Spring 2024

What can the long history of humanitarian interventions in Africa teach us about global justice and our shared humanity? This course explores more than two centuries of interactions between the West and Africa through the prism of humanitarianism. Many humanitarian campaigns and movements analyzed in the course used a Manichean rhetoric of good versus evil. Yet, their motivations were often complex; and their effects, sometimes questionable. During the first part of the course, students formulate questions about the ethics of modern humanitarianism by exploring scholarly works by anthropologists, political scientists, and sociologists, as well as films and literary texts. Students then use these questions to review historical case-studies, from the abolition of the slave trade to the #Kony2012 campaign. The course invites students to critically reflect on the logic of "salvation" projects and to deconstruct problematic clichés about the African continent.

This course examines the historical foundations, sociocultural contexts, and formal characteristics of twentieth- and twenty-first-century African popular music, covering a range of genres from across the continent. Drawing on a rich corpus of scholarly and popular works by anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, historians, filmmakers, and journalists, it explores African popular music genres as cultural phenomena that are complexly woven into the social fabrics of urban African locales. A major theme is the intersection of popular culture and politics on the continent. By listening to and reading about popular music, students will gain a thorough understanding of the production and mobilization of publics, and the dynamics of nationalism in modern African societies.

How have the inhabitants of the Middle East and Africa conceived of social difference? Beginning in Late Antiquity and then with the spread of Islam into the Middle East and North Africa, this course will explore the social, cultural and political contingencies that gave rise to ethnic and racial identities within and beyond the Muslim world. How did these identities and categories change over time and in which ways were they impacted by the Indian Ocean, Atlantic, and Saharan slave trades, local social and political factors, European colonialism and then de-colonization in the twentieth century? What are the terms and meanings attached to skin color or social difference in the Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Berber, Swahili, Songhai, Amharic, or Turkish speaking worlds? How are these constructed and controlled? Who gave these categories meaning and why? What are the obstacles to discussing and identifying race particular to the histories of these regions, their peoples, and their histories? In order to answer these questions, the course will draw extensively on primary sources, historical research, as well as theoretical writings on race and ethnicity.

What can the long history of humanitarian interventions in Africa teach us about global justice and our shared humanity? This course explores more than two centuries of interactions between the West and Africa through the prism of humanitarianism. Many humanitarian campaigns and movements analyzed in the course used a Manichean rhetoric of good versus evil. Yet, their motivations were often complex; and their effects, sometimes questionable. During the first part of the course, students formulate questions about the ethics of modern humanitarianism by exploring scholarly works by anthropologists, political scientists, and sociologists, as well as films and literary texts. Students then use these questions to review historical case-studies, from the abolition of the slave trade to the #Kony2012 campaign. The course invites students to critically reflect on the logic of "salvation" projects and to deconstruct problematic clichés about the African continent.

This course examines the historical foundations, sociocultural contexts, and formal characteristics of twentieth- and twenty-first-century African popular music, covering a range of genres from across the continent. Drawing on a rich corpus of scholarly and popular works by anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, historians, filmmakers, and journalists, it explores African popular music genres as cultural phenomena that are complexly woven into the social fabrics of urban African locales. A major theme is the intersection of popular culture and politics on the continent. By listening to and reading about popular music, students will gain a thorough understanding of the production and mobilization of publics, and the dynamics of nationalism in modern African societies.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to POL-UA 500 Comparative Politics.

This course introduces students to the study of comparative politics and the study of domestic political institutions around the world. The course emphasizes the use of theory and evidence to generate and test hypotheses about both the causes and the consequences of the observed variation in domestic political institutions. For example, the course investigates the factors that lead some countries to democratize, and others to institute authoritarian governments, as well as the consequences of those institutional choices for policy outcomes. The course also looks at the variations in institutional arrangements within both democratic and non-democratic governments.

Introduction to Comparative Politics - Sample Syllabus.

NY Social and Cultural Analysis Students: this course counts for the Africana, American, and SCA majors and Africana minor

This course explores the African American freedom struggle in the United States. It analyzes its historical origins, African American emancipation during the Civil War and reconstruction, migration patterns and economic conditions in the agricultural and industrial sectors, "Jim Crow” laws and the “Separate, but equal” doctrine, as well as the impact of US military engagements and the Cold War on race relations during the 20th century. The course examines the various challenges to legalized segregation in the aftermath of World War II, the powerful grassroots campaigns of African American civil rights activists and organizations during the 1960/70s and their political and cultural impact, and the emergence of black nationalism and black power. It also traces the ways in which the struggle for racial equality in the US was perceived as part of a larger struggle against colonialism around the world. Furthermore, the course incorporates discussions about affirmative action, the "prison-industrial complex", the notion of a “post-racial America” under the Obama administration into the broader context of an ongoing quest for equal rights and social justice in the US. No prerequisites.

African American Freedom Struggle - Sample Syllabus.

In the broadest terms, the course's objective is to introduce students to some of the contemporary issues in Africa. These issues will be studied using a historical and sociological perspective. Following an introductory overview, part one of the course examines the scramble for Africa, colonialism and the legacies of colonialism, and the fights for independence. Part two of the course looks at growth, development, and corruption in Africa. The impact of foreign aid on development will be examined. In part three, the class shall explore cultural transformations coming out of Africa. The class will discuss the links between migration and development and African migration and incorporation in diasporas in the Global North. A major theme will be placing African societies in a global context, and throughout the course, the professor will use the continent to illustrate the costs and benefits of globalization for countries in the Global South.

Western media tends to produce a one-dimensional view of Middle Eastern cultures. The reality of the people is often very different. How do Middle Eastern writers represent themselves and their societies in fiction? How have they reacted to the dramatic changes in the Middle East from the early twentieth century on? In this course, students will consider the continuities and diversities of North African and Middle Eastern cultures by analyzing modern and contemporary novels and poetry, as well as films, from or about Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine. The following issues will be tackled: how do novelists translate the changes of their cultures into literary form? What literary traditions do they draw on? How do these reflect the different movements in Islam, and the other religions of the region? What kinds of worldly and personal representations emerge? How have these been changing recently, notably since the Arab Revolutions? How different are novels written in English or French for a global audience from those written in Arabic? What are the effects of reading them in translation? Do the conventions of Western literary criticism work for all literatures?

This seminar-style course constitutes a comparative study of the post-colonial politics of the North African region - specifically the states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Through a combination of intensive reading, in-class discussion, and writing, students will develop an in-depth understanding of the politics in these four individual states and comparisons between them. This course aims to identify the most significant specificities of the region’s politics, whilst connecting common themes with wider politics in and beyond the Middle East (e.g. Islamism, the political role of the military, the salience of sub-national ethnic identities, and anti-corruption struggles for political accountability). This course is divided into two main parts. The first focuses on eight essential aspects of North African politics across the four countries. The second dives into the political dynamics that have shaped, and in some cases transformed, politics in North Africa during and since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

How do media representations reflect and affect communities? How do people exploit old and new forms of communication? How do technological mediation channel and reshape social relations? This course reviews ethnographic literature on a wide range of media including print, photography, film, television, radio, cell phones, and internet-based social networks. Each week, we explore how media use redefines a central anthropological concern, such as kinship, colonialism, mobility, religion, or violence. We continuously interrogate the diverse effects of technology, infrastructure, reception, sensation, and interaction. Engaging with both "live" and "virtual" communities, we revisit the methods and ethics of studying mediated relations. Students deliver an initial critical auto-ethnography of their own media consumption, a detailed assessment of a debate in the field, and a final project investigating a specific media community using original ethnographic research. Throughout the course, we collaboratively develop our own experimental virtual community based on the priorities and interests of the class participants. Innovative integrations of art and interactivity will be encouraged.

This course offers an interdisciplinary approach to the material culture of the ancient Near East, from the rise of agriculture to the destruction of the Persian Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great—from the Neolithic to the Late Iron Age. Geographically the course covers the territory from the Levantine coast of Syria and Lebanon, through Iraq, to Iran. The course surveys major archaeological sites and monuments from the perspectives of archaeology, anthropology and art history; it covers wide-ranging topics in a chronological framework, including the development of complex societies, urbanism, state formation, technology, landscapes and settlements, and art and architecture.

Archaeologists ‘read’ information from artifacts, architecture, and the environment to understand people’s lives in the past. Archaeology can tell us about the development of the world’s first cities and empires, the beginnings of farming, ancient exchange networks, and other important changes across human (pre)history. This course offers a rich introduction to the ways archaeologists study the past and what these analyses reveal about pre-Islamic Western Asia. Students will be introduced to new ways of seeing the past through a series of hands-on laboratory sessions and activities. The material records of ancient Western Asia, especially Southern Arabia and Central Asia, will serve as case studies for exploring how scientific methods like high-powered microscopy and neutron activation analysis can answer fundamental questions about the past. The semester’s coursework culminates in the completion of an individual research project and paper.

New York Students: this course counts for Anthropology elective credit.

This course provides students with a broad overview of the discipline, history, research methods, and selected contemporary issues in the field. The approach taken selects key ethnographies and uses them to explore questions of a methodological, theoretical, and substantive nature. This course is designed to introduce students to anthropological investigation and to facilitate understanding of how the discipline engages with and represents the everyday realities, challenges, and concerns of the people with whom anthropologists work.

Sample Syllabus.

Memoir is the best-selling genre in contemporary literature. Indeed, our fascination with all things autobiographical attests to the importance of examining one particular life in order to understand larger issues concerning culture, community, race, gender and even social and global transformations. Narrative Ethnography is also a form of writing which uses the first person pronoun. In this genre, “participant observation” – actually experiencing the beliefs, rituals and life-ways of another culture first hand – is the methodology employed in order to explicitly understand not just the self, but the ‘other’. What are the differences between memoir and ethnography? What kinds of knowledge travel in each? How does writing in the first person challenge other modes of knowledge production? How might memoir and ethnography contribute to our understanding of cultural and cross-cultural dialogue, while providing a post-colonial critique? In this course we examine the rhetorical and aesthetic rules that govern these genres, as well as the way they create social imaginations that go on to live political lives in the world.

