Humanities & Social Sciences

6.C35 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Spring 2025

<p>The world is awash with increasing amounts of data, and we must keep afloat with our relatively constant perceptual and cognitive abilities. Visualization provides one means of combating information overload, as a well-designed visual encoding can supplant cognitive calculations with simpler perceptual inferences and improve comprehension, memory, and decision-making. Moreover, visual representations may help engage more diverse audiences in the process of analytic thinking.</p> <p>This cour…

8.01X · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

Physics I is a first-year physics course which introduces students to classical mechanics. This course has a hands-on focus, and approaches mechanics through take-home experiments. Topics include: kinematics, Newton’s laws of motion, universal gravitation, statics, conservation laws, energy, work, momentum, and special relativity.

8.02X · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

<p>This course is an introduction to electromagnetism and electrostatics. Topics include: electric charge, Coulomb’s law, electric structure of matter, conductors and dielectrics, concepts of electrostatic field and potential, electrostatic energy, electric currents, magnetic fields, Ampere’s law, magnetic materials, time-varying fields, Faraday’s law of induction, basic electric circuits, electromagnetic waves, and Maxwell’s equations. The course has an experimental focus, and includes several…

11.002J · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This course aims to get students thinking about politics and policy as a part of their everyday life. We treat politics as a struggle among competing advocates trying to persuade others to see the world as they do, working within a context that is structured primarily by institutions and cultural ideas. We’ll begin by developing a policymaking framework, understanding ideology, and taking a whirlwind tour of the American political system. Then, we’ll examine six policy issues in depth: health c…

11.003J · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course provides an introduction to public policy analysis. It is designed for students who may be planning a career in public or non-profit sectors. The primary goal is to help students understand the implications of public policy for different pursuits. The class examines various approaches to policy analysis by considering the concepts, tools, and methods used in economics, political science, and other disciplines. Students apply and critique these approaches through case studies of curr…

11.013J · Undergraduate · Spring 2010

This course is a seminar on the history of institutions and institutional change in American cities from roughly 1850 to the present. Among the institutions to be looked at are political machines, police departments, courts, schools, prisons, public authorities, and universities. The focus of the course is on readings and discussions.

11.013J · Undergraduate · Spring 2025

This is a seminar on the history of institutions and institutional change in American cities from roughly 1850 to the present. Among the institutions the course examines are political machines, police departments, courts, schools, prisons, public authorities, and universities. In keeping with the seminar structure, the course focuses on readings and discussions.

11.014J · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This is a seminar course that explores the history of selected features of the physical environment of urban America. Among the features considered are parks, cemeteries, tenements, suburbs, zoos, skyscrapers, department stores, supermarkets, and amusement parks. The course gives students experience in working with primary documentation sources through its selection of readings and class discussions. Students then have the opportunity to apply this experience by researching their own historical…

11.127J · Graduate · Spring 2015

This course immerses students in the process of building and testing their own digital and board games in order to better understand how we learn from games. We explore the design and use of games in the classroom in addition to research and development issues associated with computer–based (desktop and handheld) and non–computer–based media. In developing their own games, students examine what and how people learn from them (including field testing of products), as well as how games can be imp…

11.164 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2015

This course provides a rigorous and critical introduction to the foundation, structure and operation of the international human rights movement, as it has evolved through the years and as it impacts the United States. The course introduces students to the key theoretical debates in the field including the historical origin and character of the modern idea of human rights, the debate between universality and cultural relativism, between civil and human rights, between individual and community, a…

11.491J · Graduate · Fall 2004

This class analyzes the theoretical and historical reasons why governments in latecomer countries have intervened with a wide array of policies to foster industrial development at various turning points: the initiation of industrial activity; the diversification of the industrial base; the restructuring of major industrial institutions; and the entry into high-technology sectors.

15.031J · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

<p>This course examines the choices and constraints regarding sources and uses of energy by households, firms, and governments through a number of frameworks to describe and explain behavior at various levels of aggregation. Examples include a wide range of countries, scope, settings, and analytical approaches.</p> <p>This course is one of many OCW Energy Courses, and it is a core subject in MIT’s undergraduate Energy Studies Minor. This Institute-wide program complements the deep expertise obt…

17.20 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This class introduces students to innovative as well as classic approaches to studying U.S. government. The writing assignments will help you explore, through a variety of lenses, statis and change in the American political system over the last three decades. In the end each student will have a solid grounding in our national political institutions and processes, sharper reading and writing skills, and insight into approaching politics critically and analytically.

17.20 · Undergraduate · Fall 2020

This course provides a substantive overview of U.S. politics and an introduction to the discipline of political science. It surveys the institutional foundations of U.S. politics as well as the activities of political elites, organizations, and ordinary citizens. It explores the application of general political science concepts and analytic frameworks to specific episodes and phenomena in U.S. politics.

17.20 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

This course provides a substantive overview of U.S. politics and an introduction to the discipline of political science. It surveys the institutional foundations of U.S. politics as well as the activities of political elites, organizations, and ordinary citizens. It also explores the application of general political science concepts and analytic frameworks to specific episodes and phenomena in U.S. politics.

17.40 · Undergraduate · Fall 2017

This course explores the reasons for America’s past wars and interventions. It covers the consequences of American policies, and evaluates these consequences for the U.S. and the world. History covered includes World Wars I and II, the Korean and Indochina wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis and current conflicts, including those in in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against Al Qaeda.

17.41 · Undergraduate · Spring 2023

This course provides an introduction to the causes of international conflict and cooperation. Topics include war initiation, crisis bargaining, international terrorism, nuclear strategy, interstate economic relations, economic growth, international law, human rights, and environmental politics.

17.42 · Undergraduate · Spring 2018

<p>This course examines the causes of war, with a focus on practical measures to prevent and control war. Topics include causes and consequences of misperception by nations; military strategy and policy as cause of war; religion and war; U.S. foreign policy as a cause of war and peace; and the likelihood and possible nature of great wars in the future.</p> <p>The historical cases covered include World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Seven Years’ War, the Arab-Israel conflict, other rec…

17.46 · Undergraduate · Fall 2023

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the making of US foreign and national security policy. It examines the laws that guide policy-making, studies the actors and organizations involved in the inter-agency process, and explores how interaction between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches shapes policy development and implementation. Students acquire practical experience through policy writing and a crisis simulation. This course is designed for students interested in…

17.50 · Undergraduate · Fall 2022

This course examines why democracy emerges and survives in some countries rather than in others; how political institutions affect economic development; and how American politics compares to that of other countries. It reviews economic, cultural, and institutional explanations for political outcomes. It also includes case studies of politics in several countries. Assignments include several papers of varying lengths and extensive structured and unstructured class participation.

17.55J · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

Interdisciplinary introduction to contemporary Latin America, drawing on films, literature, popular press accounts, and scholarly research. Topics include economic development, ethnic and racial identity, religion, revolution, democracy, transitional justice, and the rule of law. Examples draw on a range of countries in the region, especially Mexico, Chile, and Brazil. Includes a heavy oral participation component, with regular breakout groups, formal class presentations on pressing social issu…

17.148 · Graduate · Spring 2006

This is a graduate seminar for students who already have some familiarity with issues in political economy and/or European politics. The objective is to examine the ways in which changes in the international economy and the regimes that regulate it interact with domestic politics, policy-making, and the institutional structures of the political economy in industrialized democracies.

17.181 · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

<p>This course examines alternative conceptions and theoretical underpinnings of sustainable development. It focuses on the sustainability problems of industrial countries, and of developing states and economies in transition. It also explores the sociology of knowledge regarding sustainability, the economic and technological dimensions, and institutional imperatives, along with implications for political constitution of economic performance.</p> <p>17.181 fulfills the undergraduate public poli…

17.196 · Graduate, Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This seminar explores changes in the international economy and their effects on domestic politics, economy, and society. Is globalization really a new phenomenon? Is it irreversible? What are effects on wages and inequality, on social safety nets, on production, and innovation? How does it affect relations between developed countries and developing countries? How globalization affects democracy? These are some of the key issues that will be examined.

17.199J · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

The course introduces the main debates about the “new” global economy and their implications for practice and policy. Experts from academia and business will share their findings about, and direct experiences with, different aspects of globalization.

17.200 · Graduate · Fall 2016

This graduate-level course focuses on mass political behavior within the American political system. The goal of this course is to give an introduction to some of the major questions in the study of American political behavior, and how people have gone about answering them. The background goal is to help students practice reading work critically, and thinking through the difficulties of social science research, in preparation for individual research projects. The course examines political ideolo…

17.202 · Graduate · Spring 2010

This is the second in a sequence of two field seminars in American politics intended for graduate students in political science, in preparation for taking the general examination in American politics. The material covered in this semester focuses on American political institutions. The readings covered here are not comprehensive, but it is sufficiently broad to give students an introduction to major empirical questions and theoretical approaches that guide the study of American political instit…

17.251 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2016

The United States Congress is the most open of the national branches of government, and therefore the most closely studied. This course aims to find ways to deal with the vast array of information we have about Congress by asking two basic questions: What does Congress do (and why), and what are the various ways of studying congressional behavior? This course focuses on both the internal processes of the House and Senate, and on the place of Congress in the American political system.

17.261 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2005

This course analyzes the development of the United States Congress by focusing on the competing theoretical lenses through which legislatures have been studied. In particular, it compares sociological and economic models of legislative behavior, applying those models to floor decision-making, committee behavior, political parties, relations with other branches of the Federal government, and elections. Graduate students are expected to pursue the subject in greater depth through reading and indi…

17.262 · Graduate · Spring 2023

This course analyzes the development of the US Congress by focusing on the competing theoretical lenses through which legislatures have been studied. In particular, it compares sociological and economic models of legislative behavior, applying those models to floor decision-making, committee behavior, political parties, relations with other branches of the Federal government, and elections.

17.263 · Undergraduate · Fall 2020

This course provides an overview of electoral politics in the United States, covering presidential, congressional, state, and local elections. It covers the development of American elections over time, electoral rules and institutions, the macro-structural forces shaping electoral outcomes, the key organizations involved in elections (parties, etc.), candidates’ calculations and campaign strategies, and the role of ordinary citizens in the electoral process, as well as potential reforms to the …

17.265 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This course will examine public opinion and assess its place in the American political system. The course will emphasize both how citizens’ thinking about politics is shaped and the role of public opinion in political campaigns, elections, and government.

17.269 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

This course explores the role of race and ethnicity in modern American politics. It focuses on social science approaches to measuring the effects of race, both at the individual level and more broadly. Topics include race and representation, measurement of racial and ethnic identities, voting rights and electoral districting, protest and other forms of political participation, and the meaning and measurement of racial attitudes.

17.271 · Undergraduate · Fall 2020

This course covers the current state of incarceration in the United States and proposals for reform. Class materials include a mix of firsthand/media accounts of incarceration and social science literature on the causes and effects of high incarceration rates. Topics include race and the criminal legal system, collateral consequences of incarceration, public opinion about incarceration, and the behavior of recently elected “reform” prosecutors.

17.317 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This subject examines the historical development and contemporary politics of social policy in the United States. We will discuss the kinds of risks individuals face over a lifetime and why some are ameliorated by social policy while others are not (and how the U.S. is similar or different from other countries in this regard). We will examine the policymaking process in the U.S., why some alternatives are implemented and others abandoned, why some interests are privileged over others, and how t…

17.407 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This lecture course provides students with a comprehensive introduction to the international relations of the People’s Republic of China. China’s foreign relations during the Cold War as well as contemporary diplomatic, security and economic issues will be examined to identify and explain China’s foreign policy goals and their implementation since 1949. Throughout, this course will investigate the sources of conflict and cooperation in China’s behavior, assessing competing explanations for key …

17.407 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

China’s rise as a great power raises important questions about how that power might be used in its relations with other states. Nowhere are such questions more salient than in the future trajectory of China’s conflict behavior, including its approach to deterrence, crisis management and the use of force. To explore these important questions in China’s international relations, this seminar examines the evolution of Chinese strategic thought, in primary sources as well as its reflection in the in…

17.408 · Graduate · Fall 2013

This course explores the leading theoretical and methodological approaches to studying China’s interaction with the international system since 1949. Readings include books and articles that integrate the study of China’s foreign policy with the field of international relations.

17.410 · Graduate · Spring 2006

Tracing the evolution of international interactions, this course examines the dimensions of globalization in terms of scale and scope. It is divided into three parts; together they are intended to provide theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives on source and consequences of globalization, focusing on emergent structures and processes, and on the implications of flows of goods and services across national boundaries – with special attention to the issue of migration, on the assumption th…

17.418 · Graduate, Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This seminar provides an overview of the field of international relations. Each week, a different approach to explaining international relations will be examined. By surveying major concepts and theories in the field, the seminar will also assist graduate students in preparing for the comprehensive examination and further study in the department’s more specialized offerings in international relations.

17.428 · Graduate · Fall 2004

<p>This course examines the causes and consequences of American foreign policy since 1898. Course readings cover both substantive and methods topics. Four substantive topics are covered:</p> <ol> <li>major theories of American foreign policy;</li> <li>major episodes in the history of American foreign policy and historical/interpretive controversies about them;</li> <li>the evaluation of major past American foreign policies–were their results good or bad? and</li> <li>current policy controversie…

17.433 · Undergraduate · Spring 2011

The aim of this course is to introduce and analyze the international relations of East Asia. With four great powers, three nuclear weapons states, and two of the world’s largest economies, East Asia is one of the most dynamic and consequential regions in world politics. This course will examine the sources of conflict and cooperation in both periods, assessing competing explanations for key events in East Asia’s international relations. Readings will be drawn from international relations theory…

17.436 · Graduate · Fall 2004

This graduate seminar introduces an emerging research program within International Relations on territorial conflict. While scholars have recognized that territory has been one of the most frequent issues over which states go to war, territorial conflicts have only recently become the subject of systematic study. This course will examine why territorial conflicts arise in the first place, why some of these conflicts escalate to high levels of violence and why other territorial disputes reach se…

17.441 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2007

This course examines the interconnections of international politics and climate change. Beginning with an analysis of the strategic and environmental legacies of the 20th Century, it explores the politicization of the natural environment, the role of science in this process, and the gradual shifts in political concerns to incorporate “nature”. Two general thrusts of climate-politics connections are pursued, namely those related to (a) conflict – focusing on threats to security due to environmen…

17.445 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2015

<p>This course examines cyber dynamics and processes in international relations from different theoretical perspectives. It considers alternative theoretical and empirical frameworks consistent with characteristic features of cyberspace and emergent transformations at all levels of international interaction. Theories examined include realism and neorealism, institutionalism and liberalism, constructivism, and systems theory and lateral pressure. The course also highlights relevant features and …

17.447 · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This course focuses on cyberspace and its implications for private and public, sub-national, national, and international actors and entities.

17.449 · Undergraduate · Fall 2024

This course explores how emerging technologies—including drones, artificial intelligence, social media, additive manufacturing, and cyber warfare—affect international security. It examines how states develop these technologies, identifies barriers to innovation in the security domain, and considers how the proliferation of new military and dual-use technologies affect decisions on war and peace. The course is designed for students interested in international relations, security studies, and eme…

17.462 · Graduate · Fall 2005

This seminar has three purposes. One, it inquires into the causes of military innovation by examining a number of the most outstanding historical cases. Two, it views military innovations through the lens of organization theory to develop generalizations about the innovation process within militaries. Three, it uses the empirical study of military innovations as a way to examine the strength and credibility of hypotheses that organization theorists have generated about innovation in non-militar…

17.473 · Undergraduate · Fall 2015

This course provides an introduction to the politics and theories surrounding the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It introduces the basics of nuclear weapons, nuclear strategy, and deterrence theory. It also examines the historical record during the Cold War as well as the proliferation of nuclear weapons to regional powers and the resulting deterrence consequences.

17.478 · Graduate · Fall 2013

This course examines systematically, and comparatively, great and middle power military interventions, and candidate military interventions, into civil wars from the 1990s to the present. These civil wars did not easily fit into the traditional category of vital interest. These interventions may therefore tell us something about broad trends in international politics including the nature of unipolarity, the erosion of sovereignty, the security implications of globalization, and the nature of mo…

17.480 · Graduate · Spring 2017

This course examines selected past, current, and future sea, air, space, and land battlefields and looks at the interaction in each of these warfare areas between existing military doctrine and weapons, sensors, communications, and information processing technologies. It also explores how technological development, whether innovative or stagnant, is influenced in each warfare area by military doctrine.

17.482 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Spring 2015

The purpose of this course is to acquaint the student with the missions, capabilities, and costs of the largely non-nuclear forces that make up the bulk of the U.S. military establishment. The course will also introduce the student to basic techniques for the assessment of relative military capabilities between adversaries in given theaters of military action. Central to the course will be an examination of historical cases of military action that shed light on current defence issues. Many of t…

17.484 · Graduate · Fall 2004

This course will conduct a comparative study of the grand strategies of the great powers (Britain, France, Germany and Russia) competing for mastery of Europe from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Grand strategy is the collection of political and military means and ends with which a state attempts to achieve security. We will examine strategic developments in the years preceding World Wars I and II, and how those developments played themselves out in these wars. The following q…

17.486 · Graduate · Fall 2016

This course explores Japan’s role in world orders, past, present, and future. It focuses on Japanese conceptions of security; rearmament debates; the relationship of domestic politics to foreign policy; the impact of Japanese technological and economic transformation at home and abroad; alternative trade and security regimes; Japan’s response to 9/11; and relations with Asian neighbors, Russia, and the alliance with the United States.

17.504 · Graduate · Fall 2003

<p>This course is designed to provide students with a broad overview of the major theories on the relationship between ethnicity and politics. The course is divided into three sections. The first covers general theory and discusses the social construction of ethnicity as well as the limits of construction. The second section discusses ethnicity as a dependent variable. This section studies the forces that shape the development of ethnic identities and their motivating power. The third section a…

17.506 · Graduate · Spring 2007

This course is designed mainly for political science graduate students conducting or considering conducting research on identity politics. While 17.504 Ethnic Politics I is designed as a primarily theoretical course, Ethnic Politics II switches the focus to methods. It aims to familiarize the student with the current conventional approaches as well as major challenges to them. The course discusses definition and measurement issues as well as briefly addressing survey techniques and modeling.

17.506 · Graduate · Fall 2024

This course introduces students to the classic works on ethnic politics, familiarizes them with new research and methodological innovations in the study of ethnic politics, and helps them design and execute original research projects related to ethnic politics. Readings are drawn from across disciplines, including political science, anthropology, sociology, and economics. Students read across the four subfields within political science: American Politics, Comparative Politics, International Rel…

17.509 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course seeks to provide students with a general understanding of the form of collective action known as the social movement. Our task will be guided by the close examination of several twentieth century social movements in the United States. We will read about the U.S. civil rights, the unemployed workers’, welfare rights, pro-choice / pro-life and gay rights movements. We will compare and contrast certain of these movements with their counterparts in other countries. For all, we will iden…

17.522 · Graduate · Fall 2006

This graduate reading seminar explores the role of religious groups, institutions, and ideas in politics using social science theories. It is open to advanced undergraduate students with permission of the instructor.

17.523 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

Discerning the ethnic and racial dimensions of politics is considered by some indispensable to understanding contemporary world politics. This course seeks to answer fundamental questions about racial and ethnic politics. To begin, what are the bases of ethnic and racial identities? What accounts for political mobilization based upon such identities? What are the political claims and goals of such mobilization and is conflict between groups and/or with government forces inevitable? How do ethni…

17.524 · Graduate · Fall 2004

This course provides a broad overview of the theories of and approaches to the study of nationalist thought and practice. It also explores the related phenomena termed nationalism: national consciousness and identity, nations, nation-states, and nationalist ideologies and nationalist movements. The course analyzes nationalism’s emergence and endurance as a factor in modern politics and society. Topics include: nationalism and state-building, nationalism and economic modernization, nationalism a…

17.537 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Spring 2009

This subject is designed for upper level undergraduates and graduate students as an introduction to politics and the policy process in modern Japan. The semester is divided into two parts. After a two-week general introduction to Japan and to the dominant approaches to the study of Japanese history, politics and society, we will begin exploring five aspects of Japanese politics: party politics, electoral politics, interest group politics, bureaucratic politics, and policy, which will be broken …

17.541 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2008

This course is designed for students seeking a fundamental understanding of Japanese history, politics, culture, and the economy. “Raw Fish 101” (as it is often labeled) combines lectures, seminar discussion, small-team case studies, and Web page construction exercises, all designed to shed light on contemporary Japan.

17.559 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2004

This course focuses on the complexities associated with security and sustainability of states in international relations. Covering aspects of theory, methods and empirical analysis, the course is in three parts, and each consists of seminar sessions focusing on specific topics.

17.561 · Undergraduate · Fall 2020

This course examines similarities and differences in politics and political economy in Britain, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. In particular, the course focuses on the structure of political power within the state, and on important institutions that form the link between state and society, especially political parties and interest organizations.

17.565 · Undergraduate · Spring 2019

<p>This course examines Israeli identity using a broad array of materials, including popular music, film, documentaries, and art, in addition to academic historical writings. Topics include Israel’s political system and society, ethnic relations, settlement projects, and the Arab minorities in the Jewish state. Students also discuss whether there is a unique Israeli culture and the struggle for Israel’s identity.</p> <p>Preference is given to students in the MISTI MIT-Israel program.</p>

17.568 · Graduate · Spring 2017

This course surveys both classic and cutting-edge work on the politics of the Middle East, broadly defined. Topics include the causes and consequences of political and economic development, authoritarianism and democratization, the influence of social movements, the role of women in Middle Eastern politics, regional inter-state relations, Islamism, terrorism, colonialism and foreign occupation, state-building, resistance and rebellion, and the Arab uprisings.

17.581 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

This course examines different types of violent political conflict. It compares and contrasts several social science approaches (psychological, sociological, and political) and analyzes their ability to explain variation in outbreak, duration and outcome of conflict. Incidents such as riots in the U.S. during the 1960’s, riots in India, the Yugoslav wars, and the Russian Revolution, as well as current international events are discussed.

17.582 · Graduate · Spring 2010

This course surveys the social science literature on civil war. Students will study the origins of civil war, discuss variables that affect the duration of civil war, and examine the termination of conflict. This course is highly interdisciplinary and covers a wide variety of cases.

17.584 · Graduate · Spring 2003

This course centers on mechanisms of civilian control of the military. Relying on the influential texts of Lasswell, Huntington, and Finer, the first classes clarify the basic tensions between the military and civilians. A wide-ranging series of case studies follows. These cases are chosen to create a field of variation that includes states with stable civilian rule, states with stable military influence, and states exhibiting fluctuations between military and civilian control. The final three …

17.586 · Graduate · Spring 2009

This course is a general overview of the recent political science literature on violent non-state actors. Its aim is to examine why non-state actors (such as warlords, terrorists, militias, etc.) resort to violence, what means and tactics they use, and what can be done to counter that violence. In that regard, the class will cover works pertaining to the production side of non-state violence (i.e. the objectives and organization of insurgents/terrorists/militias/warlords, their mobilization str…

17.588 · Graduate · Fall 2013

This course provides an introduction to the field of comparative politics. Readings include both classic and recent materials. Discussions include research design and research methods, in addition to topics such as political culture, social cleavages, the state, and democratic institutions. The emphasis on each issue depends in part on the interests of the students.

17.588 · Graduate · Spring 2024

This course provides an introduction to the field of comparative politics. Readings include both classic and recent materials. Discussions include research design and research methods, in addition to topics such as political culture, social cleavages, the state, and democratic institutions. Emphasis on each issue depends in part on the interests of the students.

17.801 · Undergraduate · Fall 2017

This course is designed to provide an introduction to a variety of empirical research methods used by political scientists. The primary aims of the course are to make you a more sophisticated consumer of diverse empirical research and to allow you to conduct advanced independent work in your junior and senior years. This is not a course in data analysis. Rather, it is a course on how to approach political science research.

17.810 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Spring 2021

This course introduces students to the rudiments of game theory as practiced in political science. It teaches students the basic elements of formal modeling and strategies for solving simple games. Readings draw from introductory texts on game theoretic modeling and applied articles in American politics, international relations, and comparative politics.

17.871 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This course introduces students to the conduct of political research using quantitative methodologies. The methods are examined in the context of specific political research activities like public opinion surveys, voting behavior, Congressional behavior, comparisons of political processes in different countries, and the evaluation of public policies. Students participate in joint class projects and conduct individual projects.

17.905 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

How and why do we participate in public life? How do we get drawn into community and political affairs? In this course we examine the associations and networks that connect us to one another and structure our social and political interactions. Readings are drawn from a growing body of research suggesting that the social networks, community norms, and associational activities represented by the concepts of civil society and social capital can have important effects on the functioning of democrac…

17.914 · Undergraduate · January IAP 2005

This workshop is designed to introduce students to different perspectives on politics and the state of the world through new visualization techniques and approaches to interactive political gaming (and selective ’edutainment’). Specifically, we shall explore applications of&nbsp;interactive tools (such as video&nbsp;and web-based games, blogs or simulations) to examine critical challenges in international politics of the 21C century focusing specifically on general insights and specific underst…

17.918 · Undergraduate · January IAP 2006

This workshop is designed to introduce students to different perspectives on international politics in the 21st century. Students will explore how advances in information technology are changing international relations and global governance through opening new channels of communication, creating new methods of education, and new potentials for democratization. We will consider the positive and negative externalities associated with applications of such technologies. Students will be encouraged …

17.951 · Graduate · Fall 2005

This graduate seminar provides an examination of mass and elite political behavior in the United States, with an emphasis on political participation, political inequality, elections, voting behavior, and political organizations.

17.951 · Graduate · Spring 2004

This course provides an introduction to the vast literature devoted to public opinion. In the next 12 weeks, we will survey the major theoretical approaches and empirical research&nbsp;in the field of political behavior (though we will only tangentially discuss political&nbsp; participation and voting). For the most part we will focus on American public opinion, though some of the work we will read is comparative in nature.

17.951 · Graduate · Spring 2005

This course will explore the organization and functions of the U.S. Intelligence Community, its interaction with national security policymakers, key issues about its workings, and the challenges it faces in defining its future role. The events of 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq have focused new attention on national intelligence, including the most significant reorganization of the community since the National Security Act of 1947. The course will highlight some of the major debates about the rol…

17.951 · Graduate · Spring 2009

This course will expose students to tools and methods of analysis for use in assessing the challenges and dangers associated with nuclear weapons in international politics. The first two weeks of the course will look at the technology and design of nuclear weapons and their means of production. The next five weeks will look at the role they played in the Cold War, the organizations that managed them, the technologies that were developed to deliver them, and the methods used to analyze nuclear f…

17.953 · Graduate · Fall 2010

This course is for students who want to know how the dollars we spend on national security relate to military forces, systems, and policy choices, and who wish to develop a personal tool kit for framing and assessing defense policy alternatives.

17.955 · Graduate · Fall 2004

In recent years both scholars and policymakers have expressed a remarkable amount of interest in the concepts of social capital and civil society. A growing body of research suggests that the social networks, community norms, and associational activities signified by these concepts can have important effects on social welfare, political stability, economic development, and governmental performance. This discussion based course examines the roles played by these networks, norms, and organization…

17.S914 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

What is race? What is ethnicity? How can communication and relationships between men and women be improved? What causes segregation in our society? How do stereotypes develop and why do they persist? How do an individual’s racial, ethnic, and sexual identities form and develop? This course explores these topics and more.

17.S916 · Undergraduate · January IAP 2020

This course introduces the unique characteristics of militaries and explores the roles they play in the societies they are constructed to defend, with a special focus on the relationships between the military and their civilian leaders and popular publics. Topics include a modern history of relations between US presidents and the military, coups and military governments, public trust in the military, racial integration of the military, and the military-industrial (and tech!) complex.

17.S950 · Graduate · Fall 2016

The wars in Iraq and Syria have changed the course of international relations in the 21st century. During these conflicts, hundreds of thousands have died and millions have been displaced. After 13 years, these conflicts continue with no end in sight. The central question of this course is: How do political science theories and methods help us understand the course of these wars? In this course, you will answer this question by integrating three elements: theory, data/description, and applicati…

17.S950 · Graduate · Fall 2018

This course is premised on the belief that emotions are a fundamental part of human nature. Accordingly, understanding emotions and incorporating emotions into our research can help us better explain variation in important political phenomena. Research on emotions and how emotions can influence decision-making has dramatically increased over the past two decades. This class aims to pick up on new findings from psychology and other disciplines and marshal this knowledge toward the most important…

17.THT · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This seminar is for students who plan to write a senior thesis in Political Science, and is required of all MIT Political Science majors. Seminar participants will develop their research topics, review relevant research and scholarship, frame their research questions and arguments, choose an appropriate methodology for analysis, draft the introductory and methodology sections of their theses, and write a complete prospectus of the project.

21A.00 · Undergraduate · Spring 2022

Through the comparative study of different cultures, anthropology explores fundamental questions about what it means to be human. It seeks to understand how culture shapes societies, from the smallest island in the South Pacific to the largest Asian metropolis, and affects the way institutions work, from scientific laboratories to Christian megachurches. This course will provide a framework for analyzing diverse facets of human experience, such as gender, ethnicity, language, politics, economic…

21A.00 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

Through the comparative study of different cultures, anthropology explores fundamental questions about what it means to be human. It seeks to understand how culture both shapes societies, from the smallest island in the South Pacific to the largest Asian metropolis, and affects the way institutions work, from scientific laboratories to Christian mega-churches. This course will provide a framework for analyzing diverse facets of human experience such as gender, ethnicity, language, politics, eco…

21A.01 · Undergraduate · Fall 2019

This course introduces diverse meanings and uses of the concept of culture with historical and contemporary examples from scholarship and popular media around the globe. It includes first-hand observations, synthesized histories and ethnographies, quantitative representations, and visual and fictionalized accounts of human experiences. Students conduct empirical research on cultural differences through the systematic observation of human interaction, employ methods of interpretative analysis, a…

21A.101J (formerly 21A.218J) · Undergraduate · Spring 2010

This course explores how identities, whether of individuals or groups, are produced, maintained, and transformed. Students will be introduced to various theoretical perspectives that deal with identity formation, including constructions of “the normal.” We will explore the utility of these perspectives for understanding identity components such as gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, language, social class, and bodily difference. By semester’s end students will understand bett…

21A.102 (formerly 21A.226) · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

An introduction to the cross-cultural study of ethnic and national identity. We examine the concept of social identity, and consider the ways in which gendered, linguistic, religious, and ethno-racial identity components interact. We explore the history of nationalism, including the emergence of the idea of the nation-state, as well as ethnic conflict, globalization, identity politics, and human rights.

21A.104 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course introduces scholarly debates about the sociocultural practices through which individuals and societies create, sustain, recall, and erase memories. Emphasis is given to the history of knowledge, construction of memory, the role of authorities in shaping memory, and how societies decide on whose versions of memory are more “truthful” and “real.” Other topics include how memory works in the human brain, memory and trauma, amnesia, memory practices in the sciences, false memory, sites …

21A.110 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

This course introduces students to some of the major social theories and debates that inspire and inform anthropological analysis. Over the course of the semester, we will investigate a range of theoretical propositions concerning such topics as agency, structure, subjectivity, history, social change, power, culture, and the politics of representation. Ultimately, all theories can be read as statements about human beings and the worlds they create and inhabit. We will approach each theoretical …

21A.111J · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

Through investigating cross-cultural case studies, this course introduces students to the anthropological study of the social institutions and symbolic meanings of family, gender, and sexuality. We will explores the myriad forms that families and households take and considers their social, emotional, and economic dynamics.

21A.112 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

This advanced course in anthropology engages closely with discussions and debates about ethnographic research, ethics, and representation.

21A.120 · Undergraduate · Spring 2018

This course explores the experiences and understandings of class among Americans positioned at different points along the U.S. social spectrum. It considers a variety of classic frameworks for analyzing social class and uses memoirs, novels, and ethnographies to gain a sense of how class is experienced in daily life and how it intersects with other forms of social difference such as race and gender.

21A.150 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This course explores the diverse ways that people teach and learn—in different countries, in different disciplines, and in different subcultures. We will discuss how theories of learning can be applied to a variety of hands-on, in-class learning activities. We compare schooling to other forms of knowledge transmission from initiation and apprenticeship to recent innovations in online education such as MOOCs. Students will employ a range of qualitative methods in conducting original research on …

21A.155 · Undergraduate · Fall 2019

This course explores connections between what we eat and who we are through cross-cultural study of how personal and collective identities, social relations, and economic inequalities are formed and maintained via practices of food production, preparation, and consumption. Discussions are organized around critical discussion of what makes “good” food good (tasty, healthy, authentic, ethical, etc.), and draw on anthropological studies as well as recent writing and films on the politics of food a…

21A.157 · Undergraduate · Spring 2019

This course examines how a variety of cultural traditions propose answers to the question of how to live a meaningful life. It considers the meaning of life, not as a philosophical abstraction, but as a question that individuals grapple with in their daily lives, facing difficult decisions between meeting and defying cultural expectations. The course also provides tools for thinking about moral decisions as social and historical practices, and permits students to compare and contextualize the w…

21A.211 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

Spiritual, magical, and “occult” aspects of human behavior in anthropological and historical perspective: magic, ritual curing, trance, spirit possession, sorcery, and accusations of witchcraft. Material drawn from traditional nonwestern societies, medieval and early modern Europe, and colonial and contemporary North America.

21A.212 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

<p>Human beings are symbol-making as well as tool-making animals. We understand our world and shape our lives in large part by assigning meanings to objects, beings, and persons; by connecting things together in symbolic patterns; and by creating elaborate forms of symbolic action and narrative.&nbsp;In this introductory subject we consider how symbols are created and structured; how they draw on and give meaning to different domains of the human world; how they are woven into politics, family …

21A.215 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This course examines how medicine is practiced cross-culturally, with particular emphasis on Western biomedicine. Students analyze medical practice as a cultural system, focusing on the human, as opposed to the biological, side of things. Also considered is how people in different cultures think of disease, health, body, and mind.

21A.217 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This class has been reorganized to focus primarily on the War in Iraq. As in previous years, the class still examines war in cross-cultural perspective, asking whether war is intrinsic to human nature, what causes war, how particular cultural experiences of war differ, and how war has affected American culture.

