This one-credit discussion-based course will serve as an introduction to major philosophical questions and critical thinking. The course is designed around five distinct units corresponding to important areas of philosophy. We will explore questions about skepticism, artificial intelligence, living a moral life, personal identity, the nature of God and how we can find meaning in the world. We will use a combination of film and text to explore each question, both in small groups and in class-wide discussions. We will meet once a week for a one hour period.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with basic knowledge of practical experience with music technology used in musical notation-based and loops-based composition, and in various types of media productions. Skills developed in this course will position students to pursue further study as self-directed learners and within other courses in the humanities and fine arts.

First year seminar focusing on the elements and history of music and visual art. Primarily a music course, we'll examine music's relationship to the visual arts, literature and science. We'll learn the basics of visual art, compare these elements to the building blocks of music and find parallels and relationships between the two disciplines throughout history. Readings will vary across multiple disciplines including Levitin's This Is Your Brain On Music, Gombrich's The Story of Art and Sacks' Musicophilia.

Using literature, visual arts and music, this class will usher students into a deeper understanding of the connections between medical professions, literature and the arts. Through attention to themes such as infectious disease, mental disturbance, death, organ transplantation and cloning, we will see both how medicine informs literature and how literature informs the practice of medicine.

Our contemporary world is increasingly dominated by visual images and one prominent example of this trend is the increasing popularity of comic books and graphic novels. They are not only taking up space in book stores and serving as the material for a number of successful film franchises, but comic books have also been appearing more frequently in the classroom.

The history and literature of Western Massachusetts is as fertile as the soil of the Connecticut River Valley that sustains it. This is not your average history or literature course. Discussion and course participation will be creative and exploratory in nature. We will connect with the past as a way to better understand our present surroundings. Topics include the Norwottuck native tribe and early settlement, slavery in Massachusetts, the Quabbin Reservoir, the Northampton State Hospital, Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson.

This course will feature music, short stories, and poetry written by Chicanos/as (Mexican-Americans) and Puerto Ricans living off the island, especially in New York City. We will discuss the different motivations authors and lyricists might have for choosing to use the language(s) they do, and the ways in which those choices help us understand the negotiation of Latino/a identities in the U.S. Similarly, we will explore the ways in which the music of Salsa, rock en espa?ol, corridos and reggaeton, for example, are artistically and politically important in these communities.

"Code switching" is a term originally from the field of linguistics, used to describe how speakers switch between languages or dialects (codes) depending upon the situation. People who are bilingual can attest that this happens quite seamlessly and without conscious thought. The term "code switching" has been adopted all over the Humanities to capture the performative and fluid nature of identity.

Interpretations of social life developed by symbolic interactionists. Topics include the interactionist approach to language, the self, deviance, social relationships, social structure and collective behavior. (Gen.Ed. SB)

Throughout history, epidemics and disasters have influenced the course of public health and human history. This class will use a series of case studies about past, current, and potential future public health disasters and epidemics to introduce students to key concepts in public health. Students will contextualize these public health events and their impacts on modern public health practice. Students will work together to develop their own case studies and present these to the class.