Courses

This course compares regions, cultures, societies, and economies within and across the Pacific Basin. The course surveys the geography and history of this region, an increasingly important arena in world affairs. From various perspectives, the course also examines contemporary issues, such as economic relations, migration, regional institutions, globalization, democratization, trans-nationalism, and the environment in the Pacific Basin. As a result of taking this course, students will develop an understanding of the historical transformations; develop a critical awareness of social, political, economic and cultural issues within the region over time; develop skills of oral and/or written expression; gain experience of interdisciplinary perspectives; gain critical skills for interpreting visual and/or other representations of peoples and cultures across the region.

This course will introduce the student to the main themes of Western philosophy and the various approaches within philosophy. It will acquaint the students with the major thinkers of the philosophical tradition by analyzing and discussing challenging texts of the history of philosophy.

This one-credit course is designed to provide students selected for the Student Orientation Leader (SOL) Program with keys to effective leadership. While the emphasis is on experiential learning, students also examine in an academic context various leadership styles, learning to identify and/or develop their own. The course will emphasize ethical leadership, personal responsibility, and community service. While taking this course, students will be engaged in various on-campus orientation activities, including trust building, goal setting, time management, team building, communication, and group process, that utilize their leadership role as an SOL. The course includes journal writing, readings, and group presentations. This course is not required but is open to students who qualify.

Every field of inquiry that deals with data uses methods of descriptive statistics to summarize and describe their data.  Every field of inquiry that deals with data seeks to draw inference beyond the available data.  This course introduces widely-used methods of descriptive statistics and methods of statistical inference through the lens of applied mathematics.  This course is not recommended to students who have taken and passed BIO 205.

An introduction to probability theory with applications to statistics:  basic combinatorics, permutations and combinations, sample space, events, mutual exclusivity, independence, conditional probability, Bayes’ theorem, random variables, distribution, expectation, variability, Chebyshev’s theorem, joint distribution, binomial distribution, normal distribution, Central Limit Theorem, estimation of and confidence intervals for binomial parameter, Bayesian approach to inference.  Further topics may include theory of sampling, covariance, correlation, least squares, regression.  Note: this is not a statistical methods course of the type that may be expected in areas such as health or social sciences, though it provides a good foundation for such courses.

This course explores the organization and operation of national state power in the United States. It begins with a “textbook” account of American government and politics, focused on the formal institutional arrangements of the U.S. national state (viz., the constitution, separation of powers, federalism, congress, president, and Supreme Court) as well as the formal mechanisms through which the state is linked to American citizens (esp., public opinion, elections, political parties, and interest groups). Armed with this formalist view, we turn to an examination of the “real world” of American democracy. Here we engage in a close and careful reading of a handful of empirical studies on the actual workings of the U.S. political system with a focus on citizen-state relationships, the constitutional and institutional organization of the U.S. national state, and the relationship between this state and the nation’s corporate capitalist economy.

This course, which requires no specific mathematical background, introduces valid deductive reasoning in a precise mathematical context. Students will learn formal languages encompassing elementary propositional and predicate logic, and techniques for assessing the validity of arguments expressible in those languages. Logic is foundational to mathematics, philosophy, and computer science, and indispensable in any reasonable debate.

Computer science is the study of problem-solving strategies called algorithms.  In this course, students will develop the essential skills of programming, examine select algorithms and data structures, and learn the broad strokes of the theory of computing, which includes formal languages, Turing machines, and the notions of universality, computability, and intractability regarding computational problems. 

This course introduces basic musicianship skills (including literacy, keyboard and aural skills). It is meant for students who wish to learn to play music but don’t have sufficient background to begin performance-oriented courses, or those who play but wish to improve in these areas.

This course is an introduction to the field of network science with an emphasis on the mathematical aspects and properties of networks. A network is an accessible yet powerful structure used to represent and study relationships. In practice, networks model different phenomena arising in fields such as biology, economics, sociology, computer science, and physics. In this class, we’ll look rigorously at the mathematical structure of networks (this field is often referred to as graph theory), while also considering real world models, such as spread of disease, web link analysis, and financial networks. This course has no prerequisites.

This course is for beginning to intermediate level piano students who have basic music literacy skills. Students will build keyboard skills through technical exercises and weekly rehearsals of ensemble and solo literature, and prepare for a performance at the piano workshop. May be repeated for credit.