21A.219 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

<p>Law is a common and yet distinct aspect of everyday life in modern societies.&nbsp;This course examines the central features of law as a social institution and as a feature of popular culture.&nbsp;We will explore the nature of law as a set of social systems, central actors in the systems, legal reasoning, and the relationship of the legal form and reasoning to social change. The course emphasizes the relationship between the internal logic of legal devices and economic, political and social…

21A.231J · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This course seeks to examine how people experience gender - what it means to be a man or a woman - and sexuality in a variety of historical and cultural contexts. We will explore how gender and sexuality relate to other categories of social identity and difference, such as race and ethnicity, economic and social standing, urban or rural life, etc. One goal of the class is to learn how to critically assess media and other popular representations of gender roles and stereotypes. Another is to gai…

21A.240 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This course examines one of the most enduring and influential forms of identity and experience in the Americas and Europe, and in particular the ways race and racism have been created, justified, or contested in scientific practice and discourse. Drawing on classical and contemporary readings from Du Bois to Gould to Gilroy, we ask whether the logic of race might be changing in the world of genomics and informatics, and with that changed logic, how we can respond today to new configurations of …

21A.245J · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

Using examples from anthropology and sociology alongside classical and contemporary social theory, this course explores the nature of dominant and subordinate relationships, types of legitimate authority, and practices of resistance. The course also examines how we are influenced in subtle ways by the people around us, who makes controlling decisions in the family, how people get ahead at work, and whether democracies, in fact, reflect the “will of the people.”

21A.260 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

Culture, Embodiment, and the Senses will provide an historical and cross-cultural analysis of the politics of sensory experience. The subject will address western philosophical debates about mind, brain, emotion, and the body and the historical value placed upon sight, reason, and rationality, versus smell, taste, and touch as acceptable modes of knowing and knowledge production. We will assess cultural traditions that challenge scientific interpretations of experience arising from western phil…

21A.270 · Undergraduate · Fall 2009

This class examines how anthropology and speculative fiction (SF) each explore ideas about culture and society, technology, morality, and life in “other” worlds. We investigate this convergence of interest through analysis of SF in print, film, and other media. Concepts include traditional and contemporary anthropological topics, including first contact; gift exchange; gender, marriage, and kinship; law, morality, and cultural relativism; religion; race and embodiment; politics, violence, and w…

21A.302J · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

This course is an introduction to the cross-cultural study of biomedical ethics, examining moral foundations of the science and practice of Western biomedicine through case studies of abortion, contraception, cloning, organ transplantation and other issues. It evaluates challenges that new medical technologies pose to the practice and availability of medical services around the globe, and to cross-cultural ideas of kinship and personhood. Also discussed are critiques of the biomedical tradition…

21A.303J · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

This course applies the tools of anthropology to examine biology in the age of genomics, biotechnological enterprise, biodiversity conservation, pharmaceutical bioprospecting, and synthetic biology. It examines such social concerns such as bioterrorism, genetic modification, and cloning. It offers an anthropological inquiry into how the substances and explanations of biology—ecological, organismic, cellular, molecular, genetic, informatic—are changing. It examines such artifacts as cell lines, …

21A.303J · Undergraduate · Spring 2022

This course applies the tools of anthropology to examine biology in the age of genomics, biotechnological enterprise, biodiversity conservation, pharmaceutical bioprospecting, and synthetic biology. It examines such social concerns such as bioterrorism, genetic modification, and cloning. It offers an anthropological inquiry into how the substances and explanations of biology — ecological, organismic, cellular, molecular, genetic, informatic — are changing. The course also examines such artifact…

21A.336 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

Everyday we are bombarded with the word “global” and encouraged to see globalization as the quintessential transformation of our age. But what exactly does “globalization” mean? How is it affecting the lives of people around the world, not only in economic, but social and cultural terms? How do contemporary changes compare with those from other historical periods? Are such changes positive, negative or simply inevitable? And, finally, how does the concept of the “global” itself shape our percep…

21A.338J · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

After decades of efforts to promote development, why is there so much poverty in the world? What are some of the root causes of inequality world-wide and why do poverty, economic transformations and development policies often have different consequences for women and men? This course explores these issues while also examining the history of development itself, its underlying assumptions, and its range of supporters and critics. It considers the various meanings given to development by women and…

21A.342 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This class explores the interrelationship between humans and natural environments. It does so by focusing on conflict over access to and use of the environment as well as ideas about “nature” in various parts of the world.

21A.348 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

Still photography, a practice and form of expression that has worked its way into every facet of social life and every culture in the world, is considered here from the perspectives of history and social science. We will discuss the uses and functions of pictures; how they are to be understood and interpreted; whether they have clear-cut content and meanings; how they shape and are shaped by politics, economics, and social life.

21A.350J · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This course examines computers anthropologically, as artifacts revealing the social orders and cultural practices that create them. Students read classic texts in computer science along with cultural analyses of computing history and contemporary configurations. It explores the history of automata, automation and capitalist manufacturing; cybernetics and WWII operations research; artificial intelligence and gendered subjectivity; robots, cyborgs, and artificial life; creation and commoditizatio…

21A.360J · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

This class examines the ways humans experience the realm of sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. In addition to learning about how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally, students learn about the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, and sound recording, as well as about the globalized travel of these technologies. Questions of ownership, property, authorship, and copyright in the a…

21A.429J · Graduate · Fall 2016

This course explores the complex interrelationships among humans and natural environments, focusing on non-western parts of the world in addition to Europe and the United States. It uses environmental conflict to draw attention to competing understandings and uses of “nature” as well as the local, national and transnational power relationships in which environmental interactions are embedded. In addition to utilizing a range of theoretical perspectives, this subject draws upon a series of ethno…

21A.441 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

In this course the conquest and colonization of the Americas is considered, with special attention to the struggles of native peoples in Guatemala, Canada, Brazil, Panama, and colonial New England. In two segments of the course-one devoted to the Jesuit missionization of the Huron in the 1630s, the other to struggles between the government of Panama and the Kuna between 1900 and 1925-students examine primary documents such as letters, reports, and court records, to draw their own conclusions. A…

21A.442J · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This course examines the problem of mass violence and oppression in the contemporary world, and the concept of human rights as a defense against such abuse. It explores questions of cultural relativism, race, gender and ethnicity. It examines case studies from war crimes tribunals, truth commissions, anti-terrorist policies and other judicial attempts to redress state-sponsored wrongs. It also considers whether the human rights framework effectively promotes the rule of law in modern societies.…

21A.445J · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

This course explores the issue of human trafficking for forced labour and sexual slavery, focusing on its representation in recent scholarly accounts and advocacy as well as in other media. Ethnographic and fictional readings along with media analysis help to develop a contextualized and comparative understanding of the phenomena in both past and present contexts. It examines the wide range of factors and agents that enable these practices, such as technology, cultural practices, social and eco…

21A.453 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

<p>This course examines traditional performances of the Arabic-speaking populations of the Middle East and North Africa. Starting with the history of the ways in which the West has discovered, translated and written about the Orient, we will consider how power and politics play roles in the production of culture, narrative and performance. This approach assumes that performance, verbal art, and oral literature lend themselves to spontaneous adaptation and to oblique expression of ideas and opin…

21A.460J · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course provides an exploration of colonial and postcolonial clashes between theories of healing and embodiment in the African world and those of western bio-medicine. It examines how Afro-Atlantic religious traditions have challenged western conceptions of illness, healing, and the body and have also offered alternative notions of morality, rationality, kinship, gender, and sexuality. It also analyzes whether contemporary western bio-medical interventions reinforce colonial or imperial pow…

21A.461 · Undergraduate · Fall 2021

This course introduces academic debates on the nature of capitalism, drawing upon the ideas of scholars as diverse as Adam Smith and Karl Marx. It examines anthropological studies of how contemporary capitalism plays out in people’s daily lives in a range of geographic and social settings, and implications for how we understand capitalism today. Settings range from Wall Street investment banks to auto assembly plants, from family businesses to consumer shopping malls.

21A.461 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

As we live in the aftermath of the Financial Crisis of 2008, there are renewed questions about the nature of the economic system—capitalism—within which we live. What are its benefits and drawbacks? Why does it garner both so much opposition and support? What are its moral, economic, social and political implications? Is it even a “system”? How has capitalism played out in different historical moments and regions of the world? This class addresses the question “what is capitalism?” from a socia…

21A.470J · Undergraduate · Spring 2010

This course explores stereotypes associated with Asian women in colonial, nationalist, state-authoritarian, and global/diasporic narratives about gender and power. Students will read ethnography, cultural studies, and history, and view films to examine the politics and circumstances that create and perpetuate the representation of Asian women as dragon ladies, lotus blossoms, despotic tyrants, desexualized servants, and docile subordinates. Students are introduced to the debates about Orientali…

21A.500J · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This subject examines relationships among technology, culture, and politics in a range of social and historical settings. The class is organized around two topics: Identity and infrastructure, and will combine interactive lectures, film screenings, readings, and discussion.

21A.501J · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

This course examines how people learn, practice, and evaluate traditional and contemporary craft techniques. Social science theories of design, embodiment, apprenticeship learning, skill, labor, expertise, and tacit knowledge are used to explore distinctions and connections among art, craft, and science. We will also discuss the commoditization of craft into market goods, collectible art, and tourism industries. Ethnographic and historical case studies include textiles, glassblowing, quilting, …

21A.501J · Undergraduate · Fall 2024

This course examines how people learn, practice, and evaluate traditional and contemporary craft techniques. Social science theories of design, embodiment, apprenticeship learning, skill, labor, expertise, and tacit knowledge are used to explore distinctions among art, craft, and science. It also discusses the commoditization of craft into market goods, collectible art, and tourism industries. Ethnographic and historical case studies include textiles, Shaker furniture, glassblowing, quilting, c…

21A.505J · Undergraduate · Spring 2022

This course examines the ways humans experience sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. It considers how the sound/noise/music boundaries have been imagined, created, and modeled across sociocultural and historical contexts. Students will learn how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally as well as the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, sound recording, multi-channel and spatial mix …

21A.506 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This class looks at the birth and international expansion of an American industry of political marketing, with a special emphasis on Latin America. We will focus our attention on the cultural processes, sociopolitical contexts and moral utopias that shape the practice of political marketing in the U.S. and in different Latin American countries. By looking at the debates and expert practices at the core of the business of politics, we will explore how the “universal” concept of democracy is inte…

21A.506 · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

This course examines the birth and international expansion of an American industry of political marketing. It focuses attention on the cultural processes, sociopolitical contexts and moral utopias that shape the practice of political marketing in the U.S. and in different countries. By looking at the debates and expert practices at the core of the business of politics, the course explores how the “universal” concept of democracy is interpreted and reworked through space and time, while examinin…

21A.506 · Undergraduate · Spring 2019

This course introduces the ethnographic study of politics, i.e., what anthropologists understand to be “political” in various social and economic systems, from small-scale societies to liberal democratic states. It examines politics across three contemporary contexts: electoral politics, public spheres, bureaucracies and humanitarian governance. Students consider and analyze how questions of authority, coercion, and violence have been theorized to relate to the political, and how some aspects o…

21A.520 · Undergraduate · Fall 2021

This course explores the origins of magic, science, and religion as forms of belief within and across cultures. It addresses the place of rationality and belief in competing sociocultural theories, with a focus on analyzing modern perspectives. It also examines how cases of overlap between magic, science, and religion raise new questions about modernity and human nature.

21A.550J · Undergraduate · Fall 2012

This course is an introductory exploration of documentary film theory and production, focusing on documentaries about science, engineering, and related fields. Students engage in digital video production as well as social and media analysis of science documentaries. Readings are drawn from social studies of science as well as from documentary film theory. The courses uses documentary video making as a tool to explore the worlds of science and engineering, as well as a tool for thinking analytic…

21A.801J · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2012

This course enhances cross-cultural understanding through the discussion of practical, ethical, and epistemological issues in conducting social science and applied research in foreign countries or unfamiliar communities. It includes a research practicum to help students develop interviewing, participant-observation, and other qualitative research skills, as well as critical discussion of case studies. The course is open to all interested students, but intended particularly for those planning to…

21A.850J · Graduate · Spring 2009

This course explores a range of contemporary scholarship oriented to the study of ‘cybercultures,’ with a focus on research inspired by ethnographic and more broadly anthropological perspectives. Taking anthropology as a resource for cultural critique, the course will be organized through a set of readings chosen to illustrate central topics concerning the cultural and material practices that comprise digital technologies. We’ll examine social histories of automata and automation; the trope of …

21A.859J · Graduate · Spring 2021

This subject presents a survey of social theory from the 17th century to the present. It focuses on the historical contexts out of which theory arises, the utility and limitations of older theories for present conditions, and the creation of new theory out of contemporary circumstances.

21A.S01 · Undergraduate · Fall 2021

This class brings anthropological concepts to bear on contemporary movements for justice for harms committed during European colonization in Africa. Over the course of the semester, we use critical readings on topics such as violence, human rights discourse, narrating and measuring harm, memory, and group identity formation to reflect on and contribute to the work of two groups of practitioners currently engaged in claims for justice and reparations for European colonialism in Africa: in Algeri…

21A.S01 · Undergraduate · Fall 2023

This course examines and experiments with pathways to decarbonization at the million-person scale.&nbsp;Our field site is Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia—the coldest capital on Earth and one of the world’s most polluted cities, largely as a result of coal combustion.&nbsp;We will explore the design and implementation of a molten salt heat bank to be used as an alternative to coal for household heating.&nbsp;Our approach is holistic and interdisciplinary: to prototype a locally specific, culturally accept…

21G.010 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This subject serves as a broad introduction to the field of European and Latin American fiction. It is taught in an historical manner—beginning with the first picaresque novel, <em>Lazarillo de Tormes</em>, and ending with contemporary European fiction. It is designed to help students acquire a general understanding of major fictional modes-from 18th century epistolary fiction, <em>Liaisons dangereuses</em>, to 20th century avant-garde fiction: <em>Cosmicomicsi</em> and <em>Aura</em>. Attention…

21G.011 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This course aims to provide an overview of Indian popular culture over the last two decades, through a variety of material such as popular fiction, music, television and Bombay cinema. The class will explore major themes and their representations in relation to current social and political issues. In particular, students will examine the elements of the formulaic “masala movie”, music and melodrama, the ideas of nostalgia and incumbent change in youth culture, as well as shifting questions of g…

21G.013 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

Within twenty-four hours of the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 politicians, artists, and cultural critics had begun to ask how to memorialize the deaths of thousands of people. This question persists today, but it can also be countered with another: is building a monument the best way to commemorate that moment in history? What might other discourses, media, and art forms offer in such a project of collective memory? How can these cultural formations help us to assess th…

21G.017 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

This course focuses on main currents in contemporary German literary and visual culture.&nbsp;Taking Nietzsche’s thought as a point of departure, students will survey the dialectics of tradition and modernity in both Germany and other European countries, particularly the UK, France, Denmark, and Poland.&nbsp;Primary works are drawn from literature, cinema, art, and performance, including works by Peter Sloterdijk, Thomas Vinterberg, and Michel Houellebecq.

21G.019 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Spring 2005

<p>It has become commonplace knowledge that globalization is one of the major forces shaping our world. If we look at the spread of information, ideas, capital, media, cultural artifacts - or for that matter, people - we can see the boundaries and borders that have historically separated one country or one group from another are becoming more and more permeable. For proof of this close to home, you need only to look at the composition of the MIT student body:&nbsp;8 percent of the undergraduate…

21G.022J · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

International Women’s Voices has several objectives. It introduces students to a variety of works by contemporary women writers from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and North America. The emphasis is on non-western writers. The readings are chosen to encourage students to think about how each author’s work reflects a distinct cultural heritage and to what extent, if any, we can identify a female voice that transcends national cultures. In lectures and readings distributed in class,…

21G.025 · Undergraduate · Spring 2019

This course considers how, despite its immense diversity, Africa continues to hold purchase as both a geographical entity and meaningful knowledge category. It examines the relationship between articulations of “Africa” and projects like European imperialism, developments in the biological sciences, African de-colonization and state-building, and the imagining of the planet’s future. Readings in anthropology and history are organized around five themes: space and place, race, representation, se…

21G.026 · Undergraduate · Spring 2018

This course examines contemporary and historical cultural production on and from Africa across a range of registers, including literary, musical and visual arts, material culture, and science and technology. It employs key theoretical concepts from anthropology and social theory to analyze these forms and phenomena. It also uses case studies to consider how Africa articulates its place in, and relationship to, the world through creative practices. Discussion topics are largely drawn from Franco…

21G.027 · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

<p>We will explore images that pertain to the emergence of Japan as a modern state. We will focus on images that depict Japan as it comes into contact with the rest of the world after its long and deep isolation during the feudal period.&nbsp;We will also cover city planning of Tokyo that took place after WWII, and such topics as the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.</p> <p>A unique feature of this offering is that we will run it concurrently with the edX MOOC and two University of Tokyo MOOCs, Visualizing …

21G.030 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

<p>This subject is an introduction to various forms of culture in East Asia (focusing on China, Japan and Korea), including both traditional and contemporary examples. Critically examines the shared cultural elements that are widely considered to constitute “East Asian culture,” and also the diversity within East Asia, historically and today. Examples include religious and philosophical beliefs (Confucianism and Buddhism), literature, art, food, architecture, and popular culture. The study of g…

21G.034 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

<p>This instance of “Media, Education, and the Marketplace” focuses on the rise of information and communications technologies (ICTs) during the age of globalization, specifically examining its effect and potential in developing nations across the world. In particular, the class will focus on the following three components:</p> <ul> <li>“Media” – ICTs, specifically the dramatic rise in use of the Internet over the past twenty years, have “globalized” the world and created opportunities where ve…

21G.035 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2003

The concept of globalization fosters the understanding of the interconnectedness of cultures and societies geographically wide apart; America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Subject scans existing debates over globalization around the world. This course explores how globalization impacts everyday life in the First and Third World; how globalization leads to a common cosmopolitan culture; the emergence of a global youth culture; and religious, social, and political movements that challenge globalizat…

21G.035 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

This course considers reggae, or Jamaican popular music more generally—in its various forms (ska, rocksteady, roots, dancehall)—as constituted by international movements and exchanges and as a product that circulates globally in complex ways. By reading across the reggae literature, as well as considering reggae texts themselves (songs, films, videos, and images), students will scrutinize the different interpretations of reggae’s significance and the implications of different interpretations of…

21G.039J · Undergraduate · Fall 2015

This course examines relationships between identity and participation in Japanese popular culture as a way of understanding the changing character of media, capitalism, fan communities, and culture. It emphasizes contemporary popular culture and theories of gender, sexuality, race, and the workings of power and value in global culture industries. Topics include manga (comic books), hip-hop and other popular music, anime and feature films, video games, contemporary literature, and online communi…

21G.040 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This course is an introduction to modern Indian culture and society through films, documentaries, short stories, novels, poems, and journalistic writing. The principal focus is on the study of major cultural developments and social debates in the last sixty five years of history through the reading of literature and viewing of film clips. The focus will be on the transformations of gender and class issues, representation of nationhood, the idea of regional identities and the place of the city i…

21G.041 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This subject aims to provide an overview of contemporary texts in regional languages in South Asian Literature and Cinema. We will cover major authors and film makers, writing from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Within India, we will look at authors and directors working in different regional languages and as we examine their different socio-cultural, political and historical contexts we will attempt to understand what it means to study them under the all-unifying category of…

21G.043J · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

This course provides an overview of Asian American history and its relevance for contemporary issues. It covers the first wave of Asian immigration in the 19th century, the rise of anti-Asian movements, the experiences of Asian Americans during WWII, the emergence of the Asian American movement in the 1960s, and the new wave of post–1965 Asian immigration. The class examines the role these experiences played in the formation of Asian American ethnicity. The course addresses key societal issues …

21G.044 · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This course is an introduction to three of the major genres of traditional Chinese literature—poetry, fiction and drama, with a focus on vernacular fiction. We will read translations of a number of the “masterworks” of Chinese literature. We will also examine the intertextuality between these genres — how poetry blends into narrative, how fiction becomes drama, and drama inspires fiction. Through reading these selected works of traditional Chinese literature, we will examine some of the major f…

21G.049 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

This course introduces students to the world of French photography from its invention in the 1820s to the present. It provides exposure to major photographers and images of the French tradition, and encourages students to explore the social and cultural roles and meanings of photographs. Designed to help students navigate their own photo-saturated worlds, it also provides opportunity to gain practical experience in photography. Taught in English.

21G.052 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

<p>This course covers the history and aesthetics of French cinema from the advent of sound to present-day. It treats films in the context of technical processes, the art of narration, directorial style, role of the scriptwriter, the development of schools and movements, the impact of political events and ideologies, and the relation between French and other national cinemas.</p> <p>Taught in English, the films are screened with English subtitles. Students may complete written assignments in Fre…

21G.053 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

<p>This course examines the changes in contemporary French society through the study of political debates, reforms and institutions since 1958, and analyzes the deep influence of politics on cultural and social life, despite a decline in political participation. Public controversies and political cleavages, from the Algerian war to postcolonial issues, from the birth of the European Union to the recent financial crisis, and from the moral “revolution” of the seventies to the recognition of new …

21G.056 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This course is an invitation to German film-making since the end of the Second World War. We investigate how German cinema captured the atmosphere of the immediate post-war years and discuss extensively major works of the “New German Cinema” of the Sixties and Seventies. We also look at examples of East Germany’s film production and finally observe the very different roads German cinema has been taking from the 1990’s into the present.

21G.059 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

This subject surveys main currents of European cultural and intellectual history in the modern period. Such a foundation course is central to the humanities in Europe. The curriculum introduces a set of ideas and arguments that have played a formative role in European cultural history, and acquaints them with some exemplars of critical thought. Among the topics to be considered: the critique of religion, the promise of independence, the advance of capitalism, the temptations of Marxism, the ori…

21G.061 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This interdisciplinary course surveys modern European culture to disclose the alignment of literature, opposition, and revolution. Reaching back to the foundational representations of anarchism in nineteenth-century Europe (Kleist, Conrad) the curriculum extends through the literary and media representations of militant organizations in the 1970s and 80s (Italy’s Red Brigade, Germany’s Red Army Faction, and the Real Irish Republican Army). In the middle of the term students will have the opport…

21G.064 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This course examines the major aesthetic, social, and political elements which have shaped modern Japanese culture and society. There are readings on contemporary Japan and historical evolution of the culture are coordinated with study of literary texts, film, and art, along with an analysis of everyday life and leisure activities.

21G.065 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

This course surveys both cinematic and literary representations of diverse eras and aspects of Japanese culture such as the classical era, the samurai age, wartime Japan and the atomic bombings, social change in the postwar period, and the appropriation of foreign cultural themes, with an emphasis on the modern period. Directors include Akira Kurosawa and Hiroshi Teshigahara. Authors include Kobo Abe and Yukio Mishima. Films shown have subtitles in English. Taught in English.

21G.067J · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course examines cultural performances of Asia, including both traditional and contemporary forms, in a variety of genres. Students will explore the communicative power of performances with attention to the ways performers, media, cultural settings, and audiences interact. The representation of cultural difference is considered and how it is altered through processes of globalization. Performances are viewed live when possible, but the course also relies on video, audio, and online material…

21G.068J · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

In the decades following the Second World War, a cluster of extraordinary French thinkers were widely translated and read in American universities. Their works were soon labeled as “French Theory.” Why would sharing the same nationality make authors such as Lacan, Cixous, Derrida, Foucault or Debord, ambassadors of a specifically “French” theory? The course will explore the maze of transatlantic intellectual debates since 1945 and the heyday of French existentialism. We will study the debates o…

21G.084J · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course is designed as an introduction to Latin American politics and society for undergraduates at MIT. No background on the region is required. Overall workload (reading, writing, class participation, and examinations) is similar to that of other HASS-D courses. Many of the themes raised here are covered in greater detail in other courses: 21G.020J (New World Literature), 21G.716 (Introduction to Contemporary Hispanic Literature), 21G.730 (Twentieth and Twentyfirst-Century Spanish America…

21G.101 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This subject is the first semester of four that forms an introduction to modern standard Chinese, commonly called Mandarin, the language with the largest number of native speakers in the world. It is the official language of Mainland China and Taiwan, and one of the official languages of Singapore. The course presupposes no prior background in the language. Course objectives are to master Mandarin pronunciation, including the recognition and writing of Pinyin romanization, basic reading and wri…

21G.102 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

This subject is the second semester of four that forms an introduction to modern standard Chinese, commonly called Mandarin. The emphasis is on further developing students’ abilities to participate in simple, practical conversations on everyday topics as well as enhancing their abilities on reading and writing. The relationship between Chinese language and culture and the sociolinguistically appropriate use of language will be stressed throughout. A typical class includes performance of memoriz…

21G.103 · Undergraduate · Fall 2018

This course forms the intermediate level of what constitutes a four-term foundation in Mandarin. Upon completion of Chinese III and IV, students should be able to speak Chinese with fluency on everyday topics, reach a literacy level of 700 characters (approximately 2000 common words written in both traditional and simplified characters), read materials in simple standard written Chinese, and produce both orally and in writing short compositions on everyday topics. Throughout the course we will …

21G.104 · Undergraduate · Spring 2018

Together with 21G.103 Chinese III, this course forms the intermediate level of what constitutes a four-term foundation in Mandarin. Upon completion of Chinese III and IV, students should be able to speak Chinese with fluency on everyday topics, reach a literacy level of 750 characters (approximately 1200 common words written in both traditional and simplified characters), read materials written in simple standard written Chinese, and produce both orally and in writing short compositions on ever…

21G.105 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This course is the continuation of 21G.104/108. It is designed to further help students develop sophisticated conversational, reading and writing skills by combining traditional textbook material with their own explorations of Chinese speaking societies, using the human, literary, and electronic resources available at in the Boston area. Some of special features of Chinese society, its culture, its customs and habits, its history, and the psychology of its people are be introduced. The class co…

21G.106 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

This course is the continuation of 21G.105. It is designed to further help students develop sophisticated conversational, reading and writing skills by combining traditional textbook material with their own explorations of Chinese speaking societies, using the human, literary, and electronic resources available at MIT and in the Boston area. Some special features of Chinese society, its culture, its customs and habits, its history, and the psychology of its people are introduced. The class cons…

21G.107 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This course, along with 21G.108 / 158 offered in the spring, form the elementary level of the streamlined sequence, which is for students who have some basic conversational skills gained, typically, from growing up in a Chinese speaking environment, but lack a corresponding level of literacy. The focus of the course is on learning standard everyday usage, on reading in both full and simplified characters, and on writing. This course, along with 21G.108 / 158 offered in the spring, are conducted…

21G.108 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

<p>This course, along with <em>21G.107 / 157 Chinese I (Streamlined)</em> offered in the previous fall, form the elementary level of the streamlined sequence, which is intended for students who, when they began the sequence at beginning level, had basic conversational skills (gained, typically, from growing up in a Chinese speaking environment), but lacked a corresponding level of literacy. The focus of the course is on standard usage, on reading in both traditional and simplified characters, a…

21G.109 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course is the intermediate level of the streamlined curriculum, which is intended for students who, when they began streamlined I, had some background in the language, whether it be comprehension with limited speaking ability or quite fluent speaking ability. The focus of the course is on standard pronunciation and usage, on reading in both complex and simplified characters, and on writing. It is presupposed that students in Chinese III have already learned the pinyin system of representin…

21G.110 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This is the second semester of the intermediate level sequence intended for students whose conversational ability exceeds their reading and writing skills. Focus is on reading and writing, as well as broadening conversational skills and control of standard pronunciation, for students with background in conversational Chinese. Lab work is required. On completing this course, students should be able to speak the language with standard pronunciation, to converse with some fluency on everyday topic…

21G.111 · Undergraduate · Spring 2024

<p>Chinese calligraphy (书法 / 書法, shūfǎ)—the art of expressive brush writing—is one of the most esteemed and enduring artistic traditions in China. This introductory course invites students to explore calligraphy as both a classical discipline and a living art form that continues to evolve in contemporary contexts.</p> <p>The course integrates technical training, historical and cultural study, and reflective practice. Students will not only gain hands-on experience with the brush and ink, but al…

21G.114 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course is a sequel to 21G.113 Chinese V (Streamlined). It is designed to further help students develop sophisticated conversational, reading and writing skills by combining authentic reading and audio-visual material with their own explorations of Chinese speaking societies, using the human, literary, and electronic resources available at MIT, in the Boston area and on the web. Some special features of Chinese societies, cultures and customs will be introduced. The class consists of readin…

21G.213 · Graduate · Spring 2004

The goal of this course is to review grammar and develop vocabulary building strategies to refine oral and written expression. Speaking and writing assignments are designed to expand communicative competence. Assignments are based on models and materials drawn from contemporary media (newspapers and magazines, television, Web). The models, materials, topics and assignments vary from semester to semester.

21G.221 · Undergraduate · Spring 2019

In <em>Communicating in American Culture(s)</em>, bilingual students examine how various aspects of American culture—history, geography, institutions, traditions, values—have shaped dominant Anglo-American communication norms and responses to critical events in the world. In addition, you can expect to practice and strengthen your analytical and communication skills in a carefully scaffolded manner, starting with frequent short writing and speaking tasks and progressing to longer, more formal t…

21G.222 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

The purpose of this course is to develop your writing skills so that you can feel confident writing the essays, term papers, reports, and exams you will have to produce during your career here at MIT. We will read and analyze samples of expository writing, do some work on vocabulary development, and concentrate on developing your ability to write clear, accurate, sophisticated prose.&nbsp;We will also deal with the grammar and mechanical problems you may have trouble with.

21G.223 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2004

This course is designed for high-intermediate ESL students who need to develop better listening comprehension and oral skills, which will primarily be achieved by detailed instructions on pronunciation.&nbsp;Our focus will be on (1) producing accurate and intelligible English, (2) becoming more comfortable listening to rapidly spoken English, and (3) learning common expressions, gambits, and idioms used in both formal and informal contexts.

21G.225 · Graduate · Spring 2016

This course offers analysis and practice of various forms of scientific and technical writing, from memos to journal articles, in addition to strategies for conveying technical information to specialist and non-specialist audiences. Comparable to <em>21W.780 Communicating in Technical Organizations</em>, but methods in this course are designed to deal with special problems of advanced ELS or bilingual students. The goal of the workshop is to develop effective writing skills for academic and pro…

21G.228 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This workshop is designed to help you write clearly, accurately and effectively in both an academic and a professional environment. In class, we analyze various forms of writing and address problems common to advanced speakers of English. We will often read one another’s work.

21G.232 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This course is for advanced students who wish to build confidence and skills in spoken English. It focuses on the appropriate oral presentation of material in a variety of professional contexts: group discussions, classroom explanations and interactions, and theses/research proposals. It is valuable for those who intend to teach or lecture in English and includes language laboratory assignments. The goal of the workshop is to develop effective speaking and listening skills for academic and prof…

21G.301 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

<p>21G.301/351 offers an introduction to the French language and culture with an emphasis on the acquisition of vocabulary and grammatical concepts through active communication. The course is conducted entirely in French, and students interact in French with their classmates from the very beginning. They also receive exposure to the language via a variety of authentic sources such as the Internet, audio, video and printed materials which help them develop cultural awareness as well as linguisti…

21G.302 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

<p>21G.302/352 is the second part of an introductory course to the French language and culture with an emphasis on the acquisition of vocabulary and grammatical concepts through active communication. The course is conducted entirely in French and students interact in French with their classmates from the very beginning. They also receive exposure to the language via a variety of authentic sources such as the Internet, audio, video and printed materials which help them develop cultural awareness…

21G.311 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This course examines major social and political trends, events, debates and personalities which help place aspects of contemporary French culture in their historical perspective through fiction, films, essays, newspaper articles, and television. Topics include the heritage of the French Revolution, the growth and consequences of colonialism, the role of intellectuals in public debates, the impact of the Occupation, the modernization of the economy and of social structures. The sources and meani…

21G.312 · Undergraduate · Spring 2011

Childhood is a source of fascination in most Western cultures. It is both a major inspiration for artistic creation and a political ideal, which aims at protecting future generations. Which role does it play in French society and in other francophone areas? Why is the French national anthem (“La Marseillaise”) addressed to its “children”? This course will study the transformation of childhood since the 18th century and the development of sentimentality within the family. We will examine various…

21G.315 · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This course is an intermediate subject designed to help students gradually build an in-depth understanding of France. The course focuses on French attitudes and values regarding education, work, family and institutions, and deals with the differing notions that underlie interpersonal interactions and communication styles, such as politeness, friendship and formality. Using a Web comparative, cross-cultural approach, students explore a variety of French and American materials, then analyze and c…

21G.320 · Undergraduate · Spring 2023

<p>This course is a study of major French literary genres and an introduction to methods of literary analysis. This semester, students will serve on the jury for the Goncourt Prize USA. “Le Goncourt” is the most prestigious literary prize in France. Students will study and rank books on the Goncourt shortlist. They will elect a representative to present their selection at the Villa Albertine in New York and choose the winner along with students from Princeton, Duke, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and…

21G.321 · Undergraduate · Spring 2024

<p>This course studies the transformation of childhood and youth since the 18th century in France and the development of sentimentality within the family in a francophone context. We will examine the personification of children as a source of inspiration for artistic creation and a political ideal aimed at protecting future generations, and consider various representations of childhood and youth in literature, movies, and songs.</p> <p>The course is taught entirely in French.</p> <p>About the i…

21G.322J · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

<p>This course approaches the question of what constitutes Frenchness in today’s era of globalization through issues of memory, belonging, and cultural production. It explores the role of timeless traditions – common technologies, an internationally-spoken language, monuments open to the world, and foods such as wine and cheese – that remain quintessentially French. The course also covers recent scandals about France’s role in the world, such as its colonial identity and Dominique Strauss-Kahn’…

21G.325J · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This course addresses the place of contemporary queer identities in French discourse and discusses the new generation of queer authors and their principal concerns. Class discussions and readings will introduce students to the main classical references of queer subcultures, from Proust and Vivien to Hocquenghem and Wittig. Throughout the course, students will examines current debates on post-colonial and globalized queer identities through essays, songs, movies, and novels. Authors covered incl…

21G.341 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This course covers issues in contemporary French society as expressed through movies made in the 2000s. Topics include France’s national self-image, the women’s movement, sexuality and gender, family life and class structure, post-colonialism and immigration, and American cultural imperialism. Films by Lelouch, Audiard, Doillon, Denis, Klapisch, Resnais, Rouan, Balasko, Collard, Dridi, Kassovitz, and others. Readings from French periodicals. Films shown with English subtitles. Taught in French.

