This community-based learning course trains students in identifying and researching social problems in Holyoke, Mass., and collaborating as a research team. Weekly work with a community-based organization, utilization of quantitative and/or qualitative sociological methods, and a consideration of both primary and secondary sources on the community are expected. Prerequisites: SOC 101, 201, 202 or 203. Enrollment limited to 14. SOC 309 must be taken concurrently.

An examination of the ways in which the social system creates, maintains and reproduces gender dichotomies with specific attention to the significance of gender in interaction, culture and a number of institutional contexts, including work, politics, families and sexuality. Enrollment limited to 35. Prerequisite: SOC 101.

A study of the sociological dimensions of urban life. Main areas of inquiry: the processes of urban change; the city as a locus of various social relationships and cultural forms; urban poverty and social conflict; homelessness; and strategies for urban revitalization. Enrollment limited to 35.

Visual analytics techniques can help people to derive insight from massive, dynamic, ambiguous and often conflicting data. During this course, students learn the foundations of the emerging, multidisciplinary field of visual analytics and apply these techniques toward a focused research problem in a domain of personal interest. Students may elect to take SDS 235 as a programming intensive course (prerequisite: CSC 212). In this track, students learn to use R, Python and HTML5/JavaScript to develop custom visual analytic tools.

The course is designed to address the needs of both second language learners (those who completed Elementary Russian) and heritage students (who speak Russian at home). Students practice all four language modalities: reading, listening, writing and speaking. The course incorporates a variety of activities that are based on a range of topics, text types and different socio-cultural situations. Authentic texts (poems, short stories, TV programs, films, songs and articles) are used to create the context for reviewing and expanding on grammar, syntax and vocabulary. This is a full-year course.

The four-skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) introduction to the Russian language with the focus on communicative skills development. Major structural topics include pronunciation and intonation, all six cases, all tenses and verbal aspect. By the end of the course, students are able to sustain conversation on basic topics, write short compositions, read short authentic texts, as well as develop an understanding of Russian culture through watching, discussing and writing on movies, short stories, folk tales and poems. This is a full-year course.

Topics course.: Many biblical texts question whether God consistently rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. Prominent examples include Job, Ecclesiastes and certain Psalms, but similar ideas occur in the Torah and the Prophets. While focusing most deeply on Job, this course introduces students to an array of biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts, as well as some post-biblical and even modern literature, to illuminate the Hebrew Bible’s discourse surrounding this issue.

How is violence legitimized and what is its legacy for both perpetrator and victim? When are war and sacrifice not murder? What are the political implications of a nonviolent morality? This course considers the rhetoric and phenomena of violence and nonviolence in a variety of religious traditions in South Asia, both modern and premodern. Particular emphasis is placed on the ethical and social consequences of these practices, and the politics of the discourse that surrounds them. Texts and films concerning Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Christianity and Islam.

The Qur’an, according to the majority of Muslims, is God’s word revealed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a period of 22 years (610–632 C.E.). This course introduces students to Islam’s scriptural text: its content, form, structure and history. It also situates the Qur’an in the larger frame of the genre of Scripture: What does it mean for a text to be revealed? Study of the Qur’an as a seventh-century product, as well as the history of reception of this text.

Whether revered as the Birth-Giver of God or remembered as a simple Jewish woman, Mary has both inspired and challenged generations of Christian women and men worldwide. This course focuses on key developments in the “history of Mary” since early Christian times to the present. How has her image shaped Christianity? What does her image in any given age tell us about personal and collective identities?