Mineralogy

The crystallography and crystal chemistry of naturally occurring inorganic compounds (minerals). The identification, origin, distribution and use of minerals. Laboratory work includes the principles and methods of optical mineralogy, X-ray diffraction, back-scattered electron microscopy, and electron beam microanalysis. Three hours of lecture and three hours of lecture/discussion and directed laboratory.

Recommended requisite: GEOL 111, CHEM 151 or 155 or their equivalent. Fall semester. Professor Cheney.

Paleontology

This course focuses on the history of life as preserved in the sedimentary rock record.  Students will learn how paleontologists and geobiologists use skeletal fossils, molecular fossils, and geochemical signatures to ask and answer questions about the evolution of ancient life and Earth history.  Students will study the origination, radiation, and extinction of major groups of organisms in the context of global environmental change, with an emphasis on invertebrate and microbial life.

Principles of Geology

As the science that considers the origin and evolution of the earth, Geology provides students with an understanding of what is known about the earth and how we know it, how the earth “works” and why we think it behaves as it does. In particular this course focuses upon the earth as an evolving and dynamic system where change is driven by energy generated within the earth.

Climate Chg, Global Warm

From the earliest civilizations man has been a major agent of environmental change. However, from the dawn of the industrial age, when fossil fuels were first tapped for energy, the rate of this change has increased exponentially. In this course, we will dissect environmental issues by first examining the recent geologic record of climate change and how processes that affect climate change operate in modern natural systems. We will then assess how societies have modified such systems and what factors control the trajectory and rate of change.

French Lit Outside Europ

This course will explore cross-cultural intersections and issues of identity and alienation in the works of leading writers from the French-speaking Caribbean and West Africa. Our discussions will focus on the sociopolitical positions and narrative strategies entertained in key texts of postcolonial literature (both fiction and critical essays). Issues involving nationalism, race, gender, assimilation and multilingualism will help to shape our discussion of how postcolonial subjects share in or distinguish themselves from certain tenets of Western thought.

Women of Ill Repute

Prostitutes play a central role in nineteenth-century French fiction, especially of the realistic and naturalistic kind. Both widely available and largely visible in nineteenth-century France, prostitutes inspired many negative stereotypes. But, as the very product of the culture that marginalized her, the prostitute offered an ideal vehicle for writers to criticize the hypocrisy of bourgeois mores. The socially stratified world of prostitutes, ranging from low-ranking sex workers to high-class courtesans, presents a fascinating microcosm of French society as a whole.

17th & 18th-Cent Genres

This course explores the formation and transformation of various genres in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature, with a particular focus announced each time the course is offered. The topic for 2012-13 is:  "The Eighteenth-Century Novel and Theater in France."  Readings will include texts by Diderot, Voltaire, Marivaux, Prévost, Laclos, and Beaumarchais.  Conducted in French.

Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Fall semester. Professor de la Carrera.

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