Psychology

The amount you've learned by the time you start college is astonishing. You can recognize thousands of faces, understand tens of thousands of words, and expertly navigate your environments. The flexibility of human learning is unique, even when compared to artificial intelligence. And yet, few of us have any more than an informal understanding of how this works. How and when should we study? Why can we recall lyrics from entire albums but forget every word of a foreign language that we learned at school? How do narratives, culture, and context support and shape learning? These kinds of questions have driven researchers to design countless experiments all over the world—even entering the ocean to measure underwater memories formed by scuba divers. In biweekly group collaboratives with the instructor, we will use lab activities, field trips, and film screenings to explore how different environments support memory and learning at all ages, including behavioral experiments, preschools, “memory athlete” competitions, and care centers for older individuals experiencing memory loss. We will ask how learning works according to psychology, education, linguistics, neuroscience, and cognitive development. We’ll consider the racial, ethnic, and neurodiverse contexts in which learning occurs and the meanings and motivations behind progressive and alternative education. In each field we encounter, we will often start with the same central questions: What is the evidence for each claim about how learning works? And, can we—and should we—use these insights in our own lives? Individual conference work with the instructor will begin with the second question: Students will apply theories or methods from learning science in an appropriate area of their life and evaluate the outcomes—developing critiques of existing approaches, as well as their own proposals, along the way.

Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it. —Baruch Spinoza, Ethics

What should I wear today? How should I respond to this text? Where should I apply to college? Every decision we make, big or small, is influenced by our emotions—at times without our explicit knowledge or conscious awareness of their influence. We can certainly appreciate how this might be the case in our own lived experiences, from the joys of picking a fun outfit to the anxiety of making a life-changing decision. Up until recently, however, the fields of psychology, economics, and neuroscience paid little attention to—and, in some cases, outright rejected—the empirical (evidence-based) study of how emotions affect our decisions. In this FYS seminar, we will explore the essential role that emotions play in our lives and their strong interplay with our decisions. During the fall semester, we will read and analyze works in psychology, behavioral economics, literature, philosophy, and popular media to examine how scholars in psychology and other disciplines have attempted to define and study something as subjective as emotions. Examples include works by William James, Paul Ekman, Lisa Feldman-Barrett, Daniel Kahneman, and others. We will also explore the role of emotions as the decision-making process unfolds. We will embed those processes in a variety of contexts, including personal, social, forensic, financial, and political realms. In the spring, we will revisit and build on these concepts by pinpointing the areas of the brain that are involved in generating, expressing, and regulating emotions and making decisions. No prior knowledge of psychology or neuroscience is required. This course may appeal to students who are curious about the mind and brain, as well as to those who wish to deepen their storytelling and character development in creative writing and filmmaking. Students will meet in biweekly conferences with the instructor to develop independent projects and biweekly small-group collaboratives with their peers to engage in creative group activities, applied workshops, book/journal clubs, film screenings, guest lectures, hands-on labs, and field trips.

Why is linguistic communication so important to us? Do other primates have language? How do humans understand messages from one another despite uncertainty, distraction, and ever-changing environments? In this course, we will consider central questions about language: Are we the only ones who have it? When did we learn it? What does artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT actually learn? And what exactly is the point of so-called “small talk”? In this course, we will start with an introduction to comparative research with animals, allowing us to consider other forms of communication. Next, we’ll turn to our own species, examining what findings from studies with babies and children can tell us about the nature and goals of communication. Finally, we’ll confront the artificial elephant in the room: neural networks. What kind of language have they learned, and how can we study it? In class, we will discuss the advances and consequences of AI. Students should come prepared to engage with the topic of communication from multiple perspectives. Through small-group conferences each week, students will develop projects that relate the course to their collective interests, such as learning and communicating in Toki Pona (a philosophical artistic-constructed language), researching the limits of AI language models, observing and analyzing children’s communication, or designing a behavioral intervention study that implements different communication practices for their peers.

The adage, “You are what you remember,” speaks to the profound impact of autobiographical memories on our sense of self. These personal recollections serve as the building blocks of our identity, allowing us to maintain a coherent narrative of our lives across time. From our earliest childhood experiences to significant milestones, from personal triumphs to shared tragedies, autobiographical memories weave through every facet of our existence. As we age, the evolution—and sometimes deterioration—of these memories not only reflects but also shapes the ongoing story of who we are. Despite major achievements in neuroscience, researchers don't fully understand how memory, our sense of self, and the brain all fit together. The study of memory is an active area of contemporary research, including topics such as autobiographical memory, mental time travel, intergenerational memory, collective memory, and false memories. In this course, we will examine the neuropsychology and neuroscience research of the memory system’s integral role in shaping self-identity across the lifespan. We will also discuss how significant events alter our self-identity, imagined future, and emotional functioning. Through empirical research, we will also explore memory’s role in mental illness and the ways in which neuropsychologists develop therapeutic interventions. Students will learn the basic structural and functional properties of the human nervous system and their relationship to the cognitive processes of memory, in addition to the cognitive neuroscience of memory and self-identity.

This course analyzes children’s media, specifically preschool media through middle school, using cognitive and developmental psychology theory and methods. We will examine specific educational television programs with regard to cognitive and social developmental issues related to family life, peer relationships, and education issues. Because media has an enormous impact on children’s behavior, this has increasingly become a subject of interest among researchers and the public. This course addresses that interest by applying cognitive and developmental psychological research and theories for the development and production of educational media. In addition, the course helps identify essential elements that determine the positive and negative qualities of media for children. Finally, the course examines and evaluates how psychological theories and frameworks can guide the successful production of children’s media (e.g., social cognitive theory). Projects and assignments will include weekly class discussions on peer-reviewed journal articles, watching television programs, group preschool television pitchbook preparation, child observations interacting with screens, and media artifact critiques as assigned.

Students will delve into the fundamentals of social media from both creator and user perspectives. This course offers an interdisciplinary approach, examining the history and evolution of social media platforms and their impact on cognition, mental health, and knowledge acquisition. Through a combination of psychological journal articles and mass communication resources, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of how social media influences and shapes contemporary life, making them feel knowledgeable and informed. Topics covered will include influencer culture, the 2024 election, and the effects of social media on children and adolescents, among other topics. In group projects, students will design influencer pages from conception to execution, incorporating lessons on strategic content creation, audience engagement, and ethical considerations. By integrating theory with practical application, this course offers a nuanced view of social media’s role in modern society and will equip students with the skills to effectively navigate and contribute to this dynamic digital landscape and study its effects on its use and digital safety.

We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. —William James, 1887, Habit

We all want happy lives filled with meaning and satisfaction. Yet, for many of us, happiness can be difficult to obtain with regularity or to sustain over a long period of time. Happiness is more than a feeling; rather, it is a state of well-being that should last a lifetime. Like exercising to improve physical health, it takes sustained cognitive effort to improve our mental health and engage in practices to promote well-being. We can look to evidence from the fields of psychology and neuroscience that tells us that we are mentally unprepared to: (1) predict what will make us happy, and (2) engage in behaviors that are known to make us happier. In this course, we will cover the psychological and brain-based factors for why happiness feels so fleeting and what we can do to build better and more effective habits that have been shown to lead to longer-term maintenance of a positive mood and well-being. Students will read foundational work in the field of positive psychology by Martin Seligman, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Edward Diener, Daniel Kahneman, and others. We will also discuss studies in neuroscience that show how behavioral interventions in positive psychology can impact the brain’s structure and function—just like building stronger muscles during exercise. Through small-group conferences, students will apply evidence-based practices, such as bringing order and organization to their daily lives, expressing gratitude, and building social bonds (i.e., “cross training” for the mind) in activities called “Rewirements.” For the final project, called “Unlearning Yourself,” students will learn to undo or replace a detrimental habit (e.g., overspending, social-media use, poor sleep hygiene, complaining, procrastinating) by establishing a plan to cultivate evidence-based practices for sustained well-being. By the end of this course, students will have gained the ability to sift through the ever-booming literature on positive psychology and neuroscience to identify the practices that work best for them, along with an appreciation for the notion that finding and keeping happiness and well-being requires intentional practice and maintenance. Students should come prepared to engage in meaningful self-work.