Social scientists have in the past described family structures and gender roles in the Arab World as based on relatively uniform and unchanging principles. However, during the last two decades many Arab societies have been subject to tremendous changes. In this course we will examine how in the social sciences the “classical” Arab family along with its underlying kinship systems and gender orders has been conceived; and how modern developments, such as urbanization, women’s education, work migration, war and exile, assisted reproduction, genetic counseling programs, TV serials, etc., are contributing to the emergence of new forms of family and gender. Also, we shall scrutinize the societal challenges brought about by these developments, such as the economic hardships of young couples, the erosion of “traditional” support networks for elderly and diseased persons, and the “neo-liberalization” of marriage. Finally, we shall take a close look at the various ways in which contemporary Arab men and women define, negotiate, and legitimate their gender identities by drawing on Islamic values, traditional ideas and practices as well as national and transnational discourses.

New York Students: this course counts for Sociology elective credit.

The course offers a practical introduction to the theoretical and methodological issues of ethnographic field research. The course offers students hands-on experience to carry out ethnographic field research, conduct in-depth interviews and carry out participant observations.

Ethnographic Field Research - Sample Syllabus.

The spectacular development of Gulf cities in the second half of the 20th century was accompanied by great demographic and social change. This course, conceived as an introduction to the field of Gulf studies, explores the transformations of Gulf urban societies in the modern and contemporary periods, as well as their social, political, and economic outcomes. Departing from dominant paradigms such as the rentier state theory, we will rely on social history and anthropology in order to explore these processes at the level of urban societies themselves. We will first probe the materiality of Gulf cities, exploring the power relations which govern the production of space, from the role of State-mandated experts in urban planning to the multiple appropriations of urban space by city-dwellers. We will then turn our attention to the diversity of populations resulting from historical and contemporary migrations to the Gulf, looking at the complex questions they raise in terms of belonging and citizenship. From there, we will examine how social change has affected relations between generations and gendered roles, and how these are embodied in daily urban life through language or clothes.

What kinds of knowledge pass through the ear? In this course we understand Islam from the vantage point of aesthetics (from the Greek aisthesthai, to perceive). In particular, we explore sound knowledge - the kind of knowledge that comes through listening. What happens when we listen to Islam? And how does the concept of samaa - spiritual listening - inform the sound worlds of Islam? Examining Sunni and Shi’ite rituals, as well as celebrations, festivals, commemorations and ceremonies, we will read about and experience Islamic forms of expression order to understand the power of aesthetic performance in its local expression and on the global stage.

This course explores the lived experiences of exiles, refugees, and forced migrants, through anthropological texts on displacement, encampment, resettlement, asylum, memory, and belonging. It looks at how forced migrant identities are formed and transformed, and at notions of home, and belonging. The class examines interactions between forced migrants, aid agencies, governments and the UNHCR. The course explores each stage of forced migration, the institutions refugees encounter, the factors behind human movement, and the anthropology of social crisis. It also examines processes of flight and displacement in ethnography. We will also study the experience of encampment and its effect on social organizations, memory and identity. The class ex amines critiques of humanitarian assistance, scrutinizing micro-level practices of aid along with concerns regarding the modern state, its obligations, constraints, and approach to citizenship and belonging. The class then addresses asylum, immigration and the anthropology of borders and border crossing. To conclude, the course considers issues of integration and resettlement, examining how people make a new life in a different culture.

This course introduces the study of music as culture, variously called the anthropology of music or ethnomusicology. The first part of the course will look broadly at the anthropological study of music and musicological study of humanity, delving into scholarly writings from the early twentieth century to the present. Students will examine how music has been conceptualized as a human endeavor, and how anthropological thinking on music has shaped scholarly and public conversations on culture, race, and ethnicity. The second part of the course will focus on the key anthropological method of ethnography, the recording and analysis of human practice, and its use in music studies. Students will read three full-length ethnographic books on musical topics to examine the utility of ethnographic research methods in music studies and explore the insights and dilemmas these methods present. Students will also try their own hands at ethnographic research and writing on music.

Arab music culture, understood as an assemblage of ideas, practices, instruments, and traditions of sounding and listening, flourishes across the Arab world and in other places where Arabs have settled. This course provides a thorough overview of Arab music culture in the contemporary world, by investigating a number of its iterations within and beyond the Middle East and North Africa. Course materials, including sound recordings and films as well as written works, utilize music as a prism to view other aspects of society, such as religion, nationalism, and diaspora. By engaging critically with these materials, students cultivate ways of speaking and writing about music and culture in Arab and other contexts. The course thus prepares students for further work in ethnomusicology, the study of music as culture. 

Arab Music Cultures - Sample Syllabus.

This interdisciplinary course meets at the intersections of applied ethnomusicology, performance studies, and heritage studies and contemporary Khaleeji Musical heritage with a focus on Kuwaiti Pearl Diving music between roughly 1900 and the present. With influences spanning from Zanzibar to Bombay to Kuwait and the coastal civilizations in between, this hybrid and cosmopolitan music was born of trade and cultural exchange. As a music of the Indian Ocean civilizations trade, it is also extra-Khaleeji and extra-Arabic. It changed with each pearling and trading season as sailors and divers played music with the locals as they waited for monsoon winds to change direction before sailing home, eager to share the new sounds and instruments upon their return. What happens to this tradition as it is appropriated into the realm of heritage performance as static national-capital? How does this music exist today as a dialogic and fluid expression of the pre-national past? How does cosmopolitanism play with national discourse? The class will also create a virtual Modern Khaleeji ensemble where we will collectively and virtually perform music.

This course introduces the study of music as culture, variously called the anthropology of music or ethnomusicology. The first part of the course will look broadly at the anthropological study of music and musicological study of humanity, delving into scholarly writings from the early twentieth century to the present. Students will examine how music has been conceptualized as a human endeavor, and how anthropological thinking on music has shaped scholarly and public conversations on culture, race, and ethnicity. The second part of the course will focus on the key anthropological method of ethnography, the recording and analysis of human practice, and its use in music studies. Students will read three full-length ethnographic books on musical topics to examine the utility of ethnographic research methods in music studies and explore the insights and dilemmas these methods present. Students will also try their own hands at ethnographic research and writing on music. Engaging with additional readings beyond that of MUSIC-UH 1005, this seminar provides students with a framework for the development of their own research within the field of music studies.

Dispossession and forced migration in the contemporary Middle East is often regarded as synonymous with the Palestinian population. At a stretch of the imagination, it might also take in the Kurdish problem. This course, however, situates both the Palestinian and Kurdish migrations of the twentieth century into the wider and pervasive involuntary movement of populations which has indelibly marked the region throughout the last 100 years. It firmly places the dispossession of peoples in the Middle East as part of the policy of empire, carried further by the colonial and neo-colonial and well as neo-conservative political encounters with the East and the West. 

 Sample Syllabus.

Does virtue lie within an ethical tradition or beyond it? What happens when ethical traditions collide? What freedoms do individuals exercise in striving for moral virtue? And how do the claims of others (friends, family, lovers, others) affect such freedoms? These questions have animated critical inquiry in both philosophical and anthropological thought. That is, they have been at the center of reasoned argumentation about ethics in philosophical traditions and a subject of empirical inquiry through ethnographic methods that examine ethical life in particular social settings. This course examines the conversation between philosophy and anthropology on these questions. What have anthropologists found attractive about philosophical concepts? What concepts have proven resilient to anthropological reception? And how can anthropological research be returned to philosophical inquiry? Readings include philosophical texts by Bergson, Cavell, Foucault, Laugier, MacIntyre and Nietzsche; and anthropological texts by Veena Das, James Laidlaw, Cheryl Mattingly, and others, which examine ethical life in India, Chile, Yemen, Iraq, and the United States.

Heritage has become a commodity. As it increasingly comes into conflict with issues of socio-economics, nation building, ethnicity, race, religion and gender, its protection and promotion have become prominent in the minds of political leaders, environmentalists, artists and tourism planners in the Arab and Islamic worlds. This has created a perceived need to manage heritage and bring it further into the public consciousness. But can heritage be objectively or equitably managed? With Arabian and Islamic identity as its focus, this class explores how the transnationalism of heritage connects cultures and subcultures as shared heritage, but at other times, heritage is a source of conflict and contestation, as is the case with several memorial and archaeological sites and art and artisan expressions of collective memory. Through case studies and meetings with regional/international institutions, such as UNESCO, and heritage practitioners, including archaeologists, artists and community activists, students study theories and management practices, while considering politics of heritage representation in the region.

Roughly one third of the Middle East population today is between 15 and 29 years old - a demographic “bulge” which has brought Middle Eastern youths at the forefront of media and government concerns both at the regional and global scale. But from the figure of the young jihadist to that of the Arab spring revolutionary, dominant perceptions of these youths often fall into highly polarized archetypes. Moving the focus away from politics and religion, this course explores the everyday worlds of Middle Eastern youths and the complex interactions - with institutions, peers and family members - which characterize their daily lives. By analyzing multiple youth cultures divided along the lines of gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or social class, students will address the diversity of Middle Eastern youths and question the universality of age categories. A large space will also be devoted to the voices of Middle Eastern youths themselves, from Egyptian literature and Emirati cinema to Moroccan hip-hop. These cultural productions will allow students to look at the way Arab youths use globalized artistic genres to address regional issues and express their fears, hopes and desires.

How have anthropologists encountered, written about, and produced the “Arab world” over the past century? Beginning with early Western travelers’ imaginaries of Arabia and ending with a reflection on the role of anthropology in the Arab world (and more globally) today, this course provides an introduction to the anthropological project and to the everyday realities of people living in the region. Through ethnography, literature, film and fieldwork, we will explore such topics as Orientalism and its legacy; constructs of youth, gender, family and tribe; poetry and mediation; generational and social change; oil, development and globalization; transnational labor, migration and diaspora; Indian Ocean networks; pilgrimage and piety; the Islamic Revival; faith, medicine, and bioethics; displacement and dispossession; refugees and human rights; and the Arab uprisings.

Sample Syllabus.

Popular discourse and media are saturated with images of violence attributed to religion. Whether it is a 'freedom of speech' dispute over cartoons, the abduction or killing of schoolgirls, or domestic violence, religion (and its proxy, 'culture'), invariably seems to be implicated. This course deploys the concepts and methods of anthropology to illuminate the complex and entangled nexus of religion, violence, and gender. We ask how and where to draw lines between religious and secular forms of violence, the ideological work of representations of gendered and racialized violence, as well as the relationship of religiosity to the production of gendered and sexualized violence.

