True, a picture is worth a thousand words, but how do we know which words to use exactly? In this seminar, we will focus on the work of language in relation to the visual arts, and learn to distinguish between different kinds of writing, including art history, art criticism, poetry and fiction. We will visit the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum and the Skinner Museum, and develop provocative ideas about original works of art. We will practice critical thinking and writing on our own, and work collaboratively on various projects.

This course focuses on individual and small-group behavior in the organizational setting. The class will focus on: (1) understanding human behavior in an organizational context; (2) understanding of oneself as an individual contributor and/or leader within an organization, and ways to contribute to organizational change; (3) intergroup communication and conflict management; and (4) diversity and organizational climate.

Students will create and manage organizations, learn from topical lectures, readings and case studies, and hear from guest speakers. The course will cover core organizations: not-for-profits, "C" corporations, "S" corporations, partnerships, and the LLC (limited liability company) plus special variations like workers cooperatives and social venture variations known as benefit corporations and L3C companies. Students will also learn how to analyze and present financial information and gain competency with basic spreadsheets and analytical tools.

This course examines significant moments in the history of children as creators, performers, consumers, and subjects of music, with a focus on Western Europe and the United States. From Mozart to Michael Jackson, medieval psalmody to playground games and beyond, we will survey the enlisting of children, childhood, and the childlike across a range of musical genres and pedagogical, aesthetic, and cultural-political agendas. For their final project, students may work with a historical artifact of children's musical culture, or research a local children's music program or ensemble.

The first in a three-semester survey of Western music history, Music 281 examines the cultures of art music in Europe and Americas to 1700, focusing on evolution of style and the changing roles of composers, performers, patrons, and audience.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to a historically informed comparative study of African politics. The course views Africa as a distinct region with a vital role in the international system, reviewing major theories designed to explain patterns of African politics and the variations between and within African states. The course is motivated by the need to understand the legacies of colonialism, the relative weakness of the African state, and the variation of political and economic development in the continent.

This course will examine arguments for reparations for slavery with an eye towards understanding what withholding and extending reparations have meant for American democracy and citizenship. We will contextualize arguments for reparations within a larger conversation about repairing democratic norms, institutions, and social conditions within recent democratic theory.

Do ethical considerations matter in international relations? Should they? These questions are examined from the perspective of Western writers on these specific issues: just war, intervention, human rights, weapons of mass destruction, and distributive justice. The course also considers challenges to the international system posed by the critiques and responses of non-Western states and peoples.

This course examines Islamic political thought from the origins of Islam to the present. It considers how Muslim thinkers over the past 14 centuries have understood such fundamental political concepts as the state, leadership, and law. The seminar also includes modern Muslim reflections on political concepts of Western origin, such as democracy, nationalism, and civil society.

The silk roads were ancient transportation and trade links that wound their way across the Eurasian continent, or by sea through the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, to Europe. They carried silk, glass, jade, and moved religions and literatures across continents. Today, the new silk roads carry oil, gas, drugs, capitalism, and immigrants seeking better lives.