This is an OER-based, zero-cost course designed to introduce students to the field of community psychology. Community psychology is primarily concerned with individuals in their social context. Community psychology seeks to support and understand communities and conduct research that helps those communities thrive. Sometimes, community psychology engages more broadly by doing work focused on the large connected and diverse communities, such as the Black community; sometimes, it is more focused, such as on a community of students at a single university. As a critical community psychologist myself, my focus has always been on social justice, change, and activism. As such, this course will engage with critical theories, concepts, and methods within the field of community psychology. In doing so, it is my hope that students will gain a deeper understanding of community psychology. The course will move away from and challenge the traditional community deficit models and, instead, emphasize community psychology that focuses on community issues, engagement, empowerment, activism, and work. Course objectives: Students will know and understand the basic principles of community psychology. Students will gain a critical understanding of different theories, concepts, and methodologies of community psychology. Students will learn to identify important social issues within their own lives and communities. Students will gain practice writing and speaking to those issues, utilizing community psychology methods. Students will outline and develop a community research project that addresses an issue of their choosing.

All of us today live in a technology-rich environment, which is not only different from the one in which we grew up but also is still changing and evolving rapidly. The course examines the use and design of an array of educational technologies (computer programs, multimedia software, television, video games, websites, and so on) from the perspective of basic research and theory in the human cognitive system, development psychology, and social development areas. The course aims to provide a framework for reasoning about the most developmentally appropriate uses of technologies for children and young adults at different ages. Some of the significant questions that we will focus on include: How are their developmental experiences affected by these technologies? What are the advantages and disadvantages for children using technology, especially for learning? In this class, we will try to touch upon these issues by reading classic literature, researching articles, playing games, watching programs, using apps, and discussing our experiences. Projects and assignments will include weekly class discussions on peer-reviewed journal articles and media artifact critiques written by individual students and through group project work.

Why is the topic of laughter so often siloed or scorned in discussions of high art, literature, and the sciences? Why don’t we take laughter seriously as a society? How many professors does it take to teach a course on laughter? (Two more than usual...) In this lecture-seminar, students will develop a highly interdisciplinary understanding of laughter as a human behavior, cultural practice, and wide-ranging tool for creative expression. Based on the expertise of the three professors, lectures will primarily investigate laughter through the lens of psychology, film history, and visual arts. The goal of the course is to think and play across many disciplines. For class assignments, students may be asked to conduct scientific studies of audience laughter patterns, create works of art with punchlines, or write close analyses of classic cinematic gags. Over the course of the semester, we will examine the building blocks of laughter; classic devices of modern comedy; and laughter as a force of resilience, resistance, and regeneration. Topics to be discussed include the evolutionary roots of laughter as a behavior; the psychological substrates of laughter as a mode of emotional and self-regulation; humor in Dada, surrealism, performance art, and stand-up comedy; jokes and the unconscious; comic entanglements of modern bodies and machines; hysterical audiences of early cinema; and how to read funny faces, word play, spit takes, toilet humor, and sound gags.

The concepts of cognitive biases and heuristics were empirically explored in social psychology more than 50 years ago. The seminal contributions of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman showed that people do not behave according to perfect rationality and logic. On the contrary, several extraneous factors influence people’s decision-making, especially when facing uncertainty. Cognitive biases are systematic errors in our thinking, while heuristics relate to the use of shortcuts in processing information. They both lead to errors in our thinking, causing us to draw incorrect conclusions. This seminar explores our use of mental shortcuts in making judgments about others and drawing inferences about the world. We will review these biases and heuristics as part of our automatic intuitive system of thinking and explore the possibility of overcoming these shortcomings to become better critical thinkers.

One of the most important aspects of our lives is the web of group affiliations in which we engage. Groups are an inescapable aspect of our existence. From the very beginning of one’s life, the idea of group pervades most dimensions of our existence, from family structures to nation-states. Not only is the individual defined on the basis of his or her group memberships, but (s)he also learns most facets of socialization within the confinements of groups; for example, school, committees, gangs, or work. Groups orient, guide, and shape individual perceptions, interpretations, and actions in the social world. While social psychology has maintained an individuo-centered approach to the analysis of groups, several classic studies have demonstrated that there is no individual who is not essentially and entirely a product of the various groups to which (s)he belongs. This seminar explores the defining characteristics of groups and the extent to which we are indeed shaped by our groups. We are primarily concerned with people’s thoughts and behavior as group members, both from within one’s own group as well as vis-à-vis other groups.

In this interdisciplinary seminar, we will explore child and adolescent development through a cross-cultural lens. Focusing on case studies from diverse communities around the world, we will look at the influence of cultural processes on how children learn, play, and grow. Our core readings will analyze psychological processes related to attachment and parenting, cognition and perception, social and emotional development, language acquisition, and moral development. We will ask questions like the following: Why are children in Sri Lanka fed by hand by their mothers until middle childhood, and how does that shape their relations to others through the life course? How do Inuit toddlers come to learn moral lessons through scripted play with adults, and how does such learning prepare them to navigate a challenging social and geographic environment? Is it true that Maya children don’t do pretend play at all? How does parental discipline shape the expression of emotion for children in Morocco? How does a unique family role influence the formation of identity for Latinx youth in the United States? Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, our course material will draw from developmental psychology, human development, cultural psychology, and psychological anthropology and will include peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and films that address core issues in a range of geographic and sociocultural contexts. Students will conduct conference projects related to the central topics of our course and may opt to do fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center.

This course explores human-environment interactions and the relationships between natural, social, and built environments in shaping us as individuals. We will critically explore human interactions from the body, the home, and the local to the globalized world, with a return to the individual experience of our physical and social environments. As a survey course, we will cover myriad topics, which may include urban/rural/suburban relationships, gentrification, urban planning, environmental sustainability, globalization, social justice, and varying conceptualizations and experiences of “home” based on gender, race, class, age, and for people with disabilities. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we will give special consideration to public space and home environments. As a discussion-based seminar, topics will ultimately be driven by student interest. Several films will be incorporated into class.

Mindfulness can be described as nonjudgmental attention to experiences in the present moment. For thousands of years, mindfulness has been cultivated through the practice of meditation. More recently, developments in neuroimaging technologies have allowed scientists to explore the brain changes that result from the pursuit of this ancient practice, laying the foundations of the new field of contemplative neuroscience. Study of the neurology of mindfulness meditation provides a useful lens for study of the brain in general, because so many aspects of psychological functioning are affected by the practice. Some of the topics that we will address are attention, perception, emotion and its regulation, mental imaging, habit, and consciousness. This is a good course for those interested in scientific study of the mind and body. An important component of the course is the personal cultivation of a mindfulness practice; to support this goal, one of the two weekly course meetings will be devoted to a mindful movement practice.

