Global Arc

Glass is so ubiquitous that we barely notice it. Yet, glass has far reaching applications in global communications, biomedical, and energy industries! Glass has also been a versatile media to create visually stunning art works. Few materials so brilliantly connect the artists and the scientists among us. The seminar introduces the material science, physical and chemical properties of glass that result in applications that impact culture, scientific discoveries, and technology. Through museum and artisan studio visits in Venice and hands-on glassblowing activities, we highlight how material properties connect to artistic characteristics.

How did Mesoamerican cultures of the Americas survive colonialism? How did they adopt European culture and writing systems? What were the linguistic and cultural barriers for both Indigenous peoples and Europeans in understanding each other? In this seminar, students dive into one of the most captivating ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica, the Aztecs, to reflect on their rich history and legacy from pre-Columbian to colonial times. Based on the analysis of chronicles, códices, illustrations, and contemporary texts students will be able to understand the Nahua culture of the Aztecs in the context of Spanish transatlantic expansion.

We use chemicals every day. We bathe in chemicals. We apply chemicals to our lawn. Chemicals are sprayed to control insects. While chemicals are an important part of modern life, these chemicals wind up in the environment and in our bodies. This seminar will examine how our use of chemicals drives our exposures and ultimately, where these chemicals wind up in the environment and what their impacts are. You will also be asked to evaluate how your perspective and experience influence your views on chemicals and the environment. Pollution impacts on communities and the topic of environmental justice will be explored.

Is 1980s America best remembered as the era of Ronald Reagan's social conservatism or Public Enemy's "Fight the Power?" By the rise of corporate greed, yuppie excess, and home entertainment, or by protest groups like ACT UP and grassroots efforts to save the ozone layer? In this Freshman Seminar, we'll explore the complexity of the 1980s by focusing on a range of works responding to the period's biggest moments. These will include novels like Toni Morrison's Beloved and Don DeLillo's White Noise; popular films like Blade Runner and Do the Right Thing; MTV music videos and arcade video games; and plays like Tony Kushner's Angels in America.

The end-blown shakuhachi is said to be a very difficult instrument, especially for total beginners. It doesn't have to be so, especially if we combine the 'old ways' of learning it, with some of the most advanced and effective pedagogical methods known today. Led by shakuhachi master Riley Lee, students will explore basic theories of knowledge, and what it means to 'know' a piece in the culture-specific shakuhachi tradition. By learning to perform a short traditional piece, on instruments provided, we will learn both how to learn and how to 'practice' (anything) effectively. A side benefit might be an improvement of one's working memory.

How did the targeting of civilian populations become a "normal" part of war? This seminar considers the cultural, scientific, and military developments that led to the massive bombing and starving of cities in World War II, culminating in the atomic attacks on Japan. These include Japanese and German bombing of cities (1930s), the German Blitz of London, and Allied firebombing of German and Japanese cities. We will debate whether bombing-including the A-bombs- was effective in winning wars? What role did racism play in targeting Japanese and other non-Western peoples? Can the bombing of cities--then or now--be justified if the cause is just?

Jerusalem is considered a holy city to three faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this course, students will learn the history of Jerusalem from its founding in pre-biblical times until the present. Over the course of the semester, we will ask: What makes space sacred and how does a city become holy? What has been at stake--religiously, theologically, politically, nationally--in the many battles over Jerusalem? What is the relationship between Jerusalem as it was and Jerusalem as it was and is imagined?

This seminar aims to explore the complex history of the fairy tale genre and to address the many critical questions it raises. Class materials will include the canonical texts by the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault but also many other, lesser-known versions, ranging from Ancient Rome to the Italian Renaissance and the French 18th century, as well as scholarly interpretations and artistic illustrations of these stories. The second half of the course will focus on the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and Oscar Wilde as well as contemporary Anglo-American retellings and adaptations.

Is social life even possible without some form of religion? But which form should that be? What is the purpose of a profession of faith? To understand why these questions still matter today, we need to go back to the source of the process called "secularization." In eighteenth-century Europe, Enlightenment philosophers relentlessly questioned the moral, social and historical aspects of one of the most common human phenomena. This course will explore the multiple notions they devised to apprehend it--faith, ritual, deism, atheism, fanaticism, superstition, and how these concepts may inform today's public debate.

For those who find human reason unequal to the task of understanding existence, religion has been the traditional place to go. In this course, we will examine a period in the Christian west when tragedy took on the burden of exploring doubts about who and what we are, and about how we are supposed to behave. Our texts will range from the Italian Renaissance to the Enlightenment. En route, we will consider tragedies by (amongst others) Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton, Racine, and Dryden. All texts not originally written in English will be read in translation.