This course is designed for students who want to improve their vocal skills in a group setting and explore singing in a variety of styles such as popular music, classical, jazz and musical theater. Specifics include singing in harmony and developing musical expression/communication with each other and with an audience. May be repeated for credit.

This course is designed for students who want to experience performing musical theater in a musical revue to be presented at the end of the semester. Students will be singing alone and/ or in small or large groups. Students are expected to learn basic choreography and possibly perform some accompanying dialogue lines. An emphasis is placed on musical and dramatic expression with each other and with an audience.

This course is for students with basic music literacy skills who wish to learn to play classical string instruments. May be repeated for credit.

This course is open to students with basic music literacy skills who wish to study and perform a variety of chamber ensemble music. May be repeated for credit.

This course is open to all instrumentalists, including woodwind, brass, string and percussion players, who possess basic music literacy skills. The Concert Band will play both traditional and contemporary large-ensemble repertoire. May be repeated for credit.

This course is open to all interested students with basic music literacy skills, regardless of prior experience playing percussion instruments. The ensemble will explore a range of literature for percussion, with a focus on helping students develop their rhythmic and sight-reading abilities, as well as ensemble performance skills. May be repeated for credit.

This course offers an introduction to playing and improvising jazz at the piano. Basic music literacy skills are required, but no prior performing experience or keyboard experience required. Students with performing experience with voice or other instruments are welcome. May be repeated for credit. Instructor permission required.

This course focuses on developing and improving singing skills, emphasizing vocal technique, musicianship, and communication. Specifics addressed include breath control, correct intonation, tone production, pronunciation and interpretation. Instructor permission required.

This is an introduction to literary genres and to the art of critical reading. The course will survey important examples of lyric poetry, short narratives, essays, novels, and drama. The main objective is to help students gain confidence and insight as they read difficult literary masterpieces, such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as well as help in grappling with the intense poetic strategies of poets such as John Keats and W. B. Yeats. The course will survey a variety of critical approaches to literary texts and it will also focus on the student’s growth as a critical writer. Lit 140 serves as a prerequisite for higher courses in literature.

This course is open to students with basic music literacy skills who wish to learn jazz performance and improvisation in an ensemble setting. May be repeated for credit.

This course is a survey of traditional music from around the world. It is designed to help students develop their skills in listening to, and describing music, and through this engagement, to deepen students’ appreciation of both the universal human activity of music-making and some of the specific cultures and peoples involved in it and their histories. The course is open to all students regardless of level of previous musical training.

This course examines the foundations of American political thought through a close and careful reading of key texts written by the Founding Fathers (most significantly, the Federalist Papers); an analysis of the political thought of thinkers who most influenced the founders (including Aristotle, Machiavelli, Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu); and an examination of classic commentaries on American political thought, especially Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. The main theme throughout the course is the tension in American political thought between democracy and liberty; how the Founders viewed this tension (and why); and how this tension was incorporated into the nation’s founding documents (the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution) as well as how it has been differentially reflected in key Supreme Court decisions ever since the famous Marbury v. Madison case in 1803.

The physics of motion on earth and in the heavens is traced from ancient Greek times through the Dark and Middle Ages, to the Renaissance and Galileo, and to Newton and the Enlightenment. Humanistic, cultural, and historical perspectives are emphasized as is the scientific method/process. Science is shown to be inextricably linked to other human endeavors such as religion, art, politics, music, literature, philosophy, and commerce. High school knowledge of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and scientific notation would be helpful. Concurrently, we will explore physics after Newton and up to the contemporary frontier of string/brane theory, covering topics such as relativity and quantum mechanics and utilizing modern physics labs.

This introductory course offers a rigorous initiation to the “close reading” of literary texts and critical essays as well as to in depth interpretive activity. While it serves as a prerequisite for advanced courses in literature and humanities, it serves no less as preparation for critical reading in all intellectual disciplines in which difficult texts, complex writing and both research and scholarly rigor are in play. Lit 155 serves as a prerequisite for higher courses in literature.

This course helps develop quantitative, statistical, and financial literacy, indispensable for an educated, socially engaged person in today’s society. Quantitative literacy involves developing confidence and competence with numbers and measures, and requires understanding of the number system, a repertoire of mathematical techniques, and an inclination and ability to solve quantitative or spatial problems in a range of contexts. Statistical literacy requires understanding of the ways in which data are gathered and represented. Financial literacy requires, besides an understanding of basic personal finance tools like savings and loans, some knowledge of today’s financial and economic realities and a willingness to consider their possible impact on personal finances.