The first part of the class will deal with definitional and conceptual issues around the three key terms we explore throughout the semester: gender, religion/culture, and violence. In the second half of the course, we critically engage with existing anthropological scholarship on a range of issues of contemporary concern: 'honor' killings, sexual and minority rights, freedom of speech, violence against women, terrorism and Islamophobia, and the politics of veiling.

This course explores a selection of canonical and non-canonical works of literature from pre-Islamic Arabia to the so-called 19th-century Arab Renaissance. Through this course students will examine poetic and prosaic texts, while revising their understanding of literary genres and categories, especially in relation to the tradition of Arabic literature. Students will also learn about the major approaches to the study of this literary tradition, while immersing themselves in its rich language, imagery and historical moment. Readings include selections from: pre-Islamic heroic poetry; Umayyad love poetry; Abbasid courtly poetry and its influence on the Andalus; libertine poetry in all its registers from the early Abbasid to the Mamluk period. Prose literature will include the Qur'an; hadith; apocrypha of the prophets; picaresque maqāmāt; The Arabian Nights; and proto-novels from the 19th century.

This course combines theory with intensive listening to examine popular songs in the Arabic-speaking world from the 1950’s to the present. Students will develop familiarity with a wide range of Arab singers and their work by way of audiovisual playlists, scholarly and journalistic writing, and social media commentary. The course will introduce basic theoretical issues in popular music studies to provide students with tools for engaging in analysis and writing. We will begin with an exploration of cross-linguistic classification of musical genres and ideologies of the popular and continue to study the ways in which music is linked to political, cultural, religious, and economic forces. The primary forms of assessment are weekly listening quizzes, periodic entries in a shared class blog, and a mid-term and final paper.students with tools for engaging in analysis and writing. We will begin with an exploration of cross-linguistic classification of musical genres and ideologies of the popular and continue to study the ways in which music is linked to political, cultural, religious, and economic forces. The primary forms of assessment are weekly listening quizzes, periodic entries in a shared class blog, and a mid-term and final paper.

New York Students: this course counts for Sociology elective credit.

The course offers a practical introduction to the theoretical and methodological issues of ethnographic field research. The course offers students hands-on experience to carry out ethnographic field research, conduct in-depth interviews and carry out participant observations.

Ethnographic Field Research - Sample Syllabus.

People of movement, categorized as migrants, have always fascinated scholars, artists, and writers. Contemporary mainstream discourse about the Gulf has arguably placed a great deal of emphasis on profession, what people do, their social class, and why they came, especially those on the margins. How have these individuals been represented in the Gulf, by whom, what are their stories and where can we find them? The objective of the class is to try and answer these questions, as well as to produce original material in writing workshops, in order to try and address some of these issues, especially representation.

Heritage has become a commodity. As it increasingly comes into conflict with issues of socio-economics, nation building, ethnicity, race, religion and gender, its protection and promotion have become prominent in the minds of political leaders, environmentalists, artists and tourism planners in the Arab and Islamic worlds. This has created a perceived need to manage heritage and bring it further into the public consciousness. But can heritage be objectively or equitably managed? With Arabian and Islamic identity as its focus, this class explores how the transnationalism of heritage connects cultures and subcultures as shared heritage, but at other times, heritage is a source of conflict and contestation, as is the case with several memorial and archaeological sites and art and artisan expressions of collective memory. Through case studies and meetings with regional/international institutions, such as UNESCO, and heritage practitioners, including archaeologists, artists and community activists, students study theories and management practices, while considering politics of heritage representation in the region.

How have anthropologists encountered, written about, and produced the “Arab world” over the past century? Beginning with early Western travelers’ imaginaries of Arabia and ending with a reflection on the role of anthropology in the Arab world (and more globally) today, this course provides an introduction to the anthropological project and to the everyday realities of people living in the region. Through ethnography, literature, film and fieldwork, we will explore such topics as Orientalism and its legacy; constructs of youth, gender, family and tribe; poetry and mediation; generational and social change; oil, development and globalization; transnational labor, migration and diaspora; Indian Ocean networks; pilgrimage and piety; the Islamic Revival; faith, medicine, and bioethics; displacement and dispossession; refugees and human rights; and the Arab uprisings.

Sample Syllabus.

At the crossroads between Asia, Africa and Europe, the region that Europeans and North Americans labeled “The Middle East” presents a dynamic and heterogeneous landscape of peninsulas and isthmuses, republics and monarchies, oil producing countries, and labor exporting nations. This course examines the recent history of the region from the mid-18th century until the Arab uprisings of 2010–2012. We explore the last Islamic empires, the intrusion of European colonial powers, the modernist, nationalist and Islamic reactions to aggression, the creation of authoritarian systems of power and the multiform protests that have shaken them. The Egyptian, Iranian, Palestinian, and Saudi experiences are examined more closely. 

The Palestinian cause is perhaps one of the longest running struggles for independence and self-determination. It is widely known as the “Israeli - Palestinian Conflict”. Divergent narratives compete to establish rights to the land of Palestine. This course will examine the history of colonization of Palestine from the 1880s onward using the lens of settler colonialism. The aim is a critical engagement with how colonialism has manifested in Palestine and how it continues to do so until today. The course examines the various mechanisms that work to entrench settler colonialism, such as foreign aid, neoliberal economics, and the Oslo Peace Accords. Lastly, the course will explore forms of resistance in Palestine and possibilities for a just solution and discuss their potentials and limitations.

In this course we will explore the literary languages of Arabic and as well as various political and socio-economic issues via a selection of short stories that hail from geographically diverse authors. Being attentive to detailed readings of texts, their contexts, and the social and political environments within which the authors composed them, we will engage with these short stories via reading, analytical writing, debates, and listening activities. While aiming to avoid the monolithic approach of reading stories as social documents that reflect or mirror their societies, in this course will be concerned with the aesthetics of the Arabic literary narratives as well as how the socio-economic and political issues evoked in the stories will be of relevance to the broader realms of Middle Eastern Studies. Tradition vs. modernity, the individual in opposition to the state, and gender issues are just some of the themes that we will discuss. In addition to the short stories, the class will engage with complimentary materials such as open source online videos and articles to expand on our knowledge of specific Arabic cultural and sociological phenomena and increase cultural as well as linguistic competency.

Roughly one third of the Middle East population today is between 15 and 29 years old - a demographic “bulge” which has brought Middle Eastern youths at the forefront of media and government concerns both at the regional and global scale. But from the figure of the young jihadist to that of the Arab spring revolutionary, dominant perceptions of these youths often fall into highly polarized archetypes. Moving the focus away from politics and religion, this course explores the everyday worlds of Middle Eastern youths and the complex interactions - with institutions, peers and family members - which characterize their daily lives. By analyzing multiple youth cultures divided along the lines of gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or social class, students will address the diversity of Middle Eastern youths and question the universality of age categories. A large space will also be devoted to the voices of Middle Eastern youths themselves, from Egyptian literature and Emirati cinema to Moroccan hip-hop. These cultural productions will allow students to look at the way Arab youths use globalized artistic genres to address regional issues and express their fears, hopes and desires.

This seminar introduces students to the main theoretical and epistemological trends in the study of the Arab crossroads region, and offers practical examples of the methodologies used by scholars in the humanities and the qualitative social sciences. We begin with the strengths and weaknesses of area studies, and the politics of producing knowledge on a region of global economic and political importance, then turn to specific areas of research that have attracted attention in the fields of history, anthropology, literature, and politics, before exploring the various methodological approaches used by practitioners of these fields. The course culminates in an extended research proposal for a capstone project.

New York Tisch Film Students: this course counts for History/Criticism requirement.

SH Students: this course counts as Humanities (survey).

This course introduces students to the rich and diverse history of film within the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia as a context for understanding some of the complexities of contemporary film and new media in the United Arab Emirates. By examining pre-cinematic artistic practices, aesthetic traditions, cinematic styles, political economies of media, and social change, the course provides a context for understanding productions from major industries in Cairo, Chennai, Istanbul, Mumbai, and Tehran alongside work by independent filmmakers and new media collectives from throughout the regions. Students are encouraged to attend film festivals and engage in original research with the NYUAD Library special collection of MENASA film.

This class is divided roughly into two broad sections: in the first half of the semester samples of the Qur’an are read, translated and analyzed for orthographic and phonetic features, as well as structure and meaning and basic aspects of variegated styles within the developing scripture. Early Surahs are read, as well as, later, samples of narrative and, in the last section, of legalistic (i.e. Medinan) materials. In the second half of the semester we read examples of Hadith and Qur’anic exegesis, highlighting throughout the styles and protocols of this literature. The Hadith come mostly out of Bukhari and the Sirah of the Prophet; and the exegesis includes readings from Baydawi, Qurtubi, Razi and Qushayri (the last being an example of mystical hermeneutics).

This course is designed for learners with no prior knowledge of Arabic. Students who have studied Arabic before or who have prior knowledge of Arabic are required to take a placement test. This is a full semester (or equivalent session) course during which students first learn the Arabic alphabet, then move on to work on the sentence and paragraph levels. It is an interactive course designed to build the student’s abilities in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. At the end of the semester students should be able to carry on a short conversation; ask and answer questions; introduce themselves and others; provide simple biographical information; interact in simple daily life situations; ask for assistance; express likes and dislikes; read short texts; and gain a basic understanding of Arab culture. Types of tasks and assignments required for this course include daily homework assignments, periodic quizzes, brief presentations, short essay writing, and a final exam.

This course builds on the knowledge and skills that students acquire in Elementary Arabic 1 which is a prerequisite course for this class. This is a full semester (or equivalent session) course during which students continue learning formal Arabic (MSA), expand their knowledge of the grammar, build on previously learnt vocabulary, and be exposed to a variety of cultural and daily life themes and situations. It is an interactive course designed to build the student’s abilities in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. At the end of the semester students should be able to read texts on familiar topics and understand the main ideas; speak about themselves and their environment; carry out basic daily life transactions; and initiate and sustain conversations on a variety of topics. Types of tasks and assignments required for this course include daily homework assignments, periodic quizzes, brief presentations, short essay writing, and a final exam. Students joining the course from outside NYU Abu Dhabi are required to take a placement test.