The creative process is paradoxical. It involves freedom and spontaneity yet requires expertise and hard work. The creative process is self-expressive yet tends to unfold most easily when the creator forgets about self. The creative process brings joy yet is fraught with fear, frustration, and even terror. The creative process is its own reward yet depends on social support and encouragement. In this class, we look at how various thinkers conceptualize the creative process—chiefly in the arts but in other domains, as well. We see how various psychological theorists describe the process, its source, its motivation, its roots in a particular domain or skill, its cultural context, and its developmental history in the life of the individual. Among the thinkers that we will consider are Freud, Amabile, Arnheim, Franklin, and Gardner. Different theorists emphasize different aspects of the process. In particular, we see how some thinkers emphasize persistent work and expert knowledge as essential features, while others emphasize the need for the psychic freedom to “let it happen” and speculate on what emerges when the creative person “lets go.” Still others identify cultural context and motivational or biological factors as critical. To concretize theoretical approaches, we look at how various ideas can contribute to understanding specific creative people and their work. In particular, we will consider works written by or about Picasso, Woolf, Welty, Darwin, and some contemporary artists and writers. Though creativity is most frequently explored in individuals, we also consider group improvisation in music and theatre. Some past conference projects have involved interviewing people engaged in creative work. Others consisted of library studies centering on the life and work of a particular creative person. And some students chose to do fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center and focus on an aspect of creative activity in young children.

Psychological trauma has been described as unspeakable—so cognitively disorganizing and intense that it is difficult to put into words the experience and the emotions that it evokes. Yet, the language that survivors use to describe their traumas provides insight into the impact of trauma and the process of recovery. This course will begin with an overview of theories of trauma, resilience, and post-traumatic growth, as well as an introduction to the study of trauma narratives and how language reflects emotional and cognitive functioning. We will then explore different aspects of the cognitive, emotional, and biological impact of undergoing a trauma and how these changes are reflected in the language that trauma survivors use as they speak and write about their experiences. We will consider works by experts on trauma and language, including Judith Herman, Bessel van der Kolk, and James Pennebaker, as well as current research in the field of trauma and trauma narratives. Through these readings, we will address topics such as what makes an experience traumatic, how representations of trauma in popular culture color our perceptions of trauma and recovery, the role of resilience and growth following a trauma, and what we can learn from attending to the content and structure of language. This course will be of interest to students who are curious about how the words we use reflect our cognitive and emotional functioning, especially for students interested in pursuing topics such as these at an advanced or graduate level.

Making friends, losing friends, keeping friends...through the use of psychological and literary texts, we will explore the important functions of friendship for children and adolescents. During much of the 20th century, psychologists had assumed that adults serve as the major social influence on a child’s developing sense of self and personality, that perhaps only toward adolescence would children’s social relations with peers come to play an important role in their lives. We now know better. In recent years, there has been a tremendous increase in the study of friendships and peer relations throughout childhood, even in toddlerhood. The important psychological benefits of having friends are increasingly recognized. So, too, are the potential problems of its obverse: Children who are truly without friends are at greater risk for later social-emotional difficulties. We will explore the writings of major theorists such as Sullivan, Youniss, Selman, and Rubin; read and discuss the recent studies that have observed “friendship in the making”; and examine what friendship means to children and adolescents in their own words. In addition, fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center or elsewhere will be encouraged, so that students can have firsthand knowledge of children’s social relations.

Play provides us with an amazing and informative lens for observing the development and complex inner lives of young children. Yet, play is being threatened by increasing amounts of time spent on technology and a growing societal focus on scheduled activities and academic goals. This course will offer an introduction to the many fascinating aspects of play, including the importance of unstructured free play, how play shapes the brain, sensory processing and self-regulation in play, outdoor play, cultural contexts of play, and humor development in play. Through readings, video illustrations, and discussion of student fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center, we will explore the many ways in which play contributes to the complex social, cognitive, emotional, and imaginative lives of children. This course will provide a foundation for the spring course, Early Intervention Approaches for Young Children and Families.

This first research seminar in a yearlong practicum series on conducting research in psychology will introduce students to the posing of research questions and the design of methods to answer those questions. In this seminar, students will gain valuable research experience through a weekly meeting focused on qualitative and quantitative research methods, research ethics, and contemporary research questions and approaches. These topics include, but are not limited to, exploring the historical contexts that led to current guidelines for ethically conducting human-subjects testing; receiving institutional review-board approval for a proposed study; staying conversant and engaged in open science practices; maintaining a lab notebook; choosing a methodological approach and designing a study; recruiting participants; and more. The seminar component will include readings on, and discussions of, research methods and ethics that are specific to the research in which students are involved, as well as discussions of contemporary research articles that are relevant to student and faculty research projects. Weekly seminars will be led by the instructors of the course and, on occasion, invited faculty with expertise in related topics. All students involved in conducting research will also take turns leading a discussion of current research related to their group’s work. We will have individual and/or lab conference meetings with faculty supervisors on either a regular or as-needed basis. Seniors undertaking a senior thesis project are welcome to take this class alongside their senior thesis in order to work collaboratively with other students engaging in their own independent research. Students should come prepared to work collaboratively with faculty and their peers.

We have time, energy, questions, and few responsibilities. We want to push the envelope, resist compromise, lead revolutions, and turn the world upside down. Because we do not yet know quite how to be, we have not settled and will not let the dust settle around us. —Karlin & Borofsky, 2003

Many traditional psychological theories of development posit a brief transition from adolescence to adulthood; however, many people moving into their 20s experience anything but a brief transition to “feeling like an adult,” pondering questions such as: How many SLC alums can live in a Brooklyn sublet? What will I do when I finish the Peace Corps next year? In this course, we will explore the psychological literature concerning emerging adulthood, the period from the late teens through the 20s. We will examine this period of life from a unified biopsychosocial and intersectional perspective.

What does it mean to live a flourishing life? This is one of the most fundamental questions of human existence, and this course explores this question through an engagement with the universal human experiences of care, aging, and death. Together, we will dig deep into the centrality of caregiving to the human experience and identify and explore normative claims around care, aging, and death. Specifically, we will explore issues of avoidance, dependence, and interdependence, as we think together about the role of care in our lives across the lifespan but especially leading up to the final stages of life. In dominant US culture, notions of individualism prevail—and caregiving is often conceptualized as a burden. But who has decided that the care of other humans is a burden, or that an unburdened life is one most worth living? Who is to say that we’d prefer or be better off to be “unburdened” from the most important relationships in our lives? Collectively, we will consider more life-affirming, meaningful, and pluralistic ideas about care and consider who is most served by current mainstream normative claims. Finally, we will look at the ways these ideas are being resisted. Guest speakers will help us explore how individuals have replied to questions about how one lives life well by discussing how they have replied to these questions with their lives for meaningful engagement. Readings in this interdisciplinary course will include Lyn Lofland, Viktor Frankl, Carol Gilligan, Martha Nussbaum, JK Gibson-Graham, and The Sage Handbook of Death and Dying in order to focus on various cultural approaches, such as the Native American, Hindu, Muslim, Japanese, Taoist, and Jewish ways of death.

