HSS Courses (2022-23)

This course will survey the evolution of Mediterranean and European civilization from antiquity through the end of the Middle Ages. It will emphasize the reading and discussion of primary sources, especially but not exclusively literary works, against the backdrop of the broad historical narrative of the periods. The readings will present students with the essential characteristics of various ancient and medieval societies and give students access to those societies' cultural assumptions and perceptions of change.

This course offers a focused introduction to the practices of reading, thinking, and writing that characterize academic writing. More specifically, the course teaches students how to articulate a position, situate writing within specific contexts, engage with the work of others, locate and provide convincing evidence, and understand the expectations of different types of academic readers. Additionally, this course focuses on the challenges of academic writing that can be especially demanding for multilingual writers, including mastery of Academic English, understanding American academic conventions regarding citation and plagiarism, and being comfortable with American academic readers' expectations regarding argumentation and evidence. Students will take several writing projects through multiple stages of revision, improving their work with feedback from seminar discussions, workshops, and frequent one-to-one conferences with the instructor. Students are placed in Wr 1 based on a writing assessment that is required of all incoming students; successful completion of the course is required before taking first-year humanities courses. Enrolled students may be required to take Wr 3, 4, and/or 50 in subsequent quarters.

This course offers a focused introduction to the practices of reading, thinking, and writing that characterize academic writing. More specifically, the course teaches students how to articulate a position, situate writing within specific contexts, engage with the work of others, locate and provide convincing evidence, and understand the expectations of different types of academic readers. Students will take several writing projects through multiple stages of revision, improving their work with feedback from seminar discussions, workshops, and frequent one-to-one conferences with the instructor. Students are placed in Wr 2 based on a writing assessment that is required of all incoming students; successful completion of the course is required before taking first-year humanities courses. Enrolled students may be required to take Wr 3, 4, and/or 50 in subsequent quarters.

Designed to introduce students to the academic study of history, this course examines key issues and events that shaped the political, social, and cultural history of the United States in the Twentieth Century. Through a wide variety of historical sources-including primary documents, fiction, and music-students will explore issues such as popular culture, immigration and labor, the civil rights movement, political realignment, and American intervention abroad.

This course builds on Wr 1 or 2 for students who need additional instruction in both the core concepts and practices of academic writing before beginning their first-year humanities coursework. The course will focus on developing critical reading skills and composing successful academic essays. By taking several writing projects through multiple stages of revision, students will develop a deeper sense of their strengths and limitations as writers, and seminar discussions, workshops, and frequent one-to-one conferences with the instructor will equip students to address those limitations. Not available for credit toward the humanities-social science requirement. Enrolled students may be required to take Wr 4 and/or 50 in subsequent quarters.

This course follows Writing 2 and offers an opportunity for more focused study and discussion of core concepts in academic writing, such as audience, genre, argument, working with sources, and process. Weekly readings offer concrete guidance on these topics, and class discussions expand on that guidance, providing insights into common challenges college writers encounter. Not available for credit toward the humanities-social science requirement.

This course will introduce students to the early development of civilization in Mesopotamia and Egypt from 4000 B.C.E. through 1000 B.C.E. Origins of agriculture and writing, the evolution of the city, and the structures of the Mesopotamian economy and social order will be discussed. Comparison with contemporary developments in Egypt during the Old and Middle Kingdoms may include a reading of Gilgamesh from 3000 B.C.E. and of the Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe. The course concludes with a discussion of life during the late Bronze Age. Focus will be on life as it was lived and experienced by many groups in pre-classical antiquity rather than on kings and dynasties.

An introduction to economic methodology, models, and institutions. Includes both basic microeconomics and an introduction to modern approaches to macroeconomic issues. Students are required to participate in economics experiments.

Introduction to the tools and concepts of analytical political science. Subject matter is primarily American political processes and institutions. Topics: spatial models of voting, redistributive voting, games, presidential campaign strategy, Congress, congressional-bureaucratic relations, and coverage of political issues by the mass media.

This course traces the origins of modern racism and, perhaps surprisingly, of human rights advocacy itself, to a seminal moment in global history sometimes called the Age of Discovery. At this time, two small European kingdoms, Spain and Portugal, first conducted trade and conquest in Atlantic Africa, the Americas, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans, forging the world's first truly global empires. We study the legacy of racism and humanitarianism in eye-witness accounts, maps, images and other materials attesting to Spain's seminal encounters with the Americas.

This course will provide an introduction to what we know about the fascinating link between the brain, the mind, and behavior. We will start with a basic review of the brain as a biological organ, its evolution, development, and its basic operations including visual and others' senses. Next, we will discuss how the brain gives rise to a wide variety of complex behaviors, memory, social and emotional behaviors. The course will finally introduce students to the wider neurophilosophical questions concerning freewill, death and morality.

This course will explore how natural philosophers and scientists have defined, used, and sometimes challenged ideas about race from the eighteenth century to today. Using a range of primary and secondary sources, we will examine how scientific ideas about race developed in concert with European imperial expansion and slavery; how these ideas were employed in legal cases, medical practice, and eugenics policies; and how activists and scholars have challenged racist practices and ideas. Finally, we will turn to the recent resurgence of racial thinking in biology and medicine in the light of the history of race and science.

The things that human beings make and throw away rarely stay where we put them. Just as humans have shaped the biological and physical world, the biological and physical world shapes human actions. In this course, we will examine how these interacting forces propel environmental and cultural change. We will explore these concepts through the lens of waste - how different groups at different points in history define waste, where discarded things go and what they become as they move through space and time. We will consider how conflicting perceptions of utility and waste in different cultural and historical contexts have factored into shifting ideas about race, class, gender, wilderness, technology, consumption, and sovereignty. In rethinking waste, we will explore the multiple meanings of "nature," assess the roots of sustainability, and evaluate past events in light of current ideas about environmental justice. While this course prioritizes reading and discussion, we will also engage with the world around us through visual analysis. Pasadena and Los Angeles will be among our most important resources, allowing us to ground global ideas in a local context.

In Europe during the period from 1450-1650, there were several radical "revisions" of the universe. Nicolaus Copernicus proposed a sun-centered, rather than earth-centered, cosmos. Galileo Galilei turned his telescope towards the heavens and observed the Moon, Sun, and moons of Jupiter, and the voyages of discovery led to an expansion of the known world. At the same time, the innovation of the printing press played a crucial role in disseminating information and in allowing for astronomical printed images, including celestial atlases and maps, to reach a broad audience. Paintings of the heavens during this period are also a rich source of shifting astronomical ideas. In this course, we'll trace the role that images and instruments of astronomy played in both producing and reflecting these dramatic "revisions" of the universe. We'll study astronomical models, eclipse diagrams, almanacs, and printed instruments, alongside astrolabes, telescopes, and celestial globes, to uncover how images and instruments literally produced a new "vision" of a sun-centered universe for the early modern world.

This course is an introductory exploration of the stuff of modern biology - the practices and objects that biologists have used to produce knowledge of living nature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The course will look at how familiar concepts (e.g. the cell, evolution, the gene) were shaped by scientific workers' adoption of different methods and materials. This approach will allow us to situate biological inquiries within wider political and cultural contexts, while also drawing our attention to the way instruments mediated perceptions in the recording of observations and the execution of experiments. We will trace continuities and changes in the kinds of questions that naturalists and biologists posed, survey spaces in which they pursued their work, and become acquainted with a variety of humans, nonhuman organisms, chemicals, and machines assembled in these spaces. These exercises will familiarize us with diverse forms of labor in and beyond laboratories that have contributed to how humans understood the living world.

Major topics include the following: What are the origins of modern Western science, when did it emerge as distinct from philosophy and other cultural and intellectual productions, and what are its distinguishing features? When and how did observation, experiment, quantification, and precision enter the practice of science? What were some of the major turning points in the history of science? What is the changing role of science and technology? Using primary and secondary sources, students will take up significant topics in the history of science, from ancient Greek science to the 20th-century revolution in physics, biology, and technology. Hum/H/HPS 10 may be taken for credit toward the additional 36-unit HSS requirement by HPS majors and minors who have already fulfilled their first-year humanities requirement and counts as a history course in satisfying the first-year humanities breadth requirement.

During the 19th-century the American economy, despite the Civil War, caught up to and surpassed all European economies. How did the likes of Singer, John Deere and Seth Thomas - latecomers to the markets they served-come to dominate those markets both domestically and internationally? Why did the technology of interchangeable parts and mass production become known as 'the American system' when much of that technology was imported from Europe? What role did government play in facilitating or thwarting innovation and economic growth? This course will explore such questions as reflected in the ordinary things people collect under the label 'antiques'. What do we learn from the fact that we can document a half dozen American manufacturers of apple peelers but not a single comparable European company? Why is the hand sewn quilt a nearly unique American folk art form and what does the evolution of quilting patterns tell us about technology and economic prosperity? What do baking powder cans as a category of collectible tell us about the politics of federal versus state regulation? Students will be expected to each choose a topic that asks such questions and to explore possible answers, all with an eye to understanding the interplay of economics, politics, and demography.

Marvels flourish at the boundaries of literary invention, religious belief, and scientific inquiry, challenging assumptions about natural processes and expected outcomes. From Grendel, the monstrous foe of Beowulf, to Satan, Milton's charismatic antihero, this seminar examines the uses of the marvelous in a variety of texts and genres, including Shakespearian drama, medieval romance, and early travel-writing. Readings may include Beowulf, Marie de France, Chaucer, John Mandeville, Shakespeare, Milton.

Throughout the history of Europe, America, and beyond, poets and philosophers have asked hard questions about unequal relationships, whether between kings and subjects, gods and humans, men and women, rich and poor, or machines and people. Our authors take no single point of view; our goal is to analyze sophisticated and often surprising arguments and to enter new cultural worlds. Readings may include Ovid, Milton, Sei Shonagon, Machiavelli, Rousseau, and Alexievich.