21G.346 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This course investigates Paris’s oversized status as a global capital by looking at the events, transformations, cultures, and arts for which the city is known to help us better understand Paris and its place in French and global cultures today. Taught in French.

21G.346 · Undergraduate · Fall 2023

<p>The course offers an analysis of the keen interest shown by France and the French in North American cultures since the 18th century. Not only did France contribute to the construction of both Canadian and American nations, but it has also constantly delineated its identity by way of praising or criticizing North American cultures. Using materials drawn from literature, comics, TV shows, and series as well as political debates, the course will historically trace this ambivalent relation explo…

21G.347 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

Students in this course will examine short stories and short novels published in France during the past 20 years, with emphasis on texts related to the dominant social and cultural trends. Themes include the legacy of France’s colonial experience, the re-examination of its wartime past, memory and the Holocaust, the specter of AIDS, changing gender relationships, new families, the quest for personal identity, and immigration narratives. This course is taught in French.

21G.401 · Undergraduate · Fall 2008

This course gives an introduction to German language and culture. The focus is on acquisition of vocabulary and grammatical concepts through active communication. Audio, video, and printed materials provide direct exposure to authentic German language and culture. A self-paced language lab program is fully coordinated with the textbook/workbook. The first semester covers the development of effective basic communication skills.

21G.402 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

In this course students are exposed to history and culture of German-speaking countries through audio, video, and Web materials. It focuses on the expansion of basic communication skills and further development of linguistic competency, and includes the review and completion of basic grammar, building of vocabulary, and practice in writing short essays. Students will also read short literary texts.

21G.403 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This course expands skills in speaking, reading, listening, and writing. Students develop analytic and interpretative skills through the reading of a full-length drama as well as short prose and poetry (Biermann, Brecht, Dürrenmatt, Tawada and others) and through media selections on contemporary issues in German-speaking cultures. Coursework includes discussions and compositions based on these texts, and review of grammar and development of vocabulary-building strategies. It is recommended for …

21G.404 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course focuses on development of interpretive skills, using literary texts (B. Brecht, S. Zweig) and contemporary media texts (film, TV broadcasts, Web materials). The emphasis is on discussion and exploration of cultural topics in their current social, political, and historical context via hypermedia documentaries. It also covers further refinement of oral and written expression and expansion of communicative competence in practical everyday situations.

21G.405 · Undergraduate · January IAP 2011

Prepares students for working and living in German-speaking countries. Focus on current political, social, and cultural issues, using newspapers, journals, TV, radio broadcasts, and Web sources from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Emphasis on speaking, writing, and reading skills for professional contexts. Activities include: oral presentations, group discussions, guest lectures, and interviews with German speakers. No listeners.

21G.410 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

This course exposes students to current issues and language use in German technology, business, and international industrial relations, and discusses ramifications of these issues in a larger social and cultural context. We seek to prepare students who wish to work or study in a German-speaking country by focusing on specialized vocabulary and systematic training in speaking and writing skills to improve fluency and style and emphasizing communicative strategies that are crucial in a working en…

21G.412 · Undergraduate · Fall 2009

In diesem Kurs erhalten Sie einen Überblick über einige wichtige literarische Texte, Tendenzen und Themen aus der deutschsprachigen Literatur- und Kulturszene. Wir werden literarische Texte, Gedichte, Theaterstücke und Essays untersuchen, sowie andere ästhetische Formen besprechen, wie Film und Architektur. Da alle Texte gleichzeitig in ihrem spezifischen kulturellen Kontext gelesen werden, tragen sie zu einem Verständnis von verschiedenen historischen Aspekten bei. Unter anderen werden folgend…

21G.412 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This course provides the opportunity to discuss, orally and in writing, cultural, ethical, and social issues on a stylistically sophisticated level. It explores representative and influential works from the nineteenth&nbsp;century to the present, through literary texts (prose, drama, poetry), radio plays, art, film, and architecture, as well as investigates topics such as the human and the machine, science and ethics, representation of memory, and issues of good and evil. Taught in German.

21G.414 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

The topic for Fall 2006 is short film and radio plays. This course investigates current trends and topics in German literary, theater, film, television, radio, and other media arts productions. Students analyze media texts in the context of their production, reception, and distribution as well as the public debates initiated by these works. The topic for Fall 2006 is German Short Film, a popular format that represents most recent trends in film production, and German Radio Art, a striving genre…

21G.501 · Undergraduate · Fall 2019

This course is designed for students with no previous knowledge of the language, providing opportunities to acquire basic skills for conversation, reading, and writing in Japanese. The program emphasizes active command of Japanese, not passive knowledge. Your goal is not simply to study the grammar and vocabulary, but to gain skills necessary to use them in a linguistically and culturally appropriate way.

21G.502 · Undergraduate · Spring 2020

This course covers Genki I Lessons 7 through 12 that will enhance the basic skills for conversation, reading, and writing in Japenese. The program emphasizes active command of the language rather than passive knowledge. By the end of the semester, you will be able to carry on a conversation in Japanese. You will also learn approximately 90 kanji characters.

21G.503 · Undergraduate · Fall 2019

Students further develop their skills in Japanese speaking, listening, reading, and writing in this intermediate language course. This course involves continued vocabulary and kanji building.

21G.504 · Undergraduate · Spring 2020

The main objective of this course is to build up basic skills of communication in Japanese using appropriate speech levels in both writing and speaking for various social settings. This course covers Lessons 19 through 23 in the textbook <em>Genki: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese II</em>.

21G.505 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course covers lessons 22 through 27 of <em>Japanese: The Spoken Language</em> by Eleanor H. Jordan with Mari Noda. The goal of the course is to continue to build oral proficiency by expanding your knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. Class hours will be devoted to developing speaking skills in a variety of circumstances; making requests, invitations, apologies, suggestions, dealing with problems, expressing your opinions, etc. Grammatical and social appropriateness on your utterances will …

21G.701 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2003

<p>Spanish I is very different from other classes at MIT. The central component of the text and workbook is a series of 26 half-hour video episodes. The videos allow students to learn authentic Spanish and experience its cultural diversity while following a good story full of surprises and human emotions. Students also listen to an audio-only program integrated with the text and workbook.</p> <p>In the classroom, students do a variety of activities and exercises, which include talking in Spanis…

21G.702 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

Spanish II continues to develop students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing skills using the second part of the&nbsp;video-based program, <em>Destinos</em>, begun in Spanish I. <em>Destinos</em> is a soap opera that allows students to learn Spanish and experience its cultural diversity while following a good story full of surprises and human emotions. Spanish II also includes additional materials, such as Spanish films and other media, various types of reading selections and online resou…

21G.703 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This course is the first intermediate-level course in Spanish, with a focus on grammar review, additional vocabulary, writing of essays in Spanish and enhancement of cultural awareness. Group activities and projects, and conversation are emphasized. There are detailed simulation activities, readings about literature and art from Latin America and Spain, activities with music videos and interviews, and viewings of recent films such as <em>El espinazo del diablo</em>, <em>Juana la loca</em>, and …

21G.704 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

Course Sequences <p>Spanish IV aims at developing and improving student’s oral and written communication through the continued study of the language, literature and culture of Spain, Latin America and Hispanic communities in the United States. It also seeks to improve students’ ability to read and appreciate literary and non-literary texts in Spanish, deepening this way students’ awareness and understanding of the cultural diversity of the Spanish-speaking world. The course is organized by them…

21G.705 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

A second-year intermediate course that includes vocabulary enhancement and limited review of selected points of grammar. Focuses on listening comprehension and speaking, with group activities, discussions and individual oral reports based on readings, films, music and art.

21G.711 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

En este curso el estudiante perfeccionará su comunicación oral y escrita mediante el estudio y la discusión de temas relacionados al impacto social y cultural de la ciencia y la tecnología en ciertas sociedades hispanas. Algunos de los temas a tratar son los efectos de los cambios tecnológicos en la estructura familiar y comunitaria, en las relaciones entre los sexos, en la identidad personal y cultural, en el mundo natural y en los sistemas de valores, la religión, la educación y el trabajo. T…

21G.712 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

A third-year intermediate course designed to improve speaking and writing, with opportunities for vocabulary acquisition, listening comprehension and reading practice as well. Uses literary and cultural readings, films, and group activities. Students give oral reports and participate in discussions and group projects.

21G.714 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

Spanish for Bilingual Students is an intermediate course designed principally for heritage learners, but which includes other students interested&nbsp; in specific content areas, such as US Latino immigration, identity, ethnicity, education and representation in the media. Linguistic goals include vocabulary acquisition, improvement in writing, and enhancement of formal communicative skills.

21G.716 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course studies important twentieth century texts from Spain and Latin America. The readings include short stories, theatre, the novel and poetry. This subject is conducted in Spanish and all reading and writing for the course is also done in Spanish.

21G.716 · Undergraduate · Fall 2007

This course studies representative twentieth and twenty-first-century texts and films from Hispanic America and Spain. Emphasis is on developing strategies for analyzing the genres of the novel, the short story, the poem, the fictional film, and the theatrical script. The novels read this semester are Magali García Ramis’s <em>Felices días</em>, <em>Tío Sergio</em> (1986, Puerto Rico) and Javier Cercas’s <em>Soldados de Salamina</em> (2001, Spain). We will study Lorca’s play “La casa de Bernard…

21G.717 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This course has several purposes. The major concern will be the examination of Spanish culture including Spain’s history, architecture, art, literature and film, to determine if there is a uniquely Spanish manner of seeing and understanding the world - one which emerges as clearly distinct from our own and that of other Western European nations.

21G.730 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This course explores artistic achievement in a culture that over the past century has engaged in constant and intense imaginative self-renewal. The class studies film, narrative (e.g., Márquez’s <em>One Hundred Years of Solitude</em>), and poetry. Conducted in Spanish.

21G.735 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

<p>This course considers films spanning the entire career of pioneering Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel (1900–1983), from his silent surrealist classic of 1929, <em>Un perro andaluz</em>, to his last film, <em>Ese oscuro objeto del deseo</em> (1977). We pay special attention to his Mexican period, in exile, and the films he made in, and about, Spain, including his work in documentary. It explores Buñuel’s early friendship with painter Salvador Dalí and poet Federico García Lorca, surrealist aesth…

21G.801 · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This course provides an introduction to the language and culture of the Portuguese-speaking world, with special attention to Brazilian Portuguese. This course focuses are on basic oral expression, listening comprehension, and elementary reading and writing. Students develop their vocabulary and understanding of grammatical concepts through active communication. This is a coordinated language lab program and is designed for students with no knowledge of Portuguese. Class is conducted entirely in…

21G.802 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Spring 2012

This course is a continuation of 21G.801. It focuses on expanding communication skills and further development of linguistic competency using a variety of authentic sources, such as the Internet, audio, video, and printed materials, to help develop cultural awareness and linguistic proficiency. This course is conducted entirely in Portuguese.

21G.820 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This is an advanced course that aims to build vocabulary competence and improve oral communication through the study and discussion of topics related to cultural aspects in Lusophone societies, primarily from current issues in Brazil. It is designed to give students extensive experience in Portuguese and emphasizes skill development and refinement in the area of critical reading and writing in Portuguese.

21G.820 · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

This course will present students with an overview of Brazilian popular music, from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Considered an advanced course, it aims to build vocabulary competence and improve oral communication through the study and discussion of topics about cultural aspects and current issues in Brazil. It is designed to give students extensive experience in Portuguese and emphasizes skill development and refinement in the area of critical reading and writing in Portugue…

21G.880 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

Accelerated Introductory Portuguese for Spanish Speakers covers the basics of Portuguese grammar and presents selected cultural aspects of the Lusophone world, with special emphasis on Brazil. Designed as an intensive introductory course equivalent to Portuguese I and II, it is a Portuguese course for native speakers of Spanish or speakers of other languages who have a native-like command of Spanish.

21G.S01 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

The goal of this course is to offer a general introduction to 20th and 21st century literature and cultural production about Modern Mexico. Emphasis will be placed on the way intellectuals and artists have presented the changes in Mexico City’s urban life, and how these representations question themes and trends in national identity, state control, globalization, and immigration.

21G.S55 · Undergraduate · Fall 2022

This is an experimental version of 21G.505, which offers a combination of in-person and synchronous remote instruction. It aims to achieve simultaneous progression of four skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It immerses students in various aspects of Japanese culture through authentic everyday Japanese media.

21G.S56 · Undergraduate · Spring 2023

This is an experimental version of 21G.506, which offers a combination of in-person and synchronous remote instruction. It aims to achieve simultaneous progression of four skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It immerses students in various aspects of Japanese culture through authentic everyday Japanese media.

21H.001 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

This course explores fundamental questions about the causes and nature of revolutions by looking at how people overthrow their rulers and establish new governments. Considers a set of major political transformations throughout the world and across centuries to understand the meaning of revolution and evaluate its impact. Examines how revolutionaries have attempted to establish their ideals and realize their goals. Asks whether radical upheavals require bloodshed, violence, or even terror. Seeks…

21H.007J · Undergraduate · Fall 2012

This course is an investigation of the Roman empire of Augustus, the Frankish empire of Charlemagne, and the English empire in the age of the Hundred Years War. Students examine different types of evidence, read across a variety of disciplines, and develop skills to identify continuities and changes in ancient and medieval societies. Each term this course is different, looking at different materials from a variety of domains to explore ancient and mideveal studies. This version is a capture of …

21H.009 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This course surveys the increasing interaction between communities, as the barrier of distance succumbed to both curiosity and new transport technologies. It explores Western Europe and the United States’ rise to world dominance, as well as the great divergence in material, political, and technological development between Western Europe and East Asia post–1750, and its impact on the rest of the world. It examines a series of evolving relationships, including human beings and their physical envi…

21H.101 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

This course provides a basic history of American social, economic, and political development from the colonial period through the Civil War. It examines the colonial heritages of Spanish and British America; the American Revolution and its impact; the establishment and growth of the new nation; and the Civil War, its background, character, and impact. Readings include writings of the period by J. Winthrop, T. Paine, T. Jefferson, J. Madison, W. H. Garrison, G. Fitzhugh, H. B. Stowe, and A. Linc…

21H.102 · Undergraduate · Spring 2018

This course examines the social, cultural, political, and economic history of the United States, from the Civil War to the present. It uses secondary analysis and primary documents, such as court cases, personal accounts, photographs, and films, to examine some of the key issues in the shaping of modern America, including industrialization and urbanization, immigration, the rise of a mass consumer society, the emergence of the US as a global power, and the development of civil rights activism a…

21H.104J · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

This course uses readings and discussions to focus on a series of short-term events that shed light on American politics, culture, and social organization. It emphasizes finding ways to make sense of these complicated, highly traumatic events, and on using them to understand larger processes of change in American history. The class also gives students experience with primary documentation research through a term paper assignment.

21H.105 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

“What then is the American, this new man?” asked J. Hector St-John de Crèvecoeur in his <em>Letters from an American Farmer</em> in 1782. This subject takes Crèvecoeur’s question as the starting point for an examination of the changing meanings of national identity in the American past. We will consider a diverse collection of classic texts in American history to see how Americans have defined themselves and their nation in politics, literature, art, and popular culture. As a communications-int…

21H.105 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This subject is devoted to reading and discussing basic American historical texts that are often cited but often remain unread, understanding their meaning, and assessing their continuing significance in American culture. Since it is a “Communications Intensive” subject, 21H.105 is also dedicated to improving students’ capacities to write and speak well. It requires a substantial amount of writing, participation in discussions, and individual presentations to the class.

21H.112 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This course is concerned primarily with the revolutionary origins of American government. Topics covered include: English and American backgrounds of the Revolution; issues and arguments in the Anglo-American conflict; colonial resistance and the beginnings of republicanism; the Revolutionary War; constitution writing for the states and nation; and effects of the American Revolution. Readings emphasize documents from the period–pamphlets, correspondence, the minutes or resolutions of resistance…

21H.116J · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

<p>Although attention will be devoted to the causes and long-term consequences of the Civil War, this class will focus primarily on the war years (1861-1865) with special emphasis on the military and technological aspects of the conflict. Four questions, long debated by historians, will receive close scrutiny:</p> <ol> <li>What caused the war?</li> <li>Why did the North win the war?</li> <li>Could the South have won?</li> <li>To what extent is the Civil War America’s “defining moment”?</li> </o…

21H.132 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

This course covers the history of Rome from its humble beginnings to the 5th century A.D. The first half covers Kingship to Republican form; the conquest of Italy; Roman expansion: Pyrrhus, Punic Wars and provinces; classes, courts, and the Roman revolution; Augustus and the formation of empire. The second half covers Virgil to the Vandals; major social, economic, political and religious trends at Rome and in the provinces. There is an emphasis on the use of primary sources in translation.

21H.141 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

This course provides an introduction to major political, social, cultural and intellectual changes in Europe from the beginnings of the Renaissance in Italy around 1300 to the outbreak of the French Revolution at the end of the 1700s. It focuses on the porous boundaries between categories of theology, magic and science, as well as print. It examines how developments in these areas altered European political institutions, social structures, and cultural practices. It also studies men and women, …

21h.151 · Undergraduate · Fall 2024

This course surveys the history of China from the first dynasty to the year 1800. It traces the rise of the world’s first centralized bureaucratic state, the development of the world’s oldest living written culture, and the formation of the pre-modern world’s largest single commercial market. It also studies women and men as they founded dynasties, engaged in philosophy, challenged orthodoxies, and invented technologies used around the globe. Finally, the course explores China’s past to underst…

21H.152 · Undergraduate · Spring 2022

This course discusses China’s emergence as a global power, which has arisen out of two centuries of significant change. It explores those transformations from 1800 to the present by examining the advent of foreign imperialism in the nineteenth century, the collapse of the last imperial dynasty in 1911, China’s debilitating war against Japan, the communist revolution, and the tumultuous history of the People’s Republic of China from 1949. Also, this course addresses the historical transformation…

21H.153J · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

In this seminar we will examine various issues related to the intersection of race and gender in Asian America, starting with the nineteenth century, but focusing on contemporary issues. Topics to be covered may include racial and gender discourse, the stereotyping of Asian American women and men in the media, Asian American masculinity, Asian American feminisms and their relation to mainstream American feminism, the debate between feminism and ethnic nationalism, gay and lesbian identity, clas…

21H.154 · Undergraduate · Fall 2022

<p>This course explores the historical origins of the Japanese warrior class as well as its reinvention throughout the archipelago’s history, with a special focus on the pre-modern era (200–1600 CE). It highlights key historical contexts including the rise of the imperial court, interactions with the broader world, and the establishment of a warrior-dominated state. It also considers the modern imaginations and uses of the warrior figure.</p> <p>Note: This course is taught in English with a pro…

21H.155 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

This course surveys Japanese history from the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603 to the present and explores the local and global nature of modernity in Japan. It highlights key themes, including the emergence of a modern nation-state, the rise and fall of the Japanese Empire, the development of mass consumer culture and the middle class, and the continued importance of historical memory in Japan today.

21H.161 · Undergraduate · Fall 2015

This course surveys the history of the Middle East, from the end of the 19th century to the present. It examines major political, social, intellectual and cultural issues and practices. It also focuses on important events, movements, and ideas that prevailed during the last century and affect its current realities.

21H.165 · Undergraduate · Spring 2019

This course surveys the history of 19th and 20th century Africa. It focuses on the European conquest of Africa and the dynamics of colonial rule, especially its socioeconomic and cultural consequences. It looks at how the rising tide of African nationalism, in the form of labor strikes and guerrilla wars, ushered out colonialism. It also examines the postcolonial states, focusing on the politics of development, recent civil wars in countries like Rwanda and Liberia, the AIDS epidemic, and the h…

21H.181 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This course explores the history of the ideal of personal freedom with an eye towards contemporary debates over the pros and cons of the regulatory state. The first part of the course surveys the sociological and theological sources of the concepts of freedom and civil society, and introduces liberty’s leading relatives or competitors: property, equality, community, and republicanism. The second part consists of a series of case studies in the rise of modern liberty and libertarianism: the abol…

21H.206 · Undergraduate · Fall 2007

This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the “good life” through consumption, leisure, and material abundance. We will explore how such things as department stores, nationally advertised brand-name goods, mass-produced cars, and suburbs transformed the American economy, society, and politics. The course is organized both thematically and chronologically. Each period deals with a new development in the history of consumer culture. Throughout we explore both cele…

21H.207 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

This course will explore how Americans have confronted energy challenges since the end of World War II. Beginning in the 1970s, Americans worried about the supply of energy. As American production of oil declined, would the US be able to secure enough fuel to sustain their high consumption lifestyles? At the same time, Americans also began to fear the environmental side affects of energy use. Even if the US had enough fossil fuel, would its consumption be detrimental to health and safety? This …

21H.209 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This course focuses on the Great Depression and World War II and how they led to a major reordering of American politics and society. We will examine how ordinary people experienced these crises and how those experiences changed their outlook on politics and the world around them.

21H.211 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This subject examines the unique culture that developed in the United States after World War II. The dawn of the nuclear age and the ensuing Cold War fundamentally altered American politics and social life. It also led to a flowering of technological experimentation and rapid innovation in the sciences. Over the course of the term, students will explore how Americans responded to these changes, and how those responses continue to shape life in the US today.

21H.221 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This course examines the history of the United States as a “nation of immigrants” within a broader global context. It considers migration from the mid-19th century to the present through case studies of such places as New York’s Lower East Side, South Texas, Florida, and San Francisco’s Chinatown. It also examines the role of memory, media, and popular culture in shaping ideas about migration. The course includes optional field trip to New York City.

21H.223 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

Writing in the wake of the Civil War, poet Walt Whitman insisted that “the real war will never get in the books.” Throughout American history, the experience of war has fundamentally shaped the ways that Americans think about themselves, their fellow Americans, and the meanings of national citizenship. War has also posed challenges of representation, both for those who fought as well as those who did not. This subject examines how Americans have told the stories of modern war in history, litera…

21H.224 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

As events of the last few years have shown, the Supreme Court has played a crucial role in American political life. There is practically no issue of social significance in the American past that did not at some point end up in the nation’s courtrooms, yet much of the workings of the constitution remain obscure. This subject is designed to introduce students to the main themes and events of American constitutional law since 1787. It introduces terms and concepts of law and legal history, focusin…

21H.225J · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This subject explores the legal history of the United States as a gendered system. It examines how women have shaped the meanings of American citizenship through pursuit of political rights such as suffrage, jury duty, and military service, how those political struggles have varied for across race, religion, and class, as well as how the legal system has shaped gender relations for both women and men through regulation of such issues as marriage, divorce, work, reproduction, and the family. The…

21H.234J · Undergraduate, Graduate · Spring 2005

This seminar focuses on downtowns in U.S. cities from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. Emphasis will be placed on downtown as an idea, place, and cluster of interests; on the changing character of downtown; and on recent efforts to rebuild it. Subjects to be considered will include subways, skyscrapers, highways, urban renewal, and retail centers. The focus will be on readings, discussions, and individual research projects.

21H.235 · Undergraduate · Fall 2009

<blockquote> <p>Hitherto it had gone by the original Indian name Manna-hatta, or as some still have it, ‘The Manhattoes’; but this was now decried as savage and heathenish… At length, when the council was almost in despair, a burgher, remarkable for the size and squareness of his head, proposed that they should call it New-Amsterdam. The proposition took every body by surprise; it was so striking, so apposite, so ingenious. The name was adopted by acclamation, and New-Amsterdam the metropolis w…

21H.237 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This course investigates the relationship between urban architecture and political, social, and cultural history of Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. It surveys and analyzes archeological and literary evidence, including the sanctuary of Athena on the Acropolis, the Agora, Greek houses, the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, plays of Sophocles and Aristophanes, and the panhellenic sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia.

21H.244J · Undergraduate · Fall 2019

This course analyzes Russia’s social, cultural, and political heritage in the 18th and 19th centuries, up to and including the Russian Revolution of 1917. It compares reforming and revolutionary impulses in the context of serfdom, the rise of the intelligentsia, and debates over capitalism, while focusing on historical and literary texts, especially the intersections between the two.

21H.245J · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course explores the political and historical evolution of the Soviet state and society from the 1917 Revolution to the present. It covers the creation of a revolutionary regime, causes and nature of the Stalin revolution, post-Stalinist efforts to achieve political and social reform, and causes of the Soviet collapse. It also examines current developments in Russia in light of Soviet history.

21H.266 · Undergraduate · Spring 2020

This course introduces students to the spatial, legal, economic, social and political structures that created apartheid in South Africa, and to the factors that led to the collapse of the racist order. We will examine the many forms of Black oppression and, also, the various forms of resistance to apartheid. Some of the themes we will explore include industrialization and the formation of the Black working classes; the constructions of race, ethnicities, and sexualities; land alienation and rur…

21H.301 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This course elaborates the history of Ancient Greece from the Bronze Age to the death of Alexander. It covers major social, economic, political, and religious trends. It also includes discussions on Homer, heroism, and the Greek identity; the hoplite revolution and the rise of the city-state; Herodotus, Persia, and the (re)birth of history; Empire, Thucydidean rationalism, and the Peloponnesian War; Platonic constructs; Aristotle, Macedonia, and Hellenism. Emphasis is on use of primary sources …

21H.306 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This course surveys the social, cultural, and political development of western Europe between 500 and 1350. A number of topics are incorporated into the broad chronological sweep of the course, including: the Germanic conquest of the ancient Mediterranean world; the rise of a distinct northern culture and the Carolingian Renaissance; the emergence of feudalism and the breakdown of political order;&nbsp;contact with the Byzantine and Islamic East and the Crusading movement; the quality of religi…

21H.311 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

The “Renaissance” as a phenomenon in European history is best understood as a series of social, political, and cultural responses to an intellectual trend which began in Italy in the fourteenth century. This intellectual tendency, known as humanism, or the <em>studia humanitatis</em>, was at the heart of developments in literature, the arts, the sciences, religion, and government for almost three hundred years. In this class, we will highlight the history of humanism, but we will also study rel…

21H.319 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This seminar looks at key issues in the historical development and current state of modern American criminal justice, with an emphasis on its relationship to citizenship, nationhood, and race/ethnicity. We begin with a range of perspectives on the rise of what is often called “mass incarceration”: how did our current system of criminal punishment take shape, and what role did race play in that process? Part Two takes up a series of case studies, including racial disparities in the administratio…

21H.326 · Undergraduate · Spring 1998

Medieval and early modern Russia stood at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. In this course we will examine some of the native developments and foreign influences which most affected the course of Russian history. Particular topics include the rise of the Kievan State, the Mongol Yoke, the rise of Muscovy, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, relations with Western Europe. How did foreigners perceive Russia? How did those living in the Russian lands perceive foreigners? What social relations wer…

21H.331 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course explores the political, social, and economic factors commonly offered to explain the fall of the Roman Republic: growth of the territorial empire, increased intensity of aristocratic competition, transformation of the Italian economy, growth of the city of Rome and dependence of the urban plebs, changes in military recruitment and dependence of soldiers on their generals. There is an emphasis on the reading of ancient sources in translation, including Cicero, Sallust, Caesar, August…

21h.336 · Undergraduate · Spring 2023

Through close examination of the emperor Augustus and his Julio-Claudian successors, this subject investigates how Roman emperors used art, architecture, coinage, and other media to create and project an image of themselves, how the surviving literary sources from the Roman period reinforced or subverted that image, and how both phenomena have contributed to post-classical perceptions of Roman emperors. It also considers works of Suetonius and Tacitus as well as modern representations of the em…

21H.342 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This course is an an exploration of British culture and politics, focusing on the changing role of the monarchy from the accession of the House of Hanover (later Windsor) in 1714 to the present. The dynasty has encountered a series of crises, in which the personal and the political have been inextricably combined: for example, George III’s mental illness; the scandalous behavior of his son, George IV; Victoria’s withdrawal from public life after the death of Prince Albert; the abdication of Edw…

21H.343J · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

<p>This course explores the impact of new technology on the recording and distribution of words and images at three different times: The invention of the printing press ca. 1450; the adaptation of electricity to communication technology in the 19th century (telegraph, telephone, phonograph); and the emergence of digital media today. Assignments include essays and online projects. Students also participate in the design and construction of a hand-set printing press.</p> <p>This course is also pa…

21H.346 · Undergraduate · Spring 2011

This course covers French politics, culture, and society from Louis XIV to Napoleon Bonaparte. Attention is given to the growth of the central state, the beginnings of a modern consumer society, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, including its origins, and the rise and fall of Napoleon.

21H.357 · Undergraduate · Spring 2018

This course provides a global history of South Asians and introduces students to the cultural, social, economic, and political experiences of immigrants who traveled across the world. It studies how and why South Asians, who have migrated to America, Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East, are considered a model minority in some countries and unwanted strangers in others. Through literature, memoirs, films, music, and historical writing, it follows South Asian migrants as they discov…

21H.365 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This seminar considers “difference” and “sameness” as they have been conceived, experienced, and regulated by peoples of the Middle East, with a focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. The first half discusses the Ottoman Empire by exploring how this multiethnic, polyglot empire survived for several relatively peaceful centuries and what happened when its formula for existence was challenged by politics based on mono-ethnic states. The second half of the course focuses on post-Ottoman nation-stat…

21H.380J · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2013

This course is a historical exploration of the ways that people have interacted with their closest animal relatives, for example: hunting, domestication of livestock, exploitation of animal labor, scientific study of animals, display of exotic and performing animals, and pet-keeping. Themes include changing ideas about animal agency and intelligence, our moral obligations to animals, and the limits imposed on the use of animals. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignmen…

21H.381J · Undergraduate · Fall 2015

This seminar examines women’s experiences during and after war, revolution, and genocide. The focus of the course is mostly on the 20th century and on North America, Europe and the Middle East.

21H.382 · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

The decades leading up to the Atlantic revolutions of the late eighteenth century were formative moments in the rise of capitalism. The novel instruments of credit, debt, and investment fashioned during this period proved to be enduring sources of financial innovation, but they also generated a great deal of political conflict, particularly during the revolutionary era itself. &nbsp;This seminar examines the debates surrounding large-scale financial and trading corporations and considers the ei…

21H.383 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2016

This seminar examines the global history of the last millennium, including technological change, commodity exchange, systems of production, and economic growth. Students engage with economic history, medieval and early modern origins of modern systems of production, consumption and global exchange. Topics include the long pre-history of modern economic development; medieval world systems; the age of discovery; the global crisis of the 17th century; demographic systems; global population movemen…

21H.390 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2022

This course examines the distinctive ways in which historians in different parts of the world have approached the task of writing history. It explores methodologies used, such as political, social, economic, cultural, and popular histories through the reading and discussion of relevant and innovative texts. It introduces a variety of sources (archival documents, statistical data, film, fiction, memoirs, artifacts, and images) and the ways they can be used to research, interpret, and present the…

21H.402 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

Focusing on the emperors Augustus and Nero, this course investigates the ways in which Roman emperors used art, architecture, coinage and other media to create and project an image of themselves, the ways in which the surviving literary sources from the Roman period reinforced or subverted that image, and the ways in which both phenomena have contributed to post-classical perceptions of Roman emperors. Material studied will include the art, architecture, and coinage of Augustan and Neronian Rom…

21H.405J · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course focuses on the archaeology of the Greek and Roman city. It investigates the relationship between urban architecture and the political, social, and economic role of cities in the Greek and Roman world, by analyzing a range of archaeological and literary evidence relevant to the use of space in Greek and Roman cities (e.g. Athens, Paestum, Rome, Pompeii) and a range of theoretical frameworks for the study of ancient urbanism.

21H.411 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This course examines the development of the western intellectual tradition from the fall of the Roman Empire through the High Middle Ages. Our basic premise will be that the triumph of Christianity in the west was not the inevitable outcome it might appear from hindsight. Our attention will therefore be focused not only on the development of Christian thought and practice, but on its challengers as well. The core themes of the course include the emergence of a uniform Christian orthodoxy in lat…

21H.418 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

There has been much discussion in recent years, on this campus and elsewhere, about the death of the book. Digitization and various forms of electronic media, some critics say, are rendering the printed text as obsolete as the writing quill. In this subject, we will examine the claims for and against the demise of the book, but we will also supplement these arguments with an historical perspective they lack: we will examine texts, printing technologies, and reading communities from roughly 1450…

21H.421 · Undergraduate · Spring 2011

Focusing primarily on the period since 1500, explores the influence of climate, topography, plants, animals, and microorganisms on human history and the reciprocal influence of people on the environment. Topics include the European encounter with the Americas, the impact of modern technology, and the historical roots of the current environmental crisis.

21H.433 · Undergraduate · Spring 2011

This course asks students to consider the ways in which social theorists, institutional reformers, and political revolutionaries in the 17th through 19th centuries seized upon insights developed in the natural sciences and mathematics to change themselves and the society in which they lived. Students study trials, art, literature and music to understand developments in Europe and its colonies in these two centuries. Covers works by Newton, Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Marx, and Darwin.

21H.443 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

From pineapples grown in Hawaii to English-speaking call centers outsourced to India, the legacy of the “Age of Imperialism” appears everywhere in our modern world. This class explores the history of European imperialism in its political, economic, and cultural dimensions from the 1840s through the 1960s.

21H.447 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

The rise and fall of National Socialism is one of the most intensively-studied topics in European history. Nevertheless, after more than half a century, popular views of Nazism in the media and among the public remain simplistic-essentialized by equal parts fascination and horror. Adolf Hitler, for instance, is often portrayed as an evil genius of supernatural ability; while the Nazi state is similarly imagined to have held absolute power over every aspect of its subjects’ lives. Such character…

21H.504 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

This subject examines the interactions of East Asia with the rest of the world and the relationships of each of the East Asian countries with each other, from ca. 1500 to 2000 A.D. Primary focus on China and Japan, with some reference to Korea, Vietnam, and Central Asia. Asks how international diplomatic, commercial, military, religious, and cultural relationships joined with internal processes to direct the development of East Asian societies. Subject addresses perceptions and misperceptions a…

21H.522 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This course covers medieval Japanese society and culture from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries, when political power rested largely in the hands of feudal warriors. Topics include religion (especially Zen Buddhism); changing concepts of “the way of the warrior;” women under feudalism; popular culture; and protest and rebellion. Presentations include weekly feature films. Assigned readings include many literary writings in translation.

