Gentrification, unemployment, crime, failing schools, disinvestment, mass incarceration--what comes to mind when you think of the inner city? In response to a constrained fiscal environment, cities have increasingly adopted neoliberal policy approaches to address seemingly intractable urban problems. The seminar will study current research to assess the political and economic impact of this neoliberal policy regime on housing, education, and public safety. This is an inter-institutional class, linked with an advanced seminar on the same topic at Holyoke Community College.

An introduction to some of the great critical voices of the nineteenth century. We will explore the ideas of such mutinous thinkers as Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, focusing on the style as well as the substance of their theoretical works. The course will highlight their competing notions of the clash between appearance and reality, the logic and historical trajectory of domination and subordination, the basis and function of religion and morality, and the place of reason and irrationality in social life.

This course examines the impact of U.S. constitutional law on the legitimacy of different assertions of governmental power. Topics include judicial review; congressional control of court jurisdiction; federal regulation of the economy; and the relative powers and authority of the president, Congress, and the courts in national emergencies, foreign relations, war, and covert action, including torture and assassination. Case method.

Russia was transformed by communist revolution into a global superpower that challenged the dominant ideologies of liberalism and nationalism. It became a powerful alternative to capitalism. In 1991, this imperial state collapsed and underwent an economic, political, and cultural revolution. What explains the Soviet Union's success for 70 years and its demise in 1991? What sort of country is Russia as it enters the twenty-first century? Is it a democracy? How has Russia's transformation affected ordinary people and Russia's relationship to the West?

This course is a survey of contending approaches to the study of conflict and cooperation in world politics. Examines key concepts--including balance of power, imperialism, collective security, deterrence, and interdependence--with historical examples ranging from the Peloponnesian War to the post-cold war world. Analyzes the emerging world order.

Offers an overview of the American political system and the theories of those who both celebrate and criticize it. Focuses on the institutions of American politics, including the Constitution, the presidency, Congress, the courts, parties, elections, interest groups, and movements seeking political change. Also includes a theoretical focus: a critical examination of the varieties of liberalism, conservatism, pluralism, and democracy that inform the practice of American politics.

Offers an overview of the American political system and the theories of those who both celebrate and criticize it. Focuses on the institutions of American politics, including the Constitution, the presidency, Congress, the courts, parties, elections, interest groups, and movements seeking political change. Also includes a theoretical focus: a critical examination of the varieties of liberalism, conservatism, pluralism, and democracy that inform the practice of American politics.

Topics include algebraic structures: groups, rings (including some elementary number theory), fields, and vector spaces.

Offers mathematics as a laboratory science. After a short introduction to the computer, uses hand and computer computation to explore mathematical ideas. Directs laboratory projects toward discovery of properties and patterns in mathematical structures. The choice of projects varies from year to year and is drawn from algebra, analysis, discrete mathematics, geometry, and statistics.

Studies some aspects of discrete mathematics. Topics include sets, functions, elementary probability, induction proofs, and recurrence relations.