Global Arc

Surveying key moments from the 19th century to the present, this course tracks how networked communications, numerical calculation, symbolic reasoning, and information processing converged to create contemporary information technologies. The course introduces students to the major kinds of historical inquiry-philosophical, engineering, labor, material, social, gender, legal, and cultural-needed for studying information technologies in the last 150 years. Topics include Silicon Valley, software engineering, PCs, hacking, artificial intelligence, information, cryptography, outsourcing, privacy, information warfare, social networks, surveillance

A course intended as an introduction to the general problem of historical consciousness. How has the past been conceived in different times and places? How has knowledge of the past been sought, expressed, and conveyed? How does the past remain "present" - practically, politically, psychologically? What are the implications (existential, ethical, epistemic) of our being historical creatures? By means of readings in disciplinary history, creative literature, and philosophy, and through select encounters with works of visual art and film, this class will investigate the history (and diversity) of historical reflection.

The course aims to help students think critically about the ethical and social aspects of computing technology. Topics include ethical foundations; political economy of the tech industry; algorithmic fairness; AI and labor; AI safety; AI and climate; social media and platform power; information security; privacy; values in design; research ethics; professional ethics; technology and social good; digital colonialism; law & policy. Activities will include readings, technical work, and case studies of contemporary debates.

This course is a performance lab that examines speech as an aspect of fine art through the exploration of the literary canons of iconic American writer Toni Morrison and English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. Research assignments will explore writings found in the Princeton University Toni Morrison archive and Princeton University's copy of Shakespeare's first folio.

Bioethics was named in 1970. Its etymology, however, is from the ancient Greek. We will put ancient and modern conceptions of human flourishing in conversation by exploring how naturalizing medicine has historically shaped the nature of birth, death, and mind. What is at stake in invoking the Greeks when constructing the ethics of modern medicine? How can reading ancient Greek texts in context help us think critically and imaginatively about ethical challenges in medicine today? We will examine how the formation of a medical tradition around the physical body creates persistent practical and philosophical questions in the clinic and beyond.

We begin with a body and spend our lives representing, indexing, performing, expressing, camouflaging, revealing, adorning, contextualizing, and recontextualizing that body. This course will look at how artists have made work to intervene in this process. Alongside other aspects of visual culture, we will take protest as a key site of the political body that we will break down into voice, movement, text, and mass media. Studio work will explore strategies of representation through mixed media, drawing, painting, photography and performance. The course will include visiting artists and a museum or gallery visit.

The Haptic Lab is hands-on studio course in which haptic learning - both physical and virtual - will occur simultaneously. Four fast-paced, materially intensive assignments will be paired with equally intensive digital production. Students not only will engage in making artworks in both realms, but also engage in critical analysis of the dynamic relationship between the two. Materials may include ash wood, silicon rubber, soil, polystyrene, or a recipe for 2,000-year-old cement. Course work will be supported by visiting artists and scholars and accompanied by cognitive self-analysis in the form of weekly photo and journal documentation.

Poverty and inequality are increasing. In this class, a comparative approach will be applied that highlights country differences with a special emphasis on the US Israel comparison. In the first few weeks of this class, basic theories of poverty and inequality will be reviewed, and how theories regarding poverty have changed over the years will be discussed. In the remaining weeks, discussion will turn to substantive topics such as gender, immigration, ethnicity/nationality, age, and health.

This course will offer an in-depth exploration of multilateralism and its role in our world at a time of global change and transition. It will provide students with an understanding of how the shifting world order, the rise of new actors and power centers, and new forms of fragmentation in politics and geoeconomics are testing international relations in an unprecedented manner. Technologies such as artificial intelligence are set to profoundly shape diplomacy, politics, and culture. We will analyze these forces of change, studying how they are affecting each other and impacting global governance.

How have racial and ethnic inequalities in housing and neighborhood development become hallmarks of many U.S. cities? This course focuses on the complex topics of race and racism from a spatial perspective, paying particular attention to the effects of interlocking systems of oppression on primarily urban African-American communities. However, we will not just examine the built environment of such communities. People shape and are shaped by the places they physically occupy. We, therefore, also delve into the narratives and everyday experiences of racialized city dwellers through the social sciences, the humanities, and media.