This course, suitable for students with a strong pre-calculus level background, focuses on Differential Calculus. Students will review properties of functions, learn the concept of mathematical limit, and study the properties and interpretations of the derivative, using some of the more common applications. Time permitting, students will be introduced to integrals and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. Calculus is widely used in the sciences, economics, and statistics for modeling and computations.

This course, suitable for students with a good background in Differential Calculus, focuses on Integral Calculus and Infinite Series. Students will review limits and derivatives, and study the properties and interpretations of the integral, using some of the more common applications. Students will also be introduced to infinite series, and their connection to Differential Calculus. Calculus is widely used in the sciences, economics, and statistics for modeling and computations.

(required for first and second year students, optional for third year students.)

This course explores powerful and complex major work from the remarkable period of North American literary maturity, an era often called the “American Renaissance:” Melville’s Moby Dick; Twain’s Huckleberry Finn; Whitman’s Leaves of Grass; Emerson’s Essays; Henry Adams’ Education; Thoreau’s Walden; and Emily Dickinson’s elegant poetry, and other texts.

This course examines major texts of literature in North America’s 20th century cultural upheaval: the poetry of William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens; novels by Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner and Joseph Heller; dramatic texts by Eugene O’Neil alongside studies in the relationship between art and the rise of cinema with its competing but often derivative narrative and imagistic techniques.

This course will survey the major works, genres, and themes of Chinese and Japanese pre-modern literature, focusing on literature of the Tang/Song dynasties and the Nara/Heian eras (c. 700-1200 AD). Students will study the works of individual poets and essayists, their contributions to the classic anthologies, and excerpts from the major novels and prose narratives of the premodern age. The course will also examine foundational critical theories within Asian literature, such as the genesis of poetry, the relationship between images and ideographic meaning, and the roles of fiction and diaries within society.

This course will survey the principal works, authors, and themes of Chinese and Japanese medieval literature, focusing on literature of the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties and the Kamakura, Muromachi and Edo eras (~1100-1800CE.)The course will look at the three dominant genres of poetic anthology, personal narrative and staged drama, with particular attention paid to the conflicts between elegance and earthiness, worldliness and reclusiveness, and the changing perspectives towards gender and personal identity.

Students taking this course will read and discuss texts from various Asian countries but will focus primarily on works from China and Japan. The literature dealt with in class will be drawn from various periods, nations, and genres in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This course explores various aspects of the literatures that have developed in Latin America. The works read in class may be drawn from indigenous sources as well as from the Spanish and Portuguese traditions. All works are read in translation.

This course will examine embedded views of the relationship between humans and their environments in the context and function of music in different times and cultures. Music is commonly both a means of the most profound communication between humans and nature, and an embodiment of cultural understanding and expression of this relationship, of humans’ place in nature. Readings will include examination of music cultures, the expressed views and philosophies of the people in those music cultures, and studies of the ecological systems and ecological impacts of human actions where those people live.

Linear algebra is the study of linear equations, matrices, vectors, linear functions, and vector spaces, as well as the theory and applications of linearity. The central ideas in linear algebra are so powerful that their influence seeps into many other branches of mathematics and statistics, the sciences, engineering, and economics. In this course we will develop a mastery of the particular tools of linear algebra, while making a dedicated effort to understand the concepts behind these tools and the relationships between them.

This course will explore the relationship between the universal human activity of music-making and biological and psychological aspects of our mental processes. Readings will be drawn from a range of disciplines, to include the physics of sound and hearing, the neurobiology of perception, the cognitive psychology of memory, temporal processing, emotion, entrainment, and expectation, the social psychology of functions such as communication, empathy and intercultural understanding, and related philosophical questions. These theoretical foundations will be applied to listening and music-making activities, but no prior experience is required. The primary goals are 1) to develop an enriched understanding of and appreciation for the function of music in human life, and 2) to develop an enriched understanding of and appreciation for the complexities of the human mind, through the lens of our musical activities.

