and the evolution of that civilization into modern Europe. Themes include: the fall of Rome, the spread of Christianity, the rise and fall of Byzantium, the challenge of Islam, the Vikings, the Crusades, commerce and agriculture, the Feudal Revolution, the Twelfth Century Renaissance, spirituality and persecution, the origins of law and government, the Black Death, and the Italian Renaissance.

Examines the origins, military history, and successive postwar settlements of World Wars I and II in the framework of evolving empires, fascist, communist, and democratic ideological mobilization, forced resettlement and cultures of mass violence, ongoing economic and social change (and persistence). Attention to Asian and African as well as European and American transformations.

On July 8, 1853, Commodore Mathew C. Perry steamed into Japan's Edo Bay with four heavily armed US Navy warships. Two were the so-called "black ships," ominously painted coal-burning steamships of the latest design. There, within view of a stunned populace, Perry issued an ultimatum: open the country to trade or face unstoppable bombardment. Thus began Japan's modern engagement with the outside world, a new chapter in the broader encounter between "East" and "West." Through primary sources, discussion and lecture, this course examines Japan's rapid development from samurai-led feudalism into the world's first non-Western imperial power.

This course surveys the nature, types and extent of modern servitude, distinguishing broadly between those resulting from international trafficking such as trans-national prostitution, human smuggling into bonded labor, child soldiering and organ trafficking, and more intra-national forms such as debt-bondage and the domestic exploitation of women and other vulnerable groups. Examines the conceptual and theoretical issues raised in attempts to distinguish among these types of differential power relations; the empirical difficulties of estimating the magnitude of what are inherently secretive processes; and the ideological controversies surrounding the subject. Explores ethical, socio- political and practical issues raised by these trends.

The interaction between sedentary and nomadic civilizations is one of the great themes of human history. This course focuses on the classic case of relations between China and Inner Asia from ancient times to the 21st century. Approaching the problem from historical and theoretical perspectives, the course addresses the political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions of the storied Great Wall frontier.

The Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Oman and Yemen) is the focus of this course. Among topics to be addressed are: tribal organization and its continuing importance; gender relations; varieties of Islam and their influence; old and new forms of urbanism. Primary reading materials are ethnographic.

South Asia is home to two of the world's seven billion people. The primary objective of the course is to engage students with the modern day challenges affecting South Asia, and to examine a range of entrepreneurial attempts to solve these problems. The course focuses on several categories of social and economic problems faced by the countries of South Asia, with specific focus on the realms of Education, Health, Financial Inclusion, and Urbanization. The goal is to understand ways in which entrepreneurial action can effectively tackle major socioeconomic problems in South Asia, by combining knowledge of historical causes, qualitative and quantitative evidence, and context-specific knowledge of the commonalities and differences across South Asian countries. No prior knowledge of South Asia is required.

China was home to the world's largest economy two centuries ago. Two decades from now, it will be the world's largest economy again. This course uses business as a lens through which to study modern China. Using new Harvard Business School cases, we explore traditional family firms and internet startups; state-owned enterprises and their private-sector challengers; and the catalytic role of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and foreign enterprise in shaping contemporary China. Case studies cast light on larger themes: the role of party and government (national and local) in business and society; the legal environment; and the global impact of China's development.

Political corruption exists everywhere, but which countries are most corrupt? Do highly corrupt countries share common characteristics? How much corruption is there? The social costs of political corruption, from the stealing of public funds to bribes paid to avoid basic safety and health regulations, are often extremely high. Why are so few recent attempts to fight corruption successful? The course is comparative, draws historical connections, and as far as possible requires no background knowledge.

This course examines the historical, social, and political life of nature in its many manifestations--as a source of life and livelihood, as a resource for exploitation, as a heritage to be protected, and as a post-industrial hybrid--in order to understand the variety of human interactions with the natural environment. Through a focus on property relations, imperialism, development, and science, students will be exposed to the intimate connection between social inequality and ecological degradation, and encouraged to envision possibilities for a future of greater equality and sustainability.

