Our Courses
Research Study Design and Writing
Instructor: Laura A. Guerra
Abstract:
Thinking analytically, and communicating ideas through written and oral communication are among the skills considered essential to succeeding in college and thriving long-term. In this three parts lecture series students will review the types of study designs and their strengths and weaknesses, learn how to apply an evidence checklist to write a critique of a research study, summarize findings in a research table, and present those findings orally to colleagues.
Bizarre Economics
Instructor: Nick Pellow
Abstract:
What does it mean to think like an economist—and how far can that thinking take you? In Bizarre Economics, learn about how basic microeconomic analysis can unlock mysteries all around us. What do teacher and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do fried chicken restaurants run out of chicken so often? Amazingly, formal and sometime boring economic analysis used by university researchers sheds amazing insight into these questions. After exploring several uncharted areas, we will practice applying economic thinking to our own bizarre daily lives.
Three Lectures on History and Economics
Instructor: Michael B. Wong
Abstract:
This series of lectures will focus on history and economics. The instructor will share his understanding on this topic through four aspects shows as follows.
· How cooking made us human -this part mainly discusses the invention of cooking
and its anatomical and social consequences. The instructor will also introduce some behavioral econ and psychology concepts (e.g. system 1 and system 2 thinking).
· How farming gave us government – this part discusses commonalities between agrarian societies around the world.
· How the industrial revolution created modernity - the Malthusian trap, the Enlightenment, urbanization, why the Industrial Revolution happened in England not China, the beginning of economic growth, the first wave of globalization, the Great Divergence
· How IT redistributed the world's wealth - the changing structure of trade, the global factory, the rise of China and the Great Convergence, labor market and political consequences in the developed world
The American Family and the Sitcom
Instructor: Charlie Bardey
Abstract:
Over the last half-century, the sitcom has endured as one of the most popular American—and global—forms of entertainment. While traditionally overlooked by scholars in favor of more vaunted “high” art forms, the sitcom as a form is rich in cultural data, embedded with the ideals, anxieties, and values of the socio-historical moment that produced them. Among all types of sitcoms, the “family” sitcom—sitcoms that follow one particular family—has endured since the sitcom first became popular in the 1950s, and as sitcoms have changed, so have the families they have featured. Sitcoms are therefore an ideal site to investigate the ways American families, and the way America conceives of its families, have changed. Classes will take the form of screenings and discussions, with particular emphasis placed on the practice of close-reading—that is, analyzing specific details of a scene in order to make the argument about it, much like one would with a piece of literature.
This course will engage with questions of family as they pertain to gender, race, sexuality, and age. It is organized by theme and idea, rather than strictly chronologically, to allow us to investigate how particular themes have changed over time. It will consider the relationship between the families we see onscreen, and our own families, and will consider what representations of family can tell us about American culture more broadly. Beyond American culture, though, this course will hopefully give you the tools to more critically examine the popular culture you consume in your own lives. Because this course lives in the discussions, participation is highly encouraged. Most of the material will be viewed in class, but there may be some optional out-of-class viewings and supplementary readings assigned as well.
Real Math, An Overview
Instructor: Milo Beckman
Abstract:
What do mathematicians actually study? They don't spend their time making multiplication tables or solving systems of equations. Those tools are useful in science
and economics, and that's why you learn about them in school. But that's all applied math, and this is a class about pure math. In pure math, we study abstract things called “mathematical objects” which follow certain rules and interact in interesting, patterned ways. Some examples of mathematical objects we'll be talking about this week are points, sets, and groups. We'll be exploring the ways in which simple mathematical objects create beautiful and complex structures. If this sounds complicated, don't worry: You don't need any background in math, at all, to take this class. These lessons are designed for anyone whose curious about the way the universe works, even if you are not interested in quantitative topics. If you're an artist, or a historian, or a musician, this class will give you a taste of what advanced math is really like, and will hopefully give you a new way of thinking about the world and the patterns in it.
Related Book:
Math Without Numbers
An illustrated tour of the structures and patterns we call "math"
The only numbers in this book are the page numbers.
Math Without Numbers is a vivid, conversational, and wholly original guide to the three main branches of abstract math—topology, analysis, and algebra—which turn out to be surprisingly easy to grasp. This book upends the conventional approach to math, inviting you to think creatively about shape and dimension, the infinite and infinitesimal, symmetries, proofs, and how these concepts all fit together. What awaits readers is a freewheeling tour of the inimitable joys and unsolved mysteries of this curiously powerful subject.
Like the classic math allegory Flatland, first published over a century ago, or Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach forty years ago, there has never been a math book quite like Math Without Numbers. So many popularizations of math have dwelt on numbers like pi or zero or infinity. This book goes well beyond to questions such as: How many shapes are there? Is anything bigger than infinity? And is math even true? Milo Beckman shows why math is mostly just pattern recognition and how it keeps on surprising us with unexpected, useful connections to the real world.
The ambitions of this book take a special kind of author. An inventive, original thinker pursuing his calling with jubilant passion. A prodigy. Milo Beckman completed the graduate-level course sequence in mathematics at age sixteen, when he was a sophomore at Harvard; while writing this book, he was studying the philosophical foundations of physics at Columbia under Brian Greene, among others.
Rough Outline, American Traditional Music
Instructor: Sarah Reid
Abstract:
The intertwining histories of traditional musical genres in the United States of America
are long and complex, stretching back far before the unprecedented arrival of Europeans onto North American soil. They stretch from coast to coast and through centuries of peace and turmoil, reflecting the realities and creating escape routes from the world around them. This course is intended to illuminate the intersections between these genres, focusing on the cultural metropolis as a hotbed for musical terroir. The purpose of this course is to give a brief inter-genre history of traditional music in the United States of America. The processes by which a genre comes to be considered traditional, let alone considered a genre at all, will be unraveled and discussed in order to set a foundation from which students can independently critique American genres. Students will be encouraged to critically consider why these genres were coded “traditional” throughout American and World history, i.e. through the influence of varying socio-political forces. At the end of the course, students should have a broad understanding of the relationships between traditional American musical genres.