European literature has long been a testing ground for radical new ideas which have come to shape our basic understanding of what it means to be a thinking, speaking and perhaps even autonomous human being. The question of what - if anything - makes us different from animals was debated from numerous points of view: including talking dogs, philosophizing women, bestial men, humanlike beasts, and other creatures that defied the conventions of the time. This course explores some of the key literary texts that shaped this debate and pays careful attention to their cultural environments. Selected readings from Cervantes, La Fontaine, Swift, Rousseau, Buffon, Aikin, and Wollstonecraft, among others.

In this course we will look closely at representations of nonhuman animals in literature from the Middle Ages to our present moment as opportunities to revisit definitions of, and the boundaries created and blurred between, the "human" and the "animal." Readings may include Marie de France, Marianne Moore, Franz Kafka, Donna Haraway, Donika Kelly, and K-Ming Chang.

As both a celebration and remembrance of Black expressive thought, this course will serve as an introduction to Black literature and culture across several US geographic regions from the standpoint of a variety of intersectional identities and experiences. This course centers on how the artistic, cultural, and literary lives of Black people have shaped US economic, political, and social history since before the nation's founding. In addition to literary texts, this course will introduce students to several examples of cultural expression that have also become beloved touchstones in Black cultural history. Because literary works and works of cultural expression by Black people have long informed the possibilities of American artistic expression and critical thought, they provide possible blueprints for how US life might unfold in the future. Students will learn to apply several existing contexts and methodologies for the study of Black literature and culture, propose directions for future study, and explore their own unique possibilities for deepening their relationships to this body of work. Possible authors include Zora Neale Hurston, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Ernest J. Gaines, Toni Morrison, Octavia E. Butler, and Akwaeke Emezi. Course requirements will likely include class attendance and participation in discussion, weekly reflections on the readings, a take-home midterm examination, and a take-home final essay.

This course is a comprehensive exploration of the poetics (acts of making) of Black feminisms across literature, culture, and theory, centering on works that engage social justice, healing practices, abolition, self-care, and more. Students will read and study several examples of the lives and works of Black LBGTQ+ people and others who have long reimagined dis/ability, ethics, gender, race, and sexuality within Black feminist contexts. Such works have radically retheorized community, embodiment, home, self-love, and more, in ways that challenge cultures of violence in favor of imagining beloved communities and futures. Through a combination of regular study and practice, students will build expertise to practice black feminist poetics in their own lives and work and will propose their own goals for future study in the field.

Why begin the study of literature with poems? Written words are the building blocks of literature, and poetry, in Coleridge's famous equation, is "the best words in the best order." To be understood and appreciated, poetry requires a close attention to words and their ordering as they are read and reread. All good literature requires such attention, but practically speaking, poetry provides the best way to acquire the art of rereading because of its shorter forms. More importantly, poetry can be the most emotionally intense and satisfying of literary forms. We will read a small number of poems written in English from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries from several genres - sonnet, ode, elegy, verse epistle, satire, villanelle - and on several subjects - love, death, and politics. Poets will include William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and William Butler Yeats.

Studies of American aesthetics, genres, and ideas from the birth of the nation to the present. Students will be introduced to the techniques of formal analysis. We will consider what constitutes evidence in relation to texts and how to develop a persuasive interpretation. Topics may include Nature's Nation, slavery and its aftermath, individualism and the marketplace, the "New Woman," and the relation between word and image.

This course addresses questions such as: Where do our moral ideas come from? What justifies them? How should they guide our conduct, as individuals and as a society? What kind of person should one aspire to be? Topics the course may deal with include meta-ethical issues (e.g., What makes an action right or wrong? When is one morally responsible for one's actions? How should society be organized?) and normative questions (e.g., Is eating meat morally acceptable? What should we tolerate and why? What are society's obligations toward the poor?). In addition, the psychological and neural substrates of moral judgment and decision making may be explored. The course draws on a variety of sources, including selections from the great works of moral and political philosophy (e.g., Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Hobbes's Leviathan, Kant's Groundings for a Metaphysics of Morals, and Rawls's A Theory of Justice), contemporary discussions of particular moral issues, and the science of moral thought.

The theme of this course is the scope and limitations of rational belief and knowledge. Students will examine the nature of reality, the nature of the self, the nature of knowledge, and how we learn about the natural world. Students will be introduced to these issues through selections from some of the world's greatest philosophical works, including Descartes's Meditations, Pascal's Pensées, Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge, and Kant's Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. A variety of more contemporary readings will also be assigned.

How do we reconcile the possibilities of modern machine learning with ethical and moral demands of fairness, accountability and transparency? This course will take a case study-based approach to the challenges at the interface of algorithms and human values. By exploring existing debates on algorithmic bias, explainable AI and data ownership, students will be exposed to the relevance of ethical systems of thought to modern social questions.

This course examines the historical development of film as a popular art and entertainment medium from the 1880s to the present, with a focus on the American and European contexts. Students will learn how to watch a film - how to pay attention to significant visual details and to the ways films construct meaning from the language of images - and will develop the skills to write fluently about what they see. The course covers some of the most influential genres and movements from the earliest actuality films, through the French New Wave, to the Disney/Marvel Universe. Films covered may include short comedies from Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, M , It Happened One Night , The Seven Samurai , The Battle of Algiers , and Black Panther .

By permission only. Individualized tutorial instruction in writing and communication for students who benefit from weekly discussions about their work as writers. Not available for credit toward the humanities-social science requirement.

Artists in the United States greatly admired the Mexican muralists and printmakers of the 20th century. Respected as much for their cultural politics as their artworks, the Mexican School attracted generations of Black and Latino artists who visited, studied, and worked in Mexico. In the legends and practices of the Mexican School, American artists found models for generating self-defined cultural and artistic practices unavailable to them in the United States. This international exchange generated a transnational and decolonial aesthetic tradition. The course begins with the major themes of Mexican printmaking and muralism; follows Mexican and U.S. artists as they travel between their respective countries throughout the 20th century; and concludes with the legacy of the Mexican School on contemporary public art practices. Local artists will be invited to speak with the class.

Intended for students with no or limited musical training, this course is an introduction to the elements of Western music. We will practice reading, notating, and analyzing music through the study of rhythm and meter, scales, intervals, chords, and basic harmonic progressions; musical examples will be drawn from a variety historical periods and styles, including classical, pop, jazz, film, and musical theater. The final project will be a short musical composition. This can be a stand-alone course for students who want to understand how music is put together, or it can serve as preparation for those who might benefit from a review of the fundamentals before taking further courses in music theory.

Most of the music we encounter can be thought of as the organization of a very limited set of tones into distinct patterns of repetition, and it has been this way for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. And yet, music has come to mean infinitely more than its sonic surface: we study great works of music like we do great works of literature and art; we use our musical preferences to convey our social and political identities; we expect - and technology has enabled - our public and private spaces to be saturated in music; and certain musical works possess such power that they are sometimes altered, if not banned outright. But how has music acquired all of these meanings? How does it communicate? What is it that we are listening to when we are listening to music? In addition to serving as an introduction to the academic study of music, this course aims to deepen our musical appreciation and understanding by critically examining listening habits of the past and present. Knowledge of Western music notation and harmony is helpful but not required; the basics will be reviewed as needed.

Media technologies are knotted up in environmental relations. From early cinematic experiments to the sensors and drones used in conservation research, technology has long shaped how environments are known and understood. Simultaneously, technological systems and devices are embedded within harmful, exploitative, and wasteful practices, examples of which include lithium extraction, the carbon emissions of data centers, and e-waste. In this course, we will think through the complexities of eco-technical encounter, using them as generative provocations for producing creative projects that engage environmental questions while aiming to reduce environmental harms. Through a blend of theory and practice, we will survey texts and creative works on environmental media, techno- and eco-feminisms, and queer ecologies, alongside visits to the Huntington. These reference points will then inform how we devise new projects that take both environmental questions and impacts into consideration, and experiment with methods such as using solar power, repurposing recycled or obsolete devices, and testing biodegradable materials.

Worldbuilding is an imaginative exercise practiced in the arts and sciences to envision alternative universes. Worldbuilding is also employed in statecraft and social organizing as a form of pre-figurative politics to bring about change within existing relations of power. This course explores the creative craft of envisioning a world as a system of relations, while critically examining the ethical implications of how its actors and elements are represented - and what (or who) is left out. We will take an interdisciplinary approach through lectures and readings in art, theory, and fiction. We will analyze forms of worldbuilding across disciplines and media - from novels to experimental film to architectural renderings to PowerPoint presentations. How do artists build and represent an imagined world through landscapes, seasons, sensory capacities of bodies, and relations of gender, race, and political conflict? How can the social structures in artworks reflect and elaborate upon the worlds we know? We will also draw inspiration from the work of visionary Black science fiction author Octavia Butler, whose archive is held by the Huntington Library. Students will create projects to build their own worlds through writing and visualizations across media of their choice (sculpture, drawing, photography, video, and other creative technologies).

This course will count as a first-year humanities course in either English, history, philosophy, or visual culture, as announced. It is usually taught by new or visiting faculty. The course may be re-taken once if the second class is offered in a different discipline (from among English, history, philosophy, and visual culture). Limited to 15 students. See registrar's announcement for details.

Reading in history and related subjects, done either in connection with the regular courses or independently, but under the direction of members of the department. A brief written report will usually be required. Graded pass/fail. Not available for credit toward humanities-social science requirement.

A practice-based course taught by a visiting artist in residence. See registrar's announcement for details.