The essay is everywhere: a newspaper, a YouTube Channel and a college app. Invented by Montaigne in the Early Modern Europe, the essay has risen to be a dominant cultural form. What did Montaigne want the essay to be? Has the essay become a victim of its success? We will consider four epochs in the history of the essay: Antiquity (Plutarch and Marcus Aurelius); Renaissance and Early Modern (Montaigne and Thomas Browne); Romanticism (Rousseau and Hazlitt); and Contemporary (Joseph Brodsky, Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, James Baldwin, Zadie Smith, etc.) The class culminates in the examination of the cross-media forms of the essay (photo-essays of Lee Friedlander, essay films of Orson Wells and Chris Marker, and online video-essays).

From Heraclitus on, the concept of nature has proven to be unique in its ability to expand imagination, stimulate thought, and articulate disagreement. This class will place major texts in the traditions of natural philosophy, pastoral, and cultural critique alongside contemporary interventions, including arguments for the ecology without nature. Our goal is to rethink nature in response to the technological mastery of all life made possible by the advancement of science. The texts to be studied include Aristotle, Pliny the Elder, Lucretius, Virgil, Rousseau, Diderot, Thoreau, Darwin, Dennett and Will Self. 

This course is for intermediate level piano students who have completed the first two semesters of beginning piano class, but are not yet ready for advanced piano lessons. Students will build their keyboard skills through technical exercises, weekly semi-private lessons, ensemble experiences, and performances.

The course deals primarily with issues related to tone production, breathe control, pronunciation, dramatic interpretation, and choices of popular and traditional song literature. Song choice will reflect an intermediate/advanced level and will serve to help each student increase their singing ability. Students will review basic vocal techniques used by singers and move on to more advanced vocal exercises and repertoire.

This course examines major philosophical approaches to ethics. The course includes Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Confucian, Taoist and Existentialist approaches, among others. Issues that pose ethical dilemmas are examined. The purpose of the course is to teach the skills of critical reflection especially as they apply to understanding the foundations of ethics.

This class examines the styles of comedy from Aristophanes to Samuel Beckett and contemporary stand-up. We begin by clarifying distinctions fundamental to comic representation of action (such as invective, humor, grotesque, wit mock, irony, sarcasm, deadpan, etc.) Then we undertake a journey through different worlds of comedy (the comedy of errors, satire, grotesque, nonsense, and black humor). Throughout our readings, we will consider the following alternatives: Does comedy subvert or reinforce existing social norms? Does it unmask or justify inequality? Is laughter a servant of hegemony or an agent of emancipation? In each of our readings, we will work to identify the potential of comedy to sketch sociological commentary, supply models of selfhood and offer incentive to political action. Primary texts will be supplemented by reading in the theory of comedy (Hegel, Baudelaire, Bergson, Freud).

This course explores traditional and popular musical practices in Spanish-speaking Latin America. Focusing on the rich mixture of African, European, and indigenous cultures that characterize this region, the class will examine technical aspects of music itself, cultural contexts of musical creation and performance, and the historical development of particular musical styles. Case studies, explored through listening and reading, will highlight various local and national musical traditions and their presence in transnational migrant communities and emerging world music markets.

This course examines classical, folk, and popular music of East and Southeast Asia, with an emphasis on both technical aspects of music as well as its cultural and historical context. Topics may include court music and theater traditions, music and nationalism, folk music revitalization movements, music and politics, and the development of contemporary popular music styles. Individual case studies will be explored through extensive listening and the reading of musical ethnographies.

This course, open to students regardless of previous background in music, examines the history and development of what is often called “classical music,” the art music of Europe up to the 20th century. Students will focus on developing listening skills and thinking critically about musical compositions and styles, while learning about the social and cultural contexts in which the music was created.

The first of two courses covering the usual introductory physics topics but re-ordered to follow the timeline of the universe: evolution of the cosmos, evolution of life on earth, and evolution of human social reality. Computer labs will promote modeling and simulation skills using Python. Biological, chemical, medical, or health-related contexts or applications will be used where suitable as are connections to enduring questions of humanity or modes of inquiry. The courses are algebra-based, though a few essential calculus concepts will be introduced via computer labs.

The second of two courses covering the usual introductory physics topics but re-ordered to follow the timeline of the universe: evolution of the cosmos, evolution of life on earth, and evolution of human social reality. Computer labs will promote modeling and simulation skills using Python. Biological, chemical, medical, or health-related contexts or applications will be used where suitable as are connections to enduring questions of humanity or modes of inquiry. The courses are algebra-based, though a few essential calculus concepts will be introduced via computer labs.

