There are many lenses through which one can study narrative discourse. This course investigates the temporal interpretation of narrative discourse through the lense of a formal semanticist. The course will consist of a case study that addresses what I take to be the core phenomeona: (a) prominence, (b) coherence and (c) how linguistic expressions interact with (a) and (b). At the heart of the case study is the following question: what is the meaning of 'now' and how does this meaning interact with the meaning of tense?

For instructor permission and more information, see irafay.com/classes. Virtual reality (VR) is a cutting edge platform for game development that will likely see rapid growth in the near future. In this course, students will learn best practices for virtual reality game development, discuss VR-specific cultural issues, and actually make VR games.

How do we create engaging, interesting, fun games? A growing area of interest for game designers is "educational games." But what does research on learning, especially from games, tell us about effective design that leads to learning? In this course, students will read about, design and play educational games. Through hands-on, project-based work, students will work individually and in teams to create at least two games that teach. These games can be in digital or non-digital format.

This course is an upper-level research seminar designed for students who wish to learn electrophysiological techniques and how to apply those techniques to answer research questions in the domain of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuropsychology. In this years course students will help design a study of attention, run participants, and analyze the data. Additionally, they will have the opportunity to develop an original research project from conception through piloting participants.

Where does good learning design (curriculum, museum exhibits, outdoor ed. programs, etc.) come from? What is the relationship between curriculum, etc. and pedagogy? How do good educators promote deep learning despite the current political climate that emphasizes content mastery and efficient instruction? Should learning design and instruction differ between school and non-school contexts?

The theory of evolution has been a key to the integration of the biological sciences and to the deep understanding of many biological phenomena. In this course we look at the possible contributions of evolutionary theory to understanding some of the key characteristics that define the human species, e.g., high levels of cooperation, language, culture, morality, unique mating behaviors, religion, flexible learning capacities, and so on.

Findings from the neurosciences are being brought to bear on questions about human nature, ethics, politics, and the law. Neuroethics is a field of inquiry that investigates the role of neuroscience in our personal, social, and ethical lives. In this class we will look at the ethics of neuroscientific interventions such as cognitive enhancement, mind reading, and lie detection. We will also examine how the neurosciences inform discussions about human nature, personality, and ethics.

We will examine diverse concerns regarding work: What is "work"? What significance does it have in our lives? How does work vary across different social groups, classes, professions, communities, and traditions? How are individual and group identity related to work? What makes work be regarded as easy or hard, desirable or undesirable, meaningful or meaningless? What virtues and vices are associated with work? What moral rights, interests, and obligations are involved with work? Is there a right to work, or a right to meaningful work? Is there an obligation to work?

In this course students will be introduced in depth to the theory and practice of phonology and phonetics, the subfields of linguistic science that investigate sound patterns in human language. We will also engage with the enterprise of bioacoustics, the field that is generally concerned with the biological use of sound for communication and other functions.

In this course, we will explore the outer limits of what is possible with animation - particularly stop motion animation. Stop motion animation provides a direct access to the process of animating that can broaden and improve the skills in any other animated medium. Weekly experiments will cover a range of concepts from performance to physics, animation technique to stylistic choices, and will utilize design and photographic principles to elicit dynamic emotional states. In-class workshops will cover various techniques such as pixelation, object animation, and of course, puppet animation.