This course asks how contemporary immigration shapes individual and collective identity across the life course. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that bridges cross-cultural psychology, human development, and psychological anthropology, we will ask how people’s movement across borders and boundaries transforms their senses of self, as well as their interpersonal relations and connections to community. We will analyze how the experience of immigration is affected by the particular intersections of racial, ethnic, class, gender, generational, and other boundaries that immigrants cross. For example, how do undocumented youth navigate the constraints imposed by “illegalized” identities, and how do they come to construct new self-perceptions? How might immigrants acculturate or adapt to new environments, and how does the process of moving from home or living “in-between” two or more places impact mental health? Through our close readings and seminar discussions on this topic, we seek to understand how different forms of power—implemented across realms that include state-sponsored surveillance and immigration enforcement, language and educational policy, health and social services—shape and constrain immigrants’ understanding of their place in the world and their experience of exclusion and belonging. In our exploration of identity, we will attend to the ways in which immigrants are left out of national narratives, as well as the ways in which people who move across borders draw on cultural resources to create spaces and practices of connection, protection, and continuity despite the disruptive effects of immigration. In tandem with our readings, we will welcome scholar-activist guest speakers, who will present their current work in the field. Prior course work in psychology or social sciences is recommended.

Children’s books are an important bridge between adults and the world of children. What makes a children’s book attractive and developmentally appropriate for a child of a particular age? What is important to children as they read or listen? How do children become readers? How do picture-book illustrations complement the words? How can children’s books portray the uniqueness of a particular culture or subculture, allowing those within to see their experience reflected in books and those outside to gain insight into the lives of others? To what extent can books transcend the particularities of a given period and place? Course readings include writings about child development; works about children’s literature; and, most centrally, children’s books themselves—picture books, fairy tales, and novels for children. Class emphasis will be on books for children up to the age of about 12. Among our children’s book authors will be Margaret Wise Brown, C. S. Lewis, Katherine Paterson, Maurice Sendak, Matt de la Pena, Christopher Paul Curtis, E. B. White, and Vera B. Williams. Many different kinds of conference projects are appropriate for this course. In past years, for example, students have written original work for children (sometimes illustrating it, as well), traced a theme in children’s books, worked with children (and their books) in fieldwork and service-learning settings, explored children’s books that illuminate particular racial or ethnic experiences, or examined books that capture the challenge of various disabilities. At the end of each class session, we will have story time, during which two students will share childhood favorites.

By the time you read this course description, you have learned more than 40,000 English words. That’s at least an average of six words per day—and many more if you are multilingual. How is this possible? Were you born with this ability? Or did you learn it? This course is about how humans come to develop language so early and so quickly among striking environmental variation. For example, caregivers in the United States often alter and repeat their words when talking to children, while caregivers in a Tseltal Mayan community are thought to speak directly to other adults, not children. And yet, children in both settings successfully learn language on similar timescales. Importantly, no two children are alike. We will explore how the spectrum of neurodiversity sets many learners on their own communicative path. We will also consider variation in modality: Babies in deaf communities rapidly learn to comprehend and produce sign. We’ll begin by looking at the experimental data: How do you truly unlock and measure a neonate’s language abilities? Or even an adult’s? We’ll find out. Next, we’ll use play with gadgets from experimental methods, such as artificial language learning and eye-tracking, designing our own ministudies, implementing them, and collecting data. Then, we’ll propose theories of the kind of learning mechanism that can operate under such diverse inputs. We’ll evaluate the existing proposals and try to generate our own new theories of language development. We will bring these ideas beyond the seminar room, drawing connections to second-language learning in adults, early-childhood education, and social and economic structures. Students will develop conference projects that propose their own theories of language learning rooted in experimental data and in conversation with existing theories of nature vs. nurture, domain-specificity, and modality.

In North American countries, 83.6 percent of residents live in cities as of 2020, and 56 percent of the world’s population is urban. Traditional environmental movements focus on the “natural” world, and the built environment tends to be undertheorized and perhaps underanalyzed. Yet, urban spaces are also sites of resistance, as residents create community gardens from vacant lots, paint public-housing project exterior walls, and lobby for city government support of the built environment. This course explores paths toward humanistic urban revitalization and civic engagement through community partnership. We will read in three main domains: knowledge of local and global urban environments; physical, mental, and social/community health; and theory and philosophies of urban environments. The relationship between urban sustainability and social dynamics, such as ethical decision-making and sociopolitical power relations (Sze, 2020), seem to lead to a particular set of public-private solutions. These are implemented from the top downward, without input from stakeholders and residents, with serious implications for resident health. In turn, health is strongly affected by the urban physical environment, infrastructure, pollution, population density, and the concomitant social environment (Galea and Vlahov, 2005). And as development occurs, long-time residents of neighborhoods are being displaced. How can we ensure that the health and welfare of all denizens are developed as well as purported positive economic change? The community-partnership/service-learning component is an important part of this class. For one morning or afternoon per week, students will work in local community agencies to promote health-adaptive, person-environment interactions within our community.

For thousands of years, philosophers have struggled with the questions surrounding the issue of morality. Over the past hundred years, psychologists have joined the fray. While many theories exist, a unifying theme centers upon the notion that childhood is the crucible in which morality is formed and forged. In this course, we will explore the major theories dealing with three aspects of the development of morality: moral thought or reasoning (e.g., Piaget, Kohlberg); moral feelings (psychoanalytic approaches, including Freud, and the modern work on the importance of empathy and mirror neurons); and moral actions. In addition, we will investigate the possible relations among these three aspects of moral development; for example, how is moral thought connected to moral action? Throughout the course, we will relate moral development theory to the results of research investigations into this crucial aspect of child development, including the influence of parents and peers. Further, we will explore the influence of culture in shaping moral beliefs and attitudes. Conference work may include direct experience with children or adolescents in the form of either detailed observations or direct interaction (interviews, etc.).

Human behavior is complex, comprising stories, words, narratives, movement, and more. How can we begin to understand it? This course will introduce central concepts and practices in the analysis of qualitative and quantitative behavioral and linguistic data. We will learn how interview-based and observational data have typically been collected, organized, and interpreted. Students will use various coding techniques, such as MAXQDA software, to organize and interpret meanings and structures in participants’ narratives and responses. We will also discuss various thematic analysis approaches, including interpretive phenomenological analysis, as well as various coding techniques for observational data. Finally, we will discuss various tools used in linguistic analysis, including corpora, LSA, and LIWC. Over the course of the semester, we will work with existing datasets from classic and contemporary studies. For example, how can we use data analysis to determine if people really remember a person, word, or experience rather than simply feeling recognition of it? Students will use SPSS and eventually R software to collate and visualize data and apply traditional frequentist—as well as modern, parameter-free—statistical analyses. Students will also apply and evaluate various thematic analysis approaches and will have the opportunity to draw on various tools of linguistic analysis using existing datasets. Ethical research practices will be discussed in the context of each dataset used. In collaborative groups, students will build a plan for an existing interview, observational, or linguistic dataset, carry out preliminary analyses, and propose possible interpretations. In addition to the prerequisites for this course, a prior course in college-level statistics is a plus.

This community partnership course will focus on the health of humans living within physical, social, and psychological urban spaces. We will use a constructivist, multidisciplinary, multilevel lens to examine the interrelationship between humans and the natural and built environment, to explore the impact of social group (ethnic, racial, sexuality/gender) membership on person/environment interactions, and to explore an overview of theoretical and research issues in the psychological study of health and illness across the lifespan. We will examine theoretical perspectives in the psychology of health, health cognition, illness prevention, stress, and coping with illness; and we will highlight research, methods, and applied issues. This class is appropriate for those interested in a variety of health careers or anyone interested in city life. The community-partnership/service-learning component is an important part of this class. We will work with local agencies to promote health-adaptive, person-environment interactions within our community.