This seminar course will explore and discuss the unique intersection of environmental racism, environmental justice, and academia. Course material will primarily feature readings and videos on a case study-like basis and focus on bringing conversations typically had in humanities, social sciences and activism to the bio and geosciences. Topics will center around two primary approaches: an "outward-facing" component that looks at environmental racism through the lens of various activisms, and an "inward-facing" component addressing the biases/malpractices broadly employed in the biological and geosciences, as well as the apparent moral dilemmas of decisions involving multiple stakeholders. Out of class work will largely be based on assigned readings, some multimedia presentations, and occasional writings and thought exercises. This course is taught concurrently with Ge/ESE/Bi 248 and can only be taken once, as Hum 61 or Ge/ESE/Bi 248.

This course examines algorithms and data practices in fields such as machine learning, privacy, and communication networks through a social lens. We will draw upon theory and practices from art, media, computer science and technology studies to critically analyze algorithms and their implementations within society. The course includes projects, lectures, readings, and discussions. Students will learn mathematical formalisms, critical thinking and creative problem solving to connect algorithms to their practical implementations within social, cultural, economic, legal and political contexts. Enrollment by application. Taught concurrently with CS/IDS 162 and can only be taken once as VC 72 or CS/IDS 162.

A course on a specialized topic in some area of the humanities, usually taught by new or visiting faculty. Recent offerings have included courses on film-making, poetry writing, speculative fiction, and the difference between humans and other animals. The course may be re-taken for credit except as noted in the course announcement. Class size is normally limited to 8-15 students. See registrar's announcement for details.

Weekly seminar by a member of the Caltech humanities faculty or a visitor to discuss a topic of their current research at an introductory level. The course can be used to learn more about different areas of study within the humanities. For those interested in (or who become interested) in pursuing a second option in the humanities, the course will introduce students to the kinds of research carried out by members of the humanities faculty and help them find faculty advisers.

A series of weekly seminars by practitioners in industry and academia working at the intersections of science, technology, engineering, art and design. The course can be used to learn more about the different careers in these interdisciplinary areas. Guest speakers will talk about their career trajectory, the nature of their work and the role that science, engineering and/or computing plays in their field. Speakers may include professionals in the fields of investigative science journalism, film/TV, apparel design and manufacturing, architecture, music/sound engineering and editing, art, culture and heritage exhibition and conservation, creative coding, technological art and other areas. Topics will be presented at an informal, introductory level. Graded pass/fail.

This course offers instruction in writing and speaking about science and technology for non-expert audiences. Instruction focuses on how to convey complex technical information in clear, engaging prose and speech in a variety of contexts. Readings in different genres (e.g., the newspaper discovery story, the op-ed, the personal narrative, the explainer talk) raise issues for discussion and serve as models for assignments in these genres. The workshop-style nature of this course relies on drafting and revision in response to peer and instructor feedback. Satisfies the Institute scientific writing requirement and the option oral communications requirement for humanities majors.

When William Blake wrote "to see a World in a Grain of Sand," he tapped into poetry's power to model the universe. For instance, once we set up a simile between "world" and "grain of sand", we can test this hypothesis of sameness. How is sand like the world? Where will the model fail? And what might that tell us? Imagery, sensory language, arguments, ideas, and verse form itself can lead poetry toward power and discovery. This pursuit can reach from the page into one's own life. We will work hard together on poems, our own and one another's.

The class is conducted as a workshop of fiction writing. Contemporary short stories and novel excerpts are discussed, as well as the art and craft of writing well. The course covers the essential elements of fiction writing, including character, voice, setting, world building, scene, summary, plot, and dialogue. Each week, we discuss a particular craft element, analyze published fiction, and provide feedback on student writing. Near the end of the course, students critique the work of their peers in small-group workshops.

Today's political and social turmoil have cast a sometimes harsh light on news media and the journalistic writing approach. Is the media fulfilling its role in our democracy? What should it be? And what approach should journalists take in their reporting and writing? This course will ponder these questions as it explores how to construct interesting, relevant, journalistic storytelling, including the use of new media tools. It will emphasize the foundations of the craft, such as close attention to fact, accuracy, clarity and precision, and examine its critical components, such as story form, reporting and interviewing, theme and scene, and character development. It will offer opportunities to construct a long-form journalistic piece. Students will produce numerous stories and other writing during the class, including profiles, issues, analysis and reviews. Several of these will be offered for publication in The California Tech. There will be class visits by professional journalists and a possible off-campus excursion.

Required of students taking the philosophy option. To be taken in any two consecutive terms of the senior year. Students will research and write a thesis of 10,000-12,000 words on a philosophical topic to be determined in consultation with their thesis adviser. Limited to students taking the philosophy option.

An individual program of directed reading in Visual Culture, in areas not covered by regular courses. VC 90 is intended primarily for Visual Culture minors. Interested students should confer with a Visual Culture faculty member and agree upon a topic before registering for the course.

This course offers advanced undergraduates the opportunity to pursue research in Anthropology individually or in a small group. Graded pass/fail.

This course offers advanced undergraduates the opportunity to pursue research on a business problem individually or in a small group. Graded pass/fail.

This course offers advanced undergraduates the opportunity to pursue research in Economics individually or in a small group. Graded pass/fail.

This course offers advanced undergraduates the opportunity to pursue research in political science individually or in a small group. Graded pass/fail.

Senior economics majors wishing to undertake research may elect a variable number of units, not to exceed 12 in any one term, for such work under the direction of a member of the economics faculty.

An individual program of directed reading in English or American literature, in areas not covered by regular courses. En 98 is intended primarily for English majors and minors. Interested students should confer with an English faculty member and agree upon a topic before registering for the course.

An individual program of directed reading in history, in areas not covered by regular courses.

An individual program of directed reading in history and philosophy of science, in areas not covered by regular courses.

An individual program of directed reading in philosophy, in areas not covered by regular courses.

Students will study research methods and write a research paper. Required of students in the English option.

Students will work with the instructor in the preparation of a research paper, which will form the basis of an oral examination.

Development and presentation of a major research paper on a topic of interest in political science or political economy. The project will be one that the student has initiated in a political science course they have already taken from the PS courses required for the PS option, numbered above 101. This course will be devoted to understanding research in political science, and basic political science methodology. Students will be exposed to current research journals, work to understand a research literature of interest, and work to formulate a research project. Fulfills the Institute scientific writing requirement.

Well before the advent of the Machine Age, literary texts have been populated by various kinds of ingenious automata, often in animal or human form. This course surveys the role of the automaton in literary texts in order to consider how the notion of "artificial life" changes over time, with a focus on the special case of the human machine. Readings from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to include texts by la Mettrie, Hoffmann, Kleist, Shelley, Poe, and de l'Isle-Adam. We will conclude with a classic text from the twentieth century: Isaac Asimov's I, Robot.

This course examines the question of what it means to have free will, whether and why free will is desirable, and whether humans have free will. Topics may include historical discussions of free will from writers such as Aristotle, Boethius, and Hume; what it means for a scientific theory to be deterministic, and whether determinism is compatible with free will; the connection between free will and moral responsibility; the relationship between free will and the notion of the self; beliefs about free will; the psychology of decision making; and the insanity defense in law.

Topics to be determined by instructor.

Topics determined by instructor.

Topics to be determined by instructor.

City-dwellers invented the concept of wilderness, as a space apart from human laws and culture. This course takes a critical look at the different values attributed to that space as it has been colonized by the human imagination. Our discussions will focus on the emergence of the perception of wilderness in European literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but we conclude with the question: what meaning do we invest the concept of "wilderness" with today? Readings will include works by Buffon, Toqueville, Chateaubriand, Byron, Thoreau, Wells, and London.

This course focuses on preparing non-native speakers of English with the communication skills necessary to organize, present or exchange information in a clear, concise manner to a variety of audiences. ESL 101 a will provide instruction on the development of pronunciation, intonation patterns and stress, grammar and verb tense, listening comprehension, and fluency in speaking. Aspects of American culture as well as come current events will be discussed. ESL 101 b is a continuation of ESL 101 a, and covers a variety of oral presentation skills. Students will be asked to paraphrase, summarize, and synthesize information from a journal article or in-class discussions and communicate ideas to the class. The class will discuss information from readings and other media sources in small groups to collect and organize ideas for discussion. ESL 101 ab is open to all first-year graduate students and may be required for some students designated by the ESL interview process during Orientation. A passing grade will satisfy the Institute English proficiency requirement for candidacy. Graded pass/fail. Open to international graduate students only.

This course combines accounting and finance in a dynamic, user-oriented approach. The goal is to enable students to understand what financial statements are (sources of information about a company), what they are not (facts devoid of interpretation or management influence), and how to critically understand and analyze them. The course will utilize actual SEC filings for several companies, across a variety of industries, through which the students will be exposed to important accounting concepts.

Introduction to the computations made by the brain during economic and social decision making and their neural substrates. Part a: Reinforcement learning. Unconscious and conscious processing. Emotion. Behavioral economics. Goal-directed and habit learning. Facial processing in social neuroscience. Part b: History and mechanisms of reinforcement. Associative learning. Mentalizing and strategic thinking. Neural basis of prosociality. Exploration-exploitation tradeoff. Functions of basal ganglia.

The course uses a multimedia program, and emphasizes the acquisition of fundamental skills: oral ability, comprehension, writing, and reading. Students are evaluated on the basis of quizzes and compositions (1/3), midterm and final (1/3), and class participation (1/3). The course is mainly designed for students with no previous knowledge of French. Students who have had French in secondary school or college must consult with the instructor before registering.

Finance, or financial economics, covers two main areas: asset pricing and corporate finance. For asset pricing, a field that studies how investors value securities and make investment decisions, we will discuss topics like prices, risk, and return, portfolio choice, CAPM, market efficiency and bubbles, interest rates and bonds, and futures and options. For corporate finance, a field that studies how firms make financing decisions, we will discuss topics like security issuance, capital structure, and firm investment decisions (the net present value approach, and mergers and acquisitions). In addition, if time permits, we will cover some topics in behavioral finance and household finance such as limits to arbitrage and investor behavior.