From the Middle East to the Pacific rim, Russia is re-emerging as a major player on the world stage. Russia has transitioned in significant ways since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union ("the evil empire"), just as it did during the tumultuous aftermath of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that ended a 300-year imperial dynasty. Through in-depth, interdisciplinary examination of six key themes with contemporary as well as historical resonance (conquest, political terror, the environment, commerce, imaginative representations, and mobility), we will investigate the evolving concept of "Russianness" in a global context. Assignments include curation of a "Russia in the World" digital exhibit.

Uses the latest results of archaeology, written sources, environmental sciences, genetics, GIS, etc., to study the changes, violent or subtle, that transformed the Roman world to produce medieval civilization between ca. 300 and 700. Topics include Constantine's conversion; economic recovery, collapse and climate change; the barbarians; women and power; pandemic disease; emphasizes reading of ancient sources in translation, archaeology, and the sciences of the human past.

This course examines the origins, ideologies, and political strategies of twentieth and twenty-first century Islamist movements in the Middle East and beyond. We will pay particular attention to the evolution of these movements in the larger historical and political context, up to and including the Arab Spring. We will use primary sources in translation and in Arabic (for those with reading proficiency). There are no language or other prerequisites for this class.

Health care in America poses fundamental policy challenges to our ability to protect low income Americans from the costs of illness; to produce high quality care; to efficiently use health care resources, and to allow Americans to die without pain, in the company of family, as they desire. This course aims to offer students a solid understanding of the American health care system, the potential impact of new reform legislation, and challenges that will remain in the future.

An introduction to early American art from a transnational, cross-cultural perspective. We begin with the global struggle for control of the North American continent, tracing the colliding artistic traditions of multiple European colonial powers, Native American groups, and slave cultures. We then examine the cultural constitution of U.S. nationhood as it developed through (and against) the visual and material cultures of Europe and the Atlantic and Pacific worlds. Icons of a seemingly familiar national heritage-such as Washington's portrait on the dollar bill-are revealed as complex formal negotiations emerging from international dynamics of commerce, politics, religion, science, and migration.

Surveys major developments in the history of American medicine since 1500. Emphasis on setting the practice of medicine and the experience of health and disease into broad social, cultural, and political contexts. Topics include the social and cultural impact of epidemic disease; the nature of demographic and epidemiological change; the development of medical therapeutics and technologies; the growth of health care institutions; the rise of the medical profession; and debates about the allocation of health care resources. Evaluates the role of medicine in addressing social needs as well as the social and economic determinants of patterns of health and disease.

Is a fundamental transformation occurring in the American racial order? If so, are these changes for the better or the worse? We first briefly explore the history of American racial and ethnic dynamics, then examine four potentially transformative forces: high levels of immigration, rising multiracialism, links between genomic science and "race," and the changing behaviors and beliefs of young American adults. We then consider blockages to transformation: incarceration of nonAnglo men, wealth disparities, and treatment of Muslims and undocumented immigrants. We conclude by imagining various ideal futures for race and ethnicity in the U.S.

This course offers historical perspective on the social relations and relative power of the sexes, tracing changes and continuities over the past century in family lives, work, popular culture and politics. We will look at sexuality, masculinity, and femininity, centering these in US social, cultural and political history in the context of a wider world.

What difference does our Constitution make? Does it matter whether we think about it only as a text, as living practice, or as a set of mostly unwritten principles? This course will explore such questions by investigating several concrete constitutional controversies-about abortion, birth, and dying; about embryo research; about race and gender; about the Obama health insurance reform; about sexual intimacy and same-sex marriage; about religion, free speech, and campaign finance; about workers' rights; about informational privacy; and about emergency presidential action. Readings will be drawn from judicial and other writings about the Constitution, its history, and its interpretation.

