Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy is one of world literature's foundational works. In his 700 years old masterpiece, Dante poses and confronts universal questions that are still at the core of our daily existence: God, love, ethics, gender relationships, politics, social harmony, literature, the afterlife, and the relations between human and nonhuman forms of life. In this course, we will read, analyze, discuss, and enjoy Dante's great poem by focusing on the first of its three parts, the Inferno. In particular, we will be covering Dante's take on mythology and history.

This course-based undergraduate research experience will explore advanced topics and techniques in developmental biology. Using the developing fruit fly nervous system as a model, students will be guided through the design and execution of a novel experiment using genetic tools such as CRISPR/Cas9, RNAi, and MARCM to probe questions in stem cell fate, differentiation, or tissue patterning. Students will test their hypotheses using three-dimensional fluorescent microscopy, and present their results in both written and oral formats.

This course-based undergraduate research experience will explore advanced topics and techniques in developmental biology. Using the developing fruit fly nervous system as a model, students will be guided through the design and execution of a novel experiment using genetic tools such as CRISPR/Cas9, RNAi, and MARCM to probe questions in stem cell fate, differentiation, or tissue patterning. Students will test their hypotheses using three-dimensional fluorescent microscopy, and present their results in both written and oral formats.

Data storytelling techniques blend the principles of data visualization, data analysis, and visual design to tell compelling, data-driven stories across a wide variety of fields. Bridging public communication and data, these techniques are used every day by data journalists and data analysts as well as public science and research communicators in for- and non-profit organizations across the globe.

This course covers the history and evolution of dance in early 20th-century America with a focus on dances presented in vaudeville variety shows and early cinema. We will explore the work of entrepreneurial artists performing on stages across the U.S., as well as in dance films and Hollywood movies. We will think theoretically about dance practice and performance as a vast web of personal, political and cultural expression, and consider how the contributions of dancers of color have often been excluded from the canon.

In this course we will study accented language using perspectives from literary studies, linguistics, legal studies, and education. We will consider whether accent is produced by a speaker or signer, or if we create accents when we perceive others' language. We will look at how accent works in written language, and try to account for the impact of language-generating AI on our concept of accent. Authors and artists may include Xiaolu Guo, Harmony Becker, and Elaine Castillo.

Revolution-as foundational event, symbolic aspiration, or failed aftermath-has been central to postcolonial thinking. In this seminar, we will consider contested ideas on revolution and its multiple dimensions across an archive of literary, visual, and theoretical sources. While our focus will be on the twentieth century, we will think broadly about how echoes of revolutionary pasts inform postcolonial understandings of the present, including practices of independence, solidarity, globalization, nonviolence, the strike, etc.

Classical epic embraced a tragic view of the world. People of that era were compelled to confront their own mortality and frailties by the harsh conditions of war, famine, disease, political instability, and the dangers of childbearing, much more directly than moderns do. As a result, epic poets, such as Homer, Vergil, and Ovid, offered conflicting visions of hope blended with pessimism for how to meet the challenges posed by such precarious conditions.

In this course, students will engage in the deep exploration of a scene. The rehearsal process is one of the key components of the theater making endeavor and will be a primary mode of learning. We shall work in small groups and each student will have the opportunity to experience the process from the point of view of an actor as well as a director. Students will be exposed to a myriad of texts and styles.

This course explores how gender, race, class, and power influence economies and are shaped by economics. Using feminist geography frameworks, we ask questions like: What defines a worker? What kinds of work are valued? How are money, care, and survival represented, challenged, and reimagined? Through case studies, discussions, and projects, students investigate how labor divisions are created and maintained, the production and consumption of commodities, and the nexus of gendered, racialized, and classed inequities.