Calculus I

This course is for students who have not studied calculus and who have the necessary precalculus background. It presents rates of change and their applications, integrals, the fundamental theorem, and modeling of phenomena in the natural and social sciences. All students are required to complete the online self assessment of precalculus skills before the course begins.

Hitchcock and After

This course will examine the films of Alfred Hitchcock and the afterlife of Hitchcock in contemporary U.S. culture. We will interpret Hitchcock films in a variety of theoretical frames, including feminist and queer theories, and in shifting historical contexts, including the Cold War. We will also devote substantial attention to the legacy of Hitchcock in remakes, imitations, and parodies.

Queer and Trans Writing

What do we mean when we say "queer writing" or "trans writing"? Are we talking about writing by queer and/or trans authors? Writing about queer or trans practices, identities, experience? Writing that subverts conventional forms? All of the above? In this course, we will engage these questions not theoretically but through praxis. We will read fiction, poetry, comics, creative nonfiction, and hybrid forms. Expect to encounter work that challenges you in terms of form and content. Some writers we may read include Ryka Aoki, James Baldwin, Tom Cho, Samuel R.

Woolf & the Bloomsbury Group

This seminar will examine the Bloomsbury Group, the most important British cultural formation in the first half of the twentieth-century. The group included artists, art critics, biographers, economists, literary critics, novelists, philosophers and translators such as Vanessa Bell, E. M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, George Moore, Bertrand Russell, Lytton Strachey, and Virginia Woolf. We will emphasize the ways in which they sought to dismantle the artistic, political, and sexual repressions of the Victorian period and to replace them with new forms of art, community, and society.

Cyberpunk in Asia

In popular movies such as Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell, cyberpunk dystopias have often been associated with Asian cities, neon signs, and crowded bustling streets. What can exploring past and current portrayals of a cyberpunk future tell us about how we view Asia now? What can this aesthetic tell us about corporate dystopias? This course will look at film and texts that interrogate the intersection of race, technology, history, nation, and capital flows.

Hitchcock and After

This course will examine the films of Alfred Hitchcock and the afterlife of Hitchcock in contemporary U.S. culture. We will interpret Hitchcock films in a variety of theoretical frames, including feminist and queer theories, and in shifting historical contexts, including the Cold War. We will also devote substantial attention to the legacy of Hitchcock in remakes, imitations, and parodies.

Poetry&Image: Form. of Ident.

With an emphasis on producing creative texts, the course will examine the parallel and often overlapping impulses of poetry and image-making (photography, painting, and other visual arts). We will explore concepts of identity through the work of artists such as Alice Neel, Mikalene Thomas, Claude Cahun, Cindy Sherman, Kehinde Wiley, Glenn Ligon, Catherine Opie, Kara Walker, Diane Arbus, Vivian Maier, and Nan Goldin.

The Curious Middle Ages

Curiosity suggests both a yearning for knowledge and the discernment of something unusual or strange. While influenced by Augustine's warning that worldly inquiry could endanger the pilgrimage of the soul, medieval literature contains many instances of curious looking. Exploring the medieval desire to know, this course considers how the period's tendencies toward spiritual and metaphysical thought are balanced against its fascinations with the observable world.

Adv. Creative Writing Proj.

This semester-long course is designed for students already at work on a longer project (a novel or novella, a short story collection, a collection of poems, longform creative nonfiction, a graphic novel, or a hybrid form). Students will build on the skills and insights gained in previous creative writing courses to draft, workshop, and revise a full-length creative manuscript. Workshop and revision will comprise much of our time, along with readings on craft by authors such as Lynda Barry, Italo Calvino, and Samuel R. Delany.

The American Essay

Throughout the history of the United States, the essay has been a vital literary genre. From religious and confessional essays to personal, political, and satirical ones, American authors have explored their passions and hatreds in this flexible form. We will read essays from the nineteenth century to the present, with the opportunity to write essays of our own. Authors may include Thoreau, Baldwin, Didion, and Maggie Nelson, along with international writers, such as Woolf and Zadie Smith, who have influenced American essayists.
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