This course builds on the knowledge and skills that students acquire in Elementary Arabic 2 which is a prerequisite course for this class. Students joining the course from outside NYU Abu Dhabi are required to take a placement test. This is a full semester (or equivalent session) course during which students continue learning the modern standard form of the language, with limited exposure to phrases and expressions in colloquial. It is a student-centered course where the four language skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) are integrated along with culture to simulate real life situations. Students continue learning the formal Arabic variety (MSA), occasionally being exposed to phrases and expressions in spoken Arabic. By the end of this course, students should be able to narrate in all verb tenses, describe their daily life, personal relations, and report information. Types of tasks and assignments required include daily homework assignments, periodic quizzes, presentations, essays, and a final exam.

This course builds on the knowledge and skills that students acquire in Intermediate Arabic 1 which is a prerequisite course for this class. Students joining the course from outside NYU Abu Dhabi are required to take a placement test. This is a full semester (or equivalent session) course during which students continue learning the modern standard form of the language, with limited exposure to phrases and expressions in colloquial. It is a student-centered course where the four language skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) are integrated along with culture to simulate real life situations. At the end of the semester students should be able to read and understand the main ideas of authentic texts written for the general public. They will be able to employ analytical reading and critical thinking skills to understand different types of text. Types of tasks and assignments required for this course include daily homework assignments, periodic quizzes, presentations, short essay writing, and a final exam.

This course is the first in a series of courses meant for students who come from Arabic-speaking families and who grew up in an Arabic-speaking environment but have not had sufficient training in Arabic. These courses are designed to help those students master formal Arabic language skills and empower them, as citizens, to become more engaged in their society, culture, and heritage. The series achieves this goal by reactivating the students’ acquired but dormant knowledge of their native tongue even as it provides new accessible and relevant instruction in the language.

This course builds on previously acquired writing and conversational skills. A prerequisite for this class is Advanced Arabic 1 or, for students joining from outside NYU Abu Dhabi, an equivalent proficiency level as determined through a placement test. This is a full semester (or equivalent session) course during which students are autonomously responsible for their own learning. The course provides students with opportunities to study, analyze and present textual and audiovisual content in class, and engage in extended discussions. It is designed to reinforce the student’s abilities in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. At the end of the semester students should be able to function competently, confidently in Arab culture, discuss and write effectively about various topics with precision and detail, enhance their critical thinking skills and interact fluently with Arabs. Types of tasks and assignments required for this course include daily homework assignments, periodic quizzes, weekly presentations and essay writing, and a final writing project.

This course wraps up the student’s sequenced language learning experience with an opportunity to explore the cultural and artistic diversity of the Arab world using the acquired language skills. Students cap their language achievement by accessing and studying such cultural forms as literature, song, film, folklore, etc., in the original language. The course includes fourteen modules: twelve already set, and two final modules to be worked out over the semester by two student teams. The modules center on key texts in categories like language, place, family, and customs, which inform and shape modern Arab identities.

This is an introductory course in Emirati dialect and culture designed for students who have completed Intermediate Arabic I. In contrast with the MSA sequence, which focuses on traditional literacy, this course adheres to the communicative method and focuses on fluency in conversation, accuracy in pronunciation, and the stimulation of intercultural competence. Through extensive and intensive listening, at-home recording, and in-class role play and interaction, the course creates an immersive environment to help students develop the production skills necessary to function among Emirati speakers in a variety of settings. Students will have the opportunity to interact with guest lecturers from a variety of fields, to work with language partners, and to visit a number of cultural sites in the UAE.

This course complements the student’s knowledge of Standard Arabic to include proficiency in Levantine Arabic, one of the major Arabic dialects, with emphasis on daily life tasks, conversational fluency, and cultural sensibility. A prerequisite for this class is Intermediate Arabic 201 (ARABL-UH 2211) or an equivalent proficiency level determined through a placement test. This is a full semester conversation-based course during which students focus on the communicative skills, and develop automated production skills necessary to function in an Arabic speaking environment. It is designed to build student’s abilities in listening and speaking. At the end of the semester students should be able to use the Shami dialect to participate actively in conversation s by using linguistic and cultural expressions to make requests, express, and describe preferences. Tasks and assignments required for this course include daily homework, periodic quizzes, weekly oral entries, presentation skits, oral film summary, oral interviews, a homestay, and an oral final exam

This course complements the student’s knowledge of Standard Arabic to include proficiency in Egyptian Arabic, one of the major Arabic dialects, with emphasis on daily life tasks, conversational fluency, and cultural sensibility. A prerequisite for this class is Intermediate Arabic 2 or an equivalent proficiency level as determined through a placement test. This is a full semester (or equivalent session) conversation-based course during which students focus on the communicative skills, and develop automated production skills necessary to function in an Arabic speaking environment. It is designed to build student’s abilities in listening and speaking. At the end of the semester students should be able to use the Egyptian dialect to participate actively in informal conversations by using language and cultural expressions to make requests, express, and describe preferences. Types of tasks and assignments required for this course include daily homework assignments, periodic quizzes, weekly brief presentations and a final exam.

The early architecture from South Asia is very diverse, belonging to various religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Islam. The course addresses the complex ways in which consciously or unconsciously people of varied religious communities engage with shrines and sacred spaces. Ritual and worship are just one of the many roles that shrines and temple spaces have. In the context of South Asia, shrines have also provided a space for social and political interaction and growth. At the same time certain sites and shrines in South Asia are also associated with people who arrived into the region from other parts of the world. Moving beyond merely their aesthetics and architecture, the course will examine temples, shrines and their associated iconography in sculptures and paintings, to explore the diverse ways in which devotees, patrons and visitors have engaged with temples, shrines and their larger cultural landscapes. The course will further explore how through patronage, rituals, pilgrimage and art, shrines came to be associated with a sense of place, historical memory and sacred cartography.

Focusing on the art, architecture, and cultural exchanges that occurred across the Gulf and Indian Ocean networks, this course explores the history of artistic production in the Islamic world. Presenting a select group of materials within a chronological and dynastic framework, the course will investigate the art and architecture produced in regions including the Swahili coast, the Red Sea, the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf and South Asia, and the relationships between them. We will consider important and representative works of architecture, ceramics, metalwork, textiles and the arts of the book. These selections will highlight important internal developments as well as 'points of contact' between cultural entities. This approach - at once global and local - speaks to the dynamic and fluid qualities of many of the arts produced in the regions under scrutiny. Class meetings will combine both lectures and seminar discussions of visual presentations and assigned readings.

The 1960s experienced the emergence of new approaches to the making of art, while the art world became international to an unprecedented degree. Pop art and Minimal art used painting and sculpture as a means to confront contemporary culture with itself. In Fluxus, Video art and Performance artists found ways to involve the viewer. Earth art and Conceptual art were stretching the traditional boundaries of art in order to find a new grounding, while other artists experimented with sound, light, and movement in a way that led to a crossing of boundaries between dance, sculpture, music, and theater. All this happened in many places at the same time. The course will consider in detail many individual works of art while at the same time pursuing a comparative approach to the various outcomes of the new aesthetics. It will make it clear that the art of the 1960s is foundational for almost all further developments of art.

Description will be available soon

What is "World Heritage," how is it nominated, and by whom? The heritage field has become a complex industry that involves (inter)national prestige, conservation, site management, and museum development. Heritage sites of "Outstanding Universal Value" and prestigious museums with "universal" collections are booming tourist destinations worldwide. Multi-faceted perspectives of heritage underline the proposition that heritage doesn't just represent a static link with the past, but is part of a dynamic social process that includes an evolving interpretation of "the past" for the use in the present. In this course, students explore and test theoretical conceptions of heritage using case studies and fieldwork on heritage sites and collections in Abu Dhabi and the UAE. These investigations will provide context for understanding cultural heritage's multi-layered and multi-vocal aspects. The focus for our discussions will be sites and practices that are considered "shared cultural heritage" for their Outstanding Universal Value. But what do these values mean, and for whom? Do they imply that universal human values exist? And what if these values are contested?

A broad survey, we will consider works of architecture, ceramics, metalwork, textiles and the arts of the book. Given the span of centuries embraced by the term ‘Islamic art’ – from the 7th century up to the present day – and the expanse of geography – from Spain to China and beyond – this course cannot be a complete survey within the constraints of a single semester. Instead, this course will present a select group of materials within a chronological and dynastic framework, with an emphasis on specific case studies. These selections will highlight important internal developments as well as ‘points of contact’ between cultural entities. This approach – at once global and local – speaks to the dynamic and fluid qualities of many of the arts produced in the regions under scrutiny.

Countries in Western Asia, Southeast Asia and China are witnessing a significant rise in the number of art museums as part of their urban regeneration. Focusing on examples from these regions, the course will examine the changing role and function of art museums in the 21st century offering a theoretical and practical understanding of the current discourse on contemporary art, social practice and the community. Students will meet with curators and administrators at art museums, galleries and alternative art spaces to analyze how art exhibitions and museum acquisitions are shaping art history and the relationships between the art institution and society. Class will gain an understanding of the forces that are shaping the UAE art history and its nascent art ecosystem.

This course delves into the fundamentals of Japanese design—both traditional, applied arts and modern/contemporary design—by exploring the distinctive principles, concepts, theories, philosophies, aesthetics, sensibilities, practices and meanings. It offers a means of deciphering the often subtle and nuanced interests, intentions, perceptions and sensory experiences elicited through Japanese design. Our investigation into the obtuse realm of ancient aesthetics—mu, ma, yûgen, shibui, wabi, sabi, kizen, mitate, hana, etc., which arises from deep awareness of the sacred, nature, beauty, time, form, space, emptiness, etc.—will lead to an understanding of the inherent, intangible cultural properties and values that continue to inform the best of contemporary Japanese design. By studying diverse works across the disciplines of architecture, interior design, product design, graphic design, fashion design, book binding, metalwork, lacquerware, textiles, ceramics, basketry, paper making, tea ceremony, gardening and culinary arts, students will gain insight into the multifaceted, integral, processes of Japanese design, spanning conceptualization, production, appreciation and use. We will ask what constitutes, generates, and advances Japanese design. What accounts for its sustenance, coherency, uniqueness and exceptional achievements?

