PrintFeatured Courses
Here's a sampling of the diverse and topical courses offered by LPS for Fall 2013.
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Popular accounts frequently depict our human past as shrouded in mystery and the occult. Indeed, discussions in popular media of ancient societies are replete with references to aliens, magic, and lost continents. In this course, we will examine some of the most popular and... |
Modern American and European societies clearly distinguish the fine arts from all other forms of human production. Works of art are viewed as imbued with metaphysical or transcendental meanings; they are placed in the pristine spaces of museums and galleries where they are venerated and... |
Introduction to the structure and function of the vertebrate nervous system. We begin with the cellular basis of neuronal activities, then discuss the physiological bases of motor control, sensory systems, motivated behaviors, and higher mental processes. This course is intended for students... |
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This course will look at the screenplay as both a literary text and a blue print for production. Several classic screenplay texts will be critically analyzed (Rebel Without a Cause, Doctor Strangelove, Psycho, etc.) Students will then embark on writing their own scripts. We... |
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, The Dark Knight Rises, and David Cronenburg’s Cosmopolis: all Hollywood films made in the last three years, and all about money. America’s love affair with telling stories about money has a long and fascinating tradition. Looking at a number... |
This course provides a rigorous introduction to the academic study of Japanese popular culture. Through careful attention to forms of popular culture such as anime (animated films or television shows), manga (comic books), TV dramas, short stories, popular music, fashion and contemporary art,... |
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The oceans cover over 2/3 of the Earth's surface. This course introduces basic oceanographic concepts such as plate tectonics, marine sediments, physical and chemical properties of seawater, ocean circulation, air-sea interactions, waves, tides, nutrient cycles in the ocean, biology of the... |
This course surveys the history of Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire (ca. 500 C.E.) until the beginning of the early modern period (ca. 1500 C.E.). Throughout the course we will consider the changing boundaries and centers of the European world, and the growth of structures that created a... |
Concerned about global warming, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, pandemics and the global economic crisis and want to know what governments, non-governmental organizations and intergovernmental organizations are doing to address these transnational issue? Global Think Tanks, Policy... |
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This course is designed to explore the rationale, implementation and long-term consequences of American foreign policy in South Asia, with a focus on the post-Cold War period. Starting from the partition of the British Indian Empire in 1947, we will describe how U.S. Cold War regional strategy... |
A general introduction to the nature, history and use of human language, speech and writing. Topics include the biological basis of human language, and analogous systems in other creatures; relations to cognition, communication, and social organization; sounds, forms and meanings in the world as... |
In this course, we will read and analyze some of the centrally important works of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy. Our readings will include writings from Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Kant. We shall focus on metaphysics (the fundamental nature of reality) and epistemology (theory... |
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Transportation affects every aspect of American society, from how we get to work or school, to how we shop and play. Transportation policy at all levels of American government has serious implications for social justice and economic development. Moreover, some of today's most intense political... |
Media has always been social. In this course we will study the production networks responsible for great works of literature from the first folio of Shakespeare’s works to the present day. While our class will focus on Shakespeare’s works we will approach Shakespeare through literary studies,... |
This seminar will examine the relationship between bravura brushstrokes, idiosyncratic style, artistic identity, and the rise of formalism in the modern era. Taking cues from the collection of the Barnes Foundation and Albert Barnes’ theories, we will begin in the Renaissance and consider the... |