21H.560 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This subject examines the experiences of ordinary Chinese people as they lived through the tumultuous changes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We look at personal narratives, primary sources, films alongside a textbook to think about how individual and family lives connect with the broader processes of change in modern China. In the readings and discussions, you should focus on how major political events have an impact on the characters’ daily lives, and how the decisions they make ca…

21H.571 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

Survey of Indian civilization from 2500 BC to present-day. Traces major political events as well as economic, social, ecological, and cultural developments. Primary and secondary readings enhance understanding of this unique civilization, and shape and improve understanding in analyzing and interpreting historical data. Examines major thematic debates in Indian history through class discussion.

21H.575J · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This course is designed to introduce and help students understand the changes and continuities in the lives of women in South Asia from a historical perspective. Using gender as a lens of examining the past, we will examine how politics of race, class, caste and religion affected and continue to impact women in South Asian countries, primarily in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. We will reflect upon current debates within South Asian women’s history in order to examine some of the iss…

21H.580 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This subject examines interactions across the Eurasian continent between Russians, Chinese, Mongolian nomads, and Turkic oasis dwellers during the last millennium and a half. As empires rose and fell, religions, trade, and war flowed back and forth continuously across this vast space. Today, the fall of the Soviet Union and China’s reforms have opened up new opportunities for cultural interaction.

21H.601 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This course aims to provide students with a general overview of basic themes and issues in Middle Eastern history from the rise of Islam to the present, with an emphasis on the encounters and exchanges between the “Middle East” (Southwest Asia and North Africa) and the “West” (Europe and the United States).

21H.802 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This class is a selective survey of Latin American history from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present.&nbsp;Issues studied include Latin America in the global economy, relations between Latin America and the U.S., dictatorships and democracies in the twentieth century, African and Indigenous cultures, feminism and gender, cultural politics, revolution in Mexico, Cuba, and Central America, and Latin American identity.

21H.907 · Undergraduate · Fall 2000

This seminar examines a number of famous trials in European and American history. It considers the salient issues (political, social, cultural) of several trials, the ways in which each trial was constructed and covered in public discussions at the time, the ways in which legal reasoning and storytelling interacted in each trial and in the later retellings of the trial, and the ways in which trials serve as both spectacle and a forum for moral and political reasoning. Students have an opportuni…

21H.914 · Undergraduate · Fall 2007

This course explores how our views of Jewish history have been formed and how this history can explain the survival of the Jews as an ethnic/religious group into the present day. Special attention is given to the partial and fragmentary nature of our information about the past, and the difficulties inherent in decoding statements about the past that were written with a religious agenda in mind. It also considers complex events in Jewish history – from early history as portrayed in the Bible to …

21H.927J · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course will explore the relation of women and men in both pre-industrial and modern societies to the changing map of public and private (household) work spaces, examining how that map affected their opportunities for both productive activity and the consumption of goods and leisure. The reproductive strategies of women, either in conjunction with or in opposition to their families, will be the third major theme of the course. We will consider how a place and an ideal of the “domestic” aros…

21H.931 · Undergraduate · Spring 2002

This course is designed to introduce students to fundamental issues and debates in the writing of history. It will feature innovative historical accounts written in recent years. The class will consider such questions as the words historians use, their language, sources, methods, organization, framing, and style. How does the choice of each of these affect the historian’s work? How does the author choose, analyze, and present evidence? How effective are different methodologies?

21H.931 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This course is designed to acquaint students with a variety of approaches to the past used by historians writing in the twentieth century. The books we read have all made significant contributions to their respective sub-fields and have been selected to give as wide a coverage in both field and methodology as possible in one semester’s worth of reading. We examine how historians conceive of their object of study, how they use primary sources as a basis for their accounts, how they structure the…

21H.931 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

This subject is designed to give 21H majors and minors an introduction to the methods that historians use to interpret the past. We will focus on two areas: archives and interpretation. In our work on archives, we will ask what constitutes an archive. We will visit one or two local archives, speak with archivists, and assemble our own archive related to life at MIT in 2003. Once we have a better understanding of the possibilities and limitations of historical archives, we will turn to the task …

21H.952J · Graduate · Fall 2003

This seminar aims to develop a teaching knowledge of the field through extensive reading and discussion of major works. The reading covers a broad range of topics - political, economic, social, and cultural - and represents a variety of historical methods.

21H.968J · Graduate · Spring 2010

This class examines the relationship between the study of natural history, both domestic and exotic, by Europeans and Americans, and exploration and exploitation of the natural world, focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

21H.983 · Graduate · Spring 2017

This course examines the definition of gender in scientific, societal, and historical contexts. It explores how gender influences state formation and the work of the state, what role gender plays in imperialism and in the welfare state, the ever-present relationship between gender and war, and different states’ regulation of the body in gendered ways at different times. It investigates new directions in the study of gender as historians, anthropologists and others have taken on this fascinating…

21H.983J · Graduate, Undergraduate · Fall 2020

This course examines the definition of gender in scientific, societal, and historical contexts. It explores how gender influences state formation and the work of the state, what role gender plays in imperialism and in the welfare state, the ever-present relationship between gender and war, and different states’ regulation of the body in gendered ways at different times. It also investigates new directions in the study of gender as historians, anthropologists and others have taken on this fascin…

21H.991 · Graduate · Fall 2014

This subject examines some of the many ways that contemporary historians interpret the past, as well as the multiple types of sources on which they rely for evidence. It is by no means an exhaustive survey, but the topics and readings have been chosen to give a sense of the diversity of work that is encompassed in the discipline of history.

21H.991 · Graduate · Fall 2010

We will doggedly ask two questions in this class: “What is history?” and “How do you do it in 2010?” In pursuit of the answers, we will survey a variety of approaches to the past used by historians writing in the last several decades. We will examine how these historians conceive of their object of study, how they use primary sources as a basis for their accounts, how they structure the narrative and analytical discussion of their topic, and the advantages and limitations of their approaches.

21H.S01 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This course will explore food in modern American history as a story of industrialization and globalization. Lectures, readings, and discussions will emphasize the historical dimensions of—and debates about—slave plantations and factory farm labor; industrial processing and technologies of food preservation; the political economy and ecology of global commodity chains; the vagaries of nutritional science; food restrictions and reform movements; food surpluses and famines; cooking traditions and …

21L.000J · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

Students, scholars, bloggers, reviewers, fans, and book-group members write about literature, but so do authors themselves. Through the ways they engage with their own texts and those of other artists, sampling, remixing, and rethinking texts and genres, writers reflect on and inspire questions about the creative process. We will examine Mary Shelley’s reshaping of Milton’s <em>Paradise Lost</em>, German fairy tales, tales of scientific discovery, and her husband’s poems to make <em>Frankenstei…

21L.000J · Undergraduate · Fall 2015

This course is designed around analyzing <em>intimate bonds</em> and the permutations of <em>heartbreak</em>. Through the analysis of a set of relations in novels, short stories, poetry, music videos, and live theatre, we will consider the transformative states of the lover’s (un)becoming, for how consciousness is constituted by bonds yet how the lover transcends crisis in the moment of the epiphany that surfaces in love’s very failure; indeed, love itself becomes narcissistically yet optimisti…

21L.001 · Undergraduate · Fall 2008

As we read broadly from throughout the vast chronological period that is “Homer to Dante,” we will pepper our readings of individual ancient and medieval texts with broader questions like: what images, themes, and philosophical questions recur through the period; are there distinctly “classical” or “medieval” ways of depicting or addressing them; and what do terms like “Antiquity” or “the Middle Ages” even mean? (What are the Middle Ages in the “middle” of, for example?) Our texts will include …

21L.001X · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This course aims to introduce students to the rich diversity of human culture from antiquity to the early 17th century. In this course, we will explore human culture in its myriad expressions, focusing on the study of literary, religious and philosophical texts as ways of narrating, symbolizing, and commenting on all aspects of human social and material life. We will work comparatively, reading texts from various cultures: Mesopotamian, Greek, Judeo-Christian, Chinese, Indian, and Muslim. Throu…

21L.002 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

<p>Complementary to 21L.001. A broad survey of texts - literary, philosophical, and sociological - studied to trace the growth of secular humanism, the loss of a supernatural perspective upon human events, and changing conceptions of individual, social, and communal purpose. Stresses appreciation and analysis of texts that came to represent the common cultural possession of our time. Enrollment limited. HASS-D, CI.</p> <p>Readings this semester ranging from political theory and oratory to autob…

21L.002 · Undergraduate · Spring 2010

This course comprises a broad survey of texts, literary and philosophical, which trace the development of the modern world from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. Intrinsic to this development is the growth of individualism in a world no longer understood to be at the center of the universe. The texts chosen for study exemplify the emergence of a new humanism, at once troubled and dynamic in comparison to the old. The leading theme of this course is thus the question of the differe…

21L.002-2 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

This subject offers a broad survey of texts (both literary and philosophical) drawn from the Western tradition and selected to trace the growth of ideas about the nature of mankind’s ethical and political life in the West since the renaissance. It will deal with the change in perspective imposed by scientific ideas, the general loss of a supernatural or religious perspective upon human events, and the effects for good or ill of the increasing authority of&nbsp;an intelligence uninformed by reli…

21L.002X · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This class continues our study of the foundational texts of human culture, focusing on early modernity until the recent past. In many ways, this includes several questions such as: Why did these works achieve the fame and influence they achieved? How do they present what it means to be a human being? How do they describe the role of a member of a family, community, tradition, social class, gender? How do they distinguish between proper and improper behavior? How do they characterize the members…

21L.003 · Undergraduate · Fall 2015

Great works of fiction often take us to far-off places; they sometimes conduct us on journeys toward a deeper understanding of what’s right next door. We’ll read, discuss, and interpret a range of short and short-ish works: The reading list will be chosen from among such texts as “Gilgamesh,” Homer’s <em>Odyssey</em> (excerpts), Bunyan’s <em>The</em> <em>Pilgrim’s Progress</em> (excerpts), Swift’s <em>Gulliver’s Travels</em>, Mary Shelley’s <em>Frankenstein</em>, Conrad’s <em>Heart of Darkness<…

21L.003 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This course investigates the uses and boundaries of fiction in a range of novels and narrative styles–traditional and innovative, western and nonwestern–and raises questions about the pleasures and meanings of verbal texts in different cultures, times, and forms. Toward the end of the term, we will be particularly concerned with the relationship between art and war in a diverse selection of works.

21L.003 · Undergraduate · Spring 2002

This course investigates the uses and boundaries of fiction in a range of novels and narrative styles, traditional and innovative, western and non-western, and raises questions about the pleasures and meanings of verbal texts in different cultures, times, and forms.

21L.003-1 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This course explores the form, content, and historical context of various works of fiction specifically through the thematic lens of “dysfunctional families.” We will focus primarily on questions pertaining to the structure, language, story, and characters of these fictional works.

21L.003-2 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This course introduces prose narrative, both short stories and the novel. It examines the construction of narrative and the analysis of literary response.

21L.003-2 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

Reading Fiction is designed to sharpen your skills as a critical reader. As we explore both short stories and novels focusing on the theme of “the city in literature,” we will learn about the various elements that shape the way we read texts - structure, narrative voice, character development, novelistic experimentation, historical and political contexts and reader response.

21L.004 · Undergraduate · Fall 2001

This subject follows a course of readings in lyric poetry in the English language, tracing the main lines of descent through literary periods from the Renaissance to the modern period and concentrating mostly on English rather than American examples.

21L.004 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

“Reading Poetry” has several aims: primarily, to increase the ways you can become more engaged and curious readers of poetry; to increase your confidence as writers thinking about literary texts; and to provide you with the language for literary description. The course is not designed as a historical survey course but rather as an introductory approach to poetry from various directions – as public or private utterances; as arranged imaginative shapes; and as psychological worlds, for example. O…

21L.004 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This subject is an introduction to poetry as a genre; most of our texts are originally written in English. We read poems from the Renaissance through the 17th and 18th centuries, Romanticism, and Modernism. Focus will be on analytic reading, on literary history, and on the development of the genre and its forms; in writing we attend to techniques of persuasion and of honest evidenced sequential argumentation. Poets to be read will include William Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth, William Wordsworth…

21L.004 · Undergraduate · Spring 2018

How do you read a poem? Intuition is not the only answer. In this class, we will investigate some of the formal tools poets use—meter, sound, syntax, word-choice, and other properties of language—as well as exploring a range of approaches to reading poetry, from the old (memorization and reading out loud) to the new (digitally enabled visualization and annotation). We will use readings available online via the generosity of the Poetry Foundation and the Academy of American Poets. We will also t…

21L.004 · Undergraduate · Spring 2023

The central concern of this class is the historical relationship between the social lives of everyday people and U.S. American poetics, with a special emphasis on what June Jordan once termed the “difficult miracle of Black poetry in America.” How does poetry help us to know one another? And how might we better understand the particular role of poetry, of poiesis, for those historically barred from the very practice of reading or writing, from ownership (even of one’s own body), and various gen…

21L.005 · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

This course is a study of the history of theater art and practice from its origins to the modern period, including its roles in non-western cultures. Special attention is given to the relationship between the literary and performative dimensions of drama, and the relationship between drama and its cultural context.

21L.005 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

Drama combines the literary arts of storytelling and poetry with the world of live performance.&nbsp;As a form of ritual as well as entertainment, drama has served to unite communities and challenge social norms, to vitalize and disturb its audiences.&nbsp;In order to understand this rich art form more fully, we will study and discuss a sampling of plays that exemplify different kinds of dramatic structure; class members will also participate in, attend, and review dramatic performances.

21L.006 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

This course studies the national literature of the United States since the early 19th century. It considers a range of texts - including, novels, essays, and poetry - and their efforts to define the notion of American identity. Readings usually include works by such authors as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Emily Dickinson, and Toni Morrison.

21L.007 · Undergraduate · Fall 2008

<p>This semester, we will read writing about travel and place from Columbus’s <em>Diario</em> through the present. Travel writing has some special features that will shape both the content and the work for this subject: reflecting the point of view, narrative choices, and style of individuals, it also responds to the pressures of a real world only marginally under their control. Whether the traveler is a curious tourist, the leader of a national expedition, or a starving, half-naked survivor, t…

21L.007J · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

Sometime after 1492, the concept of the New World or America came into being, and this concept appeared differently - as an experience or an idea - for different people and in different places. This semester, we will read three groups of texts: first, participant accounts of contact between native Americans and French or English speaking Europeans, both in North America and in the Caribbean and Brazil; second, transformations of these documents into literary works by contemporaries; third, mode…

21L.009 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

Three hundred and eighty years after his death, William Shakespeare remains the central author of the English-speaking world; he is the most quoted poet and the most regularly produced playwright — and now among the most popular screenwriters as well. Why is that, and who “is” he?&nbsp;Why do so many people think his writing is so great? What meanings did his plays have in his own time, and how do we read, speak, or listen to his words now? What should we watch for when viewing his plays in per…

21L.010 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

<p>William Shakespeare didn’t go to college. If he time-traveled like Dr. Who, he would be stunned to find his words on a university syllabus. However, he would not be surprised at the way we will be using those words in this class, because the study of rhetoric was essential to all education in his day. At Oxford, William Gager argued that drama allowed undergraduates “to try their voices and confirm their memories, and to frame their speech and conform it to convenient action”: in other words…

21L.011 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

This course concentrates on close analysis and criticism of a wide range of films, from the early silent period, classic Hollywood genres including musicals, thrillers and westerns, and European and Japanese art cinema. It explores the work of Griffith, Chaplin, Keaton, Capra, Hawks, Hitchcock, Altman, Renoir, DeSica, and Kurosawa. Through comparative reading of films from different eras and countries, students develop the skills to turn their in-depth analyses into interpretations and explore …

21L.012 · Undergraduate · Fall 2007

This course examines some leading examples of major genres of storytelling in the Western tradition, among them epic (Homer’s <em>Odyssey</em>), romance (from the Arthurian tradition), and novel (Cervantes’s <em>Don Quixote</em>). We will be asking why people tell (and have always told) stories, how they tell them, why they might tell them the way they do, and what difference it makes how they tell them. We’ll combine an investigation of the changing formal properties of narratives with conside…

21L.012 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This class will investigate the ways in which the formal aspects of Western storytelling in various media have shaped both fantasies and perceptions, making certain understandings of experience possible through the selection, arrangement, and processing of narrative material. Surveying the field chronologically across the major narrative genres and sub-genres from Homeric epic through the novel and across media to include live performance, film, and video games, we will be examining the ways in…

21L.015 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

<p>Introduction to Media Studies is designed for students who have grown up in a rapidly changing global multimedia environment and want to become more literate and critical consumers and producers of culture. Through an interdisciplinary comparative and historical lens, the course defines “media” broadly as including oral, print, theatrical, photographic, broadcast, cinematic, and digital cultural forms and practices. The course looks at the nature of mediated communication, the functions of m…

21L.015 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

Introduction to Media Studies is designed for students who have grown up in a rapidly changing global multimedia environment and want to become more literate and critical consumers and producers of media. Through an interdisciplinary comparative and historical lens, the course defines “media” broadly as including oral, print, performance, photographic, broadcast, cinematic, and digital cultural forms and practices. The course looks at the nature of mediated communication, the functions of media…

21L.016 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

<p>This class explores the creation (and creativity) of the modern scientific and cultural world through study of western Europe in the 17th century, the age of Descartes and Newton, Shakespeare, Milton and Ford. It compares period thinking to present-day debates about the scientific method, art, religion, and society. This team-taught, interdisciplinary subject draws on a wide range of literary, dramatic, historical, and scientific texts and images, and involves theatrical experimentation as w…

21L.017 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

<p>“The Art of the Probable” addresses the history of scientific ideas, in particular the emergence and development of mathematical probability. But it is neither meant to be a history of the exact sciences <em>per se</em> nor an annex to, say, the Course 6 curriculum in probability and statistics. Rather, our objective is to focus on the formal, thematic, and rhetorical features that imaginative literature shares with texts in the history of probability. These shared issues include (but are no…

21L.019 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

This subject serves as a broad introduction to the field of European and Latin American fiction. It is designed to help students acquire a general understanding of major fictional modes. We will pay attention not only to the literary movements these works represent, but also to the subtle interplay of history, geography, language and cultural norms that gave rise to specific literary forms. The books we read in this course are compelling, and film versions of five of the works we read give vari…

21L.020J · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

<p>This subject examines the paradoxes of contemporary globalization. Through lectures, discussions and student presentations, we will study the cultural, linguistic, social and political impact of globalization across broad international borders.</p> <p>We will pay attention to the subtle interplay of history, geography, language and cultural norms that gave rise to specific ways of life. The materials for the course include fiction, nonfiction, audio pieces, maps and visual materials.</p>

21L.021 · Undergraduate · Spring 2022

<p>Comedy, that most elastic literary and performance mode, skewers artifice, topples authority, and reverses expectations, not with the fatal outcomes of tragedy but with laughter and festivity. This class examines both deep roots and current forms of comedy, with a particular focus on comic insubordination. And food.</p> <p>We will revel in Greek, Roman, and Shakespearean drama; explore Aphra Behn’s eighteenth-century feminist rakes and sexual adventurers in <em>The Rover</em>; investigate so…

21L.021 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course is designed around analyzing what’s so funny and why is it that we laugh when we do. How is comedy characterized on the fictional page, the screen, and the stage? And what might the comic teach us about the self and culture(s), especially when we come to understand its patterns of transgression as confounding social norms through jokes and laughter? Tracking a history of comedy, beginning with the first Greek humorists, Aristophanes and Plautus, we will traverse genres, periods and …

21L.310 · Undergraduate · Spring 2010

<p>What is a “life” when it’s written down? How does memory inform the present? Why are memoirs so popular? This course will address these questions and others, considering the relationship between biography, autobiography, and memoir and between personal and social themes. We will closely examine some recent memoirs: Tobias Wolff’s <em>This Boy’s Life</em>, Barack Obama’s <em>Dreams From My Father</em>, Edwidge Danticat’s <em>Brother</em>, <em>I’m Dying</em>, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s <em>Infidel</em>…

21L.310 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This course focuses on works that caught the popular imagination in the past or present. It emphasizes texts that are related by genre, theme or style. The books studied in this course vary from semester to semester, and the topic for Fall 2006 is Detective Fictions.

21L.310 · Undergraduate · Fall 2018

This class uses a range of literary texts to trace the growth of the vampire trope from its first appearance in English-language fiction in the early years of the nineteenth century. Centering on classic works by Lord Byron, John Polidori, Sheridan le Fanu, Bram Stoker, and others, we learn about the formation of the modern literary canon, the folklore of the undead, and the creation of one of the most prolific popular culture genres—vampire fiction—which reached its first apotheosis in Stoker’…

21L.315 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This 6-unit subject gives students the opportunity to immerse themselves in the poetry of two living Nobel Laureates: the Caribbean poet, Derek Walcott, and the Northern-Irish poet, Seamus Heaney. We will begin and end the semester with their magnificent epic works: Heaney’s translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, and Walcott’s Omeros (a modern epic set in the West Indies). Between these major narrative poems, we will read a rich selection of their shorter poems, as well as some of their r…

21L.315 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This half-semester Samplings course, worth six instead of the typical twelve credits, drew attention to the thirteen female Nobel laureates.&nbsp;As the MIT Literature website explains, Samplings serve students looking for “a less intensive, more discussion and reading oriented way of continuing literary study.” Secondly, “they allow the Literature Faculty to offer occasional subjects that cannot be permanently and regularly offered. Finally, they are a site of experimentation—a way of trying o…

21L.325 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This course closely examines a coherent set of short texts and/or visual works. The selections may be the shorter works of one or more authors (poems, short stories or novellas), or short films and other visual media. Additionally, we will focus on formal issues and thematic meditations around the title of the course “Staying Alive.” Content varies from semester to semester.

21L.325 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

The “small wonders” to which our course will attend are moments of present time, depicted in the verbal and visual media of the modern age: newspapers, novels and stories, poems, photographs, films, etc. We will move between visual and verbal media across a considerable span of time, from eighteenth-century poetry and prose fiction to twenty-first century social networking and microblogging sites, and from sculpture to photography, film, and digital visual media. With help from philosophers, co…

21L.420 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

Topic: The English sense of humor. This course examines English literature across genre and historical periods. It is designed for students who want to study English literature or writing in some depth, or to know more about English literary culture and history. Students will also learn about the relationships between literary themes, forms, and conventions and the times in which they were produced. Materials include: Medieval tales, riddles, and character sketches; Renaissance lyrics and a pla…

21L.421 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

This course looks at comedy in drama, novels, and films from Classical Greece to the twentieth century. Focusing on examples from Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Molière, Wilde, Chaplin, and Billy Wilder, along with theoretical contexts, the class examines comedy as a transgressive mode with revolutionary social and political implications. This is a Communications Intensive (CI) class with emphasis on discussion, and frequent, short essays.

21L.422 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

<p>“Tragedy” is a name originally applied to a particular kind of dramatic art and subsequently to other literary forms; it has also been applied to particular events, often implying thereby a particular view of life. Throughout the history of Western literature it has sustained this double reference. Uniquely and insistently, the realm of the tragic encompasses both literature and life.</p> <p>Through careful, critical reading of literary texts, this subject will examine three aspects of the t…

21L.423J · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course examines the production, transmission, preservation and qualities of folk music in the British Isles and North America from the 18th century to the folk revival of the 1960s and the present. There is a special emphasis on balladry, fiddle styles, and African-American influences. The class sings ballads and folk songs from the Child and Lomax collections as well as other sources as we examine them from literary, historical, and musical points of view. Readings supply critical and bac…

21L.430 · Graduate · Fall 2004

Our purpose is to consider some of the most elaborate and thoughtful efforts to define and delineate “all-mastering,” and to consider some of the delineations of “all-mastering the intellect” in various guises - from magicians to master spies to detectives to scientists (mad and otherwise). The major written work of the term will be an ongoing reading journal, which you will circulate to your classmates using an e-mail mailing list. The use of that list is fundamental - it is my intention to ge…

21L.430 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

Serial Storytelling examines the ways the passing and unfolding of time structures narratives in a range of media. From Rembrandt’s lifetime of self-portraits to The Wire, Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers to contemporary journalism and reportage, we will focus on the relationships between popular culture and art, the problems of evaluation and audience, and the ways these works function within their social context.

21L.430 · Undergraduate · Fall 2015

This course takes a deep look at a big subject. We ask where Fairy Tales come from and we examine the structure of Fairy Tales. We’ll also look at how Fairy Tales are conditioned by oral transmission and inherited story-telling techniques.

21L.430 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

In this course, we will investigate popular culture and narrative by focusing on the relationship between literary texts and comics. Several questions shape the syllabus and provide a framework for approaching the course materials: How do familiar aspects of comics trace their origins to literary texts and broader cultural concerns? How have classic comics gone on to influence literary fiction? In what ways do contemporary graphic narratives bring a new kind of seriousness of purpose to comics,…

21L.432 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

The subtitle of this course for the spring 2003 term is “American Television: A Cultural History.” The class takes a cultural approach to television’s evolution as a technology and system of representation, considering television as a system of storytelling and myth-making, and as a cultural practice, studied from anthropological, literary, and cinematic perspectives. The course focuses on prime-time commercial broadcasting, the medium’s technological and economic history, and theoretical persp…

21L.434 · Undergraduate · Fall 2024

What does it mean to be free? Is freedom a state of mind? An inalienable property of the self?<br> The absence of coercive or oppressive structures? Such questions often inspire philosophers to<br> develop thought experiments about alternative worlds. These same questions lie at the heart of<br> many major works in science fiction. This subject will put the two together—philosophy and<br> science fiction—to consider speculative techniques for imagining freedom.

21L.435 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

<p>Filmed Shakespeare began in 1899, with Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree performing the death scene from King John for the camera. Sarah Bernhardt, who had played Hamlet a number of times in her long career, filmed the duel scene for the Paris Exposition of 1900. In the era of silent film (1895-1929) several hundred Shakespeare films were made in England, France Germany and the United States, Even without the spoken word, Shakespeare was popular in the new medium. The first half-century of sound inc…

21L.448J · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

Humans are social animals; social demands, both cooperative and competitive, structure our development, our brain and our mind. This course covers social development, social behaviour, social cognition and social neuroscience, in both human and non-human social animals. Topics include altruism, empathy, communication, theory of mind, aggression, power, groups, mating, and morality. Methods include evolutionary biology, neuroscience, cognitive science, social psychology and anthropology.

21L.448J · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

<p>This subject offers a broad survey of texts (both literary and philosophical) drawn from the Western tradition and selected to trace the immediate intellectual antecedents and some of the implications of the ideas animating Darwin’s revolutionary <em>On the Origin of Species</em>. Darwin’s text, of course, is about the mechanism that drives the evolution of life on this planet, but the fundamental ideas of the text have implications that range well beyond the scope of natural history, and th…

21L.449 · Undergraduate · Spring 2002

This subject offers a broad survey of texts (both literary and philosophical) drawn from the Western tradition and selected to trace the growth of ideas about nature and the natural environment of mankind.&nbsp;The term <em>nature</em> in this context has to do with the varying ways in which the physical world has been conceived as the habitation of mankind, a source of imperatives for the collective organization and conduct of human life. In this sense, nature is less the object of complex sci…

21L.450 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

The aim of this subject is to acquaint the student with some important works of systematic ethical philosophy and to bring to bear the viewpoint of those works on the study of classic works of literature. This subject will trace the history of ethical speculation in systematic philosophy by identifying four major positions: two from the ancient world and the two most important traditions of ethical philosophy since the renaissance. The two ancient positions will be represented by Plato and Aris…

21L.451 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This subject examines the ways in which we read. It introduces some important strategies for engaging with literary texts developed in the twentieth century, paying special attention to poststructuralist theories and their legacy. The course is organized around specific theoretical paradigms. In general, we will: (1) work through the selected readings in order to see how they construe what literary interpretation is; (2) locate the limits of each particular approach; and (3) trace the emergence…

21L.455 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

Roman Literature of the Golden Age of Augustus Caesar, produced during the transition from Republican to Imperial forms of government, was to have a profound and defining influence on Western European and American societies.&nbsp;These writings ultimately established lasting models of aesthetic refinement, philosophical aspiration, and political ambition that continue to shape modern cultures.&nbsp;This class will be exploring the Golden Age of Latin Literature from an historical perspective in…

21L.458 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This course is an introduction to major books from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Particular attention has been given to literary techniques, issues resulting from translation from the original Hebrew and Greek, and the different historical periods that produced and are reflected in the Bible. Investigation of the Bible as influence in later narrative, philosophic, and artistic traditions.

21L.460 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This survey provides a general introduction to medieval European literature (from Late Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century) from the perspective of women writers from a variety of cultures, social backgrounds, and historical timeperiods.&nbsp;Though much of the class will be devoted to exploring the evolution of a new literary tradition by and for women from its earliest emergence in the West, wider historical and cultural movements will also be addressed: the Fall of the Roman Empire, the growt…

21L.460 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

The course explores the literary masterworks of three of the most celebrated authors of the Middle Ages in their original literary and historical contexts. The various themes they take up - the importance of writing in the vernacular; the discourse of love as a form of discipline practised upon the self; the personal and political aspirations of the self in society; the constitution of ideal forms of social organization; the role of religion in the life and works of lay authors - transformed th…

21L.460 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

As a quasi-historical, quasi-legendary figure of consistently great popularity, King Arthur has been subject to an extraordinary amount of reinvention and rewriting: as a Christian hero and war-leader; as an ineffective king and pathetic cuckold; and as a tragic figure of noble but doomed intentions. As we trace Arthur’s evolution and that of principal knights, we will ask what underlies the appeal of this figure whose consistent reappearance in western culture has performed the medieval prophe…

21L.460 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

It is easy to think of love as a “universal language” - but do ideas about love translate easily across history, culture, and identity? In this course, we will encounter some surprising, even disturbing ideas about love and sex from medieval writers and characters: For instance, that married people can never be in love, that the most satisfying romantic love incorporates pain and violence, and that intense erotic pleasure can be found in celibate service to God. Through Arthurian romances, Chau…

21L.463 · Undergraduate · Fall 2008

The Renaissance has justly become both famous and notorious as an age of discovery, and its voyages took place in many realms. This semester, we will read several history making narratives of early modern travel: first-hand accounts of discovery, captivity, conquest, or cultural encounter. As Europeans came to acquire experience of unfamiliar places, literary texts of the period began to assimilate this experience by describing imagined voyages across real or fantastic landscapes. Finally, voya…

21L.470 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

When John Locke declared (in the 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding) that knowledge was derived solely from experience, he raised the possibility that human understanding and identity were not the products of God’s will or of immutable laws of nature so much as of one’s personal history and background. If on the one hand Locke’s theory led some to pronounce that individuals could determine the course of their own lives, however, the idea that we are the products of our experience just as…

21L.471 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This course studies several important examples of the genre that between the early 18th century and the end of the 20th has come to seem the definitive literary form for representing and coming to terms with modernity. Syllabi vary, but the class usually attempts to convey a sense of the form’s development over the past few centuries. Among topics likely to be considered are: developments in narrative technique, the novel’s relation to history, national versus linguistic definitions of an “Engl…

21L.471 · Undergraduate · Spring 2002

Though the era of British Romanticism (ca. 1790-1830) is sometimes exclusively associated with the poetry of these years, this period was just as importantly a time of great innovation in British prose fiction.&nbsp;Romantic novelists pioneered or revolutionized several genres, including social/philosophical problem novels, tales of sentiment and sensibility, and the historical novel.&nbsp;Writing in the years of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, and the early industrial revolution, t…

21L.471 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

In this class, you will read, think about, and (I hope) enjoy important examples of what has become one of the most popular literary genres today, if not the most popular: the novel. Some of the questions we will consider are: Why did so many novels appear in the eighteenth century? Why were they—and are they—called novels? Who wrote them? Who read them? Who narrates them? What are they likely to be about? Do they have distinctive characteristics? What is their relationship to the time and plac…

21L.472 · Undergraduate · Fall 2008

This subject traces the history of the European novel by studying texts that have been influential in connection with two interrelated ideas. (1) When serious fiction deals with matters of great consequence, it should not deal with the actions of persons of consequence—kings, princes, high elected officials and the like—but rather with the lives of apparently ordinary people and the everyday details of their social ambitions and desires. To use a phrase of Balzac’s, serious fiction deals with “…

21L.476 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course examines readings of the major British Romantic poets (Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Scott, Shelley, and Keats) and important fiction writers (Mary Shelley and Walter Scott). Attention is also given to literary and historical contexts.

21L.481 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

The course covers British literature and culture during Queen Victoria’s long reign, 1837-1901. This was the brilliant age of Charles Dickens, the Brontës, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot, Robert Browning, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson – and many others. It was also the age of urbanization, steam power, class conflict, Darwin, religious crisis, imperial expansion, information explosion, bureaucratization – and much more.

21L.485 · Undergraduate · Fall 2015

Tradition and innovation in representative fiction of the early modern period. Recurring themes include the role of the artist in the modern period; the representation of psychological and sexual experience; and the virtues (and defects) of the aggressively experimental character. Works by Conrad, Kipling, Babel, Kafka, James, Lawrence, Mann, Ford Madox Ford, Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner, and Nabokov.

21L.486 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This course analyzes major modern plays featuring works by Shaw, Pirandello, Beckett, Brecht, Williams, Soyinka, Hwang, Churchill, Wilson, Frayn, Stoppard, Deveare Smith, and Kushner. The class particularly considers performance, sociopolitical and aesthetic contexts, and the role of theater in the world of modern multimedia.

21L.487 · Undergraduate · Spring 2002

<p>This course considers some of the substantial early twentieth-century poetic voices in America. Authors vary, but may include Moore, Frost, Eliot, Stevens, and Pound.</p> <p>We’ll read the major poems by the most important poets in English in the 20th century, emphazinig especially the period between post-WWI disillusionment and early WW II internationalism (ca. 1918-1940). Our special focus this term will be how the concept of “the Image” evolved during this period. The War had undercut bel…

21L.488 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

This semester, Contemporary Literature (21L.488) deals with Irish literature, a subject broad and deep. To achieve a manageable volume of study, the course focuses primarily on poetry and prose, at drama’s expense, and on living writers, at the expense of their predecessors. Each class session follows a discussion format, often with students assigned to lead-off or summarize the day’s topic.

21L.488 · Undergraduate · Spring 2018

In this class we will focus on the connections between urban exploration and reading, attending to such shared concerns as pacing, legibility, transgression, attention and distraction, tracing and retracing, and memory. This idea of re-reading cities will be both a theme centering our discussions and a guiding principle of the course design, as we continuously loop back, returning to haunt texts we left behind earlier in the semester.