The 1970s and 80s saw a number of significant shifts in the art world and new approaches to art making. Some of the most radical outcomes of art movements of the 1960s only emerged in the 1970s and 1980s with so-called “institutional critique”, whereas a strong resistance to exactly this genealogy made itself felt in a wave of neo-expressionist painting (Arte Cifra, Neue Wilde, figuration libre, Transavantguardia, New Image Painting). This was countered by the “picture generation” whose image production was based on photography and related to discussions of “postmodernism” and of “appropriation”. Female artists gained in stature to a previously unprecedented degree (especially in video and photography) and made gender-issues and relations of power a major theme in art. It became clear at the same time that the phase of the dominance of American art after World War II was over. This lead to a more widespread and diverse circulation of ideas. The course is based on a comparative approach, highlighting commonalities as well as differences between various artistic endeavors.

What does it mean to make Renaissance art history global? This interdisciplinary seminar will study the masterpieces and material culture produced during Europe’s first sustained overseas contact with the rest of the world in the early modern period (16th-18th centuries). Looking closely at the new categories and new geographies of objects fostered by the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British maritime trade routes, this course will reconsider traditional approaches to art history and weigh the new methods and revisions these curious images suggest. Objects will be studied from the perspectives of how they conceptualized “world,” how histories of exploration and collecting intersected, how personal and communal identities were manufactured, and how political diplomacy and subversion impacted them and in turn were affected. Serious attention will be devoted to honing the craft of researching and writing a major research paper, step by step, in preparation for a capstone thesis in the humanities.

This course offers engagements with the problems and methods of Art History at an advanced level. It examines in detail works of art that reflect upon tradition, aesthetic experience and art practice in complex ways and does so by situating these examinations in rich historical and theoretical frameworks. The course is open to anyone who has completed either Foundations of Art History I or II and at least one Art History elective but it is designed especially with Art History juniors in mind because the course is, in part, a useful preparation for Capstone work in the senior year. The course is a requirement for all students pursuing the Art History track.

NY Students: this course is equivalent to CHEM-UA 225 Organic Chemistry I and Lab; CHEM-UA 227 Majors Organic Chemistry I and Lab; CHEM-UA 9243-9245 Organic Chemistry I and Lab (London).

Organic chemistry is the study of carbon-containing compounds. Organic Chemistry 1 presents the structure and bonding, conformational analysis, stereochemistry, and spectroscopy of organic materials, subjects that partly trace their roots to the development of quantum theory. The topics covered include basic reaction mechanisms, such as substitution and elimination, and the reactions of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, alcohols, ethers, carbonyl compounds, and carboxylic acids. The course incorporates modern analytical methods that are the cornerstone of contemporary organic chemistry.

Students majoring in life sciences and bioengineering require hands-on experience with variety of biotechnology techniques to better prepare them for a graduate degree or industry. Students will be trained to master biochemical techniques for the manipulate of macromolecules and build a firm understanding of how research is conducted in postgraduate institutions. Inquiry based learning will drive students to learn biophysical tools for the characterization of proteins’ structures and functions. Discussions on fundamental biochemical principles and experimental techniques will assist the students to design and conduct a research project. Students in groups of two will propose a project, run experiments, present data to their peers, and write a final report. First, a protein will be expressed in E. coli, purified using column chromatography on a Fast Protein Liquid Chromatography (FPLC) system. The amount of protein will be quantitated then run it on protein gel to determine its purity and molecular weight. Analysis will include kinetic and enzyme mechanistic characterization, structural characterization using circular dichroism (CD) and fluorescence spectroscopy, and thermodynamic stability using Differential Scanning Fluorimetry (DSF) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC).

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CHEM-UA 882 Biochemistry II.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Biology or Chemistry elective credit.

Biochemistry investigates the chemical structures, reactions and processes that occur in living systems. Indeed, the very principles of chemistry, biology, physics, and math converge in the field of biochemistry, and biochemical concepts provide a focal point for many disciplines, including biology, healthcare, the pharmaceutical industry, environmental studies and ecology, and our understanding of evolution. This course opens the study of metabolic pathways by which cells catabolize and metabolize carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins. The course examines the mechanisms of the different reactions that constitute these pathways and the regulatory mechanisms that control their efflux in living systems. Review of scientific literature broadens students’ understanding of metabolism in the human body with special focus on human diseases.

Biochemistry: Metabolism - Sample Syllabus.

This course offers a comprehensive view of modern immunology at the evolutionary, cellular and molecular levels and enables the students to understand the defense mechanisms in the vertebrate immune system. The course presents the major groups of pathogens and their transmission. The fundamental principles of cellular and molecular immunology will be discussed, with emphasis upon the interrelationships between innate and adaptive host defense. The nature of immunological specificity and its underlying molecular biology will be presented. This will be followed by a discussion on the emergence and evolution of the vertebrate immune system. The course concludes with presentation and discussion of new and emerging concepts and methodologies in tumor immunology and treatment of infectious diseases.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to PSYCH-UA 29 Cognition.

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and human thinking. This course is aimed at providing the student with a better understanding on how we humans perceive and think about ourselves and about the world. Our perception and thought processes are fraught with biases that nonetheless routinely inform human actions. Knowing about these biases and understanding their effects is crucial in a world in which human societies are becoming increasingly more interconnected.
The course covers different aspects of attention, memory, language, concepts, reasoning, problem solving, expertise, creativity, decision making, conscious and unconscious cognition, and theory of mind. The course will emphasize how psychologists use experiments to learn about the structure of the human mind.

Cognition - Sample Syllabus.

This course provides students with a broad understanding of the connections between mind, brain, and behavior. Students learn dominant theories of the neural basis of a variety of cognitive processes and the research that led to those theories. Topics are organized into modules on sensation, perception, and action; attention and memory; and other aspects of high-level cognition and behavior. Lectures are complemented by practical lab demonstrations of cutting-edge cognitive neuroscience techniques and discussions of journal articles.

Shanghai students: this course counts for Neural Science upper-level Biology course or a Biology major elective.

Can we understand how the brain works at the level of individual cells, genes and even molecules? This seminar course provides students with broad exposure to current questions and experimental approaches in molecular and cellular neuroscience. Classes are organized into three modules: the control of neuronal cell form and its developmental determinants; neuronal cell function; and the mechanisms underlying neuronal signaling and synaptic plasticity. 

The course focuses on the fundamental principles of biology from an engineering perspective. These principles are necessary to understanding the basic mechanisms of living organisms. As the laws of nature governing these mechanisms are expressed as differential equations, the main goal of this course is to introduce and model biological processes using tools from dynamical systems theory, with particular focus on the role of feedback. Throughout this course, students will learn how biological functions can be analyzed and designed using mathematical models, and how to use these models along with tools from controls and dynamical systems theory to predict and engineer the dynamics of biological systems. Note: This course may count for Biology credits towards engineering requirements.

The loss of biodiversity is one of the most rapid forms of environmental changes imposed by human on our planet. Conservation biology is the study of the factors that are responsible for the loss, maintenance and restoration of biodiversity. It is a highly inter-disciplinary field, which requires in-depth understanding of ecology and evolutionary biology. In its application, conservation biology must also take into account the sociological, economical and ethical impact of biodiversity protection. This course will first explore the processes responsible for the establishment and maintenance of biodiversity as well as the multiple benefits of biodiversity for the function of ecosystems and for human use. The impact of habitat loss, overexploitation and invasive species on biodiversity will be discussed. This will be followed by an exploration of strategies used by conservation biology to combat these threats. These topics will be further investigated by the in-depth study of some of the most pressing threats, including overfishing, the impact of climate changes and the loss of tropical rainforests.

Biophysics uses the laws of physics and their associated mathematical principles to gain an understanding of living systems, primarily by examining forces and interactions among molecules found in cells. This course begins with a thorough review of cells, with a special emphasis on eukaryotes and their different compartments. This section is followed by an investigation of the structures and functions of biological macromolecules, including proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and lipids. Students gain a deep understanding of information flow in cells via detailed biophysical analysis of replication and gene expression.

Shanghai students: this course counts for Neural Science upper-level Biology course or a Biology major elective.

This course explores the role of individual molecules and the morphological and physiological properties of single neurons in the nervous system. Both molecular and cellular neurobiology have revolutionized research on cognitive processes and psychiatric disorders. Cell neurobiology has led to understanding the processes of neural coding at both the single cell and the circuit level. This course combines lectures, class discussions, and lab experiments to explore applications of cellular neurobiology in research. In addition to cellular physiology, this course examines brain activity dynamics and investigate neural interface systems. The course engages students in a guided research project as well as scientific writing and data reporting.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to BIOL-UA 30 Genetics.

Shanghai students: this course counts for Neural Science elective credit or a Biology major elective.

Why do offspring often exhibit physical features of their parents? Why do combinations of certain features in offspring translate into specific characteristics that either enhance or diminish the organism’s fitness? The course covers the concepts, principles and research methods used in the field of genetics. Students learn about the major types of genetic variation and how they are generated, distributed and maintained across genomes and between individuals. The course covers concepts such as mutation, recombination, transmission systems, cytoplasmic inheritance, population genetics, and multifactorial inheritance. Emphasis is placed on patterns of Mendelian and non-Mendelian inheritance and the use of genetic methods to analyze protein function, gene regulation, and disease.

This course uses fundamental concepts from the Foundations of Science curriculum to examine essential elements of organ physiology, including the nervous system with an emphasis on humans. After an initial introduction to the basic principles of physiology, the course emphasizes normal and pathological functions in humans. It explores how the nervous and the endocrine systems allow communication among cells and organs to enable an organism to maintain homeostasis and to respond to environmental changes. The anatomy of the nervous system is also used to address structure, function, homeostasis and adaptability.

Shanghai students: this course counts for Biology elective credit or a Neural Science requirement.

The behavioral response of an animal to a stimulus is the summed effect of a variety of internally coordinated processes starting at the molecular level and resulting in a change of activity in associated neural circuits. This course covers the molecular, physiological and anatomical bases of behavior, with particular emphasis on mammalian sensory, motor, regulatory, and motivational mechanisms. Students will also consider higher mental processes such as those involved in language and memory.

Shanghai students: this course counts for Biology major elective credit.