This course is designed to provide an introduction to the study of the literature produced by African-American writers in the social, historical, and political context of the United States. But we are also aware that the designation “African-American” might refer, as well, to peoples of African descent in various parts of the New World complex, from Canada to the southern tip of the United States, from Florida to the Yucatan, and from Cuba and the Caribbean across Central and South America. This course is devoted to an examination of writing and its creative product across the genres of fiction, poetry, and social critique from roughly the middle of the nineteenth century to the early twenty-first.

This course is an introduction to multivariable calculus. Topics include vectors in the plane and in space, limits and continuity, partial derivatives, directional derivatives, gradient, tangent planes, multivariable optimization and Lagrange multipliers, multiple integration, vector fields, line integrals, divergence, curl, and the theorems of Green, Gauss and Stokes.

Basic ideas of mathematical modeling; first order differential equations, first order systems, and linearity.  Other topics selected from Second order equations, forcing, nonlinear systems, Laplace transforms, numerical methods.

Through the lens of discrete mathematics, this course will serve as an introduction to formal proof writing techniques and advanced mathematics. Proof writing is the powerful process of demonstrating through formal argument that a statement or claim is correct in mathematical language. Topics covered in this class include combinatorics (methods of counting things), number theory (study of integers and prime numbers), and graph theory (theoretical study of networks), with an emphasis on creative problem solving and learning to read and write rigorous proofs. While no formal prerequisite is required, a previous math class at SUA or high school equivalent is strongly encouraged.

This course will introduce students to the methodology of philosophical thinking and the grand topics that have engaged philosophers over the ages including the problem of evil, the existence of the Deity and the problem of human life. Students will be introduced to the general sub-disciplines of philosophy, including the history of philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, normative ethics, applied ethics, aesthetics and political philosophy. They will study select contemporary periods. They will also be introduced to meta-philosophy, different styles of philosophy; e.g., analytic, system building, existentialism and phenomenology.

Anthropogenic climate change, increasing planetary destruction and the consequences for distributive justice for future generations have been defined as the most crucial problems of the 21st century. 60% of the world’s population live in cities that are impacted. How can students become aware of the knowledge of their agency in addressing these issues? How can SUA students develop knowledge and pragmatic application toward positively affecting the outcome of these issues. This is a seminal course in the pro-active, ethical relationships of human beings to the universe. It amplifies the SUA principle of ‘the creative co-existence of nature and humanity’. It analyzes the concept of how we relate to the natural environment is a foundational, philosophical, moral issue. Career minded students can choose from many M. A. and Ph. D. programs in environmental ethics. The uniqueness of SUA’s course is that it examines the ethical dimensions of human relationships to the natural world, cities and the cosmopolitan world from a variety of multi-cultural perspectives including East, West and South, Anthropocentrism, Humanism, Aristotelianism, Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, Transcendentalism, Indigenous perspectives, Marxism and Deep Ecology. Ethical topics discussed include the relationship between Normative Ethics and Environmental ethics, Ethical Reasoning, Ethical Issues, Urban Issues, Human nature, Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Public Health Ethics, Animal Rights, Reverence for Life, and the Ethical Relevance of Corporate Practices to Sentient and Non-Sentient Nature. The guiding thread of the course is human responsibility for being the caretaker of the universe. Cross-listed as ES 285.

This course introduces students to the ancient literatures of Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome, primarily poetry and drama, from Gilgamesh through Virgil. The course is designed to give students a broad understanding of the major literary works of this period and their historical significance.

Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist of all times. Most recently the sixteenth-century bard has been a great scriptwriter for Kenneth Branagh and Hollywood. This course focuses on a close reading of selected tragedies and comedies. Attention will be paid to the specificity of the English language of the period in order to facilitate reading. Due attention will also be paid to action, character as well as to the heft and swing of the meter and rhyme. The goal of the course is to help students understand the reasons for Shakespeare’s unparalleled success by locating the remarkable achievement of his literary career in the context of the theatrical, literary, social, and political world in which he worked.