In this course, we will investigate the concept of language ideologies—beliefs and attitudes about language—and their impact on the lived experiences of racial and ethnic groups and other minoritized communities within the United States. Through a series of lectures, discussions, and hands-on projects, students will gain an understanding of how language practices reflect and reinforce social hierarchies, cultural norms, and power dynamics. Special attention will be paid to the meaning accomplished through language use and the informative role of ideologies of language and people in understanding these dynamics. We will delve into diverse language contexts, with a primary focus on the United States, examining case studies to understand how language serves as a site of struggle and resistance. Key linguistic topics will include language attitudes and linguistic discrimination, the politics of race and language, standard language ideologies, the role of language in shaping social and racial identities, language use and its social meaning, and multilingualism and multiculturalism in the United States. Specific examples will include ethnographic case studies of race and language, such as H. Samy Alim’s examination of his own experiences as a Black man or person of color under white gaze (“the white listening subject”); political persona and discourse of US presidential candidates; racialization of Asian-American, Black, and Latinx students in US classroom contexts; language revitalization efforts and identification of the Chickasaw Nation; race, gender, and sexuality performances in RuPaul’s Drag Race; identification practices and language use in indigenous communities such as the “Taino” identity in Puerto Rico. Assessments for this class will involve regular written reflections, a midterm paper, a research proposal, and a final research paper on a topic of the student’s interest related to language use, race, and identity. Core readings for our class will be drawn primarily from US-based, peer-reviewed linguistic journals and foundational texts. All readings will be provided beforehand.

How does a chronic illness affect a person’s orientation to the everyday? What are the social and political forces that underpin life in a homeless shelter? What is the experiential world of a blind person, a musician, a refugee, or a child at play? In an effort to answer these and like-minded questions, anthropologists have become increasingly interested in developing phenomenological accounts of particular lived realities in order to understand—and convey to others—the nuances and underpinnings of such realities in terms that more general social or symbolic analyses cannot achieve. In this context, phenomenology offers an analytic method that works to understand and describe in words phenomena as they appear to the consciousnesses of certain peoples. The phenomena most often in question for anthropologists include the workings of time, perception, selfhood, language, bodies, suffering, and morality as they take form in particular lives within the context of any number of social, linguistic, and political forces. In this course, we will explore phenomenological approaches in anthropology by reading and discussing some of the most significant efforts along these lines. Each student will also try their hand at developing a phenomenological account of a specific social or subjective reality through a combination of ethnographic research, participant observation, and ethnographic writing.

In this interdisciplinary seminar, we will explore child and adolescent development through a cross-cultural lens. Focusing on case studies from diverse communities around the world, we will look at the influence of cultural processes on how children learn, play, and grow. Our core readings will analyze psychological processes related to attachment and parenting, cognition and perception, social and emotional development, language acquisition, and moral development. We will ask questions like the following: Why are children in Sri Lanka fed by hand by their mothers until middle childhood, and how does that shape their relations to others through the life course? How do Inuit toddlers come to learn moral lessons through scripted play with adults, and how does such learning prepare them to navigate a challenging social and geographic environment? Is it true that Maya children don’t do pretend play at all? How does parental discipline shape the expression of emotion for children in Morocco? How does a unique family role influence the formation of identity for Latinx youth in the United States? Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, our course material will draw from developmental psychology, human development, cultural psychology, and psychological anthropology and will include peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and films that address core issues in a range of geographic and sociocultural contexts. Students will conduct conference projects related to the central topics of our course and may opt to do fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center.

This course explores the profound role of technology in shaping our daily lives, cultures, and societies—with a focus on how digital media transforms communication, identity, and sense-making practices, both online and offline. Digital media has become a dominant form of communication, with tools like social media, mobile phone applications, and artificial intelligence tools profoundly influencing our sense of self and our identities, communication, social networks, information exchange, cultural and behavioral practices, social styles, and language learning. Key topics discussed in this class will include: language socialization and language practices in online communities; the construction of digital personalities, communities and social identities through language and digital “lifestyles”; language ideologies and symbols in digital spaces; language learning, multilingualism, and the evolving role of multimodal communication, including emojis and hashtags; literacy in the digital age and the rise of automated writing; and the ethics of conducting ethnographic research in digital spaces. Case studies include: a critical examination of language and discourse on Black Twitter; hashtag ethnography within the #BlackLivesMatter social movement; multilingual practices of adolescents, both in the United States and abroad, online and offline; language practices in online LGBTQ+ communities; ethical considerations in online ethnographies of dark-web communities; ethnography of data structures and algorithms; and engagement with language-learning apps like Duolingo. Students will also explore methods of online and blended ethnography, developing research skills for data collection and analysis in digital spaces. They will expand their intellectual understanding of language, culture, and communication in the context of technology, gaining insights into the potential research directions that link technology, language, and anthropology. In the conference component, students will engage in blended ethnography, utilizing both online and offline data collection methods. By studying a subject or reflecting on their own experiences, students will explore emerging digital identities and language styles, gaining deeper insights into the intersection of technology and self.

This course asks how contemporary immigration shapes individual and collective identity across the life course. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that bridges cross-cultural psychology, human development, and psychological anthropology, we will ask how people’s movement across borders and boundaries transforms their senses of self, as well as their interpersonal relations and connections to community. We will analyze how the experience of immigration is affected by the particular intersections of racial, ethnic, class, gender, generational, and other boundaries that immigrants cross. For example, how do undocumented youth navigate the constraints imposed by “illegalized” identities, and how do they come to construct new self-perceptions? How might immigrants acculturate or adapt to new environments, and how does the process of moving from home or living “in-between” two or more places impact mental health? Through our close readings and seminar discussions on this topic, we seek to understand how different forms of power—implemented across realms that include state-sponsored surveillance and immigration enforcement, language and educational policy, health and social services—shape and constrain immigrants’ understanding of their place in the world and their experience of exclusion and belonging. In our exploration of identity, we will attend to the ways in which immigrants are left out of national narratives, as well as the ways in which people who move across borders draw on cultural resources to create spaces and practices of connection, protection, and continuity despite the disruptive effects of immigration. In tandem with our readings, we will welcome scholar-activist guest speakers, who will present their current work in the field. Prior course work in psychology or social sciences is recommended.

The human brain contains roughly 80 billion neurons connected by trillions of synapses. This uniquely complex organ is responsible for our remarkable capabilities, including the sensation and perception of diverse internal and external stimuli; the performance of precise movements and behaviors; and the ability to learn and remember an extraordinary amount of information. In this lecture course, we will investigate the nervous system from molecular, cellular, and systems-level perspectives. We will delve into the structure and function of neurons, including the molecular mechanisms underlying the action potential and synaptic transmission. We will learn how sensory systems detect diverse external and internal stimuli and how they communicate this information to the brain. We will also explore how the brain drives motor output, from the motor cortex to the neuromuscular junction, and the areas of the brain that control distinct aspects of language. Students will regularly engage in active learning through in-class, small-group exercises that complement content covered in lectures. In group conference, we will learn about neurodivergence and neurological disorders through discussions centered on the book, The Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us about Ourselves, by Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel. Students should leave this course with a solid understanding of the principles of neuroscience, which will prepare them for further study in neuroscience, physiology, and medicine.