A typical cell expresses thousands of gene products and synthesizes nearly as many metabolites. How do these components interact with each other and what are the rules governing such interactions? Systems biology attempts first to define what the cell’s parts list is, then through establishing how these elements interact, define the emergent properties of such interactions. This course combines lecture, class discussions, and lab experiments to explore key elements of systems biology while exploring the genetic basis of disorders with complex inheritance pattern, such as autism and schizophrenia. Students will carry out high-throughput transcriptome sequencing of human brain RNA samples to measure the expression of gene products implicated in complex neurological disorders such as autism or schizophrenia. Clustering, gene-set enrichment, and network reconstruction will be carried out to explore the relationship between gene expression and gene function. Last, students will be introduced to yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) technology through carrying out pairwise interaction assays; reconstruction of networks based on existing Y2H datasets, particularly those relevant to autism, will also be carried out and studied. 

Description will be added soon

Description will be added soon

Description will be added soon

Description will be added soon

Description will be added soon

Description will be added soon

Why do some organizations succeed while others flounder? As students of business, it is critically important for you to have an understanding of the key factors that contribute to organizational success, and the role that managers play in helping their organizations be successful. The better that you understand these issues, the more effective you will be in your future careers.

This course provides an introduction to strategic management. The course has two broad goals. A first is to understand why some companies are financially much more successful than others. The second is to analyze how managers can devise a set of actions (“the strategy”) and design processes that allow their company to obtain a financial advantage. To gain a better understanding of strategic issues and begin to master the analytic tools that strategists use, students study the strategic decisions of companies in many different industries and countries and learn from tools utilized by business researchers.

Introduction to Entrepreneurship is an introductory course intended to provide students with a foundation in terms of the role played by entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in the 21st century global economy. The students will get an understanding of what entrepreneurship is, they will develop entrepreneurial skills and eventually write a real-life business plan, which they can further develop after the course. During this course we will focus on the creation of new businesses, the ways that they come into being, and what determines their success. This course is a mix of theory and practice and also integrates a number of other disciplines such as finance, strategic management, marketing human resource management, economics and psychology.

Description will be added soon

This course situates artistic production in the late middle ages and early modern period in the maritime cultures of Indian and Atlantic Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea. Informed by approaches from art history, history, economics, and anthropology, it examines the role of cross-cultural exchange, banking, trade, finance, collecting, and patronage in shaping artistic production. Secondly, it explores in turn the ways in which works of art played a role in the evolution of commercial and political culture of the period. It will begin with an examination of the recent scholarship on the connectedness of the early modern world and the formulation of Global Renaissance. While looking from the perspective of Europe and the Islamic world, it will pay particular attention to interactions between the latter and Italy.

Shanghai Students: this course counts as Humanities (survey) credit.

History offers a unique perspective on the process of globalization, by virtue of its insistence that human experience be understood in its spatial and temporal contexts. Rigorous global history questions and even supplants common understandings of globalization as Westernization. But how does history do this, and can a global historical framework enhance all forms of historical, humanistic, and social scientific inquiry? Following an assessment of foundational modern Western frameworks for understanding world history, including those of Marx and Hegel, students examine how and why people around the world have variously embraced and rejected such foundational accounts. Readings address all world regions, including Asia, Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania, and familiarize students with state-of-the-art knowledge about globalization.

History and Globalization - Sample Syllabus.

Ethical considerations and notions to social responsibility are increasingly becoming central to the way global businesses operate and are viewed by relevant stakeholders. This course introduces students to key issues, debates and perspectives on Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In this course, students will learn key perspectives on moral standards and their application to contemporary organizations through which modern societies produce and distribute goods and services, and to the activities of the people who work within these organizations. Students will also learn about the critical importance of Corporate Social Responsibility and will be exposed to key challenges facing businesses looking to develop CSR programs. In the second half of the course, students will learn about the application of ethical and social responsibility perspectives in key areas of business management like marketing, competition, globalization and media. They will also learn about the relevance of ethics and CSR perspectives to issues like job discrimination, whistleblowing and workplace safety.

"Impact investing" refers to investments aiming to generate financial returns while at the same time improving social and environmental conditions for the public. Impact investing is also referred to as "blended value" combining the best aspects of traditional investing and philanthropy. This emerging investment strategy is developing rapidly worldwide supporting nonprofit and for-profit ventures in improving the lives of millions of people on issues such as energy, water, climate change, health or education. The promise of "doing well by doing good" has garnered significant attention and many large asset managers (for example, Blackrock, Goldman Sachs, KKR) are establishing impact investing practices as well as products to meet the demands of asset owners (pension funds, endowments, foundation or family offices). This course provides a comprehensive overview of the impact investing market covering key concepts and practical knowledge needed to engage in this space. Students will examine the developing marketplace, actors as well as financial products. Case studies and guests will explore challenges and best practices in creating successful fund and deal structures.

This course introduces students to the fundamental statistical and data-analytic tools. Students learn to manage and analyze data and to deploy statistical techniques, with an emphasis on how to translate business and related societal questions into empirical research. Topics include review of regression analysis, building multivariate analytical models, and data visualization and presentation. The course will emphasize structured quantitative analysis and application of statistics to decision making.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to FINC-UB 7 Corporate Finance.

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to BUSF-SHU 303 Corporate Finance.

This course introduces the student to selected problems and issues in financial management and corporate financial policy. Topics include: capital budgeting (strategy and techniques associated with the analysis and selection of capital projects, financial forecasting, and financial planning) and corporate finance (the cost of capital and issues associated with raising capital, mergers and acquisitions decisions, corporate bankruptcy, managerial control, and compensation strategies). Problem sets and case studies are integral parts of this course.

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are key actors in the global financial landscape of the twenty-first century. These funds manage assets worth more than 7 trillion of US dollars and have grown more rapidly than any other class of large global investors - and thus appear set to strongly influence international investing for the foreseeable future. Yet, in spite of their size and relevance, SWFs are still quite poorly understood. What explains their momentous rise? What is the economic rationale for their establishment? How do they differ from other global institutional investors? Which economic, institutional, and governance challenges to they face? Against this backdrop, this course will introduce the student to the economic principles of sovereign investing and to key, selected problems and issues in sovereign wealth management in the international context and with special reference to the impact COVID-19 crisis in the UAE, home of some of the leading SWFs.

Shanghai Students: this course counts Social Science Focus (300 level)

Business, Politics, & Society (BPS) is a case-based MBA-style course that introduces students to the political economy of firms. Substantively, the course focuses on the political and social underpinnings of the market system, analyzes corporate political strategy and corporate social responsibility, and presents tools for assessing and mitigating risks, especially as they relate to politics, law/regulation, ethics, and other actors in society. The goal of the course is to help students to learn to structure and solve complex problems in dynamic global markets. Case studies from a variety of countries and industries will be supplemented with academic readings. 

Business, Politics, and Society - Sample Syllabus.

We live in a society of organizations. We are born inside organizations, we are educated inside organizations, we work inside organizations, and when we die, we may be buried by organizations. Hence, we cannot really understand what drives economic, technological, social, and political change without reference to organizations. In this course, students will endeavor to understand the organizations that comprise society by looking at how they are shaped by their environment and propose solutions to organizational problems arising from external challenges and internal dynamics. This course has two primary units. First, students will learn the organizational decision-making process and organizational structures to understand the concept of organization as an independent entity. Then, students will explore the major organizational theories that guide contemporary understandings of the relationships between organizations and their environments, such as institutional norms, social capital (or networks), and organizational learning and cognition.

This course provides a foundational understanding of the principles of Islamic economics and mode, products and procedures of Islamic finance. This course familiarizes students with the roles and functionalities of Islamic finance in the context of the financial services industry today.

This course is a strong introduction to the theoretical and practical aspects of financial derivatives including Futures, Options and Swaps. Derivatives have recorded huge growth due to their hedging, speculative and bona fide applications and due to their profound effects in times of crisis. Derivatives are quantitative in nature; however, they also relate to theoretical knowledge and intuitive judgement in structuring and real-life applications. This course will use the quantitative tools learned as a prerequisite. The goal is to develop an understanding of how derivative securities work (pricing, trading, marking to market, hedging…), grow intuition on their application and expand on their basics to engineer innovative and exotic securities that allow tailoring the amount and kind of risk, be it risk associated with changes in interest rates, exchange rates, stock prices, commodity prices, inflation, weather, etc. The course will also explore the emergence of derivatives market and its applications in the local economy.

This course presents classical and modern ideas of finance with an applied focus. Students will master the analytic tools and the financial theory for making smart investments by using stocks and bonds but will also get their hands dirty with the data. The course starts with an overview of important methods from mathematics and statistics, software tools and financial data. It continues with the pricing of bonds and other fixed-income instruments, discusses the risks associated with fixed-income investments, demonstrates the methods to derive zero-coupon yield curves and shows how to hedge interest rate risk. The course then deals with stocks and covers the following topics: Predictability of stock returns, The cross-section of stock returns, Asset pricing theory (utility, discount factors, expected returns, CAPM, ICAPM, APT), Empirical asset pricing methods (time-series predictive regressions, cross-sectional Fama-MacBeth as well as Fama and French regressions). We also study the performance of Mutual funds and Hedge funds. The final session of the course will be devoted to answering questions related to this course that are frequently asked in the job interviews in investment banks.

This course studies causes, consequences, and remedies for market failures. Causes of market failure include insufficient competition (e.g., monopoly or oligopoly), consumption externalities, the presence of public goods, or the presence of information asymmetries (e.g., adverse selection or moral hazard).

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Social Science (focus) credit or as an Economics elective.

This course will cover topics on the interface between economics and computer science, with special emphasis on issues of importance to economically developing regions. Students will work in teams to tackle real-world and interdisciplinary problems. Students will address questions of markets and economic development using Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICTD) techniques in the context of development.

Technology and Economic Development: Markets and Networks - Sample Syllabus.

This course offers a rigorous examination of the basic concepts and tools of modern finance. Students are introduced to cash flow analysis and present value, as well as basic concepts of return and risk, in order to understand how financial markets work and how financial instruments are valued. These instruments, including equities, fixed income securities, options, and other derivative securities, become vehicles for exploring various financial markets and their utilization by managers in different kinds of financial institutions to enhance return and manage risk.

