You know which courses you want to take this semester-or do you? We are often uncertain, and sometimes completely clueless, about what we believe, want, or feel. When do we know our own minds with certainty? Is such knowledge even possible? If it is possible, how do we get it? Do we learn about ourselves just as we learn about other people and the world? Or is self-knowledge fundamentally different? This course will explore these questions by engaging with key historical and contemporary philosophical texts.

A study of Ovid's ambitious epic celebrating change and transformative forces, with attention to the challenges it poses to traditional Roman values and to conventional Roman notions of the work appropriate to a poet. In particular, consideration will be given to the way Ovid's poem subversively responds to Vergil's work.

What kind of life should a person live? What can we know about the world? What is the nature of the self? What is the value of the arts? The aim of the course is to learn how to do philosophy by engaging with the answers that philosophers from different periods of history and around the globe give to these and similar questions. We will read historical texts from African, Chinese, European, Native American, and South Asian philosophical traditions, as well as contemporary texts by a variety of living philosophers.

This course investigates the concepts of race and racism. Race has played an immense role in shaping our world historically and currently. But what exactly is a race? What does it mean to be racist? And what is discrimination on the basis of race? We interrogate competing conceptions of race, including biological, constructivist, and political approaches, as well as skeptical views that say race isn't real. We also consider theories of racism, ranging from those that identify racism with a prejudicial attitude to those that focus on social structures.

What factors hinder meaningful dialogues on race within the U.S. context? What facilitation skills promote interracial communication and collaboration across axes of difference? How might these co-created dialogic spaces help promote social transformation and change? This course is designed to prepare students to facilitate dialogues on race and other social-justice related topics by bridging sociological theory on race and racial identity development with engaged praxis using Intergroup Dialogue (IGD) pedagogical techniques.

What factors hinder meaningful dialogues on race with the U.S. context? What facilitation skills promote interracial communication and collaboration across axes of difference? How might these co-created dialogic spaces help promote social transformation and change? This course is designed to prepare students to facilitate dialogues on race and other social-justice related topics by bridging sociological theory on race and racial identity development with engaged praxis using Intergroup Dialogue (IGD) pedagogical techniques.

Learn to speak with confidence and clarity about your summer internship or research project. Connect it to you academic coursework. What have you learned? How is it useful? What are your next steps? Students will reflect on their experience and collaborate with others to generate useful knowledge. Required for the Nexus but open to all students. For more information, email nexus@mtholyoke.edu.

This course brings seniors together to develop and carry out a capstone project related to their specific interests while exploring the relationships among theory, activism, research and practice in gender studies and/or critical social thought. Projects can take different forms. Seniors with diverse interests, perspectives, and expertise will have the opportunity to reflect on the significance of their education in relation to their current and past work, their capstone or senior projects, their academic studies as a whole or their engagements outside of academia.

This course brings seniors together to develop and carry out a capstone project related to their specific interests while exploring the relationships among theory, activism, research and practice in gender studies and/or critical social thought. Projects can take different forms. Seniors with diverse interests, perspectives, and expertise will have the opportunity to reflect on the significance of their education in relation to their current and past work, their capstone or senior projects, their academic studies as a whole or their engagements outside of academia.