An immersive research experience in observational astrophysics for students who have completed ASTR 337. Students begin the semester with a January trip to the WIYN 0.9m telescope on Kitt Peak, AZ, where they collect data that they will use to design and carry out independent research projects. The semester is spent reducing and analyzing the data and preparing scientific results for presentation. Professional techniques of CCD imaging, photometry, astrometry and statistical image analysis are applied using research-grade software.

The purpose of this course is to introduce data analysis and visualization techniques that will allow students to excel in further coursework in astronomy and other STEM majors. Students will be introduced to how to use the Python programming language to analyze and manipulate data; how to create, interpret, and present visualizations of those data; and how to apply statistical analysis techniques to data. We will sharpen these skills through the lens of astronomical data collection and analysis, though the skills themselves are applicable in many other fields.

What is the shape of the universe? How do stars die? What happens when galaxies collide? This course will provide an introduction to the nature and evolution of stars, our Milky Way galaxy, other galaxies, and the origin, size, shape and fate of the universe itself. We will explore how the fields of extragalactic astronomy and cosmology emerged and continue to evolve, and will touch on many of the big unanswered questions in these fields.

(Offered as HIST 493 [ME/TC/TE/TS] and ASLC 493) Mustafa Kemal "Ataturk" looms large in Turkish historical memory. As a national hero and Turkey’s first President from 1923 until his death in 1938, Ataturk symbolizes a shift from empire to republic, from subject to citizen. He is remembered for promoting the secularization, democratization and Westernization of Turkey. Turkey’s current President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has now served as head of the Turkish Republic for nearly as long as Ataturk.

Independent reading course.

Fall and spring semesters. The Department.

(Listed as ASLC-430 and FAMS-430)

(Offered as HIST-389 [ME/TE] and ASLC 389) The Ottoman Empire underwent a process of intense reform in the nineteenth century. Reformers were determined to strengthen their countries’ sovereignty vis-à-vis increasingly aggressive European imperial powers and embarked on a series of measures designed to improve their economies, political institutions and militaries. Reformers were also concerned to generate a new public, and develop modern citizens imbued with new civic, political, literary and artistic sensibilities.

Here is an invitation to the literary world of Lu Xun, the iconic writer of 20th-century China, a relentless critic and a man of spiritual anguish. Besides delving into Lu Xun’s different periods and genres of writing, we will also read a constellation of writers who have been in dialogue with Lu Xun: his younger brother and the humanist essayist Zhou Zuoren, the gifted female writer Xiao Hong, the storyteller of China’s southwest hinterland Shen Congwen, and the Taiwanese Marxist