FinTech innovation is the hottest topic in Financial Services and touches all aspects of industry transformation. Digitizing a financial institution or competing with established players requires an interdisciplinary approach. For FinTech entrepreneurs and investors to be capable of creating or evaluating innovative business models that can generate revenues they need to possess knowledge on 3 key areas: Finance (quantitative methods and behavioral finance), Technology (artificial intelligence, blockchain, API) and Regulation (MIFID2, PSD2, GRDP). In this course we will cover these key three areas and study their implications for FinTech founders and investors, established financial institutions and regulators.

Social scientists and policy analysts rely heavily on research drawing on observational data. Students learn to manage and analyze such data and to deploy statistical techniques that are common in these applications, with an emphasis on how to translate social science theory into empirical research. Topics include review of basic regression analysis, building multivariate analytical models, and regression analysis with limited dependent variables. The course emphasizes practical training in these skills as well as evaluation, replication, and critical analysis of research conducted in the social science literature. 

New York Students: this course is equivalent to ACCT-UB 1 Principles of Financial Accounting.

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental concepts of financial accounting and focuses on the development, analysis and use of financial reports. It emphasizes accounting as the process through which relevant financial information concerning an economic entity is recorded and communicated to different parties, such as stockholders, creditors, tax authorities, investors, etc. The underlying rationale of accounting principles is discussed, aiming to provide students with a clear understanding of accounting concepts. In this course students learn about the relevance and informativeness of financial statement for decision making, as resource allocation, evaluation and contracting activities. In addition to text-oriented materials, the classes also include cases so that students can discuss applications of basic concepts, actual financial reports, and articles from newspapers.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to FINC-UB 2 Foundations of Finance.

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to BUSF-SHU 202 Foundations of Finance.

This course offers a rigorous examination of the basic concepts and tools of modern finance. Students are introduced to cash flow analysis and present value, as well as basic concepts of return and risk, in order to understand how financial markets work and how financial instruments are valued. These instruments, including equities, fixed income securities, options, and other derivative securities, become vehicles for exploring various financial markets and their utilization by managers in different kinds of financial institutions to enhance return and manage risk.

NY Students: This course is equivalent to ECON-UA 238 International Economics (Policy track).

SH Students: this course counts for Economics elective credit.

Building on the material in Principles of Macroeconomics, Intermediate Macroeconomics addresses in depth four foundational aspects of macroeconomic theory and policy: (1) theories of exogenous and endogenous growth in per capita incomes; (2) theories of fluctuations in output, employment and other macroeconomic aggregates with a focus on policy and other economic stimuli that can lead to booms and recessions; (3) determinants of inflation including capacity constraints, money, credit and expectations; (4) the aims, objectives and tools of monetary and fiscal policies and their relationship with financial intermediation and its regulation. Throughout the course data will regularly be analyzed to critically assess the theoretical insights. It is recommended to take this course after Intermediate Microeconomics.

International Economics - Sample Syllabus.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to FINC-UB 7 Corporate Finance.

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to BUSF-SHU 303 Corporate Finance.

This course introduces the student to selected problems and issues in financial management and corporate financial policy. Topics include: capital budgeting (strategy and techniques associated with the analysis and selection of capital projects, financial forecasting, and financial planning) and corporate finance (the cost of capital and issues associated with raising capital, mergers and acquisitions decisions, corporate bankruptcy, managerial control, and compensation strategies). Problem sets and case studies are integral parts of this course.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CHEM-UA 226 Organic Chemistry II and Lab; CHEM-UA 228 Majors Organic Chemistry II and Lab; CHEM-UA 9244-9246 Organic Chemistry II and Lab (London).

Organic Chemistry 2 is a continuation of Organic Chemistry 1, with an emphasis on multifunctional organic compounds and their reactions from both a synthetic as well as a mechanistic viewpoint. The topics include conjugated systems, aromatic compounds, including phenols and aryl halides as well as a thorough discussion of delocalized chemical bonding; aldehydes and ketones; amines; carboxylic acids and their derivatives; and biologically important molecules. The course continues the emphasis on modern analytical methods that are the cornerstone of contemporary organic chemistry.

Description will be added soon

Description will be added soon

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Chemistry elective credit.

As one of the major disciplines of chemistry, analytical chemistry is a ‘measurement science’ that describes the separation, identification and quantification of molecules through the use of methods utilized in science, engineering and medicine. This course aims to introduce students to modern concepts in analytical chemistry and quantitative analysis and the application of these concepts in the life sciences and environmental science. In addition, students learn about the components and applications of modern instruments utilized in everyday research laboratories. The course includes a strong laboratory component that demands independence and creativity from students.

This course builds upon the concepts and skills learned in Organic Chemistry 1 and 2, applying them to the study of advanced concepts in structure, reactions and their mechanisms, and the multi-step synthesis of complex molecules. The course applies principles of stereochemistry, thermodynamics, kinetics, and molecular orbital theory to functional group transformations, pericyclic and photochemical reactions, and carbon-carbon bond formations. The reactions are placed into context by a comprehensive discussion of the multi-step synthesis of important complex organic molecules, such as drug molecules and natural products, with an emphasis on retrosynthetic analysis.

NY Students: this course is equivalent to CHEM-UA 225 Organic Chemistry I and Lab; CHEM-UA 227 Majors Organic Chemistry I and Lab; CHEM-UA 9243-9245 Organic Chemistry I and Lab (London).

Organic chemistry is the study of carbon-containing compounds. Organic Chemistry 1 presents the structure and bonding, conformational analysis, stereochemistry, and spectroscopy of organic materials, subjects that partly trace their roots to the development of quantum theory. The topics covered include basic reaction mechanisms, such as substitution and elimination, and the reactions of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, alcohols, ethers, carbonyl compounds, and carboxylic acids. The course incorporates modern analytical methods that are the cornerstone of contemporary organic chemistry.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CHEM -UA 651 Quantum Mechanics and Spectroscopy.

Shanghai Students: this course counts is equivalent to CHEM-SHU 651 Physical Chemistry: Quantum Mechanics.

This course is primarily devoted to quantum mechanics, a theory that currently plays a central role in structural chemistry, theoretical chemistry, and spectroscopy. In contrast to classical mechanics, which describes the interaction of energy and matter on large bodies, quantum mechanics focuses on the interactions of energy and matter at the atomic and subatomic level. Hence, this course provides detailed insight into modern approaches that explain the structure and spectra of atoms and molecules. After completion of this course, students are able to understand the origins and meanings of key chemical concepts, including wave functions, atomic and molecular orbitals, energy levels, hybridization, atomic and molecular spectra, and electron spin. Students are also able to interpret various spectra—electronic, rotational, infrared, and nuclear magnetic resonance—and to correlate these to the structures of atoms and molecules.

Shanghai Students: this course counts is equivalent to CHEM-SHU 661 Physical Chemistry Laboratory.

Co-requisite: CHEM-UH 3013

This laboratory-based course is coupled to the lectures in CHEM-UH 3013 and focuses on the principles and use of modern computational and experimental methods for predicting structure and energy, spectroscopic characterization, and structure determination. The students become familiar with modern instrumental methods such as absorption (ultraviolet-visible) spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and structure analysis by single crystal X-ray diffraction. The students learn how to use and interface analytical equipment, acquire, process and analyze data, and interpret the results. After the completion of this course, students are able to characterize materials by using common analytical methods.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CHEM-UA 711 Inorganic Chemistry.

Inorganic chemistry is the study of all elements in the periodic table as well as the compounds they form and the reactions that lead to the formation of new compounds. This course includes the study of structure from atomic level to molecular level and understanding how atoms connect to form molecules and to understanding how molecules are assembled together to form the structure of materials. This course also studies the properties of elements and the different compounds they form.

This is a new course that will be offered in Spring 2022 for the first time. More details to follow.

New York Students: This course is equivalent to EAST-UA 202 Elementary Chinese 2.

A continuation of Elementary Chinese I. The course is designed to reinforce and further develop language skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing as these relate to everyday life situations.

New York Students: This course is equivalent to EAST-UA 204 Intermediate Chinese 2.

A continuation of Intermediate Chinese I, focusing on semi-formal usage of Chinese language when discussing more academically-inflected cultural or social topics.

Continuation of Advanced Chinese I. Designed to reinforce and further develop students’ knowledge of formal usage of Chinese language.

Is there a link between advanced education and the improvement of human society? In this seminar, students will critically examine historical and contemporary frameworks for advanced education, drawing lessons from film, literature, neuroscience, and social science research to explore trends in education across time and cultures. Which models of post-secondary education are best suited to advance the betterment of humanity? Who has been excluded from higher education, why, and to what consequence? What theoretical frameworks drive education policies and philosophies today and are they suited for the disruptions of Covid-19, automation, and climate change? Debates rage regarding education’s role in society: utilitarian technical skills that emphasize employability versus satisfying intellectual curiosities in the liberal arts tradition. As students examine past, current, and potential future frameworks for the social organization of post-secondary education, they will review industry’s role in adult education, upskilling, and lifelong learning.

How does international law respond to global challenges confronting refugees and states? In recent years 68.5 million men, women, and children worldwide have fled their homes due to conflict, natural disaster, violence, and persecution, amounting to the highest level of forced migration since WWII. Those who manage to cross international borders confront a global refugee system in crisis, with no consensus as to how it should be reformed. This course explores the history of the international refugee regime and the limitations of international law and governance. It asks how the ever-present tension between the sovereign right of states to control their borders and the international duties owed to refugees has influenced the way that international law has been shaped and interpreted by countries across the world’s major regions. Taking a comparative approach via African, Latin American, Asian, European and Middle Eastern case studies, the course will conclude by examining the UN Global Compact for Migration, adopted in December 2018, which provides an occasion for critical analysis of the international community’s attempt to create an effective and humane regime for protecting refugees.

What is power? It is ubiquitous in all societies, but there is little consensus about how it should be defined, measured, and explained. This class draws on several disciplines, and a range of materials including academic essays, films, short stories, novels, and poems to explore the many dimensions of power. We begin with general theoretical debates, then examine the dynamics of power at all levels of social life, from interpersonal interaction to global economic hegemony. We explore power in families, in gender relations, in conflicts between racial and ethnic groups, power in the capitalist economy, in different types of political systems, and in geopolitics and warfare. The last section of the class focuses explicitly on resistance to power - from changing laws to social movements and revolutions.

