Global Arc

Designed for students already fluent in Spanish, this course aims to introduce them to the Portuguese language and its literatures. Through intensive work with grammar and extensive reading, students will develop a reasonable competence in the language in just one semester. Using short stories, essays and sample texts drawn from various sources of the Portuguese-speaking world (mainly Brazil, Portugal and Portuguese-speaking Africa), they will learn to practice different styles in creative, argumentative, and analytical writings. During the second half of the course, special emphasis will be paid to literary texts, both in prose and poetry.

This seminar will focus on how intellectuals phantasize the uniqueness of Brazil and Latin America, and how they conceive the differences between "Iberoamerica" and the United States. The centuries-old Shakespearean geography in The Tempest will be studied, in order to situate, in the imagination of those intellectuals, Ariel, Caliban, and Prospero. The goal of this seminar is to understand how the North-American mirror works in shaping an alluring Latin American (Brazilian and Spanish American) "difference" that can be at once enchanting and deceptive.

This interdisciplinary seminar explores different writers' representations of urban experience, and how the evolution of cities has been shaped by writing. Issues to be approached will include the impact of technological developments and urban transformations on literary imaginaries and city life; the interface between literacy, orality and visual cultures; relationships between fiction, poetry, and social history; dichotomies between urban and natural; intersections between modernity, writing, and city planning.

Do plants think? Do forests have a language? Are our bodies separate from the environment? Are we substantially different from what we once called "nature"? Such questions have been emerging in philosophy and literature, bringing to light new forms of knowledge that are both integrative and holistic. This seminar will discuss the visual arts, literature and musical experiments produced by thinkers (Indigenous or otherwise) who can help us imagine a planet where, differently from our current world, we may still be able to survive.

This course examines the history, cultural production, and revolutionary thought of Portuguese-speaking Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe, during the liberation process broadly conceived, from the first expressions of nationalism in the late 1800s to the post-colonial challenges of today. By examining mainly literature and social thought, but also music, cinema, the press, diaries, letters, and pieces of legislation, among other objects, we will explore the imaginations of class, race, gender of revolutionary movements and moments of Portuguese-speaking Africa.

This course offers an audio-visual immersion into the musical culture and soundscapes of Brazil. How do political activism and a philosophy of life converge in the social arena as a musical form of communication? From contemporary Amerindian songs to the Afro rythms and spirituals of Capoeira and Candomblé; from the rituals of Congada in Minas Gerais to Repente and Carnival; from Samba to Bossa Nova to Tropicalia to Hip-Hop and their relation to literature and film. Students will study lyrics, watch films, and read critical analysis on music. Each student will build a repertoire of songs and texts to create a final sonic production.

This course will focus on Brazilian literature through the close reading of different genres, from fiction to poetry and essays. Each class will concentrate on a single text, with a close look at the way it was crafted and a discussion of the author's biography and historical moment. Through the study of 19th-century to contemporary authors, we will discuss how a canon can be re-signified when it takes in women, Black and Indigenous writers.

The study of human nature from the viewpoint of psychological science. Topics range from the biological bases of human perception, thought and action to the social-psychological determinants of individual and group behavior. This course can be used to satisfy the science and technology with laboratory general education requirement. Two lectures, one laboratory.

The study of human nature from the viewpoint of psychological science. Topics range from the biological bases of human perception, thought, and action to the social-psychological determinants of individual and group behavior. This course is intended for students who are considering psychology as a major. It can also serve as one of the two lab courses used to satisfy the natural science requirement.

The study of human nature from the viewpoint of psychological science. Topics range from the biological bases of human perception, thought and action to the social-psychological determinants of individual and group behavior. PSY 101b has a precept but no laboratory. IMPORTANT NOTE: This class does not fulfill the prerequisite for majoring in Psychology. Prospective majors must take PSY 101 (i.e., with lab).