The formation of an individual’s life is dependent upon a complex mix of cultural experiences, social interactions, and personal health and physiology. At the center of this intricate web is the biological component unique to each of us, yet shared in some form by all life on earth—our genes. Genes contribute much to what makes each of us an individual, from hair color and body shape to intelligence and personality. In this course, we will attempt to gain an understanding of how genes and chromosomes provide the basic blueprint that leads to these unique physical and behavioral characteristics. In doing so, we will discuss the central concepts of human genetics, including: the mechanisms and patterns of inheritance, sex-linked traits, the genetics of behavior, how genes encode information in the form of DNA, the role of mutations in causing disease, human origins and evolution, and the application of various genetic technologies such as gene therapy and genetically modified organisms. Readings will be drawn from texts as well as current popular-press and peer-reviewed articles. No previous background in biology is required, other than a curiosity and desire to understand the genetic mechanisms that shape human existence and make us who we are.

Disorders of the brain are often devastating. They can disrupt fundamental characteristics of life, such as memory formation and retrieval, the ability to communicate, the foundations of a personality, and the execution of movements, including those necessary for breathing. In this course, we will learn about the brain in health and disease by exploring the neuroscience of neurological disorders. We will study Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, lytico-bodig, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and autism spectrum disorder. We will consider these disorders holistically and from a biological point of view. We will explore: the lived experience of the affected and their loved ones; how symptoms of the disorders can be understood by studying changes in the neural tissues, cells, and molecules associated with each disorder; and what is known about genetic or environmental underpinnings and current treatments. Readings will be drawn primarily from the writings of the neurologist Oliver Sacks, the neuroscientist Eric Kandel, and the science journalist and Parkinson’s patient Jon Palfreman, in addition to magazine articles, scientific studies, and relevant films that complement and expand upon their descriptions of brain function.

Building on the foundational knowledge acquired in an introductory animal behavior course, Intermediate Ethology delves deeper into the theoretical frameworks and empirical research that define the field. This course is designed to enhance students' understanding of ethological principles and their practical applications in addressing real-world challenges concerning animal care and well-being. We begin with a comprehensive review of essential ethological theories to develop a solid grasp of key concepts, such as innate behaviors, learning, social structures, communication, and evolutionary perspectives on animal behavior. A significant focus will be on the diverse research methods used in ethology, including observational studies, experimental designs, and the use of technology in behavioral research. Students will learn how these methodologies can be applied to study animals in various environments—from the captive to the wild. The course explores the application of animal behavior knowledge in practical settings, addressing the needs of farmed animals, companion animals, animals in research settings, and wildlife. Topics include behavior-based approaches to enhancing animal well-being, designing enriching environments, and strategies for conservation and management of wild populations. Through detailed case studies, students will examine complex behaviors in different species, understanding how ethological principles provide insights into animal well-being and behavior. These case studies will cover a range of scenarios—for example, from social behavior in wolves to cognitive abilities in octopuses—illustrating the applicability of behavioral science in diverse contexts. Students will engage in a close reading of contemporary scientific literature, critically analyzing studies to understand research designs, findings, and the evolution of ethological knowledge. A centerpiece of the course is a semester-long, hypothesis-driven behavioral observation study conducted by each student. This project encourages students to apply learned methodologies to a context of interest, culminating in a research paper that contributes to their understanding of animal behavior. This course is ideal for undergraduate students who have completed an introductory course in animal behavior, biology, or a related field and are interested in advancing their knowledge and research skills in ethology. It is particularly suited for those considering careers in animal behavior, veterinary sciences, wildlife conservation, or academic research.

This course delves into the intricate dynamics of human-wildlife interactions, focusing on both the real and perceived conflicts that arise when human and wildlife habitats overlap. This course provides an in-depth analysis of wildlife management practices, the resilience of wildlife populations to traditional control methods, and the ethical considerations in human-wild animal relationships and in wildlife management. The course begins with an overview of human-wildlife conflict (HWC) in order to understand the causes, types, and consequences of these interactions. This sets the groundwork for exploring the complexities of coexistence between humans and wildlife. The course will cover a range of management strategies used to mitigate HWC, including nonlethal and lethal control methods, habitat modification, and the use of technology in wildlife monitoring and management. Discussions will critically assess the effectiveness, sustainability, and ethicality of these approaches. A significant component of the curriculum is dedicated to the ethical considerations in wildlife management, including animal well-being, conservation ethics, and the role of humans in shaping wildlife populations. A core element of this course is a collaborative project with a community partner (TBD) to assess ongoing human-wildlife conflicts in the region. This hands-on project includes: fieldwork to collect data on specific conflict scenarios, such as wildlife damage to agriculture, urban wildlife issues, or the impact of non-native species; data analysis to understand the patterns, scale, and implications of these conflicts; and development of management or mitigation strategies based on scientific evidence and ethical considerations. This course is particularly beneficial for those students seeking to understand the challenges and opportunities in positively facilitating human-wildlife interactions and those aspiring to careers in wild-animal protection, conservation, environmental management, or academic research.

This lecture course is a rigorous introduction to computer science and the art of computer programming using the elegant, eminently practical, yet easy-to-learn programming language Python. We will learn the principles of problem-solving with a computer while also gaining the programming skills necessary for further study in the discipline. We will emphasize the power of abstraction and the benefits of clearly written, well-structured programs, beginning with imperative programming and working our way up to object-oriented concepts such as classes, methods, and inheritance. Along the way, we will explore the fundamental idea of an algorithm; how computers represent and manipulate numbers, text, and other data (such as images and sound) in binary; Boolean logic; conditional, iterative, and recursive programming; functional abstraction; file processing; and basic data structures such as lists and dictionaries. We will also learn introductory computer graphics, how to process simple user interactions via mouse and keyboard, and some principles of game design and implementation. All students will complete a final programming project of their own design. Weekly hands-on laboratory sessions will reinforce the concepts covered in class through extensive practice at the computer.

Why is the topic of laughter so often siloed or scorned in discussions of high art, literature, and the sciences? Why don’t we take laughter seriously as a society? How many professors does it take to teach a course on laughter? (Two more than usual!) In this lecture-seminar, students will develop a highly interdisciplinary understanding of laughter as a human behavior, cultural practice, and wide-ranging tool for creative expression. Based on the expertise of the three professors, lectures will primarily investigate laughter through the lens of psychology, film history, and visual arts. The goal of the course is to think and play across many disciplines. For class assignments, students may be asked to conduct scientific studies of audience laughter patterns, create works of art with punchlines, or write close analyses of classic cinematic gags. Over the course of the semester, we will examine the building blocks of laughter; classic devices of modern comedy; and laughter as a force of resilience, resistance, and regeneration. Topics to be discussed include the evolutionary roots of laughter as a behavior; the psychological substrates of laughter as a mode of emotional and self-regulation; humor in Dada, surrealism, performance art, and stand-up comedy; jokes and the unconscious; comic entanglements of modern bodies and machines; hysterical audiences of early cinema; and how to read funny faces, word play, spit takes, toilet humor, and sound gags.