The first two terms feature an extensive grammar review and group activities that promote self- expression. Op-Ed articles and a series of literary texts provide a basis for classroom discussion and vocabulary expansion. Several short-written compositions are required. The third term is designed to further develop an active command of the language. A variety of 19th- and 20th-century short stories are discussed in class to improve comprehension and oral proficiency. Students are expected to do an oral presentation, to write four short compositions, and a final paper.

Examines the theory of financial decision making and statistical techniques useful in analyzing financial data. Topics include portfolio selection, equilibrium security pricing, empirical analysis of equity securities, fixed-income markets, market efficiency, and risk management.

An introduction to option pricing theory and risk management in the discrete-time, bi-nomial tree model, and the continuous time Black-Scholes-Merton framework. Both the partial differential equations approach and the martingale approach (risk-neutral pricing by expected values) will be developed. The course will cover the basics of Stochastic, Ito Calculus. Since 2015, the course is offered in the flipped format: the students are required to watch lectures online, while problem solving and case and paper presentations are done in class.

A study of how technology affects issues of market structure and how market structure affects observable economic outcomes, such as prices, profits, advertising, and research and development expenditures. Emphasis will be on how the analytic tools developed in the course can be used to examine particular industries-especially those related to internet commerce-in detail. Each student is expected to write one substantial paper.

This course introduces students to data science for financial applications using the Python programming language and its ecosystem of packages. Students will learn how to use Python to extract numerical and text data from websites, evaluate fundamental risk-reward trade-offs using real-world financial data, and combine quantitative and qualitative factors into a persuasive argument. Time permitting, we will cover topics in machine learning, algorithmic trading, and cryptocurrencies. Each student is expected to complete individual problem sets and a final project. Some programming experience is helpful though knowledge of Python is not assumed.

In this course we will examine game theories that are explicitly meant to describe behavior of humans and other species. Prominent models are those with level-k hierarchies, quantal response equilibrium (QRE) and cursed equilibrium. Most of the data is experimental evidence from a wide variety of games. We will also learn about field evidence, mostly about mixed strategies and application of level-k hierarchies to firms' decisions. Data include biological measures such as response times, eye-tracking, fMRI and evidence from psychiatric disorders. Students are expected to replicate an existing experiment (individual students) or work in small teams to create and run a new experiment.

This course explores how contemporary poets grapple with the most urgent questions of our moment: identity, equality, environmental crisis, and justice. In this class, students will gain confidence in reading, discussing, and writing about contemporary poems and will encounter recent and more distant traditions of protest poetry. We will ask how poetic language articulates questions of embodiment, community, law, and memory. The syllabus will focus in particular on writers of color, including queer and indigenous poets, and will include opportunities to attend local poetry readings.

Emphasis on oral-aural skills, and understanding of basic grammar. Immediate introduction of the native script-hiragana, katakana-and gradual introduction to 300 to 500 characters.

This course provides guided instruction in academic writing in STEM fields. More specifically, it teaches graduate students about composing texts in scientific English for expert audiences. It helps familiarize writers with academic STEM discourse, and it teaches writers about the style and genres of U.S. academic STEM writing, helping them learn to locate, read, and write about the work of others in their field. From here, students learn to review the literature in their fields and situate their own research goals within that context. Students are encouraged to take ESL/Wr 107 in the first or second year of graduate school. This course is designed for non-native speakers of English, but it covers topics that are relevant to native English speakers. Open to international graduate students only.

This course is designed to introduce students to the formative period of Western medieval history, from roughly 300 to 1000 CE. It will emphasize the development of a new civilization from the fusion of Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions, with a focus on the Frankish world. The course focuses on the reading, analysis, and discussion of primary sources.

Continued instruction and practice in conversation, building up vocabulary, and understanding complex sentence patterns. The emphasis, however, will be on developing reading skills. Recognition of approximately 1,000 characters.

In this course we will examine behavioral economics models in several key decision-making contexts: choice over time, choice under uncertainty, choice in market settings (i.e., buying and selling), and others. In each topic area we will begin by providing the standard neoclassical account for behavior, building from assumptions (axioms) to corresponding utility models. We will then ask whether critical axioms of neoclassical models are plausible by calling upon psychological insights and empirical data. Rejection of neoclassical axioms will lead to new models, behavioral economics models, in each setting. These models, mechanisms and their testable predictions will be discussed.

This course focuses on strategies for composing an academic journal article in a STEM field. The rhetorical purpose and form of each section of the journal article will be considered in depth. The course is intended for graduate students who are prepared to be a lead author on a manuscript. While the course will cover strategies for collaborative writing, students will be asked to draft sections of an original journal article based upon their own research. The course will also provide instruction on selecting a target journal, preparing a manuscript for submission, and responding to feedback from peer reviewers. Clarity in scientific writing and creating effective figures will also be discussed. This course is designed for non-native speakers of English, but it covers topics that are relevant to native English speakers. Course enrollment is limited to 15 students. Open to international graduate students only.

This course is designed to introduce students to European history between 1000 and 1400. It will provide a topical as well as chronological examination of the economic, social, political, and religious evolution of western Europe during this period, with a focus on France, Italy, England, and Germany. The course emphasizes the reading, analysis, and discussion of primary sources.

Developing overall language skills. Literary and newspaper readings. Technical and scientific translation. Improvement of listening and speaking ability so as to communicate with Japanese people in real situations. Recognition of the 1,850 general-use characters.

In this course we will develop a deep understanding of the institutional foundations of Chinese finance, and we will use this framework to study the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese economic system through the lens of finance. We will start from a historical overview of Chinese finance and will study the institutions that drive financial market development. Next, we will focus on the unique economic features of the three main channels of Chinese finance: capital markets (including the stock and bond markets), bank- and fund-based intermediation (including the banking sector, shadow-banking, and private equity, and venture capital), and informal finance. Finally, we will study the opportunities and challenges posed by Chinese-style finance for the future development of the global financial system.

This course will study topics in behavioral economics demonstrating departures from the classic economics assumptions of rationality and pure self-interest. We will study evidence of these departures, models that have been designed to capture these preferences, and applications of these models to important economic questions. Topics will include biases and heuristics, risk preferences, self-control, strategic uncertainty, and social preferences, among others. The course will be based in readings from both classic and modern research. Methodologically, the course will combine both theoretical and empirical evidence of the mentioned above topics.

This course introduces students to the artistic style and the social, historical, and political content of French films, starting with Méliès and the Lumière brothers and working through surrealism and impressionism, 1930s poetic realism, the Occupation, the New Wave, the Cinema du look, and some critically acclaimed auteurs of the end of the century. The class teaches students to look at film as a medium with its own techniques and formal principles. Conducted in English.

This course focuses on strategies for composing an academic journal article in a STEM field. The rhetorical purpose and form of each section of the journal article will be considered in depth. The course is intended for graduate students who are prepared to be a lead author on a manuscript. While the course will cover strategies for collaborative writing, students will be asked to draft sections of an original journal article based upon their own research. The course will also provide guidance for preparing a manuscript for submission and responding to feedback from peer reviewers. Clarity in scientific writing and creating effective figures will also be discussed. Course enrollment is limited to 15 students.

An examination of theories of causation and explanation in philosophy and neighboring disciplines. Topics discussed may include probabilistic and counterfactual treatments of causation, the role of statistical evidence and experimentation in causal inference, and the deductive-nomological model of explanation. The treatment of these topics by important figures from the history of philosophy such as Aristotle, Descartes, and Hume may also be considered.

Grammar fundamentals and their use in understanding, speaking, reading, and writing Spanish. Exclusively for students with no previous knowledge of Spanish.

Investors demand reward for taking risk. Concepts of Knightian risk and uncertainty; risk preference (risk-neutral Q vs. real-world P probability measures); coherent risk; and commonly used metrics for risk are explored. The integration of risk and reward in classical efficient portfolio construction is described, along with the drawbacks of this approach in practice and methods for addressing these drawbacks. The leptokurtic (fat-tailed) nature of financial data and approaches to modeling financial surprises are covered, leading to inherently leptokurtic techniques for estimating volatility and correlation. Scenario analysis, and regime-switching methods are shown to provide ways of dealing with risk in extreme environments. The special nature of modeling long/short portfolios (hedge funds) is explored. The text for the class is a Jupyter Notebook with Python code segments.

This course provides an introduction to Bayesian Statistics and its applications to data analysis in various fields. Topics include: discrete models, regression models, hierarchical models, model comparison, and MCMC methods. The course combines an introduction to basic theory with a hands-on emphasis on learning how to use these methods in practice so that students can apply them in their own work. Previous familiarity with frequentist statistics is useful but not required.

In the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman claimed that "the United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem." We might ask any number of questions in response to Whitman. If the United States are a poem, then who wrote it? What is this poem about? What genre is it? Is anyone reading it? Is it actually any good? Though we might approach Whitman's statement with some apprehension from our historical moment, this course will take seriously American life lived within poetry and the lives poems lived across the country. Together, we will track the development of American poetry as it engages with enslavement, abolition, genocide, war, beauty, nature, racialization, constructions of gender, sexuality, and affect. Ultimately, we will ask what reading nineteenth-century American poetry, or nineteenth-century America as a poem, might mean for our understanding of the country today. Readings may include Bryant, Poe, Longfellow, Schoolcraft (Bamewawagezhikaquay), Whitman, Dickinson, Harper, Dunbar, and Noguchi.

Grammar review, vocabulary building, practice in conversation, and introduction to relevant history, literature, and culture. Literary reading and writing are emphasized in the second and third terms. Students who have studied Spanish elsewhere must consult with the instructor before registering.

