(Offered  as BIOL 291 and BCBP 291)  An analysis of the structure and function of cells in plants, animals, and bacteria. Topics to be discussed include the cell surface and membranes, cytoskeletal elements and motility, cytoplasmic organelles and bioenergetics, the interphase nucleus and chromosomes, mitosis, meiosis, and cell cycle regulation. Four classroom hours and three hours of laboratory per week.

Requisite: BIOL 191 and completion of, or concurrent registration in, CHEM 161.  Limited to 24 students. Spring semester. Professor Poccia.

Independent Reading Course.

Fall and spring semesters. The Department.

A course reserved exclusively for students not well-versed in the physical sciences. The properties of the astronomical universe and the methods by which astronomers investigate it are discussed. Topics include the nature and properties of stars, our Galaxy, external galaxies, cosmology, the origin and character of the solar system, and black holes. Two 80 sessions per week.

Independent Reading Course.

Fall and spring semesters.  Members of the Department.

(Offered as HIST 478 [AS] and ASLC 470 [C].) Political thinkers and activists inside China and throughout the world today puzzle over the relationship between the people and the state.  Where do state functions and state control begin and end?  How do the global economy, China’s increasing regional hegemony, internal migration, NGOs, rural protest, and the internet influence the relationship between the people and the state?  Fundamental questions about the relationship between the people and the state have occupied thinkers and activists since the beginning of the twen

[C] This course will be devoted to reading the English translations of the major Chinese novels, from the Ming dynasty Xiyouji (Journey to the West), to the Jin Ping Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase), the Shui hu zhuan (The Water Margins), to the eighteenth-century novel Hongloumeng (The Dream of the Red Chambers.

(Offered as RELI 285 and ASLC 356 [WA])  This course is a survey of the large complex of Islamic intellectual and social perspectives subsumed under the term Sufism. Sufi mystical philosophies, liturgical practices, and social organizations have been a major part of the Islamic tradition in all historical periods, and Sufism has also served as a primary creative force behind Islamic aesthetic expression in poetry, music, and the visual arts.

(Offered as HIST 393 [ME^P] and ASLC 355 [WA].)  This course examines in depth the formative period of Islam between c. 500-680. Using predominantly primary material, we will chart the emergence, success, and evolution of Islam, the Islamic community, and the Islamic polity. The focus of this course is on understanding the changing nature over time of peoples’ understanding of and conception of what Islam was and what Islam implied socially, religiously, culturally and politically.

(Offered as ASLC 326, RELI 326 and WAGS 326.)  In this course we will study the lives of prominent female teachers in Tibetan Buddhism from its inception up to the present day. Our focus will be on reconstructing the narratives of the trajectories to realization that women like Yedshe Tsogyal, Mandarava, Yid Thogma, Machig Labdron, Sera Khandro, and Ayu Khandro, among others, undertook, often at high personal and societal cost.

(Offered as ANTH 318 and ASLC 318 [C].)  This course examines Chinese childrearing, focusing primarily on childrearing in mainland China. We will look at differences as well as similarities between childrearing in Chinese families of different socioeconomic status within China, as well as between childrearing in mainland China and in childrearing in Chinese and non-Chinese families worldwide.