Variance, correlation coefficient, regression analysis, statistical significance, and margin of error—you’ve heard these terms and other statistical phrases bantered about before, and you’ve seen them interspersed in news reports and research articles. But what do they mean? How are they used? And why are they so important? Serving as an introduction to the concepts, techniques, and reasoning central to the understanding of data, this lecture course focuses on the fundamental methods of statistical analysis used to gain insight into diverse areas of human interest. The use, misuse, and abuse of statistics will be the central focus of the course; and specific topics of exploration will be drawn from experimental design theory, sampling theory, data analysis, and statistical inference. Applications will be considered in current events, business, psychology, politics, medicine, and many other areas of the natural and social sciences. Statistical (spreadsheet) software will be introduced and used extensively in this course, but no prior experience with the technology is assumed. Group conferences, conducted in workshop mode, will serve to reinforce student understanding of the course material. This lecture is recommended for anybody wishing to be a better-informed consumer of data and strongly recommended for those planning to pursue advanced undergraduate or graduate research in the natural sciences or social sciences. Enrolled students are expected to have an understanding of basic high-school algebra and plane coordinate geometry.

Many of us are struck by the growing irrationality of contemporary democratic politics to the point where we despair of our capacity to address problems like global climate change or pandemics that could pose existential threats to our species, to fashion constructive foreign policy as wars rage, or to face a whole range of urgent but more mundane policy issues. In this class, we will seek to understand disturbing trends like populism, polarization, disinformation, and self-injuring or -defeating politics, as well as the resurfacing of nativism, xenophobia, and racism in contemporary politics—in part on their own terms but also by asking whether they are deeply rooted in human nature, at least on our current best understandings of ourselves. More specifically, democracy seems to rely on at least a minimum degree of rationality, learning, openness to argument and difference, and self-control on the part of the citizens whose votes and opinions guide government policy. But is this reliance foolhardy in light of what recent history, psychology, evolutionary theory, philosophy, and cognitive science teach? Do aspects of our current social and technological circumstances make us less able to manifest these qualities of character today than our Enlightenment progenitors hoped in the era of democratic revolutions—the era from which many of the ideas and institutions that continue to inform our politics today emerged? In this course, we will survey aspects of the political history of recent centuries, as well as our own historical moment, to ask if they should temper confidence in the power of reason in politics. We will also examine recent research in cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy that conclude that it is hard to sustain a model of human behavior that places reason and rationality in the driver’s seat. What alternative accounts of human nature are emerging from recent research? And what are their political implications, especially for democratic societies? By bringing together political science, history, and theory with cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy, we should be able to occupy the intersection of distinct but equally relevant disciplines to ask whether the Enlightenment’s faith in democracy was misplaced. Or, instead, are there reasons to believe that democracy can maintain its claim to legitimacy, even after reason has been demoted in our understandings of human nature? To address this final question, we will also examine proposals for 21st-century democratic reforms that either seek to adjust downward the expectations on the capacity of citizens to engage in deliberative politics or to refashion political institutions to better summon the better angels of our nature.

Philosophy began with the Greeks as the pursuit of freedom of mind—as a rebellion against bondage to conventional belief. But is freedom of mind possible? And to what does it amount? This course, the first half of a yearlong sequence, focuses on the different ways the Greek philosophers and their Roman heirs understood freedom of mind. We will travel from the pre-Socratics through Plato, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Skeptics. Students will be expected to come to each class with a written question on the reading, which I may ask them to read aloud at the beginning of class in order to stimulate discussion. They may also be asked to participate in brief group presentations of the reading. The writing requirements for the class will have two components. The first of these will be made up of a short paragraph on the reading for each class and each group conference and should include the written question on the reading; the rest of the paragraph should either develop this question further or pose a further question or questions about the reading. At the end of the semester, you will be expected to submit a log of these short paragraphs, with your three favorites at the beginning of the document. The second writing requirement will be for a paper, or papers, outlining a portion of the reading and posing questions along the way. Through discussion, we will decide on the focus of these papers.

This course will continue the investigation undertaken in the fall course. For a description, see Freedom of Mind: Ancient Philosophy, fall semester; theme and writing requirements will be the same as for that course. Our focus will shift, however, to medieval and modern philosophy, with attention to Averroes (Ibn Rush’d), Montaigne, Descartes, and Shaftesbury. Either course may be taken independently, but students are, of course, invited to take both.

Does life have a purpose, a meaning? What does it mean “to be”? What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be a woman (or to be a man)? What does it mean to be Black (or to be white)? What makes us into who we are? What distinguishes each of us? And what, if anything, is in common to all of us? These and other questions are raised by existentialist philosophy and literature, mostly through interrogation of real-life experiences, situations, and “fundamental emotions” such as anxiety, boredom, loneliness, and shame. In the first half of this course, we will get acquainted with the core tenets of existentialist thought by reading two of its most influential figures: Jean-Paul Sartre (France, 1905-1980) and Martin Heidegger (Germany, 1889-1976). In the second half, we will analyze texts by authors who set out to expand or challenge these core tenets on the grounds of their experiences of oppression. These authors are Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, and Jean Améry. Group conference will meet weekly and play a central role in this course. In it, we will mostly read literary texts or watch films that are relevant to the work of the above-listed authors. Conference material will include stories by Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, and Ralph Ellison and films such as The Battle of Algiers (1967) and Monsieur Klein (1977).

From its inception, Western philosophy has considered happiness as the ultimate purpose of human life and one of the most important goals of any political regime. This aim has persisted to today. Contemporary research reports that when people are asked what they most want from their lives, they resoundingly answer happiness. Yet, when asked to define happiness, most face difficulty providing a satisfying answer. We might be left to conclude that the one thing we genuinely want is something we can't clearly define. This course explores the intricate nature of happiness and its elusive characteristics through the political philosophies of Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, and Mill. We will work to construct a historical narrative to explore how each of the four philosophers shaped their ideas of happiness through meaningful dialogues with others' conceptions of it. Additionally, we will learn how the differences between the conceptions of happiness result from essential differences concerning the nature of
the relationship between humans and the socialpolitical structure. Some of the questions that we will pursue include: What is the difference between happiness and pleasure? What role do others play in our ability to achieve happiness? Is there a specific political regime that will most advance human happiness? Although we may not arrive at a satisfying explanation for what happiness is, the seminar aims to help us understand how the Western ideal of happiness has been shaped in relation to political philosophy.

Nietzsche, in the Preface to The Genealogy of Morals, begins by attacking “English moralists.” By “English moralists” he means, I propose, David Hume in his An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. After reading the Preface and Part One of the Genealogy, we shall turn to Hume’s Enquiry in order to understand Nietzsche’s criticism and to see whether we think it is justified. Students will be required to bring a written question to each class and to present short sections of the reading. Writing requirements will consist of a log of the written questions, two outlines of portions of the reading that they present in class with questions and objections, and a conference paper.

