The lack of access of rural and urban poor to credit facilities in many parts of the developing world has meant the rapid proliferation of microfinance institutions in the last thirty to forty years. Spurred by an international movement of large institutions such as the World Bank, non-governmental organizations, government donors, foundations and private investors, microfinance promised to be a solution to the poor's lack of access to credit and consequently, an indispensable tool for poverty alleviation in the developing world.

How much environmental degradation is too much? Who wins and who loses from environmental degradation? And how can sustainability be achieved? In this survey course, we will examine how the theories of neoclassical, ecological and political economics have been used to answer these questions. Using these economic lenses, we will analyze a range of issues related to pollution and natural resource use, with special attention to climate change-related problems and their impacts across country, race, class and gender lines.

The Americas have been characterized by the strictness of its laws in the criminalization of abortion. The only countries in the hemisphere in which the practice is legal are Canada, Cuba, the Guyanas and the US. There are countries such as Chile, El Salvador and Nicaragua in which abortion is criminalized even in cases in which the mother's life is at risk. This course introduces students to the politics of abortion in the Americas. Some of the questions we will consider are: what role have women's movements played in advancing abortion rights in the region?

Inertia and the status quo dominate even the most modern societies. Tradition trumps progress almost every time. So what makes change happen? What makes an idea become a cause and a cause become a movement? In this class, we will examine major social movements in 20th-21st Century America. The Labor Movement. Women's Suffrage. The Civil Rights Movement. The Vietnam Anti-War Movement. The Women's Movement. The Gay Rights Movement. Occupy Wall Street. What did they have in common? What made each distinct? What was the role of song in each movement? Of media coverage?

Focusing on the"American Film Renaissance" or "Hollywood New Wave," this course will examine the complex interplay between American cinema and culture in light of profound sociopolitical transformations in the nation from the 1960s through the 1970s. We'll explore how the aesthetic conventions and social content of 'Classic Hollywood' were challenged by new cultural realities-the cold war, civil rights movement, women's movement, gay liberation, ethnic revival, counterculture, sexual revolution, Vietnam and Watergate.

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. A main focus of this course will be to gain a better understanding of some of the research methods used in social psychology.

This course looks broadly at the complexities of education of English Language Learners (ELLs) in the current sociopolitical context of U.S. public schools and anti-immigrant public discourse. 1. The course introduces sociocultural theories of second language acquisition as a basis for critical understanding of key pedagogical issues for classroom and school contexts. 2. Language learning provides a discursive framework for students in the course to investigate anti-bilingual language policies in recent years in states such as Massachusetts and California. 3.

This is an introductory studio for those students interested in exploring the design fields: architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and product design. These fields all share a studio based approach to problem solving that is at once spatial, material, conceptual and social. In practice today, this necessitates also considering sustainability issues in the broadest sense including environmental, social, economic and political.

This writing intensive course develops the communication skills that are necessary for college-level work. The class is premised on the view that writing well means entering into conversation with others. To explore the social activity of writing, students select discussion topics that matter to them. The semester builds toward a final in-class debate that dramatizes the give-and-take of academic arguments. In preparation for this work, we spend several weeks studying essays by well-regarded writers and developing a shared vocabulary for analyzing the components of academic writing.

This course questions the association of literature with cultural refinement. Why, for instance, has literature historically been fascinated with the grotesque body? Conversely, why have writers wishing to represent their loftiest beliefs been drawn to poetry and other forms of literary refinement? By comparing high-minded sentiments with their lower-minded counterparts, we will explore the varied terrain of literary culture. The aim is to understand literature's complex stake in disputes about the formation of selfhood, gender, race, nation, politics, and most fundamentally, writing.