21L.488 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

Central to our era is the gradual movement of all the world’s regions toward a uniform standard of economic and political development. In this class we will read a variety of recent narratives that partake of, dissent from, or contribute to this story, ranging from novels and poems to World Bank and IMF statements and National Geographic reports. We will seek to understand the many motives and voices – sometimes congruent, sometimes clashing – that are currently engaged in producing accounts of…

21L.488 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

What is Britain now? Its metropolises are increasingly multicultural. Its hold over its distant colonies is a thing of the past. Its sway within the global political arena is weak. Its command over Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland is broken or threatened. What have novelists made of all this? What are they writing as the old empire fades away and as new social and political formations emerge? These are the questions that will concern us in this course.

21L.501 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This course explores the metaphorical, historical, social, and psychological value of ghosts in the American novel. Using the theme of “haunting” as a flashpoint for class discussion and a thematic center for our readerly attention, this course examines the American novel in the context of the various histories which might be said to haunt fictional characters in the American novel, to haunt the American novel itself, and ultimately to haunt us: America’s colonial past, its slave past, and othe…

21L.501 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

This course covers works by major American novelists, beginning with the late 18th century and concluding with a contemporary novelist. The class places major emphasis on reading novels as literary texts, but attention is paid to historical, intellectual, and political contexts as well. The syllabus varies from term to term, but many of the following writers are represented: Rowson, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, Wharton, James, and Toni Morrison. Previously taught topics include The American Revo…

21L.504J · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This course explores the ways in which various American artists view race and class as performed or performable identities. Discussions will focus on some of the following questions: What does it mean to act black, white, privileged, or underprivileged? What do these artists suggest are the implications of performing (indeed playing at or with) racial identity, ethnicity, gender, and class status? How and why are race and class status often conflated in these performances?

21L.512 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

What is a “life” when it’s written down? How does memory inform the present? Why are autobiographies and memoirs so popular? This course will address these questions among others, considering the relationship between biography, autobiography, and memoir and between personal and social themes. We will examine classic authors such as Mary Rowlandson, Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Mark Twain; then more recent examples like Tobias Wolff, Art Spiegelman, Sherman Alexie, …

21L.512 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

This subject, cross-listed in Literature and Women’s Studies, examines a range of American women authors from the seventeenth century to the present.&nbsp;It aims to introduce a number of literary genres and styles- the captivity narrative, slave novel, sensational, sentimental, realistic, and postmodern fiction- and also to address significant historical events in American women’s history: Puritanism, the American Revolution, industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century, the Ha…

21L.601J · Undergraduate · Spring 2023

This course is an intensive introduction to Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon), the ancestor of modern English that was spoken in England <em>ca.</em> 600–1100. In the first half of the term, students use short prose texts to study the basics of Old English grammar. They go on to read short poems, and conclude by tackling portions of the epic <em>Beowulf</em> in the last third of the term. Assessment is based upon translation work, daily vocabulary quizzes, and three exams.

21L.640J · Undergraduate · Fall 2015

In this class we will come to understand the vast changes in Spanish life that have taken place since Franco’s death in 1975. We will focus on the new freedom from censorship, the re-emergence of movements for regional autonomy, the new cinema, reforms in education and changes in daily life: Sex roles, work, and family that have occurred in the last decade. In so doing, we will examine myths that are often considered commonplaces when describing Spain and its people.

21L.701 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

<p>This seminar offers a course of readings in lyric poetry.&nbsp;It aims to enhance the student’s capacity to understand the nature of poetic language and the enjoyment of poetic texts by treating poems as messages to be deciphered.</p> <p>The seminar will briefly touch upon the history of theories of figurative language since Aristotle and it will attend to the development of those theories during the last thirty years, noting the manner in which they tended to consider figures of speech dist…

21L.701 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course introduces the practice and theory of literary criticism. The seminar focuses on topics such as the history of critical methods and techniques, and the continuity of certain subjects in literary history. Instruction and practice in oral and written communication is a major component of the course. Other components include theory and use of figurative language and reading poetry.

21L.701 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

In this seminar we’ll read individual poems closely within a set of questions about the moral and political position of poetry – and of intellectuals – in different cultural contexts. Of course, part of the divergence in the social positions of poetry [and of ’the aesthetic’] depends on the dominant paradigm of the social, political and literary culture; part of the divergence derives from the momentum of literary development in the culture [how did the culture experience modernism?, for instan…

21L.701 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

Alienation, overcrowding, sensory overload, homelessness, criminality, violence, loneliness, sprawl, blight. How have the realities of city living influenced literature’s formal and thematic techniques? How useful is it to think of literature as its own kind of “map” of urban space? Are cities too grand, heterogeneous, and shifting to be captured by writers? In this seminar we will seek answers to these questions in key city literature, and in theoretical works that endeavor to understand the c…

21L.701 · Undergraduate · Spring 2001

How does one writer use another writer’s work?&nbsp;Does it matter if one author has been dead 300 years? What difference does it make if she’s a groundbreaking twentieth-century feminist and the writer she values has come to epitomize the English literary tradition? How can a novelist borrow from plays and poems? By reading Virginia Woolf’s major novels and essays in juxtaposition with some of the Shakespeare plays that (depending on one’s interpretation) haunt, enrich, and/or shape her writin…

21L.702 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This seminar looks at two bestselling nineteenth-century American authors whose works made the subject of slavery popular among mainstream readers. <em>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</em> by Harriet Beecher Stowe and <em>The Adventures of</em> <em>Huckleberry Finn</em> by Mark Twain have subsequently become canonized and reviled, embraced and banned by individuals and groups at both ends of the political and cultural spectrum and everywhere in between.

21L.702 · Undergraduate · Fall 2007

What has been said of <em>Moby-Dick</em>—that it’s the greatest novel no one ever reads—could just as well be said of any number of American “classics” like <em>The Scarlet Letter, Uncle Tom’s Cabin</em>, or <em>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</em>. This course reconsiders a small number of nineteenth-century American novels by presenting each in a surprising context.

21L.703 · Undergraduate · Fall 2008

Unlike film, theater in America does not have a ratings board that censors content. So plays have had more freedom to explore and to transgress normative culture. Yet censorship of the theater has been part of American culture from the beginning, and continues today. How and why does this happen, and who decides whether a play is too dangerous to see or to teach? Are plays dangerous? Sinful? Even demonic? In our seminar, we will study plays that have been censored, either legally or extra-legal…

21L.703 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

Taking as its starting point the works of one of Britain’s most respected, prolific—and funny—living dramatists, this seminar will explore a wide range of knowledge in fields such as math, philosophy, politics, history and art. The careful reading and discussion of plays by (Sir) Tom Stoppard and some of his most compelling contemporaries (including Caryl Churchill, Anna Deveare Smith and Howard Barker) will allow us to time-travel and explore other cultures, and to think about the medium of dr…

21L.703 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course explores the creation (and creativity) of the modern scientific and cultural world through study of western Europe in the 17th century, the age of Descartes and Newton, Shakespeare, Rembrandt and Molière. The class compares period thinking to present-day debates about the scientific method, art, religion, and society. This team-taught, interdisciplinary subject draws on a wide range of literary, dramatic, historical, and scientific texts and images, and involves theatrical experimen…

21L.703 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

Shakespeare “doth bestride the narrow world” of the English Renaissance “like a colossus,” leaving his contemporaries “walk under his large legs and peep about” to find themselves in “dishonourable graves.” This course aims in part to correct this grave injustice by surveying the extraordinary output of playwrights whose names have largely been eclipsed by their more luminous compatriot: Marlowe, Jonson, Webster, and Ford, among others. Reading Shakespeare as just one of a group of practitioner…

21L.704 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

The landscape we will explore is the troublesome one of the relevance, impact, and importance of poetry in a troubled modern world. We will read both poetry and prose by several substantial modern writers, each of whom confronted the question that is the subject’s title.

21L.704 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

William Butler Yeats occupies a dominant position in the lives and work of the Irish poets who followed him. We will explore some of that poetry, and consider how later poets, especially female poets, tried to come to grips with, or escape from, that dominance. As a seminar, the subject will place special emphasis on student involvement and control. I will ask you to submit one ten-twelve page essay, two shorter (five page) essays, and to accept the role of “leadoff person,” perhaps more than o…

21L.704 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

Do poems think? Recurrent images of the poet as an inspired lunatic, and of poetry as a fundamentally irrational art, have often fostered an understanding of poets and their work as generally extraneous to the work of the sciences. Yet poets have long reflected upon and have sought to embody in their work the most elementary processes of mind, and have frequently drawn for these representations on the very sciences to which they are thought to stand - and sometimes do genuinely stand - in oppos…

21L.704 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

The core of this seminar will be the great sequences of English love sonnets written by William Shakespeare, Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and Mary Wroth. These poems cover an enormous amount of aesthetic and psychological ground: ranging from the utterly subjective to the entirely public or conventional, from licit to forbidden desires, they might also serve as a manual of experimentation with the resources of sound, rhythm, and figuration in poetry. Around these sequences, we will develop se…

21L.704 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course explores variations on the proposition that an adequate recognition of beauty could, however indirectly, make you a more humane person. Readings extend widely across literary and non-literary genres, including lyric poetry and the novel, philosophical prose and essays.

21L.704 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This course introduces students to some of the most important practitioners of poetry in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, locating them in their historical and social contexts. We will be emphasizing love poetry or amatory verse, by combining close reading of selected poems with an investigation of the contexts of English verse.

21L.705 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This seminar provides intensive study of exciting texts by four influential American authors. In studying paired works, we can enrich our sense of each author’s distinctive methods, get a deeper sense of the development of their careers, and shake up our preconceptions about what makes an author or a work “great.” Students will get an opportunity to research an author in depth, as well as making broader comparisons across the syllabus.

21L.705 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

At this distance Oscar Wilde seems not only to be on the threshold between centuries and between cultural-systems: in many ways he seems to be the threshold. His aesthetics look backwards to the aestheticism of Pater and the moral sensibility of Ruskin, and they look forward to Modernism. His antecedents are 18th century playwrights, and he opened a path of irony and structural self-reflexivity that leads to Beckett and Tom Stoppard. He was Irish but achieved his great successes in England. Arg…

21L.705 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

What does the Genesis story of creation and temptation tell us about gender, about heterosexuality, and about the origins of evil? What is the nature of God, and how can we account for that nature in a cosmos where evil exists? When is rebellion justified, and when is authority legitimate? These are some of the key questions that engaged the poet John Milton, and that continue to engage readers of his work.

21L.705 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This seminar provides intensive study of texts by two American authors (Herman Melville, 1819-1891, and Toni Morrison, 1931-) who, using lyrical, radically innovative prose, explore in different ways epic notions of American identity. Focusing on Melville’s <em>Typee</em> (1846), <em>Moby-Dick</em> (1851), and <em>The Confidence-Man</em> (1857) and Morrison’s <em>Sula</em> (1973), <em>Beloved</em> (1987), <em>Jazz</em> (1992), and <em>Paradise</em> (1998), the class will address their common co…

21L.705 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

Global exploration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries radically changed Western science, orienting philosophies of natural history to more focused fields like comparative anatomy, botany, and geology. In the United States, European scientific advances and home-grown ventures like the Wilkes Exploring Expedition to Antarctica and the Pacific inspired new endeavors in cartography, ethnography, zoology, and evolutionary theory, replacing rigid models of thought and classification with more…

21L.705 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

<p>In 1667, John Milton published what he intended both as the crowning achievement of a poetic career and a justification of God’s ways to man: an epic poem which retold and reimagined the Biblical story of creation, temptation, and original sin. Even in a hostile political climate, <em>Paradise Lost</em> was almost immediately recognized as a classic, and one fate of a classic is to be rewritten, both by admirers and by antagonists. In this seminar, we will read <em>Paradise Lost</em> alongsi…

21L.705 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

For some reason, American literature (like French, Irish, and Russian, among others) has been especially productive in major works in fictional forms shorter than the novel. Our task in this course will be to survey that field, by looking at particular moments of high accomplishment. We will, in addition, consider some of the ways in which literary formulae can be used and varied, and some of the impacts of elements of narrative construction.

21L.706 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course investigates relationships between two media, film and literature, studying works linked across the two media by genre, topic, and style. It aims to sharpen appreciation of major works of cinema and of literary narrative. The course explores how artworks challenge and cross cultural, political and aesthetic boundaries. It includes some attention to theory of narrative. Films to be studied include works by Akira Kurosawa, John Ford, Francis Ford Coppolla, Clint Eastwood, Orson Welles…

21L.707 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

In this course students will visit the past through cookbooks to learn about what foodstuffs and technologies were available and when, and how religious and nutritional concerns dictated what was eaten and how it was cooked. Students will also learn about the gender dynamics of culinary writing and performances and the roles people played in writing and cooking recipes.

21L.707 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

The course examines the earliest emergence of stories about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in the context of the first wave of British Imperialism and the expanded powers of the Catholic Church during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The morphology of Arthurian romance will be set off against original historical documents and chronicle sources for the English conquests in Brittany, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland to understand the ways in which these new attitudes towards Empi…

21L.707 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course focuses on the period between roughly 1550-1850. American ideas of race had taken on a certain shape by the middle of the nineteenth century, consolidated by legislation, economics, and the institution of chattel slavery. But both race and identity meant very different things three hundred years earlier, both in their dictionary definitions and in their social consequences. How did people constitute their identities in early America, and how did they speak about these identities? Te…

21L.708 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

This course explores the properties of non-sequential, multi-linear, and interactive forms of narratives as they have evolved from print to digital media. Works covered in this course range from the Talmud, classics of non-linear novels, experimental literature, early sound and film experiments to recent multi-linear and interactive films and games. The study of the structural properties of narratives that experiment with digression, multiple points of view, disruptions of time, space, and of s…

21L.709 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

How do literature, philosophy, film and other arts respond to the profound changes in world view and lifestyle that mark the twentieth century? This course considers a broad range of works from different countries, different media, and different genres, in exploring the transition to a decentered “Einsteinian” universe.

21L.709 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

Although this class starts by critically examining the term “ethnic” as it defines a wide range of cultural forms over time, we will focus mostly on contemporary writers. Questions to consider will include: How has ethnic writing changed American culture and renovated forms of literary expression? What are the varieties and nuances of what we might call an ethnic subjectivity? What could it mean to harbor fugitives within the self: transgressive thoughts or a “foreign” identity? And what is the…

21L.715 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This course explores the international trade in television text, considering the ways in which ‘foreign’ programs find places within ‘domestic’ schedules. Looking at the life television texts maintain outside of their home market, this course examines questions of globalization and national cultures of production and reception. Students will be introduced to a range of positions about the nature of international textual trade, including economic arguments about the structuring of international …

21L.715 · Undergraduate · Fall 2015

This seminar is about the pleasures and power of reading. From the Sumerian clay tablets of more than four millenia ago through the spectacular emergence of the electronic text, the written word—in all its forms—has captivated the human mind, embodied our insights into the world around us, and made enduring our most profound artistic creations and scientific discoveries.

21L.715 · Undergraduate · Fall 2007

What is the history of popular reading in the Western world? How does widespread access to print relate to distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow culture, between good taste and bad judgment, and between men and women readers? This course will introduce students to the broad history of popular reading and to controversies about taste and gender that have characterized its development. Our grounding in historical material will help make sense of our main focus: recent developments in the theo…

21L.995 · Undergraduate · January IAP 2008

In this 3-unit class, we will read Milton’s epic poem <em>Paradise Lost</em>. The goal of the class is for students to come away feeling comfortable with its language and argument; meeting in a small group will also allow us to talk about the key questions and issues raised by the poem. This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

21M.011 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This course gives a broad overview of Western music from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, with emphasis on late baroque, classical, romantic, and modernist styles (1700-1910). It is also meant to enhance students’ musical experience by developing listening skills and an understanding of diverse forms and genres. Major composers and their works will be placed in social and cultural contexts. Weekly lectures feature demonstrations by professional performers, and introduce topics to be discuss…

21M.011 · Undergraduate · Fall 2024

This class will convey a broad overview of the history, culture, styles, and repertoires of what is generally considered to be the core canon of Western classical music. It will begin with the earliest notated music in Western Europe (e.g., sacred plainchant) and end with recent pieces of concert music and opera written by contemporary composers.

21M.013J · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

This course explores the relationship between music and the supernatural, focusing on the social history and context of supernatural beliefs as reflected in key literary and musical works from 1600 to the present. It provides an understanding of the place of ambiguity and the role of interpretation in culture, science and art. Great works of art by Shakespeare, Verdi, Goethe (in translation), Gounod, Henry James and Benjamin Britten are explored, as well as readings from the most recent scholar…

21M.030 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This course explores the ways that music is both shaped by and gives shape to the cultural settings in which it is performed, through studying selected musical traditions from around the world. Specific case studies will be examined closely through listening, analysis, and hands-on instruction. The syllabus centers around weekly listening assignments and readings from a textbook with CDs, supplemented by hands-on workshops, lecture/demonstrations and concerts by master musicians from around the…

21M.030 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

This course is an introduction to diverse musical traditions of the world. Music from a wide range of geographical areas is studied in terms of structure, performance practice, social use, aesthetics, and cross-cultural contact. Course work includes hands-on music making, live demonstrations by guest artists, and ethnographic research projects.

21M.051 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This class introduces students to the rudiments of Western music through oral, aural, and written practice utilizing rhythm, melody, intervals, scales, chords, and musical notation. The approach is based upon the inclusive Kodály philosophy of music education. Individual skills are addressed through a variety of means, emphasizing singing and keyboard practice in the required piano labs.

21M.065 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

Through a progressive series of composition projects, students investigate the sonic organization of musical works and performances, focusing on fundamental questions of unity and variety. Aesthetic issues are considered in the pragmatic context of the instructions that composers provide to achieve a desired musical result, whether these instructions are notated in prose, as graphic images, or in symbolic notation. No formal training is required. Weekly listening, reading, and composition assig…

21M.113 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

The goal of this class is practical:&nbsp;to interrogate, make explicit, and thus&nbsp;to develop the powerful musical intuitions that are at work as you make sense of the music all around you.&nbsp;Reflecting, we will ask how this knowledge develops in ordinary and extraordinary ways.

21M.220 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

This course examines European music from the early Middle Ages until the end of the Renaissance. It includes a chronological survey and intensive study of three topics: chant and its development, music in Italy 1340-1420, and music in Elizabethan England. Instruction focuses on methods and pitfalls in studying music of the distant past. Students’ papers, problem sets, and presentations explore lives, genres, and works in depth. Works are studied in facsimile of original notation, and from origi…

21M.235 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

This course surveys seven Baroque and Classical genres: opera, oratorio, cantata, sonata, concerto, quartet, symphony, and includes work by composers Bach, Handel, Haydn, Monteverdi, Mozart, Purcell, Schütz and Vivaldi. Course work is based on live performances as well as listening and reading assignments.

21M.250 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This course is a survey of developments in Western musical style, 1815-1915. Students will study works by 35 composers, including the romantics: Schubert, Chopin, and Schumann; the post-romantics: Wagner, Verdi, and Brahms; the turn-of-the-centurians: Mahler, Debussy, and Ravel; and the Americans: Gottschalk, Beach, and Joplin. Score-reading ability is beneficial.

21M.250 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This course surveys Romantic musical genres including song, choral music, opera, piano sonata, character cycle, concerto, symphony, and symphonic poem, including the composers Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, Chopin, Brahms, Wagner, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, and Mahler. Written essays and oral presentations are based on live performances as well as listening and reading assignments.

21M.260 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course provides an overview of the musical styles and techniques developed over the past 115 years. The anthology and supplemental listening will present a range of art music aesthetics in a variety of genres such as chamber music, symphonic and choral music, and opera. While tuning your ears to novel sounds, you will hone your own preferences and aim to understand the motivations behind and importance of a wide diversity of compositional orientations, including Expressionism, Impressionis…

21M.262 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This subject covers a specific branch of music history: Western concert music of first sixty years of the twentieth century. Although we will be listening to and studying many pieces (most of the highest caliber) the goal of the course is not solely to build up a repertory of works in our memory (though that is indeed a goal). We will be most concerned with larger questions of continuity and change in music. We will also consider questions of reception, or historiography - that is, the creation…

21M.263 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This course begins with the premise that the 1960s mark a great dividing point in the history of 20th century Western musical culture, and explores the ways in which various social and artistic concerns of composers, performers, and listeners have evolved since that decade. It focuses on works by classical composers from around the world. Topics include the impact of rock, as it developed during the 1960s - 70s; the concurrent emergence of post serial, neotonal, minimalist, and new age styles; …

21M.269 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

The disciplines of music history and music theory have been slow to embrace the digital revolutions that have transformed other fields’ text-based scholarship (history and literature in particular). Computational musicology opens the door to the possibility of understanding—even if at a broad level—trends and norms of behavior of large repertories of music. This class presents the major approaches, results, and challenges of computational musicology through readings in the field, gaining famili…

21M.271 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This course is a survey of significant orchestral masterworks composed during three centuries. Listening assignments include 34 symphonies and 24 concertos, composed from the 1720s to the 1990s. Class discussion and oral presentations focus on the works in 18 miniature scores; prior score-reading experience is helpful. Each of the three written papers reviews a concert attended during the term. Since this is a participatory subject, each student will give oral presentations concerning composers…

21M.289 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

This course is an introduction to Islam from the perspective of media and sound studies, intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. From the time of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam in its various manifestations has had a complex relationship with media. While much contemporary writing focuses on Islam <em>in</em> the media, this course explores how many aspects of Islamic practice and thinking might be understood as media technologies that facilitate the inscription, storage and tr…

21M.291 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This course focuses on Hindustani classical music of North India, and also involves learning about the ancient foundations of the rich classical traditions of music and dance of all Indian art and culture. Students explore the practice the ragas and talas through learning songs, dance, and drumming compositions, and develop insights through listening, readings, and concert attendance.

21M.293 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

<p>This course is an introduction to selected musical traditions of West Africa. A variety of musical practices and their cultural contexts will be explored through listening, reading, and written assignments, with an emphasis on class discussion. The course includes in-class instruction in West African drumming, song and dance, as well as lecture-demonstrations by guest artists.</p> <p>After an introductory unit, the course will be organized around four main geographical areas: Senegal, Mali, …

21M.294 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course focuses on popular music, i.e. music created for and transmitted by mass media. Various popular music genres from around the world will be studied through listening, reading and written assignments, with an emphasis on class discussion. In particular, we will consider issues of musical change, syncretism, Westernization, globalization, the impact of recording industries, and the post-colonial era. Case studies will include Afro-pop, reggae, bhangra, rave, and global hip-hop.

21M.295 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This course surveys the development of popular music in the United States and in a cross-cultural milieu relative to the history and sociology of the last two hundred years. It examines the ethnic mixture that characterizes modern music, how it reflects many rich traditions and styles, and provides a background for understanding the musical vocabulary of current popular music styles.

21M.299 · Undergraduate · Fall 2017

This class surveys the music of the Beatles, from the band’s early years to the break-up of the group, mapping how the Beatle’s musical style changed from skiffle and rock to studio-based experimentation. Cultural influences that helped to shape them, as well as the group’s influence worldwide, will be a continuous theme.

21M.301 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

In this subject we will study the basic harmonic, melodic, and formal practices of western music, principally the classical music of central Europe during the eighteenth century. Topics will include diatonic harmony, simple counterpoint in two parts, and tones of figuration. The coursework will combine composition, listening, analysis, and work in sight-singing and keyboard musicianship.

21M.302 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

In this subject, we explore the harmonic, melodic, and formal practices of western music, principally the so-called “Classical” idiom of central Europe, ca. 1750-1825. Topics include a quick review of material covered in 21M.301, chromatic harmony (vii^o7, bII⁶, and chords of the augmented sixth), and chromatic modulation; lecture study and discussion are complemented by work in the keyboard laboratory and sight-singing laboratory. All areas of study will be integrated in a…

21M.303 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

Written and analytic exercises based on 18th- and 19th-century small forms and harmonic practice found in music such as the chorale preludes of Bach; minuets and trios of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; and the songs and character pieces of Schubert and Schumann. Musicianship laboratory is required.

21M.304 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

This course builds on the composition techniques practiced in 21M.303 Writing in Tonal Forms I. Students undertake further written and analytic exercises in tonal music, including a sonata-form movement for string quartet. Students will also have the opportunity to write short works that experiment with the expanded tonal techniques of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Musicianship laboratory is required.

21M.342 · Undergraduate · Fall 2008

This class explores composition and arrangement for the large jazz ensemble from 1920s foundations to current postmodern practice. Consideration given to a variety of styles and to the interaction of improvisation and composition. Study of works by Basie, Ellington, Evans, Gillespie, Golson, Mingus, Morris, Nelson, Williams, and others. Open rehearsals, workshops, and performances of student compositions by the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble and the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra.

21M.350 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

This class is an introduction to the analysis of tonal music. Students develop analytical techniques based upon concepts learned in 21M.301-21M.302. Students study rhythm and form, harmony, line and motivic relationships at local and large scale levels of musical structure. Three papers (totaling 20 pages, one to be revised) and one oral presentation are required.

21M.351 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2008

This course features directed composition of larger forms of original writing involving voices and/or instruments. It includes a weekly seminar in composition for the presentation and discussion of work in progress. Students are expected to produce at least one substantive work, performed in public, by the end of the term. Contemporary compositions and major works from 20th-century music literature are studied.

21M.355 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

In this course, students study concepts and practice techniques of improvisation in solo and ensemble contexts. The course examines relationships between improvisation, composition, and performance based in traditional and experimental approaches. Hands-on music making will be complemented by discussion of the aesthetics of improvisation. Weekly lab sessions support work on musical technique. Guest artist / lecturers will engage students through mini-residencies in jazz with film, Indian music,…

21M.361 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

This class explores sound and what can be done with it. Sources are recorded from students’ surroundings - sampled and electronically generated (both analog and digital). Assignments include composing with the sampled sounds, feedback, and noise, using digital signal processing (DSP), convolution, algorithms, and simple mixing. The class focuses on sonic and compositional aspects rather than technology, math, or acoustics, though these are examined in varying detail. Students complete weekly co…

21M.380 · Undergraduate · Fall 2009

This course is an investigation into the history and aesthetics of music and technology as deployed in experimental and popular musics from the 19th century to the present. Through original research, creative hands-on projects, readings, and lectures, the following topics will be explored. The history of radio, audio recording, and the recording studio, as well as the development of musique concrète and early electronic instruments. The creation and extension of musical interfaces by composers …

21M.380 · Undergraduate · Spring 2010

This course examines the history, techniques, and aesthetics of mechanical and computer-aided approaches to algorithmic music composition and generative music systems. Through creative hands-on projects, readings, listening assignments, and lectures, students will explore a variety of historical and contemporary approaches. Diverse tools and systems will be employed, including applications in Python, MIDI, Csound, SuperCollider, and Pure Data.

21M.380 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

In this course, we will rebuild the everyday sounds of nature, machines, and animals from scratch and encapsulate them in dynamic sound objects which can be embedded into computer games, animations, movies, virtual environments, sound installations, and theatre productions. You will learn how to analyze and model sounds and resynthesize them with the open-source graphical programming environment Pure Data (Pd). Our work will be guided by Andy Farnell’s book <em>Designing Sound</em> (MIT Press, …

21M.380 · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

This course is an introduction to music recording and audio production from both a practical and a theoretical perspective. Learn about the physical nature and human perception of sound, how it is transformed to and from electrical signals by means of microphones and loudspeakers, and how it can be creatively modeled through mixing consoles, signal processors, and digital audio workstations. The course covers making informed choices about microphone selection and positioning, and various editin…

21M.380 · Undergraduate · Spring 2011

This course is a creative, hands-on exploration of contemporary and historical approaches to live electronics performance and improvisation, including basic analog instrument design, computer synthesis programming, and hardware and software interface design.

21M.383 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Spring 2023

This course presents major approaches to computational music theory and musicology in the symbolic (score-based) domain. It covers algorithms for music theory, encoding, corpus studies, musical search and similarity, feature extraction and machine learning, music generation, and computational music perception. Other topics include repertory access and computational bias. Programming assignments are in Python using the MIT-created music21 toolkit.

21M.410 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This course is for the singer and/or pianist interested in collaborative study of solo vocal performance. This term we will focus upon the works of Women Composers. Students will gather biographical data and explore art songs, operatic arias, choral masterpieces, and arrangements employing sacred and secular texts. Additionally, students will conduct inquiry into works indicative of their own heritage.

21M.410 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

The primary focus of this Vocal Repertoire and Performance course is placed upon the works of African American composers and concert artists. Students gather biographical data and explore art songs, operatic arias, ensembles, choral masterpieces, and arrangements employing sacred and secular texts. Additionally, students conduct inquiry into works representative of their own heritage. This course is required for vocalists in the MIT Emerson Music Performance program; others may be admitted by a…

21M.542 · Undergraduate · January IAP 2010

<p>This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of three broad topics concerning music in relation to time.</p> <ol> <li>Music as Architecture: the creation of musical shapes in time;</li> <li>Music as Memory: how musical understanding depends upon memory and reminiscence, with attention to analysis of musical structures; and</li> <li>Time as the Substance of Music: how different disciplines such as philosophy and neuroscience view the temporal dimension of musical processes and/or performan…

21M.603 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course deals with advanced design theories and textual analysis. Emphasis is placed on script analysis in general, as well as the investigation of design principles from a designer’s perspective. Students also refine technical skills in rendering and presentation, historical research, and analysis. Class sessions include interaction with student/faculty directors and other staff designers. The goal of this course is for students to approach text with a fresh vision and translate that visio…

21M.604 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This class introduces the craft of writing for the theater. Through weekly assignments, in class writing exercises, and work on a sustained piece, students explore scene structure, action, events, voice, and dialogue. We examine produced playscripts and discuss student work. This class’s emphasis is on process, risk-taking, and finding one’s own voice and vision.

21M.606 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

Offered in the spring and fall terms, Introduction to Stagecraft is a hands-on course that gets students working with the tools and techniques of theatrical production in a practical way. It is not a design course but one devoted to artisanship. Among the many remarkable final projects that have been proposed and presented at the end of the course have been a Renaissance hourglass blown in the MIT glass shop and set into a frame turned on our set shop lathe; a four harness loom built by a stude…

21M.611 · Undergraduate · Fall 2009

The goals of this class are two-fold: the first is to experience the creative processes and storytelling behind several of theater’s arts and to acquire the analytical skills necessary in assessing the meaning they transmit when they come together in production. Secondly, we will introduce you to these languages in a creative way by giving you hands-on experience in each. To that end, several Visiting Artists and MIT faculty in Theater Arts will guest lecture, lead workshops, and give you pract…

21M.621 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

This course explores contemporary American theatrical expression as it may be organized around issues of gender and cultural identity. This exploration will include the analysis of performances, scripts, and video documentation, as well as the invention of original documents of theatrical expression. Class lectures and discussions will analyze samples of Native American, Chicano, African American, and Asian American theater, taking into consideration the historical and political context for the…

21M.670 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

This course explores the forms, contents, and context of world traditions in dance that played a crucial role in shaping American concert dance. For example, we will identify dances from an African American vernacular tradition that were transferred from the social space to the concert stage. We will explore the artistic lives of such American dance artists as Katherine Dunham, Pearl Primus, and Alvin Ailey along with Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, George Balanchine, and Merce Cunningham as Ame…

21M.675 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This course introduces students to the art and formal ideologies of contemporary dance. We explore the aesthetic and technical underpinnings of contemporary dance composition. Basic compositional techniques are discussed and practiced, with an emphasis on principles such as weight, space, time, effort, and shape. Principles of musicality are considered and developed by each student. Working with each other as the raw material of the dance, students develop short compositions that reveal their u…

21M.710 · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

<p>This course focuses on reading a script theatrically with a view to mounting a coherent production. Through careful, intensive reading of a variety of plays from different periods and different aesthetics, a pattern emerges for discerning what options exist for interpretating a script.</p> <p>The Fall 2005 version of this course contains alternate readings and assignments sections.</p>

21M.710 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This class focuses on reading a script theatrically with a view to mounting a coherent production. Through careful, intensive reading of a variety of plays from different periods and different aesthetics, a pattern emerges for discerning what options exist for interpretating a script. Students discuss the consequences of those options for production.

21M.715 · Undergraduate · Fall 2009

This class provides an overview of some of the techniques used in creating costume pieces that are crafted rather than sewn. We will use a variety of materials and techniques to create specific costume pieces while at the same time exploring alternative applications possible for each material/technique.

21M.732 · Undergraduate · Fall 2008

This is an intermediate workshop designed for students who have a basic understanding of the principles of theatrical design and who want a more intensive study of costume design and the psychology of clothing. Students develop designs that emerge through a process of character analysis, based on the script and directorial concept. Period research, design, and rendering skills are fostered through practical exercises. Instruction in basic costume construction, including drafting and draping, pr…

21M.734 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course will examine theory of scenic design as currently practiced, as well as historical traditions for use of performance space and audience/performer engagement. Four play scripts and one opera or dance theater piece will be designed after in-depth analysis; emphasis will be on the social, political and cultural milieu at the time of their creation, and now.

21M.734 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This class explores the artistry of Lighting Design. Students gain an overall technical working knowledge of the tools of the trade, and learn how, and where to apply them to a final design. However essential technical expertise is, the class stresses the artistic, conceptual, collaborative side of the craft. The class format is a “hands on” approach, with a good portion of class time spent in a theatre.

21M.735 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This class looks at the special structural and practical needs of theatrical scenery and effects and how they can be constructed. We map the technical design process from initial meetings to realization on stage. The class emphasizes safety, budgeting, and problem solving. Ten 1-3 page Tech notes are required as well as a final project. Work includes actual production assignments as well as paper design projects.

21M.775 · Undergraduate · Fall 2007

This class explores the political and aesthetic foundations of hip hop. Students trace the musical, corporeal, visual, spoken word, and literary manifestations of hip hop over its 30 year presence in the American cultural imagery. Students also investigate specific black cultural practices that have given rise to its various idioms. Students create material culture related to each thematic section of the course. Scheduled work in performance studio helps students understand how hip hop is creat…

21M.785 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This course provides continued work in the development of play scripts for the theater. Writers work on sustained pieces in weekly workshop meetings, individual consultation with the instructor, and in collaboration with student actors, directors, and designers. Fully developed scripts are eligible for inclusion in the Playwrights’ Workshop Production.

