Global Arc

Through literature, film, music, and archive, we will explore how race, as a form of human hierarchization, shaped and connected the history, cultures, and social realities of Brazil, Portuguese-Speaking Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, among others), and Portugal. We will examine how racial discourses changed throughout time and operate today in those spaces through key historical moments and topics such as slavery, colonization, race-mixing, fascism, military dictatorship, decolonization, migration, contemporary urban life, Indigenous thought, and Afro-futurism. Readings and discussions will be entirely in English.

This course offers a close listening to some of the most important Brazilian songs. Each class will be dedicated to one or more artists (composers and interpreters) offering an in-depth study of their songs and styles. Samba, Bossa Nova, Tropicália, and other movements will be studied through listening and lyrics training, and a weekly writing blog in Portuguese. Each student will build a repertoire of favorite songs to be presented in a final collective podcast.

This course will examine the role played by spatial forms and representations, topographies, landscapes, and urban cities in Luso-Brazilian poetry. The Lisbon of Fernando Pessoa, the landscapes of Recife, Sevilha in the poems of João Cabral de Melo Neto, and the modernity of Brasilia as conceived by the Concrete avant-garde will be the main focus of analysis. The course will be taught in Portuguese, but translations of the texts in English and Spanish will be available.

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.

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.

Survey of different types of psychological disorders and different models of explanation. Students will come to understand the conflicting viewpoints and treatment approaches that characterize the clinical field, and will understand what is presently known and unknown about psychopathology. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A survey of brain and mind, emphasizing issues related to human behavior. Topics include: psychoactive drugs, aging and Alzheimer's disease, reengineering the brain, learning and memory, sleep-waking and biological rhythms, and major mental diseases. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

An exploration of original texts in the history of ideas about the workings of the human mind starting in Antiquity and leading to the development of the empirical discipline of psychology in the 19th century and some of its modern trends. Subsequent developments, including the child study movement, are explored though 20th-century writings, culminating with Sartre's philosophical psychology and sources in Eastern thought to put the Western trajectory in perspective. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Science searches for patterns in data. Quantitative methods are tools for finding and evaluating these patterns. This course introduces foundational concepts in quantitative methods, including data visualization and common statistical tests used in psychological research. Two lectures, one preceptorial.