This course introduces students to the comparative study of religion by exploring two distinct families of religious traditions, focusing on ways in which scholars draw on texts and historical contexts to understand religious doctrines and practices. The traditions examined vary from year to year. In 2020-21, we will focus on Christian and Buddhist traditions.

This course is open to qualified students who desire to engage in independent reading on selected topics or conduct research projects. Preference will be given to those students who have done good work in one or more departmental courses beyond the introductory level. A full course.

Open to juniors and seniors with consent of the instructor. Fall and spring semesters. The Department.

This course will examine how infants learn to communicate through gestures, body language, and preverbal vocalizations, and how nonverbal communication develops through childhood and adulthood. The course will also examine how nonverbal communication in humans compares to communication in nonhuman species such as dogs, chimpanzees, and dolphins.

This advanced seminar provides students with an overview of the social psychological study of stereotyping and prejudice. Through weekly discussions of empirical and theoretical articles, students will examine stereotypes, microaggressions, systems of privilege, oppression, and institutionalized discrimination that influence and help maintain racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism and their psychological consequences on the individual and society.

(Offered as PSYC 325 and NEUR 325) In this course we will examine the ways in which drugs act on the brain to alter behavior. We will review basic principles of brain function and mechanisms of drug action in the brain. We will discuss a variety of legal and illegal recreational drugs as well as the use of psychotherapeutic drugs to treat mental illness.

This course will examine how the mind extracts information from the environment, stores it for later use, and then retrieves it when it becomes useful. Initially, we will discuss how our eyes, ears, and brain turn light and sound into colors, objects, speech, and music. Next, we will look at how memory is organized and how it is used to accomplish a variety of tasks. Several memory models will be proposed and evaluated: Is our brain a large filing cabinet? A sophisticated computer? We will then apply these principles to understand issues like intelligence, thinking, and problem-solving.

This highly interactive course brings together students to examine the roles race and other intersecting identities play in their lives.

The individual’s behavior as it is influenced by other people and by the social environment. The major aim of this course is to provide an overview of the wide-ranging concerns characterizing social psychology from both a substantive and a methodological perspective. Topics include person perception, attitude change, interpersonal attraction, conformity, altruism, group dynamics, and prejudice. In addition to substantive issues, the course is designed to introduce students to the appropriate research data analysis procedures.

(Offered as PSYC 211 and NEUR 211) Historically, psychologists and neuroscientists have worked somewhat in parallel to one another. While psychologists have traditionally focused on how humans think, feel, and behave, neuroscientists have primarily focused exclusively on the workings of the brain. Cognitive neuroscience is a relatively new discipline that lies at the intersection of these fields and seeks to understand the neurobiological processes that underlie cognition.

An introduction to and critical consideration of experimental methodology in psychology. Topics will include the formation of testable hypotheses, the selection and implementation of appropriate procedures, the statistical description and analysis of experimental data, and the interpretation of results. Articles from the experimental journals and popular literature will illustrate and interrelate these topics and provide a survey of experimental techniques and content areas. A one-hour weekly lab will be devoted to data analysis using statistical software.