21M.846 · Undergraduate · Spring 2018

This multidisciplinary lecture / workshop engages students in a variety of approaches to the study and practice of performance as an area of aesthetic and social interaction. Special attention is paid to the use of diverse media in performance. Interdisciplinary approaches to study encourage students to seek out material histories of performance and practice.

21M.873 · Undergraduate · January IAP 2008

Directed practice in acting, production, or design on a sustained theater piece, either one-act or full length, from pre-rehearsal preparation to workshop production. Consult Theater Arts Office. Includes directed practice in stagecraft. Dramashop rehearses a production of Eric Bogosian’s play “subUrbia” for presentation the first two weekends in February. Visiting artist, David R. Gammons, directs. Approximately 10 roles filled by auditions. Students can receive up to six credits for acting or…

21M.873 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

Directed practice in acting, directing, or design on a sustained theater piece, either one-act or full length, from pre-rehearsal preparation to workshop production.

21M.S53 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This course provides an introduction to the major popular music cultures of the Chinese-speaking world. We will consider a wide variety of genres, from Shanghainese shidaiqu to Cantopop to Taiwanese rap, with the goal of listening beyond the notion of a monolithic “Chinese popular music” to something more dynamic, multivocal, and translocal. We will ask: What, if anything, is so “Chinese” about Chinese popular music? How does popular music participate in the formation of identities for artists …

21W.011 · Undergraduate · Fall 2015

This course seeks to provide a supportive context for students to grow significantly as writers by discovering and engaging with issues that matter to them. Writing on social and ethical issues, we can see ourselves within a tradition of authors such as Charles Dickens, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, George Orwell, Rachel Carson, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., who have used the power of the pen to inspire social change.

21W.015 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

<p>“Sports, not religion, is the opiate of the people.” So says David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker and a former sportswriter. Many of our heroes are sports heroes, and for many of us, sports were an important part of our childhood years. Sports are big business, even on college campuses, and they are the subject of many classic movies. In this introductory writing class we consider the role of sports in our own lives and explore the cultural meanings of sports in America. Sports have produ…

21W.016 · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

This course takes rhetoric as a system for designing meaning that helps us understand complex situations and ideas, enlighten and persuade others to act, and thus reshape our world. We’ll study rhetoric systematically and empirically, both analyzing how it works on us as readers, and testing how we can make informed rhetorical choices as we design our own texts.

21W.021 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

During this seminar, students will chronicle their MIT experiences and investigate MIT history and culture. Visits to the MIT archives and museum, along with relevant readings, will supplement students’ experiences as source material for discussion and writing.

21W.022 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

<p>The reading and writing in this course will focus on the art of self-narrative or autobiographical writing. Such writing can be crafted in the form of a longer autobiography or of separate, shorter autobiographically-inspired essays. The various forms of autobiographical narrative can both reflect on personal experience and comment on larger issues in society.</p> <p>This course explores, through reading and writing, what it means to construct a sense of self-and a life narrative-in relation…

21W.031 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

Proficiency in communicating about science and technology comes from both knowledge and practice, and this course emphasizes both. Through a variety of reading and writing assignments, we will examine general principles of good writing, as well as principles associated specifically with scientific and technical writing. We will also explore the effects of new media as avenues for communicating about science.

21W.034 · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

Like other scientists, medical researchers and clinicians must be capable of presenting their work to an audience of professional peers. Unlike many scientists, however, physicians must routinely translate their sophisticated knowledge into lay terms for their own patients and for the education of the public at large. A surprising number of physicians write for less utilitarian reasons as well, choosing the narrative essay as a means of exploring the non-technical issues that emerge in their cl…

21W.035 · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

This course provides an introduction to writing about science (including medicine, technology, and engineering) for general readers. With a strong emphasis in background research, this course will help students build a foundation for strong science writing. Students will read works by accomplished science writers. Each assignment will focus on a different popular form, such as news articles, interviews, essays, and short features.

21W.035 · Undergraduate · Spring 2018

This class is an introduction to writing about science—including nature, medicine and technology—for general readers. In our reading and writing we explore the craft of making scientific concepts, and the work of scientists, accessible to the public through articles and essays.

21W.036 · Undergraduate · Spring 2022

Environmentalists have traditionally relied upon the power of their prose to transform the thoughts and behavior of their contemporaries. In 1963, Rachel Carson, a marine biologist with a penchant for writing, described a world without wildlife in <em>Silent Spring</em> and altered the way Americans understood their impact on the landscape. Like other writers we will encounter this semester, Carson realized that she could alter the perceptions of her contemporaries only if she was able to trans…

21W.731-1 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

The reading and writing for this course will focus on what it means to construct a sense of self and a life narrative in relation to the larger social world of family and friends, education, media, work, and community. Readings will include nonfiction and fiction works by authors such as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Andre Dubus, Anne Frank, Tim O’Brien, Flannery O’Connor, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Amy Tan, Tobias Wolff, and Alice Walker. Students will explore the craft of storytelling and …

21W.735 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This is a course focused on the literary genre of the essay, that wide-ranging, elastic, and currently very popular form that attracts not only nonfiction writers but also fiction writers, poets, scientists, physicians, and others to write in the form, and readers of every stripe to read it. Some say we are living in era in which the essay is enjoying a renaissance; certainly essays, both short and long, are at present easier to get published than are short stories or novels, and essays are fea…

21W.735 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

As the course title suggests, this class is meant to acquaint you with the literary and rhetorical tradition of the essay, a genre which has been described by one scholar as “the meeting ground between art and philosophy,” and by another as “the place where the self finds a pattern in the world, and the world finds a pattern in the self”. Though the essay is part of a tradition of prose which stretches back to antiquity, it is also a thoroughly modern and popular form of writing, found in print…

21W.742 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

Does race still matter, as Cornel West proclaimed in his 1994 book of that title, or do we now live, as others maintain, in a post-racial society? The very notion of what constitutes race remains a complex and evolving question in cultural terms. In this course we will engage this question head-on, reading and writing about issues involving the construction of race and racial identity as reflected from a number of vantage points and via a rich array of voices and genres. Readings will include l…

21W.742J · Undergraduate · Fall 2008

In this course we will read essays, novels, memoirs, and graphic texts, and view documentary and experimental films and videos which explore race from the standpoint of the multiracial. Examining the varied work of multiracial authors and filmmakers such as Danzy Senna, Ruth Ozeki, Kip Fulbeck, James McBride and others, we will focus not on how multiracial people are seen or imagined by the dominant culture, but instead on how they represent themselves. How do these authors approach issues of f…

21W.747 · Undergraduate · Fall 2009

<p>This course is an introduction to the history, theory, practice, and implications of rhetoric, the art and craft of persuasion through</p> <ul> <li>Analyzing persuasive texts and speeches</li> <li>Creating persuasive texts and speeches</li> </ul> <p>Through class discussions, presentations, and written assignments, you will get to practice your own rhetorical prowess. Through the readings, you’ll also learn some ways to make yourself a more efficient reader, as you turn your analytical skill…

21W.747 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This course uses the study of rhetoric as an opportunity to offer instruction in critical thinking. Through extensive writing and speaking assignments, students will develop their abilities to analyze texts of all kinds and to generate original and incisive ideas of their own. Critical thinking and original analysis as expressed in writing and in speech are the paramount goals of this class. The course will thus divide its efforts between an examination of the subject matter and an examination …

21W.747 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

This course is an examination of the theory, the practice, and the implications of rhetoric &amp; rhetorical criticism. This semester, you will have the opportunity to deepen many of your skills: Analysis, persuasion, oral presentation, and critical thinking. In this course you will act as both a rhetor (a person who uses rhetoric to persuade) and as a rhetorical critic (one who analyzes the rhetoric of others). Both the rhetor and the rhetorical critic write to persuade; both ask and answer im…

21W.747-2 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This course is an introduction to the history, theory, practice, and implications of rhetoric, the art and craft of persuasion. This course specifically focuses on the ways that scientists use various methods of persuasion in the construction of scientific knowledge.

21W.755 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This course is an introduction to the short story. Students will write stories and short descriptive sketches. Students will read great short stories and participate in class discussions of students’ writing and the assigned stories in their historical and social contexts.

21W.756 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This course is an examination of the formal structural and textual variety in poetry. Students engage in extensive practice in the making of poems and the analysis of both students’ manuscripts and 20th-century poetry. The course attempts to make relevant the traditional elements of poetry and their contemporary alternatives. There are weekly writing assignments, including some exercises in prosody.

21W.758 · Undergraduate · Fall 2016

Fantasy is currently one of the most popular genres across every platform in fiction. From film to gaming to literature, fantasy tops the charts. Why? Why do people who believe in democracy and live with the magic technology appear to long for wizards and dragons and the matters of kingship? In this class, we will explore this question, and from that base read articles, novels, write exercises and stories in this genre.

21W.758 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

Some argue that genre fiction is only a marketing category, but other critics say that different genres meet specific expectations of readers. This course examines these different agreements of what the reader wants and what the writer provides under the aegis of different genres. We will look at how genres are divided into subgenres, and how they are combined into cross-genre work, always keeping in mind the Reader-Writer Contact that is at the heart of genre writing. We shall also think about…

21W.759 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This class will focus on the craft of writing genre science fiction. Students write and read science fiction and analyze and discuss stories written for the class. For the first eight weeks, readings in contemporary science fiction accompany lectures and formal writing assignments intended to illuminate various aspects of writing craft as well as the particular problems of writing science fiction. The rest of the term is given to roundtable workshops on student’s stories.

21W.763J · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

Transmedia narratives exist across multiple storytelling platforms, using the advantages of each to enhance the experience of the audience. No matter which medium nor how many, the heart of any successful transmedia project is a good story. In this class we will spend time on the basics of solid storytelling in speculative fiction before we move on to how to translate those elements into various media. We will then explore how different presentations in different media can complement and enhanc…

21W.775 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

In this course we will read and write about works that explore symbolic encounters in the American landscape. Some of the assigned works look at uneasy encounters between ordinary individuals and animals—wolves, eagles, sandhill cranes—that Americans have invested with symbolic significance; others explore conflicts between the pragmatic American impulse to impose order on unruly nature and the equally American inclination to enshrine the unaltered landscape.

21W.775 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

This course focuses on traditional nature writing and the environmentalist essay. Students will keep a Web log as a journal. Writings are drawn from the tradition of nature writing and from contemporary forms of the environmentalist essay.

21W.777 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

This class addresses the craft of writing about science in and for contemporary society, both its pleasures and its challenges. We will read essays, reportage, op-eds, and web-based articles on a variety of topics concerning science, technology, medicine and nature. Readings by contemporary writers such as Elizabeth Kolbert, Atul Gawande, and Michael Pollan will serve as examples of the craft and sources of ideas for our own writing.

21W.777 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

The science essay uses science to think about the human condition; it uses humanistic thinking to reflect on the possibilities and limits of science and technology. In this class we read and practice writing science essays of varied lengths and purposes. We will read a wide variety of science essays, ranging across disciplines, both to learn more about this genre and to inspire your own writing. This semester’s reading centers on “The Dark Side,” with essays ranging from Alan Lightman’s “Prison…

21W.780 · Undergraduate · Fall 2001

This course focuses on an exploration of the role that communication plays in the work of the contemporary engineering and science professional. Emphasis is placed on analyzing how composition and publication contribute to work management and knowledge production, as well as the “how-to” aspects of writing specific kinds of documents in a clear style. Topics include: communication as organizational process, electronic modes such as e-mail and the Internet, the informational and social roles of …

21W.794 · Graduate · January IAP 2019

<p>This course is designed to improve the student’s ability to communicate technical information. It covers the basics of working with sources, including summarizing and paraphrasing, synthesizing source materials, citing, quoting, and avoiding plagiarism. It also covers how to write an abstract and a literature review. In addition, we will cover communication concepts, tools, and strategies that can help you understand how engineering texts work, and how you can make your texts work more effec…

24.00 · Undergraduate · Fall 2019

This course is an introduction to the problems of philosophy—in particular, to problems in ethics, metaphysics, theory of knowledge, and philosophy of logic, language, and science. It takes a systematic rather than historical approach. Readings come from classical and contemporary sources, but emphasis is on examination and evaluation of proposed solutions to the problems.

24.01 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course will introduce you to the Western philosophical tradition through the study of thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Cavendish, Hume, and Kant. You’ll grapple with questions that have been significant to philosophy from its beginnings: Questions about the nature of the mind, the existence of God, the foundations of knowledge, and the good life. You’ll also observe changes of intellectual outlook over time, and the effect of scientific, religious, and political concerns on th…

24.02 · Undergraduate · Fall 2008

This course will focus on issues that arise in contemporary public debate concerning matters of social justice. Topics will likely include: euthanasia, gay marriage, racism and racial profiling, free speech, hunger and global inequality. Students will be exposed to multiple points of view on the topics and will be given guidance in analyzing the moral frameworks informing opposing positions. The goal will be to provide the basis for respectful and informed discussion of matters of common moral …

24.03 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

This course explores the values (aesthetic, moral, cultural, religious, prudential, political) expressed in the choices of food people eat. Analyzes the decisions individuals make about what to eat, how society should manage food production and consumption collectively, and how reflection on food choices might help resolve conflicts between different values.

24.04J · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This course explores the ideal of social justice. What makes a society just? We will approach this question by studying three opposing theories of justice—utilitarianism, libertarianism, and egalitarian liberalism—each foundational to contemporary political thought and discourse.

24.06J · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

This course does not seek to provide answers to ethical questions. Instead, the course hopes to teach students two things. First, how do you recognize ethical or moral problems in science and medicine? When something does not feel right (whether cloning, or failing to clone) — what exactly is the nature of the discomfort? What kind of tensions and conflicts exist within biomedicine? Second, how can you think productively about ethical and moral problems? What processes create them? Why do peopl…

24.09 · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This course is an introduction to many of the central issues in a branch of philosophy called philosophy of mind.

24.111 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

<p>Quantum mechanics–even in the ordinary, non-relativistic, “particle” formulation that will be the primary focus of this course–has been a staggeringly successful physical theory, surely one of the crowning achievements of 20th century science. It’s also rather bizarre–bizarre enough to lead very intelligent and otherwise sensible people to make such claims as that the universe is perpetually splitting into many copies of itself, that conscious minds have the power to make physical systems “j…

24.118 · Undergraduate · Spring 2019

This course presents highlights of the more technical side of philosophy. It studies a cluster of puzzles, paradoxes, and intellectual wonders&nbsp;— from the higher infinite to Gödel’s Theorem&nbsp;— and discusses their philosophical implications.

24.120 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

<p>This course is an examination of philosophical theories of action and motivation in the light of empirical findings from social psychology, sociology, and neuroscience. Topics include belief, desire, and moral motivation; sympathy and empathy; intentions and other committing states; strength of will and weakness of will; free will; addiction and compulsion; guilt, shame and regret; evil; self-knowledge and self-deception; and, virtues and character traits.</p> <p>This course is a CI-M course…

24.131 · Undergraduate · Spring 2023

This course introduces the tools of philosophical ethics through application to contemporary issues concerning technology. It takes up current debates on topics such as privacy and surveillance, algorithmic bias, the promise and peril of artificial intelligence, automation and the future of work, and threats to democracy in the digital age from the perspective of users, practitioners, and regulatory/governing bodies.

24.150J · Undergraduate · Fall 2023

This course examines&nbsp;theories and principles that&nbsp;underlie the concept of free speech&nbsp;in the United States, the historical context in which the values of free speech and toleration emerged,&nbsp;and the&nbsp;philosophical arguments&nbsp;that were and are&nbsp;made for and against them. Students analyze a&nbsp;variety of&nbsp;contexts and communicative practices, including&nbsp;new media technologies,&nbsp;to&nbsp;debate how “speech” can be described and when it should be appropri…

24.191 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

<p>This seminar is made possible through a collaboration between Radius and the Philosophy section of MIT. This course provides an opportunity to explore a wide range of ethical issues through guided discussions that are geared to equip students for ongoing reflection and action. Lectures and discussions with guest faculty, as well as attendance at on-and off-campus events, expose students to ethical problems and resources for addressing them. The course also encourages students to work collabo…

24.200 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This course will acquaint the student with some of the ancient Greek contributions to the Western philosophical and scientific tradition. We will examine a broad range of central philosophical themes concerning: nature, law, justice, knowledge, virtue, happiness, and death. There will be a strong emphasis on analyses of arguments found in the texts.

24.209 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This course examines works of film in relation to thematic issues of philosophical importance that also occur in other arts, particularly literature and opera. Emphasis is put on film’s ability to represent and express feeling as well as cognition. Both written and cinematic works by Sturges, Shaw, Cocteau, Hitchcock, Joyce, and Bergman, among others, are considered. There are no tests or quizzes, however students write two major papers on media/philosophical research topics of their choosing.

24.211 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This course is an introduction to epistemology: the theory of knowledge. We will focus on skepticism—that is, the thesis that we know nothing at all—and we will survey a range of skeptical arguments and responses to skepticism.

24.213 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This course is a seminar on the philosophical analysis of film art, with an emphasis on the ways in which it creates meaning through techniques that define a formal structure. There is a particular focus on aesthetic problems about appearance and reality, literary and visual effects, communication and alienation through film technology.

24.220 · Undergraduate · Spring 2024

This course is an examination of philosophical theories of action and motivation in the light of empirical findings from social psychology, sociology, and neuroscience. Topics include belief, desire, and moral motivation; sympathy and empathy; intentions and other committing states; strength of will and weakness of will; free will; addiction and compulsion; guilt, shame, and regret; evil; self-knowledge and self-deception; and virtues and character traits.

24.222 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

Foundations and philosophical applications of Bayesian decision theory, game theory and theory of collective choice. Why should degrees of belief be probabilities? Is it always rational to maximize expected utility? If so, why and what is its utility? What is a solution to a game? What does a game-theoretic solution concept such as Nash equilibrium say about how rational players will, or should, act in a game? How are the values and the actions of groups, institutions and societies related to t…

24.230 · Undergraduate · Fall 2015

This course considers a range of philosophical questions about the foundations of morality, such as whether and in what sense morality is objective, the nature of moral discourse, and how we can come to know right from wrong.

24.231 · Undergraduate · Fall 2009

This will be a seminar on classic and contemporary work on central topics in ethics. The first third of the course will focus on <strong>metaethics</strong>: we will examine the meaning of moral claims and ask whether there is any sense in which moral principles are objectively valid. The second third of the course will focus on <strong>normative ethics</strong>: what makes our lives worth living, what makes our actions right or wrong, and what do we owe to others? The final third of the course…

24.235J · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This course examines fundamental issues in the philosophy of law, including the nature and content of law, its relation to morality, theories of legal interpretation, and the obligation to obey the law, as well as philosophical issues and problems associated with punishment and responsibility, liberty, and legal ethics.

24.236 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2014

<p>Courses in the Topics in Social Theory and Practice series feature in-depth considerations of such topics with reflections on their implications for social change.</p> <p>The topic for Fall 2014 is race and racism. We will consider a variety of arguments for and against the biological and / or social “reality” of race—taking into account purported races other than those defined by the black / white binary and the intersection of race with other social categories. We will then consider a numb…

24.241 · Undergraduate · Fall 2009

In this course we will cover central aspects of modern formal logic, beginning with an explanation of what constitutes good reasoning. Topics will include validity and soundness of arguments, formal derivations, truth-functions, translations to and from a formal language, and truth-tables. We will thoroughly cover sentential calculus and predicate logic, including soundness and completeness results.

24.242 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This course begins with an introduction to the theory of computability, then proceeds to a detailed study of its most illustrious result: Kurt Gödel’s theorem that, for any system of true arithmetical statements we might propose as an axiomatic basis for proving truths of arithmetic, there will be some arithmetical statements that we can recognize as true even though they don’t follow from the system of axioms. In my opinion, which is widely shared, this is the most important single result in t…

24.244 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

Modal logic is the logic of necessity and possibility, and by extension of analogously paired notions like validity and consistency, obligation and permission, the known and the not-ruled-out. This a first course in the area. A solid background in first-order logic is essential. Topics to be covered include (some or all of) the main systems of propositional modal logic, Kripkean “possible world” semantics, strict implication, contingent identity, intensional objects, counterpart theory, the log…

24.251 · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This course explores the nature of meaning and truth, and their bearing on the use of language in communication. No knowledge of logic or linguistics is presupposed.

24.261 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This course is a seminar on the nature of love and sex, approached as topics both in philosophy and in literature. Readings from recent philosophy as well as classic myths of love that occur in works of literature and lend themselves to philosophical analysis.

24.262 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This course is a seminar on creativity in art, science, and technology. We discuss how these pursuits are jointly dependent on affective as well as cognitive elements in human nature.&nbsp;We study feeling and imagination in relation to principles of idealization, consummation, and the aesthetic values that give meaning to science and technology as well as literature and the other arts. Readings in philosophy, psychology, and literature are part of the course.

24.263 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course is an introduction to problems about creativity as it pervades human experience and behavior. Questions about imagination and innovation are studied in relation to the history of philosophy as well as more recent work in philosophy, affective psychology, cognitive studies, and art theory. Readings and guidance are aligned with the student’s focus of interest.

24.264 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course examines problems in the philosophy of film as well as literature studied in relation to their making of myths. The readings and films that are discussed in this course draw upon classic myths of the western world. Emphasis is placed on meaning and technique as the basis of creative value in both media.

24.900 · Undergraduate · Fall 2012

This course studies what is language and what does knowledge of a language consist of. It asks how do children learn languages and is language unique to humans; why are there many languages; how do languages change; is any language or dialect superior to another; and how are speech and writing related. Context for these and similar questions is provided by basic examination of internal organization of sentences, words, and sound systems. No prior training in linguistics is assumed.

24.900 · Undergraduate · Spring 2022

This class provides some answers to basic questions about the nature of human language. Throughout the course, we examine a number of ways in which human language is a complex but law-governed mental system. Much of the class is devoted to studying some core aspects of this system in detail; we also spend individual classes discussing a number of other issues, including how language is acquired, how languages change over time, language endangerment, and others.

24.901 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2010

24.901 is designed to give you a preliminary understanding of how the sound systems of different languages are structured, how and why they may differ from each other. The course also aims to provide you with analytical tools in phonology, enough to allow you to sketch the analysis of an entire phonological system by the end of the term. On a non-linguistic level, the course aims to teach you by example the virtues of formulating precise and explicit descriptive statements; and to develop your …

24.902 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

<p>This course will acquaint you with some of the important results and ideas of the last half - century of research in syntax. We will explore a large number of issues and a large amount of data so that you can learn something of what this field is all about. From time to time, we will discuss related work in language acquisition and processing. The class will emphasize ideas and arguments for these ideas in addition to the the details of particular analyses. At the same time, you will learn t…

24.902 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2015

This course covers some of the basic ideas in the subfield syntax, within the framework often referred to as “Generative Grammar”.

24.903 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Spring 2005

This course gives an introduction to the science of linguistic meaning. There are two branches to this discipline: semantics, the study of conventional, “compositional meaning”, and pragmatics, the study of interactional meaning. There are other contributaries: philosophy, logic, syntax, and psychology. We will try to give you an understanding of the concepts of semantics and pragmatics and of some of the technical tools that we use.

24.904 · Undergraduate · Spring 2022

<p>This course is an introduction to language acquisition, a subfield of linguistics whose goal is to understand how humans acquire the ability to speak and understand a language—a highly complex task that is routinely and seemingly effortlessly accomplished by competent (native) speakers of the language in the first few years of life and without explicit instruction. By contrast, acquiring a second language after the critical period takes a long time, is effortful, usually requires explicit in…

24.906J · Undergraduate · Fall 2012

This course studies the development of bilingualism in human history (from <em>Australopithecus</em> to present day). It focuses on linguistic aspects of bilingualism; models of bilingualism and language acquisition; competence versus performance; effects of bilingualism on other domains of human cognition; brain imaging studies; early versus late bilingualism; opportunities to observe and conduct original research; and implications for educational policies among others. The course is taught in…

24.906J · Undergraduate · Fall 2024

One mind, two languages. The basic focus of this class will be on the linguistic and psycholinguistic underpinnings of the bilingual brain, seeking to understand what it means to “acquire” a new language. How did we learn our first language(s)?&nbsp;Were we taught English? Japanese? Chinese? Spanish? If so, how did we do it so quickly or so slowly? Is the learning of a new target language different from the learning of a first language? Is there a critical period for language learning? To answe…

24.908 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

Caribbean Creole languages result from language contact via colonization and the slave trade. In this course we explore the history of Creole languages from cognitive, historical and comparative perspectives. We evaluate popular theories about “Creole genesis” and the role of language acquisition. Then we explore the non-linguistic aspects of Creole formation, using sources from literature, religion and music. We also look into issues of Caribbean identities as we examine Creole speakers’ and o…

24.910 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

This course explores topics related to the representation and expression of propositional attitudes (<em>e.g.</em> belief, knowledge, and desires) and speech acts (<em>e.g.</em> saying and asking) in natural language. The main focus will be on semantics of predicates such as <strong>believe, know, want, say, ask</strong>, etc. Other topics will include the syntax of main and embedded clauses and formal representation of the pragmatics of conversation. The course provides practice in written and…

24.910 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

The goal of this course is to prepare you to engage in experimental investigations of questions related to linguistic theory, focusing on phonetics and phonology.

24.910 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

<p>I realize that “Modes of Assertion” is a rather cryptic title for the course. What we will explore are ways of modulating the force of an assertion. This will engage us in formal semantics and pragmatics, the theory of speech acts and performative utterances, and quite a bit of empirical work on a not-too-well understood complex of data.</p> <p>“He obviously made a big mistake.”</p> <p>“It is obvious that he made a big mistake.”</p> <p>If you’re like me you didn’t feel much of a difference. …

24.912 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

Interdisciplinary survey of people of African descent that draws on the overlapping approaches of history, literature, anthropology, legal studies, media studies, performance, linguistics, and creative writing. This course connects the experiences of African-Americans and of other American minorities, focusing on social, political, and cultural histories, and on linguistic patterns.

24.914 · Undergraduate · Spring 2019

All languages vary across geographic space and between social groups, and languages are always changing. It makes sense to study these phenomena together because they are intimately related: language change is the basic source of language variation. So studying language change can help us to understand variation, and the nature of linguistic variation provides evidence as to how language changes. Both illuminate the nature of grammar. The course will focus largely on variation and change in pho…

24.915 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2015

This course is about the study of speech sounds; how we produce and perceive them and their acoustic properties. Topics include the influence of the production and perception systems on phonological patterns and sound change, students learn acoustic analysis and experimental techniques. Students taking the graduate version complete different assignments.

24.917 · Undergraduate · Fall 2018

This course explores languages that have been deliberately constructed, including Esperanto, Klingon, and Tolkien’s Elvish. Students construct their own languages while considering the basic linguistic characteristics of various languages of the world. Through regular assignments, students describe the&nbsp;phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and writing system of their&nbsp;constructed language. The final assignment is a grammatical description of the new language.

24.942 · Graduate · Spring 2003

<p>This course is designed to allow participants to engage in the exploration of the grammatical structure of a language that is unknown to them (and typically to the instructors as well). In some ways it simulates traditional field methods research. In terms of format, we work in both group and individual meetings with the consultant. Each student identifies some grammatical construction (e.g. wh questions, agreement, palatalization, interrogative intonation) to focus their research: they elic…

24.946 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

This course is a detailed examination of the grammar of Japanese and its structure which is significantly different from English, with special emphasis on problems of interest in the study of linguistic universals. Data from a broad group of languages is studied for comparison with Japanese. This course assumes familiarity with linguistic theory.

24.947 · Graduate · Spring 2013

This seminar focuses on reading and discussion of current linguistic theory, first language acquisition and language disorders in young children. It also focuses on development of a principled understanding of language disorders at the phonological, morphological and syntactic levels, examining ways in which these disorders confront theories of language and acquisition.

24.949 · Graduate · Fall 2020

This course focuses on the process by which native speakers of a language acquire the ability to speak and understand that language. It covers some of the major results in the study of first-language acquisition, concentrating on morpho-syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The findings primarily come from English, but cross-linguistic differences in the phenomena of interest and corresponding differences in acquisition patterns are considered where appropriate. Of interest throughout is how these…

24.951 · Graduate · Fall 2003

<p>This course is concerned with the concepts and principles which have been of central significance in the recent development of syntactic theory, with special focus on the “Government and Binding” (GB) / “Principles and Parameters” (P&amp;P) / “Minimalist Program” (MP) approach.</p> <p>It is the first of a series of two courses (24.951 is taught during the Fall and 24.952 is taught in the Spring). This course deals mostly with phrase structure, argument structure and its syntactic expression,…

24.952 · Graduate · Spring 2007

This course is a continuation of 24.951. This semester the course topics of interest include movement, phrase structure, and the architecture of the grammar.

24.954 · Graduate · Spring 2010

This course is the third and final part of our graduate introduction to semantics. The other two classes are <em>24.970 Introduction to Semantics</em> and <em>24.973 Advanced Semantics</em>. The semester will be divided into somewhat independent units. One unit will be devoted to conversational implicatures (mainly scalar implicatures) and another to presupposition. In each unit, we will discuss basic concepts and technical tools and then devote some time to recent work which illustrates their …

24.954 · Graduate · Fall 2006

The course introduces formal theories of context-dependency, presupposition, implicature, context-change, focus and topic. Special emphasis is on the division of labor between semantics and pragmatics. It also covers applications to the analysis of quantification, definiteness, presupposition projection, conditionals and modality, anaphora, questions and answers.

24.960 · Graduate · Spring 2006

This course presents a comparison of different proposed architectures for the syntax module of grammar. The subject traces several themes across a wide variety of approaches, with emphasis on testable differences among models. Models discussed include ancient and medieval proposals, structuralism, early generative grammar, generative semantics, government-binding theory/minimalism, LFG, HPSG, TAG, functionalist perspectives and others.

24.961 · Graduate · Fall 2014

This course serves as an introduction to the current research questions in phonological theory. Topics include metrical and prosodic structure, features and their phonetic basis in speech, acquisition and parsing, phonological domains, morphology, and language change and reconstruction. Activities include problem solving, squibs, and data collection.

24.962 · Graduate · Spring 2005

This course focuses on phonological phenomena that are sensitive to morphological structure, including base-reduplicant identity, cyclicity, level ordering, derived environment effects, opaque rule interactions, and morpheme structure constraints. In the recent OT literature, it has been claimed that all of these phenomena can be analyzed with a single theoretical device: correspondence constraints, which regulate the similarity of lexically related forms (such as input and output, base and der…

24.964 · Graduate · Fall 2006

<p>Many details of phonetic realization cannot be predicted from standard phonological representations on a language-independent basis, so phonetic realization must be specified in grammar. In this seminar we will investigate phonetic realization as a component of grammar.</p> <p>The basic questions that we will address are:</p> <ul> <li>What is the form of the phonetic realization component?</li> <li>What is its relationship to phonology?</li> </ul>

24.964 · Graduate · Fall 2004

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of modeling phonology, with an empirical focus on modeling the discovery of static phonotactics, the discovery of alternations, learning in the midst of variation and exceptions, and the discovery of gradient patterns. This course is also intended to provide hands-on experience with various aspects of using and developing models, including preparing training data, running simulations, and interpreting their results.

24.973 · Graduate · Spring 2009

<p>This course is the second of the three parts of our graduate introduction to semantics. The others are <em>24.970 Introduction to Semantics</em> and <em>24.954 Pragmatics in Linguistic Theory</em>. Like the other courses, this one is not meant as an overview of the field and its current developments. Our aim is to help you to develop the ability for semantic analysis, and we think that exploring a few topics in detail together with hands-on practical work is more effective than offering a bi…

24.979 · Graduate · Fall 2018

This course is concerned with Negative Polarity Items. While raising familiar foundational questions for linguistic theory, Negative Polarity Items enter into complex and often revealing interactions with a host of other phenomena in grammar. Investigating several such interactions, the course touches on topics such as focus, presupposition, exhaustification, quantification, (in)definiteness, modals and attitudes, comparison and superlatives, and questions.

24.S95 · Graduate · Spring 2023

This seminar explored the idea that the study of linguistics can be a means to develop young people’s understanding of scientific inquiry as well as their understanding of the nature of language. The challenge of this seminar was to create pedagogical materials and methods that will motivate learners of all ages to be inquisitive about their native language and about language in general. Seminar participants worked with one another and in partnership with K–12 teachers to accomplish this goal.

24.S96 · Graduate · Fall 2021

Linguists take it for granted that all languages, including languages in the Global South, are worthy of study. Yet some 40% of children in the world are prevented from studying in and valorizing their home languages—including some of the very languages that linguists study with such fondness. So much research in linguistics and the benefits thereof remain inaccessible to the bulk of the very speech communities whose languages linguists study. This seminar examines efforts by linguists and educ…

CMS.100 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

This course provides a critical analysis of mass media in our culture. Various types of media such as books, films, video games, and online interactions will be discussed and reviewed. This course will also evaluate how information and ideas travel between people on a large scale.

CMS.300 · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This course offers an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of videogames as texts through an examination of their cultural, educational, and social functions in contemporary settings. Students play and analyze videogames while reading current research and theory from a variety of sources in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and industry. Assignments focus on game analysis in the context of the theories discussed in class. Class meetings involve regular reading, writing, and pres…

CMS.301 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course is an introduction to the theory and practice of the process of designing games and playful experiences. Students are familiarized with methods, concepts, techniques, and literature used in the design of games. The strategy is process-oriented, focusing on aspects such as: Rapid prototyping, play testing, and design iteration using a player-centered approach.

CMS.360 · Undergraduate · Fall 2012

This course examines civic media in comparative, transnational and historical perspectives through the use of various theoretical tools, research approaches, and project design methods.