Europeans "discovered" America in search of foodstuffs, specifically spices. And food has been central to the American experience from the starving time in early Virginia to the problem of obesity in the United States today. But what is American about American food? How have individual food choices and national food policies connected Americans to the larger world, both the social worlds of other human beings and the natural world of all other living beings?

A theoretical and historical survey of the evolution of republican (representative) government, with a particular focus upon European and American institutions. We will alternate between philosophical treatments and empirical studies of republican regimes. Questions include: How did republican government evolve (in England and France) centuries before mass elections? What institutions besides elections keep the ruled attuned to the people? Did arguments for legislative supremacy prefigure the rise of parliamentary authority? If so, how? How did modern republics co-evolve with institutions of slavery? What is the role of virtue in a democratic republic? How can government ensure the "rule of the wise" without fostering autocratic power? What critique might republican theory advance of populist and libertarian arrangements, and how populist and libertarian critics respond?

American cities have changed in extraordinary ways. In the last half of the 20th century, there was gloom about urban life and many cities were projected to decline and decay. Many did but Boston and other cities blossomed, becoming models of urban renaissance. Using Boston as a case, this course considers issues of economic change, technology, neighborhood inequality, political governance, elite relations, cultural institutions, crime, race and ethnic relations, immigration, gentrification and suburbanization. Regular guest speakers. Requirements: Several short memos on neighborhood visits, midterm essay,1 term paper, and active participation in class and section.

Even before the formal establishment of the United States, assumptions about sex have helped determine who is entitled to - and not entitled to - the privileges and protections of full citizenship. This course investigates the roles that sex, race, gender, and sexuality have played in configuring notions of citizenship over time as well as the ways in which sexual rights remain a site of contestation and struggle in the modern United States.

This course treats the history of the 19th-century US and the Civil War in light of the history of US imperialism, especially the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and the illegal invasions of Cuba and Nicaragua in the 1850s. Likewise, it relates the history of slavery in the US to the Haitian Revolution, the Louisiana Purchase, Indian removal, Atlantic cotton, land and money markets, and the hemispheric history of antislavery.

An interpretive look at the American city in terms of changing attitudes toward urban life. City and suburb are experienced as the product of design and planning decisions informed by cultural and economic forces, and in relationship to utopian and pragmatic efforts to reinterpret urban traditions in search of contemporary alternatives. Topics include: persistent ideals such as the single-family home, attitudes toward public and private space, the rise of suburbs and suburban sprawl, cycles of disinvestment and renewed interest in urban centers, and impacts of mobility and technology on settlement patterns.

People make history through the things they make, collect, exhibit, exchange, throw away, or ignore. Over four centuries, Harvard has not only amassed books and manuscripts but art works, scientific instruments and specimens, ethnographic objects, and historical relics of all sorts. By learning how and why particular things arrived in Cambridge and what happened to them when they got here, students will discover how material objects have shaped academic disciplines, reinforced or challenged social boundaries, and defined America's place in the world. This is an interactive course, with weekly visits to museums and close-up investigation of specimens and artifacts.

In the U.S., compared to other major nations, how have social problems been defined and redefined in recent decades; why do they appear differently to various groups; and how are public policies about problematic social conditions debated, devised, and changed? This course synthesizes various kinds of evidence-demographic, attitudinal, ethnographic, and institutional-to probe the creation and impact of major public policies about social support for families and workers; immigration and citizenship; and access to higher education.

An exploration of the dynamic religious landscape of the US with special focus on Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh traditions in the most recent period of post-1965 immigration. How are faith and freedom negotiated in a more complex society? In what contexts do minority religious communities encounter long-dominant Christian and Jewish communities? How is America changing as religious communities struggle with civic, constitutional, ethical, and theological issues, especially in the post-9/11 period? Readings, films, discussion, and class projects will focus on particular cases and controversies.

