Lab section for COSC 111

Lab section for COSC 111

Lab section for COSC 111

This course introduces ideas and techniques that are fundamental to computer science. The course emphasizes procedural abstraction, algorithmic methods, and structured design techniques. Students will gain a working knowledge of a block-structured programming language and will use the language to solve a variety of problems illustrating ideas in computer science. A selection of other elementary topics will be presented. A laboratory section will meet once a week to give students practice with programming constructs. Two class hours and one one-hour laboratory per week.

This course introduces ideas and techniques that are fundamental to computer science. The course emphasizes procedural abstraction, algorithmic methods, and structured design techniques. Students will gain a working knowledge of a block-structured programming language and will use the language to solve a variety of problems illustrating ideas in computer science. A selection of other elementary topics will be presented. A laboratory section will meet once a week to give students practice with programming constructs. Two class hours and one one-hour laboratory per week.

China’s global engagement has increased dramatically since the early 2000s. In Global South countries, China provides significant opportunities for infrastructure development and a market for natural resources, as well as an alternative source of financing for development projects. However, engaging with China has downsides, including over-reliance on natural resources, exacerbating local corruption, and irritating the US. How, then, is China perceived in the Global South, and to what extent have Chinese investments led to goodwill or antipathy toward China?

Non-human beings and sounds are constant presences in music and the acoustic world. Gods and spirits give and receive music; performers and composers are inspired by unseen powers; animals and plants communicate and know their environments sonically; and AIs create music and interpret sounds. Humanities and arts research with non-humans asks us to rethink how human ability is circumscribed, what an agent is, how non-human voices have been silenced in secular knowledge regimes, and how our relationships with non-humans create ways of knowing and musicking.

The course explores the act and art of storytelling as the foundational well of every culture. Students will analyze the style, structure, and reach of storytelling from ancient myths (Babylonian mythology, the Bible, the Poem of Gilgamesh, the Viking sagas, the Vedas and the Mayan Popol Vuh) to Shakespeare and Cervantes and onward to contemporary forms (games, stand-up comedy, literature, theater, dance, art, cinema, TV, radio, commercials, etc.).

(Offered as COLQ 234 and LJST 334, Research Seminar) The United States, almost alone among constitutional democracies, retains death as a criminal punishment. It does so in the face of growing international pressure for abolition and of evidence that the system for deciding who lives and who dies is fraught with error. This seminar is designed to expose students to America's death penalty as a researchable subject.

Students in this course will read religious biographies of prominent U.S. historical figures and visit historical centers to learn the process of crafting a religious biography. This inquiry into “spiritual lives” includes figures who are well known for their religiosity, individuals whose spirituality is not well known, and those who claimed no religion and may have even been hostile toward it.