This course will use a natural science lens to explore sustainability with a specific focus on the food-water-energy nexus. We will use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as one framework of study covering the implementation of the goals on a global scale as well as efforts underway locally and regionally. Students in this class will read primary literature, complete case studies, work collaboratively and independently on sustainability projects and actively participate in small group and class discussions and activities.

In this introductory literature and cultural theory course, we will examine the relationships between literature and resistance in diverse historical and cultural contexts. We will explore longstanding, if often contradictory, associations between literature and revolution, fiction and freedom, poetry and democracy, and the role played by creative and artistic imagination in social and political movements. Special attention will be paid to the place of literary texts in imperial and nationalist projects as well as in anti-imperial and anti-colonial struggle.

This course will examine questions of race and representation through contemporary art, literature, and visual and cultural theory. Students will consider the complex and intertwined histories of race and representation across a range of media and genres (painting, photography, film, video and new media art, performance, short fiction, spoken word, and poetry), periods, and cultural spaces.

Animal Physiology: This course will cover physiology of organ systems in a variety of animal phyla, including vertebrates and invertebrates. Topics may include nutrition, temperature regulation and neural, cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, digestive and endocrine function. One focus will be on cellular and molecular mechanisms common across systems and phyla. We will spend some time outdoors and at the Hampshire College Farm. Students will engage in class problems, discussion, and reading of text and primary science literature. Keywords:Biology, physiology, animal, health

This course attends to English-language queer poetry from the 20th and 21st centuries. What is a poem? What makes a poem queer? With special attention to both form and style, this class will consider various examples of queer poetry and will engage with questions of history, social organization, intertextuality, and queer theory to understand some of the meanings of queer poetics. Keywords:poetry; queerness; enjambment; poetics

Weight Training: Students in this course will practice and learn the basics of using weighted and unweighted exercise to train flexibility/mobility, strength, speed, endurance and coordination. Students will design and receive feedback on an individualized weight training program. Each class session will include cardio warmup, stretching, and weight lifting. Participants who have never been involved in a fitness program are especially welcome, along with experienced students of weight training methods. The instructor for the Spring 2025 Weight Training class will be John Snyder.

Learn the foundations of yoga through the practice of yoga postures, breathing, techniques, yoga philosophy and meditation. Intended for students who are new to yoga or those looking for an introduction to yoga beyond the poses. Expect detail-oriented instruction, dynamic exploration of movement, and guided relaxation. Please bring your own yoga mat. Yoga mats are for sale at the OPRA equipment room. Five Colleges students will be graded pass/fail

This intro-level workshop is for students interested in pursuing all types of narrative/prose fiction, whether literary fiction or genre fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc). We'll spend some time as a community critically examining short fiction from authors such as Carmen Maria Machado, Octavia Butler, Angela Carter, Ursula K. LeGuin, and others, in order to understand how they make use of character, form, structure, place, voice, and other fundamental tools of fiction-writing.

This intermediate level workshop is for students interested in pursuing the art of writing fiction.

In this course students will engage with mathematical modeling in two important ways: by learning to use existing models as powerful problem-solving tools and by developing their skills in creating their own models. The kind of models we examine are known as discrete dynamical systems, which are just models that specify mathematically how a quantity changes from one time step to the next. We develop such models in a variety of important contexts including populations and sustainability, infectious diseases, blood alcohol concentration, and ranking systems for sports teams or web searches.