CMS.361 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This seminar is a space for collaborative inquiry into the relationships between social movements and the media. We’ll review these relationships through the lens of social movement theory, and function as a workshop to develop student projects. Seminar participants will work together to explore frameworks, methods, and tools for understanding networked social movements in the digital media ecology. We will engage with social movement studies as a body of theoretical and empirical work, and lea…

CMS.362 · Undergraduate · Fall 2020

The Civic Media Codesign Studio is a project-based studio course in collaborative design of civic media. Students work with a range of organizations to create civic media projects grounded in real-world community needs. It covers theory and practice of codesign, including methods for community participation in iterative stages of project ideation, design, prototyping, testing, launch, and stewardship. This semester, the course will focus on building systems of collaboration between municipal go…

CMS.362 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course is a service-learning, project-based studio course that focuses on collaborative design of civic media. Students will work in diverse teams with community partners to create civic media projects grounded in real-world community needs. This course covers co-design and lean UX methods, and best practices for including communities in iterative stages of project ideation, design, prototyping, testing, launch, and stewardship. Students should have an interest in collaboration with commun…

CMS.405 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

In this course students create digital visual images and analyze designs from historical and theoretical perspectives with an emphasis on art and design, examining visual experience in broad terms, and from the perspectives of both creators and viewers. The course addresses key topics such as: image making as a cognitive and perceptual practice, the production of visual significance and meaning, and the role of technology in creating and understanding digitally produced images. Students will be…

CMS.407 · Undergraduate · Fall 2012

This course explores the ways in which humans experience the realm of sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. It examines how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally. It describes the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, sound recording, and the globalized travel of these technologies. Students address questions of ownership, property, authorship, and copyright in the age of digital fi…

CMS.594 · Undergraduate · Spring 2019

Students use media and technology to develop new forms of learning experiences in schools, workplaces, and informal settings. Students participate in a range of new and ongoing projects that hone understanding and skills in learning science, instructional design, development and evaluation.

CMS.595 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Spring 2024

New digital technologies are transforming learning for all ages—reading apps for toddlers, intelligent tutors for school children, blended learning for college students, MOOCs for adults, and interest-based learning communities for hobbyists. In this course, we explore these technologies and how they shape people’s lives and learning. Coursework will help students explore learning, media, and technology through multiple lenses—history, policy, social theory, design, and evaluation. Students wil…

CMS.608 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

An historical examination and analysis of the evolution and development of games and game mechanics. Topics include a large breadth of genres and types of games, including sports, game shows, games of chance, schoolyard games, board games, roleplaying games, and digital games. Students submit essays documenting research and analysis of a variety of traditional and eclectic games. Project teams required to design, develop, and thoroughly test their original games.

CMS.608 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This course is built around practical instruction in the design and analysis of non-­digital games. It provides students the texts, tools, references, and historical context to analyze and compare game designs across a variety of genres. In teams, students design, develop, and thoroughly test their original games to better understand the interaction and evolution of game rules. Covers various genres and types of games, including sports, game shows, games of chance, card games, schoolyard games,…

CMS.608 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

This course provides practical instruction in the design and analysis of non-digital games. Students cover the texts, tools, references and historical context to analyze and compare game designs across a variety of genres, including sports, game shows, games of chance, card games, schoolyard games, board games, and role–playing games. In teams, students design, develop, and thoroughly test their original games to understand the interaction and evolution of game rules. Students taking the gradua…

CMS.611J · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

CMS.611J / 6.073 Creating Video Games is a class that introduces students to the complexities of working in small, multidisciplinary teams to develop video games. Students will learn creative design and production methods, working together in small teams to design, develop, and thoroughly test their own original digital games. Design iteration across all aspects of video game development (game design, audio design, visual aesthetics, fiction and programming) will be stressed. Students will also…

CMS.615 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

Run as a workshop, students collaborate in teams to design and prototype games for social change and civic engagement. Through readings, discussion, and presentations, we explore principles of game design and the social history of games. Guest speakers from academia, industry, the non-profit sector, and the gaming community contribute unique and diverse perspectives. Course culminates in an end of semester open house to showcase our games.

CMS.621 · Undergraduate, Graduate · Fall 2024

This subject examines media audiences—specifically, fans—and the subcultures that evolve around them. Explores practices and products of fan culture, i.e., clubs, fiction, activism, etc. Readings and assignments place these practices and products within the context of various disciplines. This subject requires three short papers and presentations. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

CMS.631 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

This course explores visualization methodologies to conceive and represent systems and data, e.g., financial, media, economic, political, etc., with a particular focus on climate change data in this version of the course. Topics include basic methods for research, cleaning, and analysis of datasets, and creative methods of data presentation and storytelling. The course considers the emotional, aesthetic, ethical, and practical effects of different presentation methods as well as how to develop …

CMS.633 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

This course examines the theory and practice of using computational methods in the emerging field of digital humanities. It develops an understanding of key digital humanities concepts, such as data representation, digital archives, information visualization, and user interaction through the study of contemporary research, in conjunction with working on real-world projects for scholarly, educational, and public needs. Students create prototypes, write design papers, and conduct user studies.

CMS.701 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

This class addresses important, current debates in media with in-depth discussion of popular perceptions and policy implications. Students will engage in the critical study of the economic, political, social, and cultural significance of media, and learn to identify, analyze, and understand the complex relations among media texts, policies, institutions, industries, and infrastructures. This class offers the opportunity to discuss, in stimulating and challenging ways, topics such as ideology, p…

CMS.796 · Graduate · Fall 2006

This class does intensive close study and analysis of historically significant media “texts” that have been considered landmarks or have sustained extensive critical and scholarly discussion. Such texts may include oral epic, story cycles, plays, novels, films, opera, television drama and digital works. The course emphasizes close reading from a variety of contextual and aesthetic perspectives. The syllabus varies each year, and may be organized around works that have launched new modes and gen…

CMS.801 · Graduate · Fall 2012

This course centers on historical eras in which the form and function of media technologies were radically transformed. It includes consideration of the “Gutenberg Revolution,” the rise of modern mass media, and the “digital revolution,” among other case studies of media transformation and cultural change. Readings are in cultural and social history and historiographic method.

CMS.840 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

<p>This course focuses on novels and films from the last twenty-five years (nominally 1985–2010) marked by their relationship to extreme violence and transgression. Our texts will focus on serial killers, torture, rape, and brutality, but they also explore notions of American history, gender and sexuality, and reality television—sometimes, they delve into love or time or the redemptive role of art in late modernity. Our works are a motley assortment, with origins in the U.S., France, Spain, Bel…

CMS.876 · Graduate · Spring 2005

History of Media and Technology addresses the mutually influential histories of communications media and technological development, focusing on the shift from analog to digital cultures that began mid-century and continues to the present. The approach the series takes to the study of media and technology is a multifaceted one that includes theoretical and philosophical works, histories canonical and minority, literature and art, as well as hands-on production issues toward the advancement of st…

CMS.950 · Graduate · Fall 2005

This course fulfills the first half of the Comparative Media Studies workshop sequence requirement for entering graduate students. The workshop sequence provides an opportunity for a creative, hands-on project development experience and emphasizes intellectual growth as well as the acquisition of technical skills. The course is designed to provide practical, hands-on experience to complement students’ theoretical studies.

CMS.951 · Graduate · Spring 2015

This course focuses on a number of qualitative social science methods that can be productively used in media studies research including interviewing, participant observation, focus groups, cultural probes, visual sociology, and ethnography. The emphasis will primarily be on understanding and learning concrete techniques that can be evaluated for their usefulness in any given project and utilized as needed. Data organization and analysis will be addressed. Several advanced critical thematics wil…

CMS.S63 · Undergraduate · Fall 2019

Students explore augmented reality audio through the design and evaluation of prototypes. Participants will probe design space and illuminate creative possibilities. This includes productive, playful, and social applications, as well as the intersection between games and music. The course builds understanding of the limitations and strengths of iterative design and rapid prototyping as research methods, familiarizes students with the theoretical foundations of design exploration, and practices …

ES.010 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

The seminar is designed to look at the science of triathlons and sports from a molecular/chemical biological point of view. We will be able to use our own bodies to see how exercise affects the system, through observations written in a training journal. We will also improve the overall fitness of the class through maintaining a physical fitness program over the course of the term. The end of the term will have us all participate in a mini-triathlon.

ES.113 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course explores the relationship between ancient Greek philosophy and mathematics. We investigate how ideas of definition, reason, argument and proof, rationality / irrationality, number, quality and quantity, truth, and even the idea of an idea were shaped by the interplay of philosophic and mathematical inquiry. The course examines how discovery of the incommensurability of magnitudes challenged the Greek presumption that the cosmos is fully understandable. Students explore the influence…

ES.114 · Undergraduate · Fall 2018

<p>This course addresses the philosophical question of what a non-violent life entails. It investigates its ethical dimensions and challenges, and considers whether we can derive a comprehensive moral theory from the principle of non-violence. In addition, it discusses the issues of lying, the duty to forgive, non-violent communication, the ethics of our relationship to anger, the possibility of loving enemies, and the ethics of punishment and rehabilitation. Readings are included from primary …

ES.240 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

In this interdisciplinary seminar, we explore a variety of visual and written tools for self exploration and self expression. Through discussion, written assignments, and directed exercises, students practice utilizing a variety of media to explore and express who they are.

ES.242 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

Does it matter in education whether or not you’ve got a Y chromosome? You bet it does. In this discussion-based seminar, we will explore why males vastly outrank females in math and science and career advancements (particularly in academia), and why girls get better grades and go to college more often than boys. Do the sexes have different learning styles? Are women denied advanced opportunities in academia and the workforce? How do family life and family decisions affect careers for both men a…

ES.246 · Undergraduate · Fall 2004

The goal of this seminar is to have open discussions of controversial political and social issues and raise awareness of current world events in an informal setting. Discussions for the first part of each class will focus on current events from that week, while in the second part of class students will discuss a scheduled issue in greater detail. Scheduled issues include the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the regulation of marijuana, how our society should punish criminals, genocide in Rwanda an…

ES.253 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This is a discussion-based interactive seminar on the two major issues that affect Sub-Saharan Africa: HIV/AIDS and Poverty. AIDS and Poverty, seemingly different concepts, are more inter-related to each other in Africa than in any other continent. As MIT students, we feel it is important to engage ourselves in a dynamic discussion on the relation between the two - how to fight one and how to solve the other.

ES.255 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

SP.255 is a lecture, discussion, and project based seminar about the physics of rock climbing. Participants are first exposed to the unsolved problems in the climbing community that could be answered by research and then asked to solve a small part of one of these problems. The seminar provides an introduction to engineering problems, an opportunity to practice communication skills, and a brief stab at doing some research. This seminar explicitly does not include climbing instruction nor is cli…

ES.256 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

Explore the future through modeling, reading, and discussion in an open-ended seminar! Our fields of interest will include changes in science and technology, culture and lifestyles, and dominant paradigms and societies.

ES.258 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

How are math, art, music, and language intertwined? How does intelligent behavior arise from its component parts? Can computers think? Can brains compute? Douglas Hofstadter probes very cleverly at these questions and more in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Gödel, Escher, Bach”. In this seminar, we will read and discuss the book in depth, taking the time to solve its puzzles, appreciate the Bach pieces that inspired its dialogues, and discover its hidden tricks along the way.

ES.259 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This is a discussion-based, interactive seminar on the development of information and communication technology in Sub-Saharan Africa. The students will seek to understand the issues surrounding designing and instituting policy, and explore the possible ways in which they can make an impact on information and communication technology in Africa.

ES.260 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This pass/fail seminar should be a fun setting where we can all enjoy a love of good books together. Students will read approximately one novel every two weeks, and the class will discuss each novel in a relaxed and interactive setting, with attention to whatever themes and issues interest them most about each book. We will read a wide mixture of classic and contemporary novels written by women, including: Edith Wharton, <em>The House of Mirth</em>; Toni Morrison, <em>Jazz</em>; Virginia Woolf,…

ES.261 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This seminar addresses the inherent challenges of translating poetry from different languages, cultures, and eras. Students do some translation of their own, though accommodations are made if a student lacks even a basic knowledge of any foreign language.

ES.268 · Undergraduate · Spring 2010

We will explore the mathematical strategies behind popular games, toys, and puzzles. Topics covered will combine basic fundamentals of game theory, probability, group theory, and elementary programming concepts. Each week will consist of a lecture and discussion followed by game play to implement the concepts learned in class.

ES.269 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

This course is primarily a literature seminar. We will use American literature as a lens through which to examine different passing tropes. It will provide an introduction to queer, gender, and critical race theories for science and math majors. We will read such works as <em>Running A Thousand Miles for Freedom</em>, <em>Incognegro</em>, and Focault’s <em>A History of Sexuality</em>, to name just a few.

ES.272 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

<p>This class is divided into a series of sections or “modules”, each of which concentrates on a particular large technology-related topic in a cultural context. The class will start with a four-week module on Samurai Swords and Blacksmithing, followed by smaller units on Chinese Cooking, the Invention of Clocks, and Andean Weaving, and end with a four-week module on Automobiles and Engines. In addition, there will be a series of hands-on projects that tie theory and practice together. The clas…

ES.291 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

This seminar explores experiments in education and discusses how education and learning might be done, through reading and discussion. This seminar is not&nbsp;a survey of experiments in education, but rather, its goal is to determine how learning should happen and what kinds of contexts allow it to happen.

ES.292 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

MIT students are challenged daily to solve for x, to complete four problem sets, two papers, and prepare for an exam worth 30% of their grade… all in one night. When they do stop to breathe, it’s for a shower or a meal. What does this have to do with creative writing? Everything. Creative writing and MIT go together better than you might imagine.

ES.293 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

LEGO® robotics uses LEGO®s as a fun tool to explore robotics, mechanical systems, electronics, and programming. This seminar is primarily a lab experience which provides students with resources to design, build, and program functional robots constructed from LEGO®s and a few other parts such as motors and sensors.

ES.298 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This seminar introduces, through studio projects, the basic principles regarding the use of color in the visual arts. Students explore a range of topics, including the historical uses of color in the arts, the interactions between colors, and the psychology of color.

ES.333 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

Production of Educational Videos is an introduction to technical communication that is situated in the production of educational videos; the assignments are all focused on the production of videos that teach some aspect of MIT’s first-year core curriculum. The objective of these assignments is improvement in both communication ability and communication habits; these improvements are effected by providing participants with instruction, practice, feedback, and the opportunity for reflection. In a…

ES.1803 · Undergraduate · Spring 2024

<p>This course, taught to students in MIT’s Experimental Study Group, is equivalent to the Mathematics Department’s <em>18.03 Differential Equations</em>. They satisfy the same prerequisites and are geared to preparing students for downstream science and engineering classes.</p> <p>MIT’s Experimental Study Group (ESG) is one of MIT’s first-year learning communities. Small class sizes allow for teaching interactively and staying in close touch with what every student is finding easy or difficult…

ES.S10 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

<p>This class is a multidisciplinary introduction to pharmacology, neurotransmitters, drug mechanisms, and brain diseases from addiction to schizophrenia.</p> <p>From Abilify® to Zyrtec®, the world is full of fascinating drugs. If you are poisoned by sarin nerve gas, you may be able to save your life by huffing some BZ nerve gas. This class will explain that chemical curiosity, along with a host of other interesting tidbits of pharmacology. The structure of the class interleaves basic concepts …

ES.S41 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

The participants in this seminar will dive into learning basic conversational Italian, Italian culture, and the Mediterranean diet. Each class is based on the preparation of a delicious dish and on the bite-sized acquisition of parts of the Italian language and culture.&nbsp; A good diet is not based on recipes only, it is also rooted in healthy habits and in culture. At the end of the seminar the participants will be able to cook some healthy and tasty recipes &nbsp;and to understand and speak…

ES.S60 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

<p>This seminar looks at current theories on happiness and positive psychology as well as practical implications of those theories for our own lives. It explores the concept of happiness, different cultural definitions of happiness, and the connection between happiness, optimism, and meaning. Also explored are practical strategies for creating more opportunities for happiness in our lives and for learning how to deal more effectively with sources of unhappiness.</p> <p>This seminar is part of t…

ES.S71 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

The purpose of this class is to offer students a new perspective on the importance of our bodily experience to our cognitive and social lives. The curriculum is designed to foster a working appreciation for how better bodily awareness can positively affect how we feel in our bodies, carry and present ourselves for improved social sensitivity and more successful social interactions.

MAS.110 · Undergraduate · Fall 2008

This class covers the history of 20th century art and design from the perspective of the technologist. Methods for visual analysis, oral critique, and digital expression are introduced. Class projects this term use the OLPC XO (One Laptop Per Child) laptop, Csound and Python software.

MAS.111 · Undergraduate · Spring 2011

This course is intended for students pursuing research projects at the Media Laboratory. Topics include Media Lab research areas, documenting research progress, ethical issues in research; patents, copyrights, intellectual property, and giving oral, written, and online presentations of results. A final oral presentation is required. Enrollment limited with preference given to students in the Media Arts and Sciences freshman program.

MAS.160 · Undergraduate · Fall 2007

This class teaches the fundamentals of signals and information theory with emphasis on modeling audio/visual messages and physiologically derived signals, and the human source or recipient. Topics include linear systems, difference equations, Z-transforms, sampling and sampling rate conversion, convolution, filtering, modulation, Fourier analysis, entropy, noise, and Shannon’s fundamental theorems. Additional topics may include data compression, filter design, and feature detection. The undergr…

MAS.450 · Undergraduate · Spring 2003

<p>MAS.450 is a laboratory course about holography and holographic imaging.</p> <p>This course teaches holography from a scientific and analytical point of view, moving from interference and diffraction to imaging of single points to the display of three-dimensional images. Using a “hands-on” approach, students explore the underlying physical phenomena that make holograms work, as well as designing laboratory setups to make their own images. The course also teaches mathematical techniques that …

MAS.531 · Graduate · Fall 2009

<p>A computational camera attempts to digitally capture the essence of visual information by exploiting the synergistic combination of task-specific optics, illumination, sensors and processing. In this course we will study this emerging multi-disciplinary field at the intersection of signal processing, applied optics, computer graphics and vision, electronics, art, and online sharing through social networks. If novel cameras can be designed to sample light in radically new ways, then rich and …

MAS.630 · Graduate · Fall 2015

This course instructs students on how to develop technologies that help people measure and communicate emotion, that respectfully read and that intelligently respond to emotion, and have internal mechanisms inspired by the useful roles emotions play.

MAS.632 · Graduate · Fall 2008

This class explores interaction with mobile computing systems and telephones by voice, including speech synthesis, recognition, digital recording, and browsing recorded speech. Emphasis on human interface design issues and interaction techniques appropriate for cognitive requirements of speech. Topics include human speech production and perception, speech recognition and text-to-speech algorithms, telephone networks, and spatial and time-compressed listening. Extensive reading from current rese…

MAS.666 · Graduate · Fall 2003

This class surveys developmental entrepreneurship via case examples of both successful and failed businesses and generally grapples with deploying and diffusing products and services through entrepreneurial action. By drawing on live and historical cases, especially from South Asia, Africa, Latin America as well as Eastern Europe, China, and other developing regions, we seek to cover the broad spectrum of challenges and opportunities facing developmental entrepreneurs. Finally, we explore a ran…

MAS.712 · Graduate · Spring 2001

As the digital revolution brings with it radical changes in how and what we learn, people must continue to learn all the time. New technologies make possible new approaches to learning, new contexts for learning, new tools to support learning, and new ideas of what can be learned. This course will explore these new opportunities for learning with a special focus on what can be learned through immersive, hands-on activities. Students will participate in (and reflect on) a variety of learning sit…

MAS.714J · Graduate · Fall 2009

This course explores the design of innovative educational technologies and creative learning environments, drawing on specific case studies such as the LEGO® Programmable Brick, Scratch software and Computer Clubhouse after-school learning centers. Includes activities with new educational technologies, reflections on learning experiences, and discussion of strategies and principles underlying the design of new tools and activities.

MAS.742 · Graduate · Fall 2003

This class investigates cognitive science and technology as it is applied to the industrial design process. The class introduces prototyping techniques and approaches for objective evaluation as part of the design process. Students practice evaluating products with mechanical and electronic aspects. Evaluation processes are applied to creating functioning smart product prototypes. This is a project oriented subject that draws upon engineering, aesthetic, and creative skills.&nbsp;It is geared t…

MAS.771 · Graduate · Spring 2011

This course illuminates current theories about autism together with challenges faced by people on the autism spectrum. Theories in communicating, interacting socially, managing cognitive and affective overload, and achieving independent lifestyles are covered. In parallel, the course presents state-of-the-art technologies being developed for helping improve both theoretical understanding and practical outcomes. Participants are expected to meet and interact with people on the autism spectrum. W…

MAS.836 · Graduate · Spring 2011

This course is a broad introduction to a host of sensor technologies, illustrated by applications drawn from human-computer interfaces and ubiquitous computing. After extensively reviewing electronics for sensor signal conditioning, the lectures cover the principles and operation of a variety of sensor architectures and modalities, including pressure, strain, displacement, proximity, thermal, electric and magnetic field, optical, acoustic, RF, inertial, and bioelectric. Simple sensor processing…

MAS.845 · Graduate · Spring 2004

This seminar explores approaches to representation for distributed cinematic storytelling. The relationship between story creation and story appreciation is analyzed. Readings are drawn from literary and cinematic criticism, as well as from descriptions of interactive, distributed works. Students analyze a range of storytelling techniques; they develop a proposal using visualization techniques; and they prototype a working story experience, culminating in a final project displayed at the end of…

MAS.863 · Graduate · Fall 2002

This course provides a hands-on introduction to the resources for designing and fabricating smart systems, including CAD/CAM/CAE; NC machining, 3-D printing, injection molding, laser cutting; PCB layout and fabrication; sensors and actuators; analog instrumentation; embedded digital processing; wired and wireless communications. This course also puts emphasis on learning how to use the tools as well as understand how they work.

MAS.878 · Graduate · Fall 2003

This class deals with interactive art. Visiting artists will discuss their work from a theoretical and practical perspective. Discussions of the history of interactive digital art and contemporary issues in the field will take place. Students will develop an interactive art project for a final exhibition or submit a short paper.

MAS.961 · Graduate · Spring 2008

<p>This project-based course explores new design strategies for social interaction in the computer mediated world. Through weekly readings and design assignments we will examine topics such as:</p> <ul> <li>Data-based portraiture</li> <li>Depicting growth, change and the passage of time</li> <li>Visualizing conversations, crowds, and networks</li> <li>Interfaces for the connected city</li> <li>Mobile social technologies</li> </ul> <p>The course emphasizes developing visual and interactive liter…

MAS.961 · Graduate · Spring 2005

This course will provide an overview of a new vision for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in which people are surrounded by intelligent and intuitive interfaces embedded in the everyday objects around them. It will focus on understanding enabling technologies and studying applications and experiments, and, to a lesser extent, it will address the socio-cultural impact. Students will read and discuss the most relevant articles in related areas: smart environments, smart networked objects, augment…

MAS.961 · Graduate · Fall 1998

The aim of the students from the Numeric Photography class at the MIT Media Laboratory was to present an exhibition of digital artworks which blend photography and computation, in the context of scene capture, image play, and interaction. Equipped with low end digital cameras, students created weekly software projects to explore aesthetic issues in signal processing and interaction design. The results are more than a hundred Java® applets, many of which are interactive, that suggest new avenues…

MAS.961 · Graduate · Fall 2004

Innovation in expression, as realized in media, tangible objects, performance and more, &nbsp;generates new questions and new potentials for human engagement. When and how does expression engage us deeply? Many personal stories confirm the hypothesis that once we experience deep engagement, it is a state we long for, remember, and want to repeat. This class will explore&nbsp;what&nbsp;underlying&nbsp;principles and innovative methods can ensure the development of higher-quality “deep engagement…

MAS.961 · Graduate · Spring 2011

Networks are a ubiquitous way to represent complex systems, including those in the social and economic sciences. The goal of the course is to equip students with conceptual tools that can help them understand complex systems that emerge in both nature and social systems. This is a course intended for a general audience and will discuss applications of networks and complexity to diverse systems, including epidemic spreading, social networks and the evolution of economic development.

MAS.962 · Graduate · Spring 2010

<p>This project-based course will explore the future of textiles, focusing particularly on blending rich crafting traditions with new technologies. Topics will include textile-based electronics, textile fabrication, algorithmic pattern design, and composites. We will experiment with a wide range of fibers, yarns, and fabrics including traditional materials like wool and cotton as well as metal fibers and yarns, fusible plastics, papers, and resins. We will also explore techniques like felting, …

MAS.962 · Graduate · Fall 1997

This class introduces studies in the algorithmic manipulation of type as word, symbol, and form. Problems covered will include semantic filtering, inherently unstable letterforms, and spoken letters.&nbsp;The history and traditions of typography, and their entry into the digital age, will be studied. Weekly assignments using Java®&nbsp;will explore new ways of looking at and manipulating type.

MAS.962 · Graduate · Spring 2003

This course examines the philosophical and theoretical foundations of constructionism as a paradigm for formulating and evaluating new theories for learning and approaches to education. One of the goals of this course is to help new learning researchers situate their work within the constructionist framework through readings and projects that will focus on the rich interplay between the process of knowledge construction and the development and co-evolution of ideas, learners, tools, and context…

MAS.962 · Graduate · Fall 2006

<p>This course will explore the state of the art in common sense knowledge, and class projects will design and build interfaces that can exploit this knowledge to make more usable and helpful interfaces.</p> <p>This year’s theme will be about how common sense knowledge differs in different languages and cultures, and how machine understanding of this knowledge can help increase communication between people, and between people and machines.</p>

MAS.962 · Graduate · Fall 2002

How do words get their meanings? How can word meanings be represented and used by machines? We will explore three families of approaches to these questions from a computational perspective. Relational / structural methods such as semantic networks represent the meaning of words in terms of their relations to other words. Knowledge of the world through perception and action leads to the notion of external grounding, a process by which word meanings are ‘attached’ to the world. How an agent theor…

MAS.963 · Graduate · Fall 2005

This course explores the potential impact of modern technologies on the school reforms debate. The first part of the course provides an overview of the current state of the school reform debate and reviews the ideas in the progressive school reform movement, as well as examining the new public charter school in Cambridge as a case study. The second part of the course requires critical study of research projects that hold promise as inspirations and guidelines for concrete multidisciplinary acti…

MAS.963 · Graduate · Spring 2002

<p>The nature of human identity - how we think of ourselves, how we perceive others - is a mutable concept, changing with the rise and fall of religious beliefs, social mores, philosophical theories. Today, we live in a world in which science and technology are among the most powerful forces reshaping our culture - and thus our definitions and perceptions of identity. In this seminar, we will examine the impact of science and technology on identity.</p> <p>The instructor’s course page may be vi…

MAS.963 · Graduate · Fall 2001

<p>Increasingly, we are realizing that to make computer systems more intelligent and responsive to users, we will have to make them more sensitive to context. Traditional hardware and software design overlooks context because it conceptualizes systems as input-output functions. Systems take input explicitly given to them by a human, act upon that input alone and produce explicit output. But this view is too restrictive. Smart computers, intelligent agent software, and digital devices of the fut…

MAS.964 · Graduate · Fall 2002

<p>This course will explore the state of the art in common sense knowledge, and class projects will design and build interfaces that can exploit this knowledge to make more usable and helpful interfaces.</p> <p>Course requirements will consist of critiques of class readings (about 2 papers/week), and a final project (paper or computer implementation project). Grades will be based primarily on the projects, as well as a small component for class and online participation</p>

MAS.965 · Graduate · Fall 2004

Millions of people are on-line today and the number is rapidly growing - yet this virtual crowd is often invisible. In this course we will examine ways of visualizing people, their activities and their interactions. Students will study the cognitive and cultural basis for social visualization through readings drawn from sociology, psychology and interface design and they will explore new ways of depicting virtual crowds and mapping electronic spaces through a series of design exercises.

MAS.965 · Graduate · Spring 2005

This course examines the issues, principles, and challenges toward building relational machines through a combination of studio-style design and critique along with lecture, lively discussion of course readings, and assignments. Insights from social psychology, human-computer interaction, and design will be examined, as well as how these ideas are manifest in a broad range of applications for software agents and robots.

MAS.965 · Graduate · Fall 2003

This course examines the issues, principles, and challenges toward building machines that cooperate with humans and with other machines. Philosophical, scientific, and theoretical insights into this subject will be covered, as well as how these ideas are manifest in both natural and artificial systems (e.g. software agents and robots).

MAS.966 · Graduate · Spring 2003

Digital Anthropology is a Spring 2003 applied social science and media arts seminar, surveying the blossoming arena of digital-artifact enabled experimental sociology/anthropology. We will emphasize on both (a) Technology Testbeds – systematically deploying research lab prototypes and corporate pre-production products in a sample human organizational population and carefully observing the social consequences, and (b) Sociometrics – using digital artifacts to better observe and measure the compl…

MAS.S60 · Graduate · Spring 2025

<p>Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds great promise as a technology to enhance digital productivity, physical interactions, overall well-being, and the human experience. To enable the true impact of AI, these systems will need to be grounded in real-world data modalities, from language-only systems to vision, audio, sensors, medical data, music, art, smell, and taste. This course will introduce the basic principles of AI (focusing on modern deep learning and foundation models) and how we can ap…

MAS.S62 · Graduate · Spring 2018

Bitcoin and other cryptographic currencies have gained attention over the years as the systems continue to evolve. This course looks at the design of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and how they function in practice, focusing on cryptography, game theory, and network architecture.

MAS.S63 · Graduate · Fall 2013

Students will learn to fabricate, remix, and design detection and monitoring devices for health following the core focus of the Tricorder: a portable, handheld diagnostic device which can brings health solutions to consumers at home or in remote parts of the world. Inspired by the Tricorder X-Prize (with a purse of $10 million), students will aim to create specific component technologies that integrate into a comprehensive Tricorder mechanism capable of reading vital signs and specific disease …

MAS.S66 · Graduate · Spring 2015

With a focus on the creation of functional prototypes and practicing real magical crafts, this class combines theatrical illusion, game design, sleight of hand, machine learning, camouflage, and neuroscience to explore how ideas from ancient magic and modern stage illusion can inform cutting edge technology.

PE.210 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This course will thoroughly educate the successful student with the knowledge and skills necessary to be a certified beginning SCUBA diver. The prerequisite for the course is passing the MIT SCUBA swim test and demonstrating a “comfort level” in the water. At the end of the class, students will attempt to pass the certification exam to become certified divers. The class is taught in two parts each week: a classroom session and a pool session. The classroom sessions along with the reading materi…

PE.550 · Undergraduate · Spring 2009

<p>This course provides an exciting, eye-opening, and thoroughly useful inquiry into what it takes to live an extraordinary life, on your own terms. The instructors address what it takes to succeed, to be proud of your life, and to be happy in it. Participants tackle career satisfaction, money, body, vices, and relationship to themselves. They learn how to confront issues in their lives, how to live life, and how to learn from it.</p> <p>A short version of this course meets during the Independe…

PE.550 · Undergraduate · January IAP 2007

<p>This course provides an exciting, eye-opening, and thoroughly useful inquiry into what it takes to live an extraordinary life, on your own terms. The instructors address what it takes to succeed, to be proud of your life, and to be happy in it. Participants tackle career satisfaction, money, body, vices, and relationship to themselves and others. They learn how to address issues in their lives, how to live life, and how to learn from it.</p> <p>This course is offered during the Independent A…

PE.710 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

The goals of this instructional course are to get you started in this wonderful sport and to give you a working knowledge of tennis. It should help you to understand the basics of a sport and how to perform these basics. Most of the course will focus on the basic stroke techniques. Variation to those techniques will be presented, as well as drills and games, so that you can take it to the court. Singles and doubles tactics will be covered as well.

PE.720 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This 12 session course is designed for the beginning or novice weight lifter, or for those who have experience lifting but lack proper instruction. We will provide an understanding of the biomechanics involved, muscles used for a given exercise, and program development.

PE.730 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This 12 session course is designed for the beginning or novice archer and uses recurve indoor target bows and equipment. The purpose of the course is to introduce students to the basic techniques of indoor target archery emphasizing the care and use of equipment, range safety, stance and shooting techniques, scoring and competition.

PE.740 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

This course is intended to provide students with the fundamentals of fencing, including footwork, bladework, bouting and refereeing. It will allow students to develop the ability to analyze a fencing bout, and promotes creativity in applying acquired skills in a fencing bout.

PE.810 · Undergraduate · Spring 2007

The purpose of this class is to tell you something about our Tech Dinghy and how to sail it. This OCW site is arranged as a series of skills, explained both with lecture notes and videos. Please do not think of these skill checks as tests, but instead, as measures of your understanding of our sport. We don’t expect perfection from our beginners, but only that our members be able to safely handle the boats and themselves on the Charles. For those who wish it, there will be much more that can be …

PE.910 · Undergraduate · January IAP 2002

For all of the bodies attached to the many great minds that walk the Institute’s halls, in the work that goes on at MIT the body is present as an object of study, but is all but unrecognized as an important dimension of our intelligence and experience. Yet the body is the basis of our experience in the world; it is the very foundation on which cognitive intelligence is built. Using the MIT gymnastics gym as our laboratory, the Physical Intelligence activity will take an innovative, hands-on app…

PE.920 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

The sensing, thinking, moving body is the basis of our experience in the world; it is the very foundation on which cognitive intelligence is built. Physical Intelligence, then, is the inherent ability of the human organism to function in extraordinary accord with its physical environment. This class–a joint offering from the Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation (DAPER) and Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME) for both PE and academic credit–uses the MIT gymnastics gym…

RES.17-001 · Non-Credit · Fall 2020

<p>The MIT Election Data and Science Lab (MEDSL) supports advances in election science by collecting, analyzing, and sharing core data and findings. The lab also aims to build relationships with election officials and others to help apply new scientific research to the practice of democracy in the United States.</p> <p>By applying scientific principles to how elections are studied and administered, MEDSL aims to improve the democratic experience for all U.S. voters.</p> <p>The MIT Election Lab …

RES.17-002 · Non-Credit · Spring 2023

<p>The MIT Governance Lab (MIT GOV/LAB) is an applied research group and ideas incubator that aims to improve democracy and governance by changing practice around corruption, government accountability, and citizen voice. Our model combines behavioral political science, experimental social science, design thinking, and evaluation to iterate on governance solutions that support people’s ability to hold the government to account.&nbsp;</p> <p>We partner with in-country practitioners, including gov…

RES.21G-001 · Graduate · Fall 2020

<p>The User-friendly Classroom video training series was created specifically for teaching assistants for whom English is a second language and the USA a second culture by A.C. Kemp, a lecturer in MIT Global Languages.&nbsp; These videos focus on developing international teaching assistants’ strategies for successful, student-centered communication in the interactive American classroom. These videos demonstrate best practices through authentic examples of successful teaching scenarios, intervie…

RES.21G-01 · Undergraduate · Spring 2010

<p>Learning hiragana and katakana is an important part of reading and speaking Japanese. The following pages contain:</p> <p>Hiragana&nbsp;- stroke order videos, pronunciation, and vocabulary for each character; reading and listening audio exercises; handouts on how to construct words and sentences; interactive quizzes testing character recognition; and printable worksheets to practice writing characters.</p> <p>Katakana&nbsp;- pronunciation and vocabulary for each character; reading and listen…

RES.21G-003 · Undergraduate · Spring 2011

This online textbook represents materials that were used in the first four semesters (two years) of the Mandarin program at MIT. They eventually formed the basis of a print textbook of the same name, published by Yale University Press. The OCW course materials were extensively revised, and at times reordered, before publication, but the general principles of the original remain: to provide a comprehensive resource for the foundation levels of the Chinese language that separates the learning of …

RES.21G-108 · Undergraduate · Spring 2024

This is the student project for the Spring 2024 MIT course&nbsp;<em>21G.108 Chinese II (Streamlined)</em>. In the project, Chinese heritage language students explore various topics, including the meaning of their Chinese names. Based on their discoveries, each student creates an online book.

