Sophisticated Japanese

This course is designed for students who have completed the acquisition of basic structures of Japanese and have learned a substantial number of characters (Kanji) and are comfortable using them spontaneously. The course will emphasize the development of all four skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) at a more complex, multi-paragraph level. For example, students will be trained to speak more spontaneously and with cultural appropriateness in given situations using concrete as well as abstract expressions on a sustained level of conversation.

Science Fiction

Science Fiction film and literature imagine possible near or distant futures for human (and other) life. This course explores imagined futures from different points of view. We will analyze films, novels, and short stories to see what they convey about the time in which they were imagined, their reflections on worldviews and religious traditions, and the more general question of what a narrative approach can contribute to the academic study of religion. We will discuss questions concerning human nature, ontology, and morality:  What makes us human? What is reality?

Intro to Statistics

(Offered as MATH 130 and ENST 240.) This course is an introduction to applied statistical methods useful for the analysis of data from all fields. Brief coverage of data summary and graphical techniques will be followed by elementary probability, sampling distributions, the central limit theorem and statistical inference. Inference procedures include confidence intervals and hypothesis testing for both means and proportions, the chi-square test, simple linear regression, and a brief introduction to analysis of variance (ANOVA).

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