Survey of the principal Greek and Roman myths with selected readings in English from ancient and modern sources.
This special topics course consider the ancient world through the lens of history, culture, politics, and other such frameworks. This course may be repeated once for credit when the topic differs.
An introduction to the archaeology of ancient Greece and Rome.
Community Engaged Learning
This course considers the ways in which ethnicity, race, religion, gender, class and culture shape differential access to natural resources and a healthy living environment. Drawing on anthropological studies of local ecological knowledge, political economies and city and regional planning, the class asks how disproportionate experiences of environmental benefits and burdens can be redressed in societies around the globe. Students consider culturally-informed routes to food and water security and socioecological resilience in the wake of climate change.
This is a dynamic course in plant-human interaction that bridges cultural anthropology and related disciplines like economic botany, archaeology, and environmental history to explore a selection of economic plants that have shaped human society. This course follows case studies of select taxa to explore their origins and past uses, impacts of colonial encounters, effects of climate change, and other contemporary social and political entanglements. Special attention will be given to issues of plant use and Indigenous resilience, sovereignty, and cultural revitalization, as well as potential contributions to sustainable futures and agrobiodiversity.
This course provides an introduction to nutrition and focuses on the relationship between diet and health. Topics include physiological requirements and functions of protein, energy, and the major vitamins and minerals that are determinants of health and diseases in human populations. These basic concepts are applied to societal issues, including the role of diet in malnutrition, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Community engagement.
A selection of topics are explored depending on interest. This course may be repeated once for credit when the topic differs.
Public historians work with a variety of people and non-academic institutions, including community heritage groups, historical societies, and museums. In this course, students will explore the practice of conducting historical research in support of projects proposed by these institutions. This course will blend theory and experience by examining the cultural, intellectual, and economic implications of conducting public history research while exploring the practical aspects of conducting public history fieldwork.
Singing from the Sacred Harp hymnal represents an old but still rewarding Southern musical practice, suitable for all amateurs willing to sing loudly. In twice-a-week practices, we cover the fundamentals of shape-note singing and learn to sing in parts. Approximately once a month we travel to Alabama to participate in one of the traditional Sacred Harp singings.
Trade, migration, and widespread travel have transformed population health from a domestic to an international issue, one in which state cooperation is increasingly necessary. Investigating the role of international organizations, the media, advocacy groups, and individuals, this course questions how international cooperation can facilitate the promotion and protection of health. To do so, it considers a variety of theoretical approaches including the securitization of health and health as a human right. It also examines such issues as smallpox eradication, tobacco control, AIDS treatment, and bioterrorism agreements.
Students in this course participate in the legal representation of immigrants seeking benefits from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and complete readings and written assignments providing related academic content and context. Through direct case work and class seminars, students are prepared to think critically about the immigration system’s structures and procedures and the immigration attorney’s relationship to the system; they gain substantive knowledge of immigration laws and policies; and they develop basic lawyering skills.
An introductory course focusing on a topic or issue in psychology, designed for students who do not plan to pursue psychology as a major/minor. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs.
An examination of the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development of infants and children, with a primary emphasis on theoretical issues and scientific methodology. Development is presented as a process of progressive interaction between the active, growing individual and his or her constantly changing and multifaceted environment. Organized chronologically with an approximately equal emphasis on the prenatal through middle childhood periods of development. Includes a laboratory that focuses on designing and conducting studies (including data analyses) to answer empirical questions on human development.
Students will study different forms of community engaged theater and their impacts,including grassroots theater, devised theater, theater for social
change, and others. Students will apply these methodologies as they work with a Community Partner throughout the semester to create a performance. The semester-long collaboration and resulting performance will center topics of importance to the Community Partner and their mission. Through interviews, story circles, improvisational theater tools, and other techniques, students will create performances with and for the Community Partner. Although a theater class, all students interested in community dialogue are invited to join this highly collaborative course.
This interdisciplinary course approaches the study of food from a rhetorical perspective. Specifically, this course works to understand how the way we talk about meat reveals our assumptions about both gender and race. This class draws from cookbooks, memoirs, online “foodie” communities, and food studies scholarship to understand the diverse ways we communicate about every aspect of food from: its production and consumption, its connection to understandings of power; and its ties to pleasure. Furthermore, this class attempts to dismantle the human/animal binary, in order to create a more equitable world for living creatures.
Computer Science
An introduction to creative modeling of both natural and virtual worlds, in which students gain understanding of human interaction with computing devices as well as the expertise needed for further course work in computer science. Lab experiences using the explicit notation of a programming language reinforce the application of abstractions while affording practice in algorithmic problem solving and relevant theory.
An introduction to creative modeling of both natural and virtual worlds, in which students gain understanding of human interaction with computing devices as well as the expertise needed for further course work in computer science. Lab experiences using the explicit notation of a programming language reinforce the application of abstractions while affording practice in algorithmic problem solving and relevant theory.
This course provides students with a working knowledge of the power and potential of modern networked databases as well as of common uses and abuses. Students receive hands-on experience with open source development tools, which are widely used for building and placing databases on the web. Database development is explored, from conceptual elaboration through design and implementation, and interview techniques for effective database design are considered. Programming techniques are introduced for building, maintaining, accessing, interacting, and protecting the information in large data depositories. Discussions include consideration of concerns driving policy decisions for amassing and managing sensitive, and sometimes dangerous, information collections.
The design, implementation, and application of data structures and their algorithms, including stacks, queues, linked structures, trees and graphs. Other topics include elementary searching and sorting algorithms, pattern matching, and runtime performance analysis.
Introduction to interactive computer graphics including 2D and 3D viewing, clipping, hidden line/surface removal, shading, interaction handling, geometrical transformations, projections, and hierarchical data structures. Brief introductions to related and dependent fields of physically-based modeling and scientific visualization will be included.