This course combines elements of business, economics, engineering, financial statement analysis, strategy, and law to provide students interested in entrepreneurship with a practical understanding of the mechanics of growing a 'post-idea' company. The class will explain how prospective investor’s view entrepreneurs and their ideas, teach students about types of capital, sources of capital, and term sheets, and generally delve into the timing and financial alternatives and trade-offs facing entrepreneurs seeking capital in order to launch or grow a company. As such, this class is a complement to BEM 110 (Venture Capital) and E 102 (Scientific and Technology Entrepreneurship).

This course is an in-depth study of the hedge fund industry. We will study hedge fund trading strategies, the business model of hedge funds, hedge fund investors, as well as the institutional and regulatory framework in which hedge funds operate. The course will evaluate and analyze popular hedge fund trading strategies, including equity strategies (activist, market-neutral, long/short, event-driven, etc.), arbitrage strategies (derivatives, convertible, fixed-income, currency and global macro, etc.), and fund of hedge funds. The course will also analyze the hedge fund business model, including: performance evaluation and risk management; fund compensation and contractual features; transaction costs and market impact; as well as fund raising and marketing. In addition, the course will study the institutional relationships hedge funds have with service providers (prime brokers, custodian banks, etc.) and with regulators. We will also discuss public policy implications and the value of hedge funds in society. This course is designed to provide students with the skills necessary to evaluate hedge fund strategies, and to develop, manage, and successfully grow a hedge fund business.

Epic remains the most ancient and most modern of literary genres. Women in ancient epic begin as prizes of honor for male warriors and become powerful witches and queens, while some contemporary women writers allow their ancient heroines to speak in their own voices. From Homer to the present, epic narratives also traverse continents as they narrate the founding and foundering of empires historical and imaginary. This course introduces students to key classical epics while exploring historical and contemporary adaptations from Dante's Divine Comedy to Madeline Miller's Circe . By examining the afterlives of epic, we will consider how the genre changes when taken up by the gender typically marginalized in the classical tradition. Possible authors include Homer, Apollonius of Rhodes, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, Christa Wolf, Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeline Miller, and María Baranda.

Offered concurrently with L 115. This course introduces students to narrative film and literature from the Hispanic world, with an emphasis on the hero figure. It also takes up hybridization and transculturation in the Americas, specifically in Mexico, Peru, and Cuba, as well as film and narratives of Spain from the Civil War to the present. Conducted in Spanish. (a) Basics of Hispanic films and narratives, and their socio-cultural roots (b) Hybridization and mestizo cultures in the Hispanic world (c) The last century in Hispanic film and narrative. Each term can be taken independently. Students who write papers in Spanish may enroll in this class as L 115.

Offered concurrently with Hum 115. This course introduces students to narrative film and literature from the Hispanic world, with an emphasis on the hero figure. It also takes up hybridization and transculturation in the Americas, specifically in Mexico, Peru, and Cuba, as well as film and narratives of Spain from the Civil War to the present. Conducted in Spanish. (a) Basics of Hispanic films and narratives, and their socio-cultural roots (b) Hybridization and mestizo cultures in the Hispanic world (c) The last century in Hispanic film and narrative. Each term can be taken independently. Students who write papers in English may enroll in this class as Hum 115, which satisfies the advanced humanities requirement.

Offered concurrently with L 116. Hum 105 and Hum 116 given in alternate years. The course focuses on contemporary France. Topics may include France and the European Union; political parties and elections; family life; social protection; religion; education; media and technology. Conducted in French. Students who write papers in French may enroll in this class as L 116.

Offered concurrently with Hum 116. L 105 and L 116 given in alternate years. The course focuses on contemporary France. Topics may include France and the European Union; political parties and elections; family life; social protection; religion; education; media and technology. Conducted in French. Students who write papers in English may enroll in this class as Hum 116, which satisfies the advanced humanities requirement.

We will tackle the fundamental question of how to allocate resources and organize exchange in the absence of prices. Examples includes finding a partner, allocating students to schools, and matching donors to patients in the context of organ transplantations. While the main focus will be on formal models, we will also reason about the practical implications of the theory.

Why did the Greeks and Romans remain fascinated with the same stories of gods and demigods for more than a thousand years? On the other hand, how did they adapt those stories to fit new times and places? Starting with the earliest Greek poems and advancing through classical Athens, Hellenistic Alexandria, and Augustan Rome, we consider the history of writing poetry as a history of reading the past; the course also serves as an excellent introduction to ancient literary history at large. Readings may include Homer's 'Odyssey,' Hesiod, Aeschylus, Euripides, Apollonius Rhodius, Ovid, and Seneca.

This is an advanced humanities course on a specialized topic in some area of the humanities. It is usually taught by new or visiting faculty. The course may be re-taken for credit except as noted in the course announcement. Limited to 15 students. See registrar's announcement for details.

The use of large data sets and innovative statistical methods has revolutionized professional and intercollegiate sports. This course introduces students to the academic and professional world of contemporary sports science. The course will meet biweekly with instructor lectures on sports science and with guest speakers from collegiate and professional sports. Students will be introduced to the primary data sources for sports science, to methods used to collect sports performance and outcomes data, and to the statistical tools used for sports analytics (for example, logistic regression, regression trees and random forest, network models, time series, and natural language processing). Students will be responsible for weekly writing or homework assignments based on readings and speaker presentations, as well as a quarter-long sports analytics research project. Students should have some background in econometrics, statistics and probability, data science, or machine learning.

A consideration of existing literature on the voting behavior of the citizen, and an examination of theoretical and empirical views of the strategies followed by the parties. Two substantial papers are expected of students.

This course will provide the student with a unique insight into the skills used by successful scientists in the social sciences, with the focus being on psychology and cognitive neuroscience (although this is interesting for any type of science career). The course promotes active (hands on) learning, to enhance skills such as creative idea formation, theory, science communication including presentation and writing skills for the public. The class will also provide discussion on practices and expert opinions on what departments looks for when recruiting students and hiring faculty. Enrollment limited to 14 students.

A study of consumer preference, the structure and conduct of markets, factor pricing, measures of economic efficiency, and the interdependence of markets in reaching a general equilibrium.

The application of statistical techniques to the analysis of economic data.

Why does the U.S. Constitution feature separation of powers and protect states' rights? Should the Senate have a filibuster? When can Congress agree on the best policy for the country (and what does "best" even mean)? This course uses a rigorous set of tools including game theory and social choice to help students understand the effectiveness of American democracy to represent diverse interests. Using the tools, we study U.S. electoral systems, Congress, federalism, and the courts, with a focus on understanding how the country has tried to overcome the challenges of group decision making and the inevitable conflicts that arise between the branches of government and divided political interests. Students will leave the course with a deeper understanding of how rules and strategy shape U.S. democracy.

This course will examine the philosophical foundations of the physical theories covered in the first-year physics sequence: classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and special relativity. Topics may include: the goals of physics; what laws of nature are; the unification of physical theories; symmetries; determinism; locality; the reality of fields; the arrow of time.

This course will examine the historical origins of several regulatory agencies and trace their development over the past century or so. It will also investigate a number of current issues in regulatory politics, including the great discrepancies that exist in the cost-effectiveness of different regulations, and the advent of more market-based approaches to regulations instead of traditional "command-and-control." Not offered on a pass/fail basis.

Statistical inference in the social sciences is a difficult enterprise whereby we combine data and assumptions to draw conclusions about the world we live in. We then make decisions, for better or for worse, based on these conclusions. A simultaneously intoxicating and sobering thought! Strong assumptions about the data generating process can lead to strong but often less than credible (perhaps incredible?) conclusions about our world. Weaker assumptions can lead to weaker but more credible conclusions. This course explores the range of inferences that are possible when we entertain a range of assumptions about how data is generated. We explore these ideas in the context of a number of applications of interest to social scientists.

Current events have us looking to the past for explanations. How does Russian history help us to understand what is happening in Russia today? Contemporary political commentary emphasizes the recent past: the history of the Soviet Union and its collapse in 1991. This course takes a longer look at Russian political, economic, social, and cultural history - from imperial Russia to the present day. The emphasis is on longer continuities over eras: tsarist, Soviet, post-Soviet. Topics covered include the nature and role of the state, internal politics, rule of law and property rights, serfdom, inequality, art and social commentary, popular resistance, censorship, and the effects of all of these on the lives of ordinary Russians.

This course will focus on questions about the nature of space and time, particularly as they arise in connection with physical theory. Topics may include the nature and existence of space, time, and motion; the relationship between geometry and physical space (or space-time); entropy and the direction of time; the nature of simultaneity; and the possibility of time travel.

This course will focus on philosophical and foundational questions raised by quantum physics. Questions may include: Is quantum mechanics a local theory? Is the theory deterministic or indeterministic? What is the role of measurement and observation? Does the wave function always obey the Schrödinger equation? Does the wave function give a complete description of the state of a system? Are there parallel universes? How are we to understand quantum probabilities?

This course examines the causes of and solutions for conflict and violence: Why do wars occur and how do we stop them? We cover topics such as terrorism, ethnic violence, civil wars, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, repression, revolutions, and inter-state wars. We study these phenomena using the rational choice framework and modern tools in data analysis. The goals of the class are to explain conflicts and their terminations as outcomes of strategic decision-making and to understand the empirical strengths and weakness of current explanations.

Fundamentally, this course is about making arguments with numbers and data. Data analysis for its own sake is often quite boring, but becomes crucial when it supports claims about the world. A convincing data analysis starts with the collection and cleaning of data, a thoughtful and reproducible statistical analysis of it, and the graphical presentation of the results. This course will provide students with the necessary practical skills, chiefly revolving around statistical computing, to conduct their own data analysis. This course is not an introduction to statistics or computer science. I assume that students are familiar with at least basic probability and statistical concepts up to and including regression.

