A study of bilingualism as a legacy of colonialism, as an expression of exile, and as a means of political and artistic transformation in recent texts from Africa and the Americas. We consider how such writers as Ng?g? wa Thiong'o (Kenya), Assia Djebar (Algeria), Patrick Chamoiseau (Martinique) and Edwidge Danticat (Haiti/U.S.) assess the personal and political consequences of writing in the language of a former colonial power, and how they attempt to capture the esthetic and cultural tensions of bilingualism in their work.

Where is Main Street? What times, spaces or places does the expression conjure? Are there equivalent concepts and places in other cultures? What are the aesthetics, the life and livelihoods, the politics that we associate with it? How are images and the concept manipulated to affect us, in the arts, in environmental issues, and in public discourse? When do we treasure this landscape, and when do we flee it? We begin by looking at American Main Streets, and then explore related concepts in British, French, German and Russian texts and other media. Prerequisite: one course in literary studies.

Some cultures give the murdering mother a central place in myth and literature while others treat the subject as taboo. How is such a woman depicted-as monster, lunatic, victim, savior? What do the motives attributed to her reveal about a society's assumptions and values? What difference does it make if the author is a woman? We focus on literary texts but also consider representations in other media, especially cinema. Authors to be studied include Euripides, Seneca, Ovid, Anouilh, Christa Wolff, Walker, Morrison and others.

From the earliest Chinese poetry to the latest Arabic Internet novels, comparative literature makes available new worlds-and "newly visible" old worlds. To become "world-forming," one must realize one's belonging to a given world or worlds, as well as one's finitude. To rethink the relationship between literature and world, each section of this course focuses on a given genre, movement or theme. Through topics such as "Epic Worlds," "The Short Story" and "Literature and Medicine," we consider the creation of worlds through words.

Applications of chemical tools and synthetic molecules to the study of biological systems. Emphasis is on emerging strategies to study living systems at the molecular level, primary scientific literature and critical review of manuscripts. Topics include bioorthogonal chemistry, synthetic small-molecule probes to interrogate biological systems, protein engineering, proteomics, advances in DNA sequencing, genomics, directed evolution and natural product biosynthesis. Prerequisite: 223.

A laboratory course designed to complement the lecture material in 332. Advanced techniques used to study the molecular biology of eukaryotes are learned in the context of a semester-long project. These methods include techniques for studying genomics and gene expression including: RNA interference, DNA sequence analysis, microarray analysis, RT-PCR, bioinformatics and others. Enrollment limited to 16. Prerequisite: BIO 332 (should be taken concurrently) and BIO 231.

Advanced molecular biology of eukaryotes and their viruses (including Ebola and HIV). Topics include genomics, bioinformatics, eukaryotic gene organization, regulation of gene expression, RNA processing, retroviruses, transposable elements, gene rearrangement, methods for studying human genes and genetic diseases, molecular biology of infectious diseases, genome projects and whole genome analysis. Reading assignments are from a textbook and the primary literature. Each student presents an in-class presentation and writes a paper on a topic selected in consultation with the instructor.

Topics course. An investigation of the emerging fields of synthetic biology and bionanotechnology drawn from semi-popular and primary research literature. In this seminar, we focus on the central question of what can be achieved by approaching biology from an engineering mindset. Specifically, what can be learned by treating biological components (proteins and nucleic acids) and systems (signaling and metabolic networks) as interchangeable machine-like parts?

This yearlong research-based lecture-laboratory course exposes students to fundamental concepts across the life sciences through interdisciplinary research. Cannot be repeated for credit. Course only open to first-year students. Enrollment limit of 18 students. Fall: 2 credit; spring: 3 credits; 5 credits total. (E) What is the cause of a disease? How do the cells and tissues of an organism respond to the disease state? In order to address these questions scientists need accurate animal models to investigate the pathology and potential treatments associated with a particular disease.

Laboratory sessions in this course combine observational and experimental protocols both in the lab and in the field. Students gain familiarity with the diverse lineages of life and design and conduct research to address specific hypotheses about a subset of lineages. There are also field trips to local sites where students engage in observations of organisms in their natural habitats and in experimental exploration of ecological interactions. Prerequisite: BIO 154 (normally taken concurrently).