An introduction to interdisciplinary research methods in history, social science, and the digital humanities, using environmental change and public health as themes for investigation. Topics include the collection, organization, and analysis of information from on-line databases and research collections as well as bibliographic management. Computer-assisted analysis of textual information and GIS will be introduced to study agricultural change, industrialization, and public health during the 19th and early 20th centuries with data on Great Britain. Research projects for the U.S.

Ancient Rome and its empire can be viewed both as a measure of human achievement and a cautionary tale of the corrupting effects of unbridled power. This course covers the history of Ancient Rome from its mythologized beginnings (753 BCE) to the rise and spread of Christianity under the Emperor Constantine (312 CE).

When you act bravely, can you be scared? How do you know that you are not dreaming now? If everyone told you you weren't a person, would you believe them? These questions are raised by children's books, such as Frog and Toad Together and The Bear That Wasn't. In this course, you will learn how to conduct discussions of philosophical questions like these among elementary school children using picture books. The first half of the course will concentrate on developing the necessary skills; the second on teaching philosophy to the children.

This course cultivates sound reasoning. Students will learn to see the structure of claims and arguments and to use those structures in developing strong arguments and exposing shoddy ones. We will learn to evaluate arguments on the strength of the reasoning rather than on the force of their associations and buzzwords.

Exploration of the history of Afro-Latin American populations since Independence within and outside the nation-state. We will question why and how to study those whose governments define them not as peoples of African descent but as part of a mixed-race majority of Hispanic cultural heritage, who themselves may often have supported this policy, and who may have had compelling reasons to avoid official scrutiny.

This course will focus on classic and contemporary work on central topics in ethics. The goal will be to see whether there is anything to be said in a principled way about what to do and how to live. The core of the course will be an examination of the central traditions in moral philosophy in the West, typified by Aristotle, Kant, and Mill. We will also examine vexing contemporary moral issues with an eye to whether moral theories can give us practical guidance.

An introduction to ancient Greek philosophy, focusing mainly but not exclusively on the works and ideas of three Athenian philosophers who worked and taught in the period between the Persian Wars and the rule of Alexander the Great, more than 2,300 years ago: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Topics to be discussed include: What is the nature of the self? What is reality, and how can it be known? What kind of life should we live? We will work to understand each philosopher's responses to these questions, but we will also learn to develop our own answers.

This course will explore topics that philosophers have grappled with for thousands of years, and that still undergird (or sometimes threaten to undermine) our understanding of the world, our knowledge, ourselves, and each other. In historical and modern texts of the Western intellectual tradition, we will discuss questions such as: Are we all selfish? What makes right actions right, if anything? Do you know anything at all about the future? Are you really free if your actions are caused?

Exploration of the history of Afro-Latin American populations since Independence within and outside the nation-state. We will question why and how to study those whose governments define them not as peoples of African descent but as part of a mixed-race majority of Hispanic cultural heritage, who themselves may often have supported this policy, and who may have had compelling reasons to avoid official scrutiny.

Seminar on love, desire and gender, major themes in Indian literature. We will read classic poems, plays, and narratives in translation from Sanskrit, Tamil, Hindi, and other languages, in relation to aesthetic theory, visual arts (miniature paintings) and performance genres (Indian dance and the modern Bollywood cinema). Study of the conventions of courtly love, including aesthetic mood (rasa) and natural landscapes, and their transformation in Hindu bhakti and Sufi Muslim mystical texts, the Radha-Krishna myth, and film.