This seminar is for advanced students whose work involves mind, brain, or behavior and who are studying disciplines in the cognitive, brain, or psychological sciences. Students will select the topics to be covered, choosing journal articles, essays, or books in each area. Each week students will be expected to write a discussion paper or contribute to a web forum and to engage in intensive discussion during the single class meeting. Leadership of at least one class meeting, and an extended paper on one of the course issues is also required.

In this first year seminar, we will explore both evolutionary and ecological perspectives with the goal of understanding how life on Earth might change in the next hundred years as a consequence of climate change. We will start with a short introduction to climate change and physical responses to climate change (e.g. changes in temperature & precipitation patterns, sea ice extent and sea levels).

The most immediate goal is to create a truly interdisciplinary brand new course devoted to the topic of ?water.? This course would be co-taught by Razvan Sibii (Journalism) and Heath Hatch (Physics) Course goals: 1) To demonstrate a genuinely interdisciplinary approach to understanding and addressing ?wicked problems? such as water management in the 21st century, 2) To stimulate interdisciplinary thinking around such issues, 3) To acquire information that can be used to inform the students?

Are you interested in fiction writing but don?t know where to start? In this course, students will participate in a professional-grade writer?s workshop geared for beginners. With the guidance of the instructor, an award-winning graphic novelist and ethnographic writer, they will read seminal short fiction and instructive texts and participate in group and individual writing exercises. Students will learn to talk about and analyze short fiction and will develop their own pieces through formal workshopping with peers and consultation with the instructor.

This course provides students with entry points to understand the complexities of gender and sexuality diversity, to critically examine the social construction of identities, and to consider what it might mean to queer understandings of gender and sexuality. Drawing on work from the fields of anti-oppression education and queer theory, the course exposes students to concepts that serve to identify, name, and explain social inequalities related to gender and sexuality diversity.

Foundation course required for all OEB graduate students along with the OEB Evolution Core Course. Graduate level topics covering ecology of individuals, population ecology, community ecology and ecosystem ecology.

Despite many advances in the diagnoses and treatment of mental illness, those afflicted with mental illness remain one of the most highly stigmatized groups in society. In fact, the stigma associated with mental disorders is oftentimes as harmful as (or more harmful than) the symptoms of the actual disorders themselves. In this seminar we will examine the stigma of mental illness for individuals, children, and families.

Reading a story in one sitting can be a powerful experience. Flash fiction (stories under 1,000 words) uses minimal space to maximal effect. In this course, we will look at writing by masters of the form, reading critically to study how the authors create character, scene, and conflict, in just a few words. We will learn techniques for generating ideas and write our own pieces of flash fiction, using revision methods to condense and polish our writing so that every word matters.