This course will introduce students to the many Native American Nations here in the Northeast. Through writings by Native authors

and research into the Homelands, cultures and communities, students will learn about the indigenous peoples and cultures

of this region.

This class is not about where in the world to seek the perfect career and happiness. Rather, it is about how to understand yourself ? your values, desires, choices, and habits ? which would prepare you for a fulfilling career and lasting happiness. Self-knowledge is more difficult to gain than knowledge about the world, as the former requires our eyes to look inward, which unfortunately is not one of our born habits.

The United States is today ideologically polarized. Yet our political differences are not primarily partisan ones?indeed, more Americans now consider themselves

independents than either Democrats or Republicans?but rather differences in values, beliefs, and even perceptions of reality.

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.

Drawing on 50 years of practical experience, the instructor will discuss the ways in which art historians through history have dealt and continue to deal with questions of artistic authenticity (connoisseurship) misrepresentation (including fakes and forgeries) , forensics (the scientific tests used to answer questions about works of art), theft and cultural patrimony, artistic copyright, fair use, and photographic rights, provenance and legal ownership, censorship and the dismal history of destruction of works of art; the world market in works of art; and museum practice both historical and c

This seminar will explore the biology and behavior of the domestic cat from an evolutionary and ecological perspective. Students will be introduced to the evolution of mammals and wild cats. The seminar will explore the domestication process and how this shaped the current behavior and biology of the domestic cat and how cat ancestry left its marks on this companion animal. The positive and negative health impacts of domestic cats will be discussed. The seminar will conclude with a discussion of feral cats, their impacts on wildlife, and their management.

What is popular culture? Is it driven by youth culture? Is youth culture monolithic? In other words, how does a study of youth culture intersect with a study of race, identity, class, and power? Also, what counts as literacy? What power, if any, is ascribed to particular types of literacy practices? Imagine if your professors studied and taught what you considered to be popular. In this seminar, we critically explore links between popular culture and literacy in and out of school contexts. As a class, we define and redefine popular culture and literacy.

Over the last half-billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us.

Interactive machine learning involves an algorithm or an agent making decisions about data collection, contrasting starkly with traditional learning paradigms. Interactive data collection often enables learning with significantly less data, and it is critical in a number of applications including personalized recommendation, medical diagnosis, and dialogue systems. This seminar will focus on the design and analysis of interactive learning algorithms for settings including active learning, bandits, reinforcement learning, and adaptive sensing.

This course will be a discussion-based and cover some of the implications of behavioral economics for individual decision making and public policy. The topics will follow along with the book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (2008, Yale University Press).