Global Arc

The course will teach core principles of the life sciences through a set of key questions that biologists have sought to answer over the past 200 years. We will read historic scientific publications, discussing the basic biology at stake as well as what enabled each scientist to see something new. In addition, we will schedule several hands-on sessions with relevant materials. By situating key findings in their place and time we show how science is an inquiry-based, concrete, and ongoing activity, rather than codified and unchanging knowledge. Topics include cell theory, evolution, experimental embryology, genetics, and molecular development.

STC 309, also known as "Creative Kitchen," is a forum for students to explore and intensively workshop an idea for an independent, creative, technology-related project through serious play. Serious play refers to an array of playful inquiry and innovation methods that serve as methods for problem-solving, creation, and exploration. Serious play methods include, but are not limited to: improv theater, low-fidelity rapid prototyping, gamification, and audience engagement. In this course we will question the presentation of narrative, discover how to use methods of serious play in order to explore ideas, and examine projects in storytelling.

This course will teach STEM & non-STEM majors how to write about research in STEM fields with clarity and a bit of flair. Goal will be to learn to convey technical topics to non-experts in a compelling, enjoyable way while staying true to the underlying facts, context and concepts. We'll do this through readings, class discussion, encounters with professional writers and journalists of all sorts, across several different media. Most important of all, students will practice what they learn in frequent writing assignments that will be critiqued extensively by an experienced science journalist.

This seminar will examine the relationship between health and human rights. It will provide an overview of human rights violations in the world today and an analysis of their health consequences. The course will consider how individual and community health can be improved by protecting and promoting human rights. It will also evaluate the role of health professionals in caring for victims of human rights abuses, documenting the health consequences of human rights violations, and participating in human rights advocacy and education. One three-hour seminar.

We will begin in 476 with the fall of Rome and will end in 1453, with the fall of New Rome (Constantinople). In between, we will trace the different trajectories that the area stretching from Iceland to Iran traveled along over the course of this fateful millennium. We will meet Northern barbarians, Arab armies, Vikings, Crusaders, Mongols, and the Ottomans; we will witness the birth of Islam and medieval Islamic civilization; Charlemagne's creation of the Western Roman empire; will see clashes between Popes and rulers and Caliphs and Muslim religious authorities. We will do all this and more, all the while asking: what were the Middle Ages?

A survey of the most important Neoplatonic philosophers and Christian writers of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages influenced by Neoplatonism, up to the late 13th century; the emphasis is very much on the reception of Plato's dialogue Timaeus, more specifically on the creation of the world.

An intensive seminar devoted to a particular aspect of European medieval life and culture. Topics change yearly. One three-hour seminar.

In this introductory course we will make six field trips to view live dance in a variety of NYC performance venues. Students will develop the ability to articulate their experiences as viewers starting in a thoughtful and active engagement with the dance works then in a discussion and writing while analyzing the form, content and contexts of the works in a group setting. We will study the historical, cultural, social and interdisciplinary contexts of contemporary dance forms. Guest writers and scholars will visit the class to reflect on diverse approaches to dance criticism and analysis and their role in the current cultural landscape.

This studio course will introduce students to choreographic processes and questions of movement vocabulary, structure, pacing, orchestration and meaning. Through completing a number of short dances and a substantial final project, the class will explore choreographic forms and innovations found in contemporary dance. Readings and viewings work in tandem with students' dance-making to fuel debate and analysis of today's choreographic work and the power of movement to engage in current artistic and political issues.

The writer Annie Dillard says that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. College is a unique time to question how we spend those days and develop tools for lifelong independent learning, creating, exploring, and centering. We will look at practice as both verb and noun, pay special attention to the ways in which we embody the work (and change) we want to see in the world. Through somatic activities, talks with invited guests, projects, and readings (across the arts, sciences, philosophy, religion, and activism), we'll revel in the interplay between process and product, solitude and community, structure and freedom, life and art.