Corruption taxes economies and individuals in both the developing and the developed world. We will examine what corruption means in different places and contexts, from grand financial scandals to misappropriation of all manner of public resources. How do we measure corruption? What are its costs and social consequences? What have culture and psychology got to do with it? How much do governance and a free press matter? What are the potential solutions? Students will work closely with the professor to develop an independent and original research project of their choice. Limited enrollment.

Political and professional arenas often invoke technology as both a cause and potential solution. In much of mainstream American culture, an enthusiasm for innovation often overshadows the messier ways that humans interact with our surroundings through the artifacts and technologies that we create. In this course, we will examine the interplay between environment and technology in America, from before the arrival of Europeans on the North American continent through present debates about our changing planet. We will consider the boundaries that different groups have drawn between natural and artificial, and how these definitions have shaped the cultural, political, and material landscape of America. How useful are these boundaries? How might rethinking them also help us rethink America's history and its possible future?

Grammar fundamentals and their use in aural comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. Students who have had German in secondary school or college must consult with the instructor before registering.

Reading of short stories and plays, grammar review, aural and oral drills and exercises, expansion of vocabulary, and practice in reading, writing, and conversational skills. Second and third terms will emphasize written expression, technical/ scientific translation, and literary readings. Students who have studied German elsewhere must consult with the instructor before registering.

We will spend the term studying the famous and eccentric epic poem 'Paradise Lost' (1674) by the British poet and politician John Milton. Each week we will read about 1,000 to 1,500 lines of difficult but beautiful poetry, looking especially for its visual images, literary and mythological references, and poetic sounds, as well as Milton's copious and paradoxical philosophical stances. You will never forget the central character of Satan, the parliament of devils in Hell, the theological conversations in Heaven between God and Jesus, Eve being tempted by diabolical arguments to eat the forbidden fruit, and Adam and Eve being driven from the Garden of Eden at the point of an avenging angel's sword.

Forests - which cover 31 percent of the world's land surface - have played essential roles in enhancing the planet's biodiversity. Forests have also served humans in numerous and often controversial ways, and have also been subjected to dramatic change through human activity. How well have we served forests, as well as being served by them? The class will cover the growth and use of forests from a humanistic and historic perspective, as well as discussions about the role of fire in forests, with a particular emphasis on the unprecedented forest fires in California in the past several years and the global ecological implications.

The course will analyze Melville's career starting with Typee and ending with Billy Budd. Special attention will be given to Moby-Dick and Pierre. The centrality of Melville's position in American literature will be considered from a variety of perspectives, including aesthetics, representations of race, class, and gender, the role of the audience, and connections with other authors.

The cultural, scientific, social and political roles of birds make them an excellent lens through which to view humans' interactions with the natural world. This course will cover our changing understandings of birds, starting with hawking and falconry in earlier centuries, through the discovery of new species, up through Darwinian understandings of speciation and evolution, and continuing up to present scientific understandings of birds' capabilities and their ties to humankind, as well as to other anchors in the natural world. We will take a strong biographical as well as avian approach to understanding key personalities who furthered our understandings of avian science.

This course will critically examine attempts to understand moral judgment and behavior from the perspective of neuroscience and controversies surrounding its implications for moral philosophy. Starting from an evolutionary perspective, we will investigate the search for moral precursors in non-human primates and the evolutionary innovations in cognitive, emotional, and motivational mechanisms purported to underlie human morality. From there, we will investigate controversies regarding this emerging "neuroethics" for debates in moral psychology and normative ethics, including the role of reason, desire, and the self in normative theory and whether neuroscience can play any role in adjudicating among competing theories of normative ethics.

This course will critically examine the emerging science of happiness and positive psychology, its philosophical assumptions, methodology, and its role in framing social policy and practice. Topics to be addressed include: the relation between happiness as subjective well-being or life satisfaction and philosophical visions of the good life; the relation between happiness and virtue; the causes of happiness and the role of life experience; happiness and economic notions of human welfare, attempts to measure happiness, and the prospect for an economics of happiness; happiness as a brain state and whether brain science can illuminate the nature of happiness; mental illness and psychiatry in light of positive psychology.

This course surveys the music and musical institutions of Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Nearly two millennia of musical developments, needless to say, cannot be adequately covered in ten weeks; the course thus aims to build literacy in music from these periods by contextualizing musical works and their creators against broader themes, including music and the church, music and politics, music and gender, the evolution of musical notation, and the rise of secular music. At the same time, we will interrogate the central historical narratives of Western music that we have inherited and grapple with how historiography - the writing of history - shapes the way we understand the musical past and present.

This course will study the divergent theories of realism that arose in the period after the Civil War and before World War I. Authors covered may include Howells, James, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Twain, Sarah Orne Jewett, Jacob Riis, Stephen Crane, and W. E. B. DuBois.

This course introduces students to some of the seminal writings on the meaning of life, the essentials of rulership, and the place of the individual in the universe from the history of Chinese thought and philosophy. Students are given selected readings from several schools of thought in Chinese history, with an emphasis on the formative Warring States era (the period of the Hundred Schools of classical Chinese philosophy). Instead of being asked to write expository or argumentative essays, participants in this seminar will be introduced to analyzing and presenting texts using the method of annotation. Exposure to the principles of annotation will provide students with a new approach to analyzing and talking about texts both within a humanistic context and beyond.

This course surveys the music and musical institutions of Europe during the Baroque and Enlightenment eras. Two hundred years of musical developments, needless to say, cannot be adequately covered in ten weeks; the course thus aims to build literacy in music from these periods by contextualizing musical works and their creators against broader themes, including music in the European courts, music and religion, words and music, music and gender, music and Enlightenment ideals, and the rise of instrumental music. At the same time, we will interrogate the central historical narratives of Western music that we have inherited and grapple with how historiography - the writing of history - shapes the way we understand the musical past and present.

This course surveys the music and musical institutions of the so-called "Western art music" tradition from the Romantic era until the present. Over two hundred years of musical developments, needless to say, cannot be adequately covered in ten weeks; the course thus aims to build literacy in music of this period by contextualizing musical works and their creators against broader themes, including music and the nation, music as art and philosophy, music and appropriation, music and genre, and the musical canon. At the same time, we will interrogate the central historical narratives of Western music that we have inherited and grapple with how historiography - the writing of history - shapes the way we understand the musical past and present.

This course offers a broad introduction to the theoretical and empirical research in comparative political economy. An emphasis will be placed on the parallel process of political and economic development and its consequences on current democratic political institutions such as: electoral rules, party systems, parliamentary versus presidential governments, legislatures, judicial systems, and bureaucratic agencies as exemplified in central bank politics. We will study the differential impact of these political institutions on the type of policies they implement and the economic outcomes they produce. The main objective of the course will be to assess the robustness of the analyzed theories in light of their empirical support, coming mainly from statistical analysis.

This class will examine budgetary conflict at key junctures in U.S. history. Topics include the struggle to establish a viable fiscal system in the early days of the Republic, the ante bellum tariff, the "pension politics" of the post-Civil War era, the growth of the American welfare state, and the battle over tax and entitlement reform in the 1980s and 1990s.

This course will equip students to engage with active research at the intersection of social and information sciences, including: algorithmic game theory and mechanism design; auctions; matching markets; and learning in games.

An advanced humanities course on a special topic in music. Topics may include specific genres of music, the music of particular eras or geographical regions, or the relationship between music and other aspects of culture. The course may be re-taken for credit except as noted in the course announcement. See registrar's announcement for details.

General principles of the function and organization of nervous systems, providing both an overview of the subject and a foundation for advanced courses. Topics include the physical and chemical bases for action potentials, synaptic transmission, and sensory transduction; anatomy; development; sensory and motor pathways; memory and learning at the molecular, cellular, and systems level; and the neuroscience of brain diseases. Letter grades only.

Read and examine the selected Medieval to pre-modern Japanese literature and its traditions from 11th to 18th century from the perspectives of women, anti-heroes, and religions. A comparative analysis is applied to many genres such as oral traditions, performing arts, films, picture scrolls, comics, and anime to understand how Japanese think, and how Shinto, Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism, as well as the social systems, have formed their ways of life, ethics, and concepts of life and death. Read "The Princess Who Loved Insects" from "The Tsutsumi-Chunagon Monogatari", selected chapters of "The Tale of The Heike", "The Konjyaku Monogatari", and "Otogizoshi". Also read "The Double Suicide at Sonezaki" and "The Double Suicide at Amijima."

This seminar offers an introduction to scholarship on gender and science. Feminist science studies can seem oxymoronic: the objectivity on which science depends appears opposed to the political commitments feminism implies. Scholars in feminist science studies, however, argue that feminist theory and methods can in fact improve scientific practice. This course will introduce students to the historical development of feminist Science & Technology Studies and what this field tells us about the history of women in science, the history of scientific theories of sex/gender, and the future of feminist research. This reading-heavy class will also include discussions of feminist epistemology, feminist research methods, and new directions in feminist STS.

This course introduces students to the French novel of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from the realist masterpieces of Stendhal (The Red and the Black), Balzac (Old Goriot), and Flaubert (Madame Bovary/Sentimental Education) to Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Topics include the literary representation of reality, historical and social contexts (the Bourbon Restoration, 1848 Revolution, the Third Republic), and the decline of the French nobility. Covers 1814-1918. Conducted in English, but students may read the French originals.

In the context of knowledge of heavenly phenomena, model-making played a continuous role throughout the history of Babylonian astronomy, from the 2nd millennium BCE to the Hellenistic period. This course looks selectively at the development of models for astronomy, from arithmetical linear models in 2nd millennium BCE to 1st century BCE Babylonia to the geometrical cinematic models of Hellenistic Greek astronomy. Questions about the relationship of observation to theory and model-making, and the relationship of astronomical models to the representation of the motion of heavenly bodies and to cosmology will be of interest. The material will be set against its historical and cultural contexts, including the relationship of astronomy to astrology. Readings will be taken from cuneiform texts and translations of Greek astronomical treatises.