Religion has inspired new understandings of social and political engagement. From early protest oriented struggles for civil rights in the US to the more recent personal responsibility calls of neo-pentecostal discourses, this course takes African American religious engagement with the process of democracy as a starting point for thinking about how other communities around the world have employed religion as a means of advancing social change. Through ethnography, auto/biography, and documentary film, this class compares and contrasts the influence that religious moods and motivations have had on calls for democracy and social change in places like Latin America, the Middle East and West Africa. In each instance the course questions the place of the US government and US religious bodies in these global efforts towards change.

This interdisciplinary course reframes traditional understandings of the Civil War in three ways. First, by showing that civil conflict in the United States began well before 1861 and ended well after 1865, taking the form of slave uprisings and Klan terrorism, as well as conventional war. Second, by showing that the former Confederacy won this longer Civil War by establishing a new order of black freedom. And third, by placing this war in the context of international politics and trade. "Readings" range from fiction, film, letters, and speeches to poetry, pamphlets, prints and photographs, songs, and history.

Events such as Teach for America's 20th anniversary and films like Waiting for Superman highlight urgent concerns about the quality and reach of American schooling in the 21st century. Against this backdrop, the course grapples with several dilemmas that have defined American K-12 education throughout history. What constitutes educational excellence? Can excellence be achieved for everyone? Why do we have schools and what is their purpose? Given that families, politicians, and the courts often disagree vehemently about the answers to these questions, the course considers who and what will define the future of American education and its role in society.

What gives rise to entrepreneurial opportunity and innovative activity? How do innovators and entrepreneurs think about the world? How are organizations born and how do they grow? How can innovation and entrepreneurship address the major challenges facing the world? The course will address these questions by bringing together faculty members of Harvard University to provide a diverse set of perspectives on the nature of innovation and entrepreneurship. The course has three complementary pedagogical methods. Members of the Harvard Business School faculty will provide a set of interactive lectures using case studies that illustrate how for-profit and not-for-profit organizations recognize and capitalize on opportunities. Second, faculty members from around the University will provide lectures on specific areas related to their expertise. Third, a set of group projects that allow students to work in the field with sponsoring organizations will be completed over the course of the semester.

The United States has launched numerous projects of military occupation and nation-building in foreign lands since the late 19th century. These have been contradictory enterprises, carrying ideals of freedom and self-determination "offered" by force or by fiat. This course will assess the meanings and legacies of these projects by examining the ideas, strategies, policies, and outcomes of occupations ranging from the Philippines and Haiti early on, to Japan, Germany, and Korea in mid-century to, most recently, Afghanistan and Iraq. The course focuses on American activities and ideas but also examines the responses of the occupied.

Today we often hear that American democracy is broken-but what does a healthy democracy look like? How has American democratic governance functioned in the past, and how has it changed over time? This course approaches American history with these questions in mind. Based on the case method, each short reading will introduce students to a different critical episode in the development of American democracy, from drafting of the Constitution to contemporary fights over same-sex marriage. The discussion-based classes will encourage students to challenge each other's assumptions about democratic values and practices, and draw their own conclusions about what "democracy" means in America.

The US and major European states, including Russia and the Soviet Union, have tried to instill order upon the chaotic transatlantic and international relations of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This course examines their attempts to institute "new world orders" as the global Cold War unfolded, European empires gave way to European integration, and technology reshaped politics. It also explores the legacy of these events for international relations in the 1990s and the twenty-first century.

This course charts the key events, actors, ideas and strategies of collective movements for social change during the "long 1960s." It situates these mobilizations within the key economic, social and political developments in the post-World War II period in the United States and the world. Topics include Cold War politics from Eisenhower to Nixon, the civil rights movement, the new left, the women's movement, the war in Vietnam, black power, as well as the emergence of a revitalized political Right. The legacies of these movements and the more recent economic and political shifts that have challenged some of their core assumptions are also considered.