Many of us are struck by the growing irrationality of contemporary democratic politics to the point where we despair of our capacity to address problems like global climate change or pandemics that could pose existential threats to our species, to fashion constructive foreign policy as wars rage, or to face a whole range of urgent but more mundane policy issues. In this class, we will seek to understand disturbing trends like populism, polarization, disinformation, and self-injuring or -defeating politics, as well as the resurfacing of nativism, xenophobia, and racism in contemporary politics—in part on their own terms but also by asking whether they are deeply rooted in human nature, at least on our current best understandings of ourselves. More specifically, democracy seems to rely on at least a minimum degree of rationality, learning, openness to argument and difference, and self-control on the part of the citizens whose votes and opinions guide government policy. But is this reliance foolhardy in light of what recent history, psychology, evolutionary theory, philosophy, and cognitive science teach? Do aspects of our current social and technological circumstances make us less able to manifest these qualities of character today than our Enlightenment progenitors hoped in the era of democratic revolutions—the era from which many of the ideas and institutions that continue to inform our politics today emerged? In this course, we will survey aspects of the political history of recent centuries, as well as our own historical moment, to ask if they should temper confidence in the power of reason in politics. We will also examine recent research in cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy that conclude that it is hard to sustain a model of human behavior that places reason and rationality in the driver’s seat. What alternative accounts of human nature are emerging from recent research? And what are their political implications, especially for democratic societies? By bringing together political science, history, and theory with cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy, we should be able to occupy the intersection of distinct but equally relevant disciplines to ask whether the Enlightenment’s faith in democracy was misplaced. Or, instead, are there reasons to believe that democracy can maintain its claim to legitimacy, even after reason has been demoted in our understandings of human nature? To address this final question, we will also examine proposals for 21st-century democratic reforms that either seek to adjust downward the expectations on the capacity of citizens to engage in deliberative politics or to refashion political institutions to better summon the better angels of our nature.

In this lecture, students will be introduced to key areas of study in the sociology of “deviance,” detention, and illegality. We will be taking a global and transnational perspective on examining the ways in which social groups define, categorize, and reinforce deviance and illegality, from the treatment of minority and persecuted groups to the detention and expulsion of populations such as undocumented migrants and refugees. Students will learn about foundational theories and concepts in the field, starting with a reading of Émile Durkheim’s classical study of suicide and the idea of anomie, followed by Robert Merton’s strain theory and then contemporary ones such as conflict theory, labeling theory, and the infamous “broken-windows” theory. The class will take a critical approach to reflecting and challenging ideas about deviance and illegality by examining global and transnational forms of population governance, such as ongoing mutations to human rights and the technocratic management of displaced populations through humanitarianism around the world. We will be reading about major sectors of transnational deviance and crime, including industrial fishing and trafficking on the high seas (Ian Urbina’s The Outlaw Ocean), exploitation and profiteering through international logistics (Carolyn Nordstrom’s Global Outlaws), and transnational sex work and trafficking (Christine Chin and Kimberly Hoang). This critical lens is intended to help us understand how different groups and populations are rendered “deviant” or “illegal” for the purposes of management and control (or political leverage) and to what extent groups themselves are able to resist or challenge those categorizations. Finally, we will be looking at how social movements and acts of resistance can produce widescale changes in societies toward the treatment and categorization of people seen as “deviants,” “criminals,” or “illegals”—including struggles against apartheid, hunger strikes in prisons, and protest movements for undocumented groups. Additionally, we will be discussing how social transformations wrought by three years of living under a global pandemic has led to the emergence of new forms of deviance related to biopolitical and biotechnological notions of population health and well-being. For conference work in this lecture, students will work in groups to produce portfolios of research on an area of study related to deviance, detention, and illegality. Each portfolio will include presentations and discussions of the chosen area of study, as well as critical essays written by each student that bring in conceptual and theoretical discussions drawn from the class.

Why is the topic of laughter so often siloed or scorned in discussions of high art, literature, and the sciences? Why don’t we take laughter seriously as a society? How many professors does it take to teach a course on laughter? (Two more than usual!) In this lecture-seminar, students will develop a highly interdisciplinary understanding of laughter as a human behavior, cultural practice, and wide-ranging tool for creative expression. Based on the expertise of the three professors, lectures will primarily investigate laughter through the lens of psychology, film history, and visual arts. The goal of the course is to think and play across many disciplines. For class assignments, students may be asked to conduct scientific studies of audience laughter patterns, create works of art with punchlines, or write close analyses of classic cinematic gags. Over the course of the semester, we will examine the building blocks of laughter; classic devices of modern comedy; and laughter as a force of resilience, resistance, and regeneration. Topics to be discussed include the evolutionary roots of laughter as a behavior; the psychological substrates of laughter as a mode of emotional and self-regulation; humor in Dada, surrealism, performance art, and stand-up comedy; jokes and the unconscious; comic entanglements of modern bodies and machines; hysterical audiences of early cinema; and how to read funny faces, word play, spit takes, toilet humor, and sound gags.

Experiment and explore contemporary performance art. Through surveying a range of important artworks and movements, we will review the histories, concepts, and practices of performance art. Born from anti-art, performance art challenges the boundaries of artistic expression through implementing, as material, the concepts of space, time, and the body. Examples of artists that we will review are John Cage, Joan Jonas, Adrian Piper, Bruce Nauman, Martha Rosler, Simone Forti, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Pope.L, Laurie Anderson, Joseph Beuys, Janine Antoni, Suzanne Lacy, Aki Sasamoto, and Anna Halprin, to name a few. We will review dialogues and movements introducing performance art, such as art interventions, sculpture, installation art, institutional critique, protest art, social media, video art, happenings, dada, comedy, sound art, graphic notation, scores, collaboration, and dance/movement. Students will be able to relate the form and function of performance art through research, workshopping ideas, experimentation, and improvisation—thereby developing the ability to confidently implement any method of the performance art genre.

Who doesn’t love Frog and Toad? Have you ever wanted to write something like it—or like Charlotte’s Web or A Snowy Day? Why do our favorites work so well and so (almost) universally? We will begin by reading books we know and books we missed and discuss what makes them so good. We will be looking at read-to books, early readers, instructional books for children, rude books, chapter books, books about friendship, and (possibly) young adult books. We may consider what good children’s history and biography might be like. We will talk about the place of the visual, the careful and conscious use of language, notions of appropriateness, and what works at various age levels. Invariably, we will talk about childhood, our own and as part of an ever-changing set of social theories. We will try our hand at writing picture books, early readers, friendship stories, collections of poems like Mother Goose. Conference work will involve making a children’s book of any kind, on any level. Classes will be in both lecture and conversational mode, and group conferences will involve looking at our writing.

This is a course with writing at its center and other arts—mainly, but not exclusively, visual—around it. We will read all kinds of narratives, children’s books, folk tales, fairy tales, graphic novels...and try our hand at many of them. Class reading will include everything from ancient Egyptian love poems to contemporary Latin American literature. For conference work, students have created graphic novels, animations, quilts, a scientifically accurate fantasy involving bugs, rock operas, items of clothing with text attached, nonfiction narratives, and dystopian fictions with pictures. There will be weekly assignments that involve making something. This course is especially suited to students with an interest in another art or a body of knowledge that they’d like to make accessible to nonspecialists.

What might it mean for a writer to be useful to a state? How have states used writers, witting and unwitting, in projects aimed at influence and hegemony? How might a state make use of language as a weapon? What might it mean for a writer to attempt to avoid being useful to a state? How might a state inflect and influence the intimacy between a writer and what we may write? In this class, we’ll discuss an array of choices that writers have made in relation to state power, focusing particularly on the United States from just after World War II until the present. You'll be asking to read excerpts from five books: Joel Whitney’s Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers; Frances Stonor Saunders’s The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters; Eric Bennett’s  Workshops of Empire: Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing During the Cold War; Vivian Gornick’s The Romance of American Communism; and Peter Dale Scott’s long poem, Coming to Jakarta. Group conferences will function as writing workshops and to offer feedback on your letters in progress, in addition to various writing exercises. This is not a history or a literature class; our lens will be that of a writer, using deep study and playful practice to figure out the dilemmas and best practices of the present.