Covering a broad range of environments and visual cultures, this upper division course explores the history of Los Angeles through a decolonial and borderlands framework. The seminar begins with Tongva/Gabrielino history and traces the transformations and remapping of the land by Spanish, Catholic missionary, Mexican and Anglo-American empires. Relying on the Catholic Mexican Indigenous and Chicano ritual, Día de los Muertos, as a touchstone, the course investigates how aesthetic projects in Los Angeles have resisted the colonization of space, time, and being. We will cover topics including modernity/coloniality, conversion and assimilation, the politics of public art, and the outstanding role race has played in shaping the cultural landscape. Students will learn to analyze a contemporary opera, historic maps, murals, sculpture, socially-engaged art performances and photographs. Students will be tasked with generating small-scale collages and drawings in response to historic and contemporary themes. Local cultural workers and artists will be invited to speak with the class.

This course introduces students to Hollywood films and filmmaking during the classical period, from the coming of sound through the '50s. Students will develop the techniques and vocabulary appropriate to the distinct formal properties of film. Topics include the rise and collapse of the studio system, technical transformations (sound, color, deep focus), genre (the musical, the melodrama), cultural contexts (the Depression, World War II, the Cold War), audience responses, and the economic history of the film corporations. Terms may be taken independently. Part a covers the period 1927-1940. Part b covers 1941-1960. En/VC 160 b not offered 2022-23.

This is an advanced humanities course on a specialized topic in History. It is usually taught by new or visiting faculty. The course may be re-taken for credit except as noted in the course announcement. Limited to 15 students. See registrar's announcement for details.

A comparative, multidisciplinary course that examines the practice of science in a variety of locales, using methods from the history, sociology, and anthropology of scientific knowledge. Topics covered include the high-energy particle laboratory as compared with a biological one; Western as compared to non-Western scientific reasoning; the use of visualization techniques in science from their inception to virtual reality; gender in science; and other topics.

We will begin this course by reading a selection of Octavia E. Butler's (1947-2006) novels and short stories, including her 1993 novel Parable of the Sower, which became a New York Times bestseller in 2020. Born here in Pasadena, California in 1947, Butler's writing explored issues such as chattel slavery, climate change, genetic engineering, pandemics, nuclear apocalypse, and post-apocalyptic life. She was also attentive to Black and indigenous modes of care, healing, social justice, and organizing. We will pay special attention to Butler's critical and theoretical contributions to the fields of Afrofuturism, Black studies, feminisms, gender and sexuality studies, and the environmental humanities by reading her works in conjunction with select works of criticism and theory. In the second half of the course, we will explore connections between Butler and the works of other Afrofuturists and Black science fiction writers today, such as Tomi Adeyemi, Akwaeke Emezi, Nalo Hopkinson, N. K. Jemision, Nnedi Okorafor, and others, in order to explore our own ideas for extending Butler's literature of Black futures. Course requirements will likely include class attendance and participation in discussion, weekly reflections on the readings, a midterm project proposal, and a final project and essay.

What is a Black diasporic analytic and how might it deepen our understandings of the cultural and literary significance of Black lives around the world? The literary and culturally expressive genius of Black people across the African or Black diaspora has resulted in an extensive tradition within and beyond English-speaking nations. While this course focuses on contemporary Black diasporic literature and culture, it will also foreground the various histories that inform and shape this body of work. Additionally, students will learn how recent works of Black diasporic literature and culture have in turn shaped our current understandings of family, gender, identity, labor, migration, nation, race, sexuality, and more. Overall, this course will serve as an advanced-level introduction to several pivotal Black diasporic literary and cultural works; modes of criticism and methodologies; and the cultural, historical, and social realities of Black people's lives from the 1980s to today. Possible texts include those by Dionne Brand, Edwidge Danticat, Akwaeke Emezi, Bernardine Evaristo, Nalo Hopkinson, Jamaica Kincaid, Paule Marshall, and Caryl Phillips. All readings will be provided in English. Course requirements will likely include class attendance and participation in discussion, weekly reflections on the readings, a midterm project proposal, and a final project and essay.

The course develops a framework for understanding the changing relations between science and religion in Western culture since antiquity. Focus will be on the ways in which the conceptual, personal, and social boundaries between the two domains have been reshaped over the centuries. Questions to be addressed include the extent to which a particular religious doctrine was more or less amenable to scientific work in a given period, how scientific activity carved an autonomous domain, and the roles played by scientific activity in the overall process of secularization.

Major works of Latin literature, usually one per term. No work will be studied more than once in four years and students may repeat the course for credit.

One of the last great challenges to our understanding of the world concerns conscious experience. What exactly is it? How is it caused or constituted? And how does it connect with the rest of our science? This course will cover philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuroscience in a mixture of lectures and in-class discussion. There are no formal pre-requisites, but background in philosophy (equivalent to Pl 41, Pl 110) and in neuroscience (equivalent to NB/Bi/CNS 150) is strongly recommended and students with such background will be preferentially considered. Limited to 20.

This course covers the development of electromagnetism and thermal science from its beginnings in the early 18th century through the early 20th century. Topics covered include electrostatics, magnetostatics, electrodynamics, Maxwell's field theory, the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and statistical mechanics as well as related experimental discoveries.

A survey of the development of Chinese art in which the major achievements in architecture, sculpture, painting, calligraphy, and ceramics will be studied in their cultural contexts from prehistory through the Manchu domination of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Emphasis will be placed on the aesthetic appreciation of Chinese art as molded by the philosophies, religions, and history of China.

An introductory course in standard Chinese (Mandarin) designed for students with no previous knowledge of the language. The course introduces the fundamentals of Chinese, including pronunciation, grammar, and Chinese characters, emphasizing the four basic language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. By the end of the three-term sequence, students will have acquired knowledge of basic rules of grammar and the ability to converse, read, and write on simple topics of daily life, and will have command of more than 800 Chinese compounds and 700 characters.

An advanced humanities course on a special topic in visual culture. Topics may include art history, film, digital and print media, architecture, photography or cartography. It is usually taught by new or visiting faculty. The course may be re-taken for credit except as noted in the course announcement. Limited to 15 students. See registrar's announcement for details.

A streamlined course designed for students who have acquired some speaking, writing, or reading skills, either from home or school. The course aims at consolidating and developing the students' ability in listening, conversation, reading, and writing. By the end of the three-term sequence, students should have command of 2000 Chinese compounds and 1500 characters, and be able to live or work in a Chinese speaking environment. Students who completed L 171 abc can advance to L 173 ab (Advanced Chinese)

What makes an old building, artifact, or custom "historic"? Which historic things are worth preserving? This course explores the aesthetic, political, social, and environmental dimensions of cultural heritage. We will examine the narratives and values associated with heritage conservation at the local level as well as within national and global contexts. From Caltech's own campus and the Watts Towers, to the national parks, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and the culinary legacy of the Atlantic slave trade, our class will grapple with the theories, practices, and debates as they determine what gets preserved and which stories get told. Readings/screenings will be supplemented with field trips to heritage sites in Pasadena and Los Angeles.

A course designed to meet the personal interests and future professional goals of students who have had one year of elementary modern Chinese. Students will learn new vocabulary, sentence patterns, idiomatic expressions, and proverbs, as well as insights into Chinese society, culture, and customs.

This course is an introduction to non-cooperative game theory, with applications to political science and economics. It covers the theories of normal-form games and extensive-form games, and introduces solutions concepts that are relevant for situations of complete and incomplete information. The basic theory of repeated games is introduced. Applications are to auction theory and asymmetric information in trading models, cheap talk and voting rules in congress, among many others.

In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates famously described the virtues of two ways of looking at the world. The first entailed "seeing together things that are scattered about everywhere and collecting them into one kind," while the second was the skill "to cut up each kind according to its species along its natural joints, and to try not to splinter any part, as a bad butcher might do." In a similar sentiment, Darwin wrote in 1857, "It is good to have hair-splitters and lumpers." How have scientists and laypeople perceived similarities and differences in the living world? How have they divided nature into distinct kinds and individuals? How have they distinguished between parts and wholes? Where have they positioned human beings within nature's order? What were the consequences of finding different kinds of order in nature? This course explores these and related questions historically. We will consider different approaches to making sense of nature, and how a multitude of perspectives have been brought to bear on this ordering project. Topics covered include taxonomy and classification, race science and scientific racism, gender and sex differences, disease categories and immune selfhood, and symbioses and biogeochemical cycles.

A course designed as a bridge between language and content courses. It provides the opportunity to further develop overall language proficiency through reading essays on Chinese culture, stories, and news editorials. Multimedia is included. By the end of L 173 ab, students should have acquired the basic skills to read and research about Chinese culture and society. Classes are conducted primarily in Chinese.

Humans excel at using other organisms, including other humans, as means to ends. From the beginnings of agriculture, our species has cultivated crops, livestock, and microbial fermenters as living technologies of production. In modern industrial economies, human uses of life have undergone radical changes, as have the values humans assigned different forms of life. Agriculture underwent rationalization and intensification, increasing yields many times over. Scaled-up fermentation techniques served to preserve food, manufacture drugs, and process wastes. In vitro fertilization and somatic cell nuclear transfer permitted dramatic interventions in sexual reproduction. This course will explore these and other histories of biotechnology across different temporal, geographic, and cultural contexts, paying special attention to the ambivalent relationships that arose between user and used in such instrumentalizations of life.

