The course will focus on the acquisition of two or more languages by both children and adults. We will look at how two or more languages are represented in the mind of an individual and ad the mental processes that allow individuals to produce and understand sentences in each language. Questions that we will consider include: Who is considered bilingual and what are the criteria for 'knowing' a language? How does bilingualism influence linguistic and cognitive development?

Computers are commonly (and inconsistently) regarded as both omnipotent and as "stupid machines." In this course we will explore the real limits of computation from philosophical, logical, mathematical and public-policy perspectives. We begin with a discussion of the possibility of "artificial intelligence" (AI), covering the claims that have been made by AI scientists and the critiques of such claims that have arisen from the philosophical community.

This course will introduce students to the production of animated short films with the tools and techniques of three-dimensional (3D) computer graphics. Readings and lectures will cover the theoretical foundations of the field, and the homework assignments will provide hands-on, project-based experience with production. The topics covered will include modeling (the building of 3D objects), shading (assignment of surface reflectance properties), animation (moving the objects over time), and lighting (placing and setting the properties of virtual light sources).

Statistics is a field that tries to interpret data in the face of random variation. The methods used in statistics are often abstract which can make them hard to understand. Baseball is a simple game that contains a high degree of randomness, and thus offers a great way to ground statistical concepts in terms of simple actions taken by the players. In this class we examine key concepts in statistics using baseball as a motivating example for how to answer concrete questions in the face of noisy data.

This course will examine some of the most influential research in the field of social psychology. Social psychology may best be defined as the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are affected by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. In this course, we will be examining research on conformity, persuasion, obedience, attraction, aggression, prejudice, and others. Evaluations will be based on a series of short papers throughout the semester as well as a final paper.

This course is designed to give students a strong introduction to computer programming, with an emphasis on programming computer games. As the title reveals, we will be working in the Python programming language. By the end of the course successful students will be able to write programs of moderate difficulty, and will be able to use the Python pygames library to make use of graphic utilities with which to implement computer games.

An introduction to the theory of knowledge, its principal questions and theories. What is the basis of knowledge, if any? Might we all be stuck in the Matrix, lacking any real knowledge? How would we know, since if we were stuck in the Matrix our belief that we are stuck in the Matrix would only be the belief that we were stuck in another Matrix within the Matrix, not the real one, since we have no access to that. It becomes vital to know what knowledge is, and how it is related to truth and to belief. Can there be knowledge in the Matrix? What is the justification of knowledge?

Third Year Chinese II: This course will be taught by a visiting professor of Chinese from the Hampshire College China Exchange program, D. Song and supervised by K. Johnson. Students entering this class will be expected to have completed Intermediate Chinese or the equivalent of an intensive college-level second year Chinese language course. The main text for the semester will be All Things Considered. Emphasis will be placed equally on speaking, reading, and writing. Students should have completed Integrated Chinese Level 2 or equivalent to enter this class.

This course is the second semester of second-year Spanish. Students enrolled should have taken LS201 or the equivalent and be able to use the present, future, preterit, imperfect tenses, command forms and present subjunctive with some fluency. This course will solidify grammatical structures of Spanish through activities that practice all four skill areas: speaking, listening, reading and writing. Attention will be given to more sophisticated use of the subjunctive and compound tenses.

This course is the first semester of second year Spanish. Students enrolled in this course should have taken LS102 or the equivalent and be able to use the present, future, preterit and imperfect tenses with some fluency and have a working knowledge of the present subjunctive. This course, taught almost entirely in Spanish, is designed to reinforce grammatical structures introduced in first-year Spanish through activities that practice all four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing. Attention is given to using command forms and the present subjunctive.