The United Nations system serves as both a forum for multilateral diplomacy and as an influential actor in the international system in its own right. Following the end of the Second World War, the UN was created with the hope that this new international organization would (according to the preamble of the UN Charter) "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war," as well as promote human rights, and social and economic progress. As both forum and agent, the UN system has fulfilled this mandate with mixed results. The goal of this course is to understand better what, how, and why the United Nations System does what it does. Special focus is given to the work of the United Nations in International Peace and Security, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and Development.

This course satisfies the advanced writing skills course requirement.

This course examines recent trends in literature and/or criticism across cultures from a comparative point of view. The primary emphasis is on examining the way in which both literary texts and critical methods respond to changing points of view about the individual, culture, and history. The works examined in this class changes from year to year, but normally includes major works of drama and fiction.

Women in Music is an investigation into and a celebration of women’s musical activities in a variety of capacities and musical traditions. The course will cover not only women composers in the Western tradition and some non-Western traditions, but also women performers, women patrons, and women as objects and symbols in the marketing and consumption of music.

This course examines philosophical viewpoints as manifested within selected literary texts. The relationship between the literary form of the text and the philosophical content, as well as the relationship between philosophy and literature, will be explored and conceptualized.

Aims at achieving more advanced-level reading and writing skills. Main reading materials are extended discourse of expository, journalistic, and literary readings. Writing focuses on expository and essay writing.

This course will examine the life, work and influence of Murasaki Shikibu, author of the Tale of Genji (c. 1005-1015 CE), taking into consideration the intellectual and aesthetic heritage of the Heian era as a whole. Students will also investigate the arts and culture of her age, her concept of Yamato-damashii, or “essential Japanness,” and her vision of the role of the author within the “floating world” of human actions.

This course satisfies the advanced writing skills course requirement.

This seminar course will investigate the possibility that musical activities (musicking) might contribute to peacebuilding. Beginning with examination of the common sense or assumption that this is true, students will explore the use of music in promoting war and other forms of violence, theories and methods developed in peace studies concerned with cycles and root causes of violence, and some institutional and non-institutional means of addressing them. Following this, we will explore, from multiple disciplinary perspectives, the function of music in social bonding, links to emotion and cognition, and case studies involving music in community therapy, conflict transformation and other peacebuilding efforts.

This class examines the evolution and disintegration of literary dissent in the twentieth-century Europe. We begin by surveying the three forces responsible for the emergence of dissent: the ideology of communism; totalitarianism as the governmental form; and socialist realism as the literary canon. The conceptual backbone of the class is the contrast between individual acts of dissent and the dissident movement. While the individual acts of dissent proceed from rejection or disagreement with the regime, the dissident movement was born out of seduction and subsequent disillusionment in the very idea of the communist state. In the final segment of the class, the students will inquire into the legacy of dissident thought through class presentation and discussion. Readings include texts by H. Arendt, K. Marx, F. Furet, C. Lefort, M. Bulgakov, A. Platonov, Abram Tertz-A. Syniavsky, Solzhenitsyn, Milosz, Havel and others. We will also study films by Alexander Medvedkin, Chris Marker, and Sergei Eisenstein.

Advanced level piano students will build technique and repertoire through weekly private lessons.

This course is designed for more advanced singers who want to improve their vocal skills in a group setting and explore singing in a variety of styles such as popular music, classical, jazz and musical theater. Specifics include singing in harmony and developing musical expression/communication with each other and with an audience. May be repeated for credit.

This course is designed for more advanced, experienced students who want to experience performing musical theater in a musical revue to be presented at the end of the semester. Students will be expected to take additional responsibilities in preparing the revue, and will challenge additional and more difficult repertoire.

This course is for intermediate to advanced level string players, and includes private study and recital preparations.

This course is open to intermediate to advanced level instrumentalists (including pianists) who wish to explore and perform chamber music (for small ensembles) at a more advanced level (see general description above.)

This course is open to all intermediate and advanced level instrumentalists and offers the opportunity for more in-depth instruction and leadership of the ensemble activities. The Concert Band will play both traditional and contemporary large-ensemble repertoire. May be repeated for credit.

This course is for intermediate to advanced level jazz pianists, and/or upper division students who wish instruction and performance opportunities.