Why do humans continue to build and flock to cities? What makes a city work? How do we measure qualities of urban life? This course sheds light on the complex process of urbanization. It begins with debates about the different recent trajectories of urbanization in light of economic and political dynamics. Why have some trajectories been more successful than others? What factors have shaped a certain trajectory? What lessons we can learn from them? The focus will then shift to a myriad of contemporary cases from around the globe. The aim is to deconstruct common conceptions of dualities: development/underdevelopment, wealth/poverty, formality/informality, and centrality/marginality. The course material is structured around themes that highlight the main challenges that urban dwellers and policy makers face in the following areas: the economy, income inequality, marginalization, service provision, housing, infrastructure, immigration, safety, and the environment. These themes will allow students to engage with various forms of contestations and to consider the role of urban social movements.

Science explores the unknown, and a major part of being a scientist is learning how to handle uncertainty. Statistical uncertainty, systematic uncertainty, the range of validity of models, approximations, data outliers, competing interpretations: scientists spend most of their time wrestling with these problems. Unfortunately, in popular culture, science is often presented as a series of proven facts. Uncertainty, if acknowledged, is portrayed as an argument between experts with opposing views. While science has resulted in some well-established facts, more commonly scientists have varying degrees of confidence in models and disagree about their significance. This class takes up the language of probability and statistics, explores how it became central to the scientific process, and examines how it is used by different scientific disciplines. Students will also explore how scientific uncertainty is often misrepresented to support particular political agendas or personal beliefs. Finally, they will discuss the limits of scientific knowledge, and how even when exact solutions to problems are not theoretically possible, humans can still put limits on our uncertainty.

Humans have a strong tendency to group and divide objects, people, emotions, and events into different concepts and categories. These seemingly effortless acts pose fundamental questions about our understanding of the self and the nature of the world. This course examines texts from history, literature, philosophy, and scientific sources to ask why we conceptualize the world in particular ways, whether any categories are fundamental, and the degree to which concepts and categories are innate or learned. From the conceptual taxonomies proposed as fundamental from thinkers such as Aristotle and Kant, to the findings from psychology and neuroscience that inform us about our predilections for object concepts and social groups, students will reflect on what this knowledge can tell us about the forces that shape self and society.

This course explores how technology and machines have influenced human life across the ages. It further explores how technology has influenced the fields of arts and design and investigates this inspirational source for new technological developments. Lecture and discussion will be the breeding ground for concept development of new machines: Every student will realize a prototype of a machine executing a certain task. This hands-on project will be complemented by case studies, reading assignments, workshops, excursions, and one-on-one meetings with the professor. The course builds knowledge about futuristic developments and their use and influence from past to present, including questions concerning ethics and values. Students will leave the course with a completed project to be displayed in an exhibition and a personal philosophy of Arts, Design, and Technology.

Are art and science really in conflict with each other, as is often thought? Is science dispelling mystery and consigning us to a world of dreary reductionism? This course answers such questions with a resounding no. There is, in fact, neither conflict nor antagonism between the realms of art and science. Indeed, the two complement and complete one another in ways that only artful narrative can fully reveal. A poet, through metaphor, builds bridges from entangled inscapes of thought and emotion to a place of shared understanding. A good narrative science writer must do the equivalent with the often recondite minutia of modern scientific exploration. It has become ever more essential for writers to report back from these new and wild frontiers with clear, intelligible, and descriptive prose. Students in this course will develop their vocabularies of both science and writing, learning to seize upon the parallels between the writing process and sound scientific method: trial, error, repetition, and, perhaps most importantly, daring.

How can artistic online collaboration and performance be used to close gaps in space, time, and in physical and cultural distance? How can the internet be an effective medium for multidisciplinary intercultural artistic expression? The current pandemic has created a strong reemergence of online performances. The recent explosion of freely-available content in social media platforms (literally) from around the world has created an unprecedented opportunity to (re)evaluate online performance as a medium and as a means for intercultural artistic collaboration. In this course we will address live online performance and will explore its possibilities for intercultural artistic collaboration. This will be achieved by creating a series of live online performances, by viewing similar work by other artists, through seminal readings in the field, and talks by selected guests.

What is innovation? Can such a concept be meaningful without understanding the contexts in which it arises? Certain innovations, such as cars, have shaped social development and the evolution of human cultures. Others are more discrete. Why is a plastic bottle's diameter standardized to a specific value? What is the ideal height for a door handle, or a stair? Such micro-innovations hide in plain sight yet are instrumental in our lives. This course will help students define and explore "contextual innovation," especially in science and technology. Undertaking practical fieldwork in Abu Dhabi, students will leverage the city's unique cultures to generate empathetic, culturally-competent, and context-specific innovations across industries and fields. Readings will include theoretical approaches from design and engineering, sociology, and anthropology. Case studies will include historical examples such as cars and electricity, as well as contemporary examples from global corporations such as Apple and Uber. By semester's end students will have co-developed a framework for empathetic, contextual innovation translatable to other projects in their careers.

How can changing our diets play a role in saving planet Earth? What does food production contribute to climate change? Did the Anthropocene begin with the industrial revolution, or is it part of the longer history of agricultural development? This course examines relationships among food, technology, and society, paying special attention to the impact of foodways on anthropogenic environmental change. Combining global perspectives from public policy, history, and environmental studies, the course explores the evolution and long-term security of food production, cooking technologies, and livelihood strategies in China, the UAE, Nepal, and the western United States. Units will address the history and evolution of food staples like soy, wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, and peanuts; the political economy of meat production; and the promise and perils of technocratic solutions to global food security, especially with regard to pesticides/fertilizers, industrialized farming, and energy use. Along with reading and discussion, students will grow, forage, and shop for food, cook and eat meals, and collaborate on the design and development of an NYU Abu Dhabi cookbook for the future.

The making of abstract visual forms is a near-universal human activity across time and cultures. Some of the earliest known cave art, dating back approximately 40,000 years, is abstract. The use of abstract forms in ornament and for symbolic communication is found at different periods of history and in different locations across the globe. And abstraction has become prominent in modern art all over the world. This course takes a comparative approach to abstraction and asks why human beings in different places and at different times have drawn and carved similar shapes, lines, and patterns. What are the meanings of these forms? Why have some cultures with long traditions of representational painting turned to abstraction? How have religious, political, and social contexts shaped this turn? What has been the role of abstraction in Islamic and other non-Western traditions and how have these traditions influenced Western art? Although the course will range widely historically and culturally, it will take the Middle East as one of its key areas of interest and will include visits to galleries, private collections, and selected centers for traditional arts in the UAE.

Originating in the idea of the world citizen and conceived in contradistinction to nationalism, cosmopolitanism can be understood as a perspective that regards human difference as an opportunity to be embraced rather than a problem to be solved. Does this perspective lie behind all "great" literature, which asks its readers to experience otherness by opening themselves up to another person's words and thoughts? This course uses novels, poems, plays, and films to explore the cosmopolitan impulses behind the literary imagination.

What is memory? We tend to think it will be activated when the right moment comes, but our experiences may belie our thinking, such as when we forget a name just when we need it. A variety of disciplines and theories approach the phenomenon of memory: cognitive science, computer science, biology, psychology, sociology, media theory, theory of perception, philosophy, history, cultural history and art history, trauma theory, heritage studies. And we can observe a huge variety of attempts to preserve memories: monuments, memorials, museums, libraries, archives, rituals, writing, film, and even ephemeral forms such as blog posts or status updates (nothing gets lost in the Web!). The course allows students to sample these various approaches without being restricted to any one of them as they explore fundamental questions about the relationship between memory and human identity: Is memory everything we can remember, or everything we can forget? How can we know memories from dreams or fantasies? Do we remember things as they really were or as they never were? Is memory what we take for granted and thus an impediment to creative thinking, or is it the prerequisite of creative activity?

We come from a range of different cultural experiences. How, then, do we consider normativity as we relate to our bodies and to gender expressions within shifting, social realities? When we enter public spheres, do our bodies complement or disrupt cultural expectations of normalcy? What are these expectations? How rooted are they in cultural ideologies and practices? What registers as non-normative and to what consequences? This course examines a range of writing, historical and contemporary, about gender expression in lived experience as well as in texts intended for live performance. These latter “textual performances” capture how artists have imagined and inscribed tensions between gender normativity and variation. How does the aliveness of gender performance (normative or disruptive) negotiate the dynamic among lived experience, textual performances, and live performance? Finally, how do our own gender expressions perform their aliveness in today’s world? Works from Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, France, South Africa, Uganda, Ireland, Greece, India, and Mexico, among others, are focal points for critical inquiry. (Formerly titled: Gender and the Future of Normal.)

Do new media change the way we think and perceive the world around us? What does it mean to live in an era after film has reshaped our capacity for documentation and visual expression? In order to explore such fundamental questions, this course focuses on artistic developments during the Weimar period (1918-1933), when Berlin became a vibrant cultural center after World War I. As the emergence of German film provided new aesthetic principles of artistic production and reception, traditional art forms such as literature, theatre, painting, photography, and music were reframed by a new “cinematic imagination.” Engaging with the work of cultural theorists who first witnessed the impact of film, photography, radio, and gramophone, the course also explores recent interdisciplinary scholarship in media studies to understand how new technologies shape social and political concerns. A hands-on film project allows students to explore Abu Dhabi’s urban cityscapes to create a remake of Walter Ruttman’s 1927 film Berlin: Symphony of a City. How can this reflection on modernity and modernization in 1920s Berlin help us understand the cinematic imagination's mediation of urban spaces today?

What stories do you know and how do you know them? How have you lived with these stories over the span of your life? What stories will you tell in the future? In this course, "Once Upon a Time," we will consider storytelling as a complex human phenomenon by focusing on the rich heritage of folk and fairy tales that have been recorded around the globe. Students will be introduced to a wide range of methodological approaches drawn from diverse fields evolutionary biology, cognitive science, psychology, literary approaches, and media studies.

Until very recently much of the world has lived under colonial rule. Major colonial powers shaped social, religious, and institutional life in countries that they controlled. This course explores the legacies of colonial rule. In it, students encounter the markedly different perspectives of the colonizers and the colonized and ask whether these can be reconciled both historically and in the context of more contemporary postcolonial discourse. Asking how colonial practices have shaped the causes of global inequality and have influenced the dynamics of recent conflicts, the class also engages with the notion of justