This course examines several of the central questions facing contemporary Jewry by reflecting on the role of history, text, and memory in the shaping of Jewish identity and politics. Topics include Judaism's role in civilization; contested Jewish Identities; political and religious debate concerning Israel; the Holocaust as icon of Jewish identity; pluralism and the paradoxes of unity; and bioethical dilemmas. Satisfies the Integrative Experience requirement for BA-Judaic majors.

This course surveys the recent history of political conservatism in the United States, with an emphasis on the present moment.

This class introduces the operation of logic and sequential circuits. Students explore basic logic gates (AND, OR, NAND, NOR), counters, flip-flops, decoders, microprocessor systems. Students have the opportunity to design and implement digital circuits during a weekly lab. Prerequisite: 231. Enrollment limited to 12.

This class introduces the operation of logic and sequential circuits. Students explore basic logic gates (AND, OR, NAND, NOR), counters, flip-flops, decoders, microprocessor systems. Students have the opportunity to design and implement digital circuits during a weekly lab. Prerequisite: 231. Enrollment limited to 12.

This course explores the question: Why has it proven so difficult in the United States to create more schools and districts where educational opportunity is distributed fairly? How can a close study of the educational systems of Western Mass help us understand how educators and policy makers attempted to provide a quality educational experience for students when issues associated with their social and economic environment often present significant obstacles to teaching and learning?

This course explores articulations of “cinema” in materials other than those typically associated with the film medium. Recasting the medium as a practice, an idea, and a cultural episteme, we’ll try to think beyond received wisdom about what the “cinema” is. We’ll investigate a broad range of unconventional works: from science fiction to the proto-filmic projections of the historical avant-garde; musique concrète; and the radical exhibition and film-performance practices of the postwar period, including militant film practice in the so-called Third World.

Introduces the analysis of cultural diversity, including concepts, methods, and purposes in interpreting social, economic, political, and belief systems found in human societies.

This course provides an introduction to the evolution, life history, adaptations, ecology, social structure, behavior, and conservation of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises). Seminars are discussion-based and will consist of student presentations of pertinent scientific journal articles followed by group discussions of reading materials. Evaluation will be based on group presentations, participation in discussions, and quiz grades (on reading materials). Additionally, students will write a final literature review paper on a topic related to cetaceans of their choosing.

Livy and Sallust, the best known historians of the Roman Republic, viewed history writing as a moral enterprise, presenting events from the past as exemplary tales to inform and enlighten the lives of their readers. Their narratives thus are highly rhetorical, combining myth, memory, and history to reconstruct the past. Close reading of selections from Livy's Ab Urbe Condita and/or Sallust's monographs--the Bellum Catilinae and Bellum Jugurthinum--will lead to discussions about how Romans viewed their past and how they wrote about it.