Offered concurrently with L 174. Reading and discussion of representative Chinese written work throughout Chinese history, including philosophical texts and literary works in different genres. Students are expected to examine these works in light of their sociopolitical and historical contexts. Students who write papers in Chinese may enroll in this class as L 174. This course can be repeated for credit when the course content changes.

Offered concurrently with Hum 174. Reading and discussion of representative Chinese written work throughout Chinese history, including philosophical texts and literary works in different genres. Students are expected to examine these works in light of their sociopolitical and historical contexts. Students who write papers in English may enroll in this class as Hum 174, which satisfies the advanced humanities requirement. This course can be repeated for credit when the course content changes.

Intense training in oral expression, pronunciation, vocabulary, listening comprehension and fluency. The class is designed for students planning to attend Ecole Polytechnique. Discussion materials and guest lectures will focus on technical language to prepare students for their classes in math and science. Taught in French. Enrollment limited to 12. L 175 can be repeated for credit since the content is never the same (different speakers, different articles discussed in class).

The cornerstone of current progress in understanding the mind, the brain, and the relationship between the two is the study of human and animal cognition. This course will provide an in-depth survey and analysis of behavioral observations, theoretical accounts, computational models, patient data, electrophysiological studies, and brain-imaging results on mental capacities such as attention, memory, emotion, object representation, language, and cognitive development. Given in alternate years; offered 2022-23.

Modern science is often described as a rational, empirical, and objective search for truth about nature. But how, when, and why did science come to acquire these qualities? Many scholars look to the exciting developments and discoveries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe-the so-called "Scientific Revolution"-as the defining period for the emergence of modern science. If "modern" science is defined in these terms, then "premodern" science must have looked more like pseudo-science, superstition, or myth. However, that is far from the truth. In this course, we'll work to uncover the role that the occult sciences, including alchemy, astrology, and magic, played in the formation of modern science. Our studies of the occult sciences will force us to think more deeply about what distinguishes modern science from the occult sciences, and to question why their role in the development of modern science has also been obscured.

Training in oral expression, pronunciation, vocabulary, listening comprehension and fluency. The class is designed for students who have learned one year of Chinese and plan to incorporate it into their future professional or social lives. News, guest talks and discussion forums will be included. Can be repeated for credit as content changes every year.

This is an advanced humanities course on a specialized topic in English. It is usually taught by new or visiting faculty. The course may be re-taken for credit except as noted in the course announcement. Limited to 15 students. See registrar's announcement for details.

A survey of topics in moral philosophy. The emphasis will be on metaethical issues, although some normative questions may be addressed. Metaethical topics that may be covered include the fact/value distinction; the nature of right and wrong (consequentialism, deontological theories, rights-based ethical theories, virtue ethics); the status of moral judgments (cognitivism vs. noncognitivism, realism vs. irrealism); morality and psychology; moral relativism; moral skepticism; morality and self-interest; the nature of justice. The implications of these theories for various practical moral problems may also be considered.

This class takes up a set of mostly very funny, mostly 20th century British novels to frame a simple-seeming, yet deceptively complicated set of questions: What does it mean to be educated? Who has access to education? What does an ideal education consist in? And ultimately: What is a university for? As we think through these questions we will read op/eds and investigative journalism in addition to fiction, and we will consider a variety of university-centered topics (determined by student interest) including issues of gender, class, privilege, race, and genius. Authors read may include Sayers, Larkin, Amis, C.P. Snow, Lodge, and Zadie Smith.

Studies Cervantes's literary masterpiece, Don Quixote, with a view to the great upheavals that shaped the early modern world: Renaissance Europe's discovery of America; feudalism's demise and the rise of mass poverty; Reformation and Counter-Reformation; extermination of heretics and war against infidels; and the decline of the Hapsburg dynasty. The hapless protagonist of Don Quixote calls into question the boundaries between sanity and madness, truth and falsehood, history and fiction, objectivity and individual experience. What might be modern, perhaps even revolutionary, in Cervantes's dramatization of the moral and material dilemmas of his time? Conducted in English.

This course covers the fundamentals of utility theory, game theory, and social choice theory. These basic theories are developed and illustrated with applications to electoral politics, market trading, bargaining, auctions, mechanism design and implementation, legislative and parliamentary voting and organization, public economics, industrial organization, and other topics in economics and political science. Open to Social Science graduate students only.

Course will introduce the student to the central problems of political theory and analysis, beginning with the essential components of the democratic state and proceeding through a variety of empirical topics. These topics will include the analysis of electoral and legislative institutions, legislative agenda processes, voting behavior, comparative political economy, and cooperation and conflict in international politics. The student will be sensitized to the primary empirical problems of the discipline and trained in the most general applications of game theoretic reasoning to political science. Open to Social Science graduate students only.

This is a graduate course in the fundamentals of economics. Topics include comparative statics and maximization techniques, the neo-classical theory of consumption and production, general equilibrium theory and welfare economics, public goods and externalities, the economic consequences of asymmetric information and incomplete markets, and recursive methods with applications to labor eco-nomics and financial economics. Open to Social Science graduate students only.

Mathematical theories of individual and social choice applied to problems of welfare economics and political decision making as well as to the construction of political economic processes consistent with stipulated ethical postulates, political platform formulation, the theory of political coalitions, and decision making in political organizations.

May be repeated for credit. Advanced work in a specialized area of economic theory, with topics varying from year to year according to the interests of students.

This three-quarter sequence is designed for advanced Social Science Ph.D. students with the aim of introducing students to the methodology of modern experimental economics and to provide an in-depth overview of the contributions of experimental methods to a wide variety of fields. The specific topics covered, which will vary from year to year, include but are not limited to individual decision making, preference and belief elicitation, game theory, social learning, bargaining, labor economics, public finance, auctions, voting and elections, competitive markets, networks, matching, mechanism design, coordination/communication, and information aggregation. The focus will be on theory-based experiments and how the dialog between theoretical analysis and laboratory data feeds each other, thereby leading to new avenues of theoretical and experimental research.

Mathematical finance: Pricing financial derivatives, risk management, and optimal portfolio selection. Methods of stochastic, Ito calculus for models driven by Brownian motion. Asset pricing theory: Mean-variance theory, information economics, continuous-time finance and differential equations, intertemporal consumption-based asset pricing theories, recent developments in intermediary-based and behavioral asset pricing theories. Behavioral finance: Empirical facts about asset prices, investor trading behavior, and firm behavior. Psychology about investor preferences and beliefs. Behavioral finance models that explain empirical facts. Trading strategies implemented by hedge funds. Prescriptive behavioral finance that aims at helping individuals and institutions to make better financial decisions.

Introduction to the use of multivariate and nonlinear methods in the social sciences. Open to Social Science graduate students only.

The courses in this sequence cover advanced methods and tools in econometrics, as well as their applications to a variety of topics in economics, including industrial organization, dynamic choice, information economics, political economy, market design, and behavioral economics. Offered first and third terms.

This course provides broad coverage of empirical methods in the social sciences. This includes both methods of data collection and practical aspects of data analysis, as well as related issues of survey design, experimental design, techniques for handling large datasets, and issues specific to the collection and analysis of field and historical data. This course also provides students with hands-on experience with data. Open to Social Science graduate students only.

May be repeated for credit. Introduction to modern quantitative history. The tools of economic and political theory applied to problems of economic, social, and political development in a historical context. Second and third terms will be graded together. A pass/fail will be assigned in the second term and then changed to the appropriate letter grade at the end of the third term.

An advanced graduate Social Science sequence in American and comparative politics. The sequence will focus on political institutions and behavior, introducing students to the important theories of American and comparative politics. Students will learn how historical, observational, and experimental data are used in American and comparative political analysis.

This course is an advanced topics course intended for graduate students with a background in optimization, linear systems theory, probability and statistics, and an interest in learning, game theory, and decision making more broadly. We will cover the basics of game theory including equilibrium notions and efficiency, learning algorithms for equilibrium seeking, and discuss connections to optimization, machine learning, and decision theory. While there will be some initial overview of game theory, the focus of the course will be on modern topics in learning as applied to games in both cooperative and non-cooperative settings. We will also discuss games of partial information and stochastic games as well as hierarchical decision-making problems (e.g., incentive and information design).

Emotions are at the forefront of most human endeavors. Emotions aid us in decision-making (gut feelings), help us remember, torment us, yet have ultimately helped us to survive. Over the past few decades, we have begun to characterize the neural systems that extend from primitive affective response such as fight or flight to the complex emotions experienced by humans including guilt, envy, empathy and social pain. This course will begin with an in-depth examination of the neurobiological systems that underlie negative and positive emotions and move onto weekly discussions, based on assigned journal articles that highlight both rudimentary and complex emotions. The final weeks will be devoted to exploring how the neurobiological systems are disrupted in affective disorders including anxiety, aggression and psychopathy. In addition to these discussions and readings, each student will be required to write a review paper or produce a short movie on a topic related to one of the emotions discussed in these seminars and its underlying neural mechanisms.

Only open to advanced graduate students in social science. How can social scientists write in a style that makes someone actually want to read their papers? This seminar combines writing exercises with help in planning a professional social science paper and with extensive comments on drafts.

Course for graduate students in social sciences. Students present their research and lead discussion of material relevant to their research program. Open to Social Science Graduate Students only.

The course involves student presentations of their research, reading and discussion of recent research in social and decision neuroscience, and development of professional skill such as scientific writing and speaking, research ethics, writing grants and peer review. This course is only open to graduate students in the Social and Decision Neuroscience, Computational and Neural Systems and Social Science PhD programs.

The goal of this course is to introduce graduate students to current research questions in cognitive sciences, political science, and economics. Select faculty will present their research background, methods, and a sampling of current studies. Background readings and pdf of presentation will be provided.

This course is designed for students to improve their ability for written expression in the English language. This course is only open to graduate students in the Social Decision Neuroscience and Social Science Ph.D. programs.