RES.21G-505 · Undergraduate · Spring 2022

This resource aims to enhance students’ learning of kanji by providing a series of video lectures that cover the kanji characters in Tobira lessons 1–5. The video lectures not only teach how to write kanji but also provide stories behind the kanji characters.

RES.21G-506 · Undergraduate · Spring 2021

This resource aims to enhance students’ learning of kanji by providing a series of video lectures that cover the kanji characters in Tobira lessons 6–10. The video lectures not only teach how to write kanji but also provide stories behind the kanji characters.

RES.21G-601 · Non-Credit · Fall 2021

<p>This open-access conversation exchange site offers topics and conversation tasks for students learning Russian and English. The goal of this pilot project is to support exchanges between students in English-speaking and Russian-speaking countries.&nbsp;</p> <p>The conversation topics included are aligned with common college-level Russian language curricula, grouped by levels defined by ACTFL proficiency standards, and utilize OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview) practices. Topics include vocabul…

RES.21G-3001 · Non-Credit · Fall 2023

<p>This website has been designed to offer strategies for teaching this seminal work to intermediate-level college students in a way that is dynamic, engaging, and perhaps most importantly highlights the connection between Madame de Lafayette’s seventeenth-century work <em>La Princesse de Clèves</em> and the contemporary social concerns of young people in today’s world.&nbsp;</p> <p>There was a recent heated debate in France about the modern relevance of this literary text that began when Nicol…

RES.21G-3002 · Non-Credit · Fall 2023

<p>This site is designed for scholars and students interested in exploring Marguerite de Navarre’s <em>Heptaméron</em> to help delve more deeply into this compelling writer and her texts. Resources are compiled on the site to allow easy access to information about Marguerite’s writings and her substantial&nbsp;influence in&nbsp;debates about religion and women in sixteenth-century France; these include extensive biographies, summaries, full texts, images and media, teaching resources, films, an…

RES.21G-3003 · Non-Credit · Fall 2023

<p>This website is designed to introduce students to Marguerite de Roberval and the sixteenth-century texts she inspired. The site includes extensive bibliographies, teaching ideas, lists of modern and Renaissance versions of her story, information about Captain Roberval and his company, early exploration of Canada, images, and other media.</p> <p>The Marguerite de Roberval website is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA) International license…

RES.21G-3004 · Non-Credit · Fall 2023

<p>Recent decades have seen a sharp increase in critical interest in Marguerite de Navarre and her work. This society website is dedicated to the study of Marguerite, her network, and her historical and cultural influence. The main goals are to facilitate scholarly exchange, to encourage collaboration, and to make digital resources available to the wider community. The society seeks to bring together the multiple lines of inquiry which inspire our understanding and appreciation of Marguerite, a…

RES.21H-001 · Undergraduate · Spring 2021

<p>This course shows the emergence of modern Tokyo through artist renderings of its neighborhoods, daily life and nightlife, nested between its recurring destruction by natural disasters and war. Students will learn about the tradition of the “100 views,” and through these composite depictions of the city, will witness the excitement and loss of change. Kiyochika Kobayashi’s woodblock prints of Tokyo in the late 1870s convey a moody view on the cusp of change as the new capital, formerly Edo, b…

RES.21M-001 · Non-Credit · January IAP 2025

<p>This is not a metallurgy class! Learn everything you ever wanted to know about heavy metal music. Topics of this video lecture series include musicology, history, metal culture, music theory, songwriting tropes, harsh vocal techniques, extreme metal, tech-based instruments, and how the genre tackles some of today’s biggest sociopolitical challenges. You’ll find out why metal bands exist in every country on Earth, and why you’re probably already a metalhead without even knowing it. This cours…

RES.21W-01 · Non-Credit · Fall 2015

<p><em>Angles</em> is an annual online magazine of exemplary writing by MIT students. All of the works published in <em>Angles</em> since its first edition in 2008 were written by students in the introductory writing courses. These courses, designated as CI-HW (Communications-Intensive Humanities Writing) subjects, bring together students who love to write, students who struggle with writing, students who thrive in seminar-style classes, and students who just want a chance to develop their Engl…

RES.24-002 · Non-Credit · Spring 2023

<p>The mission of the MIT-Haiti Initiative is to promote active learning in Kreyòl so that Haitians can have universal access to quality education in the language that most of them speak at home.&nbsp;</p> <p>Platfòm MIT-Ayiti, launched in 2019,&nbsp;offers a wealth of freely accessible educational resources in Kreyòl, including downloadable lesson plans and picture books categorized by topic, alongside official curricula from Haiti’s Ministry of National Education. The target audience for thes…

RES.CMS-001 · Non-Credit · Spring 2021

<p>Media Literacy in the Age of Deepfakes aims to equip students with the critical skills to better understand the past and contemporary threat of misinformation. Students will learn about different ways to analyze emerging forms of misinformation such as “deepfake” videos as well as how new technologies can be used to create a more just and equitable society. This module consists of three interconnected sections. We begin by defining and contextualizing some key terms related to misinformation…

RES.CMS-154 · Non-Credit · Spring 2019

<p>Every great teacher and every great school constantly work towards creating better learning conditions for students. Just as we hope our students become lifelong learners, we as educators should be constantly learning and improving. This education course is for school leaders of all kinds (from teacher-leaders to principals to superintendents) who are launching innovation in schools—starting new efforts to work together to improve teaching and learning.</p> <p>You will complete a cycle of st…

RES.CMS-155 · Non-Credit · Spring 2019

<p>How do we prepare K-12 students and learning communities to be as successful as possible? If future jobs require creativity, problem-solving, and communication, how do we teach these skills in meaningful ways? How do we bring together passionate school leaders to create systemic solutions to educational challenges? Come explore these questions and more in Design Thinking for Leading and Learning.</p> <p>The course is organized into three sections that combine design thinking content with rea…

RES.CMS-501 · Non-Credit · Spring 2020

<p>Communities have always wrestled with the multiple purposes of education: to train young people for careers, vocations, and college; to prepare them for their roles as citizens; to develop habits of reflective, ethical adults; and to create a common experience in a pluralistic society while meeting the needs of individual learners. As the world changes and grows more complex, returning to these important questions of purpose can help guide schools in their growth and strategic change.</p> <p…

RES.CMS-502 · Non-Credit · Spring 2020

<p>This course will help you develop an understanding of the characteristic elements of competency-based education (CBE) and how schools are implementing it. You will learn about CBE’s potential for closing opportunity gaps, as well as challenges and concerns. You will get a closer look at what the implementation of CBE looks and feels like for students, teachers, administrators, families, and community members. You will consider the kinds of system-wide shifts necessary to support this innovat…

RES.CMS-503 · Non-Credit · Spring 2020

<p>Every day, teachers make thousands of decisions: what content to teach, what activities to assign, who to call on, how to respond to a student question, how to react to student behavior. These day-to-day decisions can have an enormous effect on the lives of young people, for good and ill. They can open new doors or cause lasting harm; they can make students feel seen and valued, or dampen their interest in school. In this course, we will investigate these interactions, rehearse responding to…

RES.CMS-504 · Non-Credit · Spring 2021

<p>With educators from around the world and faculty from MIT and Stanford University, you will learn quick and effective practices for evaluating online information that you can bring back to your classroom. The Stanford History Education Group has distilled these practices from observations with professional fact-checkers from the nation’s most prestigious media outlets from across the political spectrum. Using a combination of readings, classroom practice lessons, and assignments, you will le…

RES.ES-001 · Undergraduate · January IAP 2021

The MIT Prison Education Initiative (PEI) hosted this non-credit January IAP course to give the MIT community an opportunity to engage in discussions about mass incarceration and criminal justice reform. The Independent Activities Period (IAP) is a special four week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

RES.MAS-001 · Non-Credit · Spring 2022

RAISE&nbsp;(Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education) is a new MIT-wide initiative headquartered in the&nbsp;MIT Media Lab&nbsp;and in collaboration with the&nbsp;MIT Schwarzman College of Computing&nbsp;and&nbsp;MIT Open Learning. MIT researchers continually develop&nbsp;curriculum modules and associated teaching materials&nbsp;that are available to all K-12 educators for free under a Creative Commons license.

RES.MAS-002 · Non-Credit · Spring 2022

<p>This resource is to support teachers and educators to run Day of AI activities in their classrooms through curriculum packages and teacher training, all of which is available at no cost to participants.</p> <p>Developed by leading faculty and educators from MIT RAISE, the curriculum features up to four hours of hands-on activities that engage kids in creative discovery, discussion, and play as they learn the fundamentals of AI, investigate the societal impact of these technologies, and bring…

RES.SP-001 · Undergraduate · Spring 2024

This course introduces the D.I.S. method to structure and define real-world problems. The D.I.S., which stands for “Describe, Inquire, State," is a domain-agnostic method for structuring (or defining) ill-structured problems.

RES.STS-001 · Non-Credit · Fall 2024

The MIT Project on Embodied Education aims to close the gap between the growing body of research on movement and the learning process and the pedagogical strategies that educators use, finding ways to integrate physical activity and academic instruction at all levels—for example, teaching elementary school math through yoga, middle school physics through martial arts, high school science through swimming, and college history through dance.

SP.248 · Undergraduate · Fall 2023

This subject gives first-year students a unique opportunity to explore the New Engineering Education Transformation (NEET) program while acquiring valuable problem-solving skills. It introduces students to the NEET Ways of Thinking, which are cognitive approaches for tackling complex challenges, valued by industry and for thriving in an uncertain and rapidly changing world. Student teams will engage in challenge-based learning in interdisciplinary engineering education via the NEET program thre…

SP.248 · Undergraduate · Fall 2025

SP.248 gives first-year students an opportunity to explore various interdisciplinary domains, or threads: autonomous machines, climate and sustainability systems, digital cities, and living machines, all of which are a part of the New Engineering Education Transformation (NEET) program. Students gain knowledge and skills in those domains through interactions with NEET faculty, instructors, and students, and exercise their algorithmic, creative, and systems thinking through team-based challenges…

STS.001 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This course will consider the ways in which technology, broadly defined, has contributed to the building of American society from colonial times to the present. This course has three primary goals: to train students to ask critical questions of both technology and the broader American culture of which it is a part; to provide an historical perspective with which to frame and address such questions; and to encourage students to be neither blind critics of new technologies, nor blind advocates fo…

STS.002 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course provides students with a broad historical and social-scientific introduction to a central aspect of modern economic life: Finance. By drawing upon a variety of disciplinary perspectives from the humanities and social sciences, the course offers a multi-dimentional picture of finance, not only as an economic phenomenon, but as a political, cultural, intellectual, material, and technological one. The course offers an introduction to foundational financial concepts and technologies, an…

STS.002 · Undergraduate · Fall 2003

This subject traces the evolution of ideas about nature, and how best to study and explain natural phenomena, beginning in ancient times and continuing through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. A central theme of the subject is the intertwining of conceptual and institutional relations within diverse areas of inquiry: cosmology, natural history, physics, mathematics, and medicine.

STS.003 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

This subject introduces the history of science from antiquity to the present. Students consider the impact of philosophy, art, magic, social structure, and folk knowledge on the development of what has come to be called “science” in the Western tradition, including those fields today designated as physics, biology, chemistry, medicine, astronomy and the mind sciences. Topics include concepts of matter, nature, motion, body, heavens, and mind as these have been shaped over the course of history.…

STS.004 · Undergraduate · Fall 2013

This class is an introduction to studies in science, technology, and society (STS), through examining a series of issues, events, conflicts, and problems as illuminated by STS approaches. This iteration includes units on the Aaron Swartz case, photography, and utopia / dystopia. There are regular guest speakers, and several field trips to encourage hands on learning.

STS.005 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course examines the growing importance of medicine in culture, economics and politics. It uses an historical approach to examine the changing patterns of disease, the causes of morbidity and mortality, the evolution of medical theory and practice, the development of hospitals and the medical profession, the rise of the biomedical research industry, and the ethics of health care in America.

STS.007 · Undergraduate · Fall 2010

<p>Today many people assume that technological change is the major factor in historical change and that it tends to lead to historical progress. This class turns these assumptions into a question—what is the role of technology in history?—by focusing on four key historical transitions: the human revolution (the emergence of humans as a history-making species), the Neolithic Revolution (the emergence of agriculture-based civilizations); the great leap in productivity (also known as the industria…

STS.009 · Undergraduate · Spring 2012

This course provides a broad conceptual and historical introduction to scientific theories of evolution and their place in the wider culture. It embraces historical, scientific and anthropological/cultural perspectives grounded in relevant developments in the biological sciences since 1800 that are largely responsible for the development of the modern theory of evolution by natural selection. Students read key texts, analyze key debates (e.g. Darwinian debates in the 19th century, and the creat…

STS.010 · Undergraduate · Spring 2010

This course explores the social relevance of neuroscience, considering how emerging areas of brain research at once reflect and reshape social attitudes and agendas. Topics include brain imaging and popular media; neuroscience of empathy, trust, and moral reasoning; new fields of neuroeconomics and neuromarketing; ethical implications of neurotechnologies such as cognitive enhancement pharmaceuticals; neuroscience in the courtroom; and neuroscientific recasting of social problems such as addict…

STS.011 · Undergraduate · Fall 2007

We will explore the changing political choices and ethical dilemmas of American scientists from the atomic scientists of World War II to biologists in the present wrestling with the questions raised by cloning and other biotechnologies. As well as asking how we would behave if confronted with the same choices, we will try to understand the choices scientists have made by seeing them in their historical and political contexts. Some of the topics covered include: the original development of nucle…

STS.014 · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This course helps in developing skills as science communicators through projects and analysis of theoretical principles. Case studies explore the emergence of popular science communication over the past two centuries and consider the relationships among authors, audiences and media. Project topics are identified early in the term and students work with MIT Museum staff. Projects may include physical exhibits, practical demonstrations, or scripts for public programs.

STS.025J · Undergraduate · Fall 2009

This class is a global survey of the great transformation in history known as the “Industrial Revolution.” Topics include origins of mechanized production, the factory system, steam propulsion, electrification, mass communications, mass production and automation. Emphasis on the transfer of technology and its many adaptations around the world. Countries treated include Great Britain, France, Germany, the US, Sweden, Russia, Japan, China, and India. Includes brief reflection papers and a final p…

STS.032 · Undergraduate · Spring 2018

With increasing public awareness of the multiple effects of global environmental change, the terms water, energy, and food crisis have become widely used in scientific and political debates on sustainable development and environmental policy. Although each of these crises has distinct drivers and consequences, providing sustainable supplies of water, energy, and food are deeply interrelated challenges and require a profound understanding of the political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors tha…

STS.034 · Undergraduate · Fall 2011

This class develops the abilities of students to communicate science effectively in a variety of real-world contexts. It covers strategies for dealing with complex areas like theoretical physics, genomics and neuroscience, and addresses challenges in communicating about topics such as climate change and evolution. Projects focus on speaking and writing, being an expert witness, preparing briefings for policy-makers, writing blogs, and giving live interviews for broadcast, as well as the creatio…

STS.035 · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This course focuses on one particular aspect of the history of computing: the use of the computer as a scientific instrument. The electronic digital computer was invented to do science, and its applications range from physics to mathematics to biology to the humanities. What has been the impact of computing on the practice of science? Is the computer different from other scientific instruments? Is computer simulation a valid form of scientific experiment? Can computer models be viewed as surrog…

STS.036 · Undergraduate · Spring 2008

<p>This course considers how the visual and material world of “nature” has been reshaped by industrial practices, ideologies, and institutions, particularly in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. Topics include land-use patterns; the changing shape of cities and farms; the redesign of water systems; the construction of roads, dams, bridges, irrigation systems; the creation of national parks; ideas about wilderness; and the role of nature in an industrial world. From small farms to suburb…

STS.038 · Undergraduate · Fall 2006

A survey of how America has become the world’s largest consumer of energy. Explores American history from the perspective of energy and its relationship to politics, diplomacy, the economy, science and technology, labor, culture, and the environment. Topics include muscle and water power in early America, coal and the Industrial Revolution, electrification, energy consumption in the home, oil and U.S. foreign policy, automobiles and suburbanization, nuclear power, OPEC and the 70’s energy crisi…

STS.049J · Undergraduate · Spring 2004

This course centers on the changing relationships between men, women, and technology in American history. Topics include theories of gender, technologies of production and consumption, the gendering of public and private space, men’s and women’s roles in science and technology, the effects of industrialization on sexual divisions of labor, gender and identity at home and at work.

STS.050 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

<p>To study MIT is to study the modern world. In 2016, MIT celebrated the 100^th anniversary of the move from Boston to Cambridge; therefore, this course examines the history of the Institute through the lens of the history of science and technology, and vice-versa. It is about discovery, exploration, adventure, learning, creative thinking, and the synthesis of big ideas. Additionally, this course is about the importance of the research university, what it has been in the past and wha…

STS.050 · Undergraduate · Spring 2011

This course examines the history of MIT through the lens of the broader history of science and technology, and vice versa. The course covers the founding of MIT in 1861 and goes through the present, including such topics as William Barton Rogers, educational philosophy, biographies of MIT students and professors, intellectual and organizational development, the role of science, changing laboratories and practices, and MIT’s relationship with Boston, the federal government, and industry. Assignm…

STS.062J · Undergraduate · Spring 2006

This class examines the relationship between a number of mind-altering substances and cultural processes. We look at the relationship between drugs and such phenomena as poverty, religion, technology, inter-generational conflict, colonialism, and global capitalism. We read about the physiological and psychological effects of these substances – ranging from alcohol to LSD, cocaine and ecstasy – and ask why different societies prohibit and sanction different drugs. We examine the use of mind-alte…

STS.067 · Undergraduate · Spring 2005

This subject exposes students to a variety of visualization techniques so that they learn to understand the work involved in producing them and to critically assess the power and limits of each. Students concentrate on areas where visualizations are crucial for meaning making and data production. Drawing on scholarship in science and technology studies on visualization, critical art theory, and core discussions in science and engineering, students work through a series of case studies in order …

STS.069 · Undergraduate · Fall 2002

Aim is to analyze important current events for what they reveal about the nature and working of our technological world. Starting point is connection between technology and terrorism. Subject also explores how a human-built world can foster insecurity and danger, and how human beings respond. Many invited guests help develop a strong interdisciplinary approach (science, engineering, social science, humanities). Topics include technological risk and remediation, sociotechnical systems, imaginati…

STS.080 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course places contemporary youth activities in perspective by surveying young American’s political participation over the past 200 years. Each week, students will look at trends in youth political activism during a specific historical period, as well as what difference—if any—youth media production and technology use (radio, music, automobiles, ready-made clothing) made in determining the course of events. A central theme in accounts of political participation by those who have not yet rea…

STS.081 · Undergraduate · Spring 2017

This course focuses on science and technology policy—it will examine the science and technology innovation system, including case studies on energy, computing, advanced manufacturing, and health sectors, with an emphasis on public policy and the federal government’s role in that system.

STS.089 · Undergraduate · Fall 2014

What do technology and innovation mean from Africa? This is the central question of this course, which tackles a double absence: Of the meanings and role of technology in African history, on the one hand, and of Africa’s place in the global history of technology, on the other. This course alternates between technologies from outside and technologies from within Africa and their itineraries in everyday life, and it is designed to provide students with grounded understandings of technology in Afr…

STS.310 · Graduate · Fall 2015

This course offers an introduction to the history and historiography of science from ancient Greece to the present. It is designed to serve as an introduction for those who have no prior background in the field and to deepen the knowledge of those who already do. We will consider how the history of science has responded to its encounters with philosophy, sociology, economics, and anthropology. Our readings and discussions will focus on determining what makes particular works effective, understa…

STS.330 · Graduate · Spring 2013

This course explores recent historical and anthropological approaches to the study of medicine and biology. Topics might include interaction of disease and society; science, colonialism, and international health; impact of new technologies on medicine and the life sciences; neuroscience and psychiatry; race, biology and medicine. Specific emphasis varies from year to year.

STS.350 · Graduate · Spring 2004

<p>This course surveys canonical and recent theories and methods in science studies. We will organize our discussions around the concept of “reproduction,” referring variously to:</p> <ol> <li>Scientific reproduction (how results are replicated in lab, field, disciplinary contexts)</li> <li>Social reproduction (how social knowledge and relations are regenerated over time)</li> <li>Biological reproduction (how organic substance is managed in the genetic age)</li> <li>Electronic reproduction (how…

STS.360 · Graduate · Spring 2003

This course is a practicum-style seminar in anthropological methods of ethnographic fieldwork and writing. Depending on student experience in ethnographic reading and practice, the course is a mix of reading anthropological and science studies ethnographies; and formulating and pursuing ethnographic work in local labs, companies, or other sites.

STS.427 · Graduate · Spring 2015

Using the American Civil War as a baseline, the course considers what it means to become “modern” by exploring the war’s material and manpower needs, associated key technologies, and how both influenced the United States’ entrance into the age of “Big Business.” Readings include material on steam transportation, telegraphic communications, arms production, naval innovation, food processing, medicine, public health, management methods, and the mass production of everything from underwear to unif…

STS.428 · Graduate · Fall 2004

This course considers the historical dimensions of rural production from subsistence to industrialization, both in America and in an international context, with an emphasis on the role of science and technology. Topics include changing notions of progress; emergence of genetics and its complex applications to food production; mechanization of both farm practices and the food industry; role of migrant labor; management theory and its impact on farm practice; role of federal governments and NGOs …

STS.429 · Graduate · Spring 2005

In this class, food serves as both the subject and the object of historical analysis. As a subject, food has been transformed over the last 100 years, largely as a result of ever more elaborate scientific and technological innovations. From a need to preserve surplus foods for leaner times grew an elaborate array of techniques – drying, freezing, canning, salting, etc – that changed not only what people ate, but how far they could/had to travel, the space in which they lived, their relations wi…

STS.436 · Graduate · Fall 2008

This seminar examines the history and legacy of the Cold War on American science. It explores scientist’s new political roles after World War II, ranging from elite policy makers in the nuclear age to victims of domestic anti Communism. It also examines the changing institutions in which the physical sciences and social sciences were conducted during the postwar decades, investigating possible epistemic effects on forms of knowledge. The subject closes by considering the place of science in the…

STS.460 · Graduate · Spring 2015

The histories of information, communication, and computing technologies have attracted attention from scholars across a variety of disciplines. This course introduces students to prominent voices in these topics across fields. Alongside readings introducing students to this broad scholarly terrain, the course offers guidance in research and writing for publication based on the reality that PhD candidates on the job market need to be published authors, and that every term paper has the potential…

STS.462 · Graduate · Spring 2006

This course is a graduate reading seminar, in which historical and contemporary studies are used to explore the interaction of technology with social and political values. Emphasis is on how technological devices, structures, and systems influence the organization of society and the behavior of its members. Examples are drawn from the technologies of war, transportation, communication, production, and reproduction.

STS.464 · Graduate · Spring 2005

<p>The subject of this course is the historical process by which the meaning of “technology” has been constructed. Although the word itself is traceable to the ancient Greek root <em>teckhne</em> (meaning art), it did not enter the English language until the 17th century, and did not acquire its current meaning until after World War I. The aim of the course, then, is to explore various sectors of industrializing 19th and 20th century Western society and culture with a view to explaining and ass…

STS.464 · Graduate · Spring 2008

<p>Our linked subjects are (1) the historical process by which the meaning of <em>technology</em> has been constructed, and (2) the concurrent transformation of the environment. To explain the emergence of <em>technology</em> as a pivotal word (and concept) in contemporary public discourse, we will examine responses — chiefly political and literary — to the development of the mechanic arts, and to the linked social, cultural, and ecological transformation of 19th- and 20th-century American soci…

STS.467 · Graduate · Spring 2002

STS.467 examines the intellectual foundations of archaeology in the deep sea. The course explores the current convergence of oceanography, archaeology, and engineering which allows scientists to discover, survey, and excavate shipwrecks in deep water with robots and submarines. The course seeks to address the following questions: How are new devices best employed for archaeological work? How do new capabilities (e.g. higher frequencies, higher resolution, all digital data output) change operati…

STS.S28 · Undergraduate · Fall 2005

This course explores how and why Japan, a late-comer to modernization, emerged as an industrial power and the world’s second-richest nation, notwithstanding its recent difficulties. We are particularly concerned with the historical development of technology in Japan especially after 1945, giving particular attention to the interplays between business, ideology, technology, and culture. We will discuss key historical phenomena that symbolize modern Japan as a technological power in the world; sp…

WGS.101 · Undergraduate · Spring 2023

This course offers an introduction to women’s and gender studies, an interdisciplinary academic field that explores critical questions about the meaning of gender in society. The primary goal of this course is to familiarize students with key issues, questions, and debates in women’s and gender studies scholarship, both historical and contemporary. Gender scholarship critically analyzes themes of gendered performance and power in a range of social spheres, such as law, culture, work, education,…

WGS.109 · Undergraduate · Fall 2023

<p>This course explores theoretical issues and concerns underlying global feminisms, and their expression through diverse forms of feminist activism at the community, national, and transnational levels. A comparative perspective is used to examine the following questions: How are women’s issues understood and articulated in different contexts? What are the linkages between women’s multiple identities (class, race, caste, ethnicity, religion, location) and feminist activism? How do conflict, rel…

WGS.110J · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course offers an introduction to the history of gender, sex, and sexuality in the modern United States, from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. It begins with an overview of historical approaches to the field, emphasizing the changing nature of sexual and gender identities over time. The remainder of the course flows chronologically, tracing the expanding and contracting nature of attempts to control, construct, and contain sexual and gender identities,…

WGS.110J · Undergraduate · Spring 2024

This course provides an introduction to the history of gender, sex, and sexuality in the modern United States, from the end of the 19th century to the present. It surveys historical approaches to the field, emphasizing the changing nature of sexual and gender identities over time. It traces attempts to control, construct, and contain sexual and gender identities. In addition, it also examines the efforts of those who worked to resist, reject, and reform institutionalized heterosexuality and mai…

WGS.111 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course examines representations of race, class, gender, and sexual identity in the media, with a particular focus on new media and how digital technologies are transforming popular culture. We will be considering issues of authorship, spectatorship, (audience) and the ways in which various media content (film, television, print journalism, blogs, video, advertising) enables, facilitates, and challenges these social constructions in society.

WGS.115 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

This course considers a wide range of issues related to the contemporary and historical use of technology, the development of new technologies, and the cultural representation of technology, including the role women have played in the development of technology and the effect of technological change on the roles of women and ideas of gender. It discusses the social implications of technology and its understanding and deployment in different cultural contexts. It investigates the relationships be…

WGS.150 · Undergraduate · Spring 2015

The course will focus primarily on contemporary discourses concerning gender inequality. Most of the readings assigned will be recent articles published in U.S. and British media capturing the latest thinking and research on gender inequality in the workplace. The class will be highly interactive combining case studies, videos, debates, guest speakers, and in-class simulations.

WGS.151 · Undergraduate · Spring 2016

This course draws on different disciplines, conceptual frameworks, and methodological approaches to examine gender in relation to health, including public health practice, epidemiologic research, health policy, and clinical application. It discusses a variety of health-related issues that illustrate global, international, domestic, and historical perspectives, while considering other social determinants of health as well, including social class and race.

WGS.160J · Undergraduate · Fall 2019

<p>This subject examines the role scientists have played as activists in social movements in the U.S. following World War II. Themes include scientific responsibility and social justice, the roles of gender, race, and power, the motivation of individual scientists, strategies for organizing, and scientists’ impact within social movements. Case studies include atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons and the nuclear freeze campaign, climate science and environmental justice, the civil rights movem…

WGS.181 · Undergraduate · Fall 2017

This course analyzes mainstream, popular films produced in the post-World War II 20th century U.S. as cultural texts that shed light on ongoing historical struggles over gender identity and appropriate sexual behaviors. It traces the history of LGBTQ/queer film through the 20th and into the 21st century. It also examines the effect of the Hollywood Production Code and censorship of sexual themes and content, and the subsequent subversion of queer cultural production in embedded codes and metaph…

WGS.225J · Undergraduate · Spring 2023

This course examines the role of science and medicine in the origins and evolution of concepts of race, sex, and gender from the 17th century to the present. We analyze biological, medical, and anthropological studies and how they intersect with historical, social, political, and cultural ideas about racial, sexual, and gender differences. The course follows lecture/discussion format.

WGS.301J · Undergraduate · Fall 2023

This course analyzes theories of gender and politics, especially ideologies of gender and their construction; definitions of public and private spheres; and gender issues in citizenship, the development of the welfare state, experiences of war and revolution, class formation, and the politics of sexuality.

WGS.615 · Graduate · Fall 2012

<p>This course investigates theories and practices of feminist inquiry across a range of disciplines. Feminist research involves rethinking disciplinary assumptions and methodologies, developing new understandings of what counts as knowledge, seeking alternative ways of understanding the origins of problems/issues, formulating new ways of asking questions and redefining the relationship between subjects and objects of study.</p> <p>What makes research distinctively feminist lies in the complex …

WGS.640 · Graduate · Spring 2014

<p>Using film and related popular media as our texts, this course will examine how screen “embodiments” of the woman visualize ideologies of discipline and desire in a culture in which her body has become a representation of the ability to control appetites, size and shape while investing personal and social capital in its rehabilitation as a project of endless reconstruction, redesign and maintenance. Throughout the course we will draw from feminist film theory, clinical psychology, as well as…

WGS.640 · Graduate · Fall 2014

<p>This course explores how gender shaped the historical experiences and cultural productions in the North American West during the time it was being explored, settled, and imagined. The North American West of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provides a fascinating case study of the shifting meanings of gender, race, citizenship, and power in border societies. As the site of migration, settlement, and displacement, it spawned contests over land, labor disputes, inter-ethnic con…

WGS.640 · Graduate · Fall 2007

Is marriage a patriarchal institution? Much feminist scholarship has characterized it that way, but now in the context of the recent Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, the meaning of marriage itself demands serious re-examination. This course will discuss history, literature, film, and legal scholarship, making use of cross-cultural, sociological, anthropological, and many other theoretical approaches to the marriage question from 1630 to the present. As it turns out,…

WGS.645 · Graduate · Fall 2014

<p>In the course we will use a feminist interdisciplinary lens and invite students to look critically at how practices like privatization, shrinking public “safety nets”, de-regulation, and the commodification of health services intersect inevitably with gender, race and class, for both men and women. We will draw on a blend of empirical studies, policy materials, films and guest speakers to examine specific health issues like menstrual health, corporate obstetrics, abortion, obesity, intersex,…

WGS.645 · Graduate · Spring 2019

This course uses theories of gender to explore sociopolitical, ethical and theological perspectives on immigration policy, with a focus on the U.S. The course begins with an overview of global developments in the feminization of migration and ethical and policy dilemmas that are specific to the current era.

WGS.645 · Graduate · Fall 2005

This subject investigates the special relation of women to several musical folk traditions in the British Isles and North America. Throughout, we will be examining the implications of gender in the creation, transmission, and performance of music. Because virtually all societies operate to some extent on a gendered division of labor (and of expressive roles) the music of these societies is marked by the gendering of musical repertoires, traditions of instrumentation, performance settings, and s…

WGS.693 · Graduate · Spring 2009

<p>What can we learn about science and technology–and what can we do with that knowledge? Who are “we” in these questions?–whose knowledge and expertise gets made into public policy, new medicines, topics of cultural and political discourse, science education, and so on? How can expertise and lay knowledge about science and technology be reconciled in a democratic society? How can we make sense of the interactions of living and non-living, humans and non-humans, individual and collectivities in…

WGS.700 · Graduate · Spring 2017

<p>In this course, students will develop their abilities to expose ways that scientific knowledge has been shaped in contexts that are gendered, racialized, economically exploitative, and hetero-normative. This happens through a sequence of four projects that concern:</p> <ol> <li>Interpretation of the cultural dimension of sciences</li> <li>Climate change futures</li> <li>Genomic citizenry</li> <li>Students’ plans for ongoing practice</li> </ol> <p>The course uses a Project-Based Learning form…

WGS.S10 · Undergraduate · Spring 2010

This course will explore the rich diversity of women’s voices and experiences as reflected in writings and films by and about Latina writers, filmmakers, and artists. Through close readings, class discussions and independently researched student presentations related to each text, we will explore not only the unique, individual voice of the writer, but also the cultural, social and political contexts which inform their narratives. We will also examine the roles that gender, familial ties and so…

WGS.S10 · Undergraduate · Spring 2021

Black feminist health science studies is a critical intervention into a number of intersecting arenas of scholarship and activism, including feminist health studies, contemporary medical curriculum reform conversations, and feminist technoscience studies. We argue towards a theory of Black feminist health science studies that builds on social justice science, which has as its focus the health and well-being of marginalized groups. Students will engage feminist science theories such as the lingu…

WGS.S10 · Undergraduate · Spring 2013

In this seminar, we will explore the significance of struggles over reproductive rights in the United States. Throughout the course, we will ask such questions as: What is reproductive freedom and why has attaining it been so central to women’s liberation movements? Why have attempts to regulate reproduction been so prevalent in American politics?

WGS.S10 · Undergraduate · Spring 2014

This course will provide students with an analytic framework to understand the roles that gender, race, and class play in defining and determining access to leadership and power in the U.S., especially in the context of the workplace. We will explore women and men in leadership positions within the corporate, political and non-profit sectors, with attention to the roles of women of color and immigrant women within this context. We will also look at specific policies such as affirmative action, …

WGS.S10 · Undergraduate · Fall 2017

This course provides a basic overview of the history of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Students will learn about specific contributions of women across a variety of disciplines and will gain a broad perspective on how these contributions played a larger role in the advancement of human knowledge and technological achievement. The class will also grapple with how both historic and modern biases within the STEM disciplines, as well as in representations of wome…