(Offered as BIOL-150, CHEM-250) This is an interactive course that combines academic inquiry and community engagement to investigate identity, inequality and representation within Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields--at Amherst and beyond. We begin the course by grounding our understanding of the STEM experience at Amherst in national and global contexts. We will survey the interdisciplinary literature on the ways in which identity - race, gender, class, ability, sexuality- and geographic context shape STEM persistence and belonging.

Departments may offer a course known as SPECIAL TOPICS in which a student or a group of students study or read widely in a field of special interest. It is understood that this course will not normally duplicate any other course regularly offered in this curriculum and that the student will work in this course as independently as the instructor thinks possible. A Special Topics course may be elected in any semester. The course should be given a unique name that will be recorded on the student’s transcript.

Departments may offer a course known as SPECIAL TOPICS in which a student or a group of students study or read widely in a field of special interest. It is understood that this course will not normally duplicate any other course regularly offered in this curriculum and that the student will work in this course as independently as the instructor thinks possible. A Special Topics course may be elected in any semester. The course should be given a unique name that will be recorded on the student’s transcript.

Departments may offer a course known as SPECIAL TOPICS in which a student or a group of students study or read widely in a field of special interest. It is understood that this course will not normally duplicate any other course regularly offered in this curriculum and that the student will work in this course as independently as the instructor thinks possible. A Special Topics course may be elected in any semester. The course should be given a unique name that will be recorded on the student’s transcript.

(Offered as HIST 393 [ME/TC/TE/P] and ASLC 355) This course examines in depth the formative period of Islam between c. 500-680. Using predominantly primary material, we will chart the emergence, success, and evolution of Islam, the Islamic community, and the Islamic polity. The focus of this course is on understanding the changing nature over time of peoples’ understanding of and conception of what Islam was and what Islam implied socially, religiously, culturally and politically.