In the 21st century the novel continues to thrive as a literary genre nourished by a long and rich history with sustained cross-cultural significance. What factors contribute to the resilience of this literary form? How has the novel become synonymous with modernity itself? What, if any inter-textual dialogue among writers and books may be discerned? This course examines the phenomenon of the novel by evoking these trajectories: its emergence, its ongoing diversification and its global dispersion and reinventions. From year to year the course will stress readings drawn from Anglo-American, European, Post-Colonial and/or Asian spheres. Traditional categories (realism, modernism, postmodernism will be supplemented by local variations and re-orientions Alongside such authors as Dickens, Sterne, Austen, Stendhal, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Conrad, Joyce, Nabokov, Beckett, Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy, Natsume Soseki, Mo Yan, and others, theoretical texts will frame the novel’s significance in the context of cultural production and the formation as well as erosion of historical consciousness: George Lukacs, Bakhtin, Auerbach, Ian Watt, Raymond Williams, Edward Said, Fredric Jameson, Eto Jun et al.

This course is for intermediate to advanced level jazz performers, and/or upper division students who wish instruction and performance opportunities.

The purpose of this course is to explore through literary, historical, and political documents the unique way in which French intellectuals were affected by, reacted to, and in some instances voiced their outrage about colonialism and to examine the role some French intellectuals played in the resolution of these conflicts.

This course chooses essential, primary philosophical texts from the East, the West and the Global South with an eye to comparing the methods of thinking and the philosophical goals to be achieved. The overall objective of this course is to improve the thinking abilities of the student, to learn the cultural differences between the philosophers from different civilizations and to pivot toward a global philosophy that integrates and distills the essential human values and wisdom that a world philosophy can offer to our students.

This heavily mathematical course with no lab requirement examines the changing conceptions of space and time from classical to modern to contemporary physics. Moving from Newtonian reality to Einstein’s relativity to quantum mechanics to current unification theories, we will explore mathematics as a tool to transcend our faulty perceptions and to reveal new phenomenal, though perhaps not narrative, truth.

This course introduces students to the philosophy of existentialism through both its classic and contemporary expressions. Existentialism is both distinguished from other styles of philosophy and at the same time explicated as a core of traditional philosophy. An important dimension of existentialism that is to be explored is the application of existentialist philosophy to the real life of the student. The course is designed to cover four areas of existentialist thought: (i) the classical canon; (ii) the Post-War period; (iii) Holocaust related; (iv) contemporary expressions. Themes to be considered are attitudes toward death, angst, despair and joy, the search for meaning, existential freedom, responsibility, pessimism, fatalism and optimism, the relation to artistic expression, the tragic and the comic, theism and atheism, the religious and the secular, rationality and irrationality, truth and ambiguity, reason and emotion, ethics, faith, bad faith, authenticity, feminism, choice and commitment. Classic films will also be shown that explore these themes.

Introductory survey of Japanese culture in the ancient, medieval, and (pre-war) modern periods. Significant aspects of each period are discussed while shedding light on its culture (everyday life of the Japanese) and Culture (including thoughts, values, religions, aesthetics, political and economic circumstances). The main medium of instruction is Japanese.

Exploration of socio-cultural aspects of contemporary Japan through analysis and translation of literature and film. Thematic messages represented in the works are discussed in the scope of their social and cultural significance. The main medium of instruction is Japanese.

Introduction to practical aspects of Japanese linguistics, including comparisons to other languages. The main medium of instruction is Japanese.

Survey of modern Japanese culture and in-depth analysis of crucial issues in contemporary Japanese society and popular culture. The main medium of instruction is Japanese.

This is an extensive course on how and why corporations make the decisions that they do regarding what constitutes the private good, the public good, both nationally and internationally. In what ways does the capitalist profit motive affect ethical decision making? What are the consequences? What constitutes good management, destructive management? What is an accident? A tragedy? A disaster? Who should ultimately be responsible? A philosophical examination of intensive case studies will analyze what responsibility corporations have for risk management, social welfare and environmental sustainability in the global interface of the 21st century.

This course begins with a brief survey of the history of the main theories of reading as they emerged in the West with Plato and Aristotle. The goal of the course is to help students understand and familiarize themselves with a body of texts written about the role and function of literature within the disciplines. The course includes an examination of the relationship between primary and critical texts in light of movements that took shape in the twentieth century such as Formalism, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, and Cultural Studies. The aim of the course is to equip students with the necessary tools to become sophisticated and demanding readers and to sharpen their critical judgment whether or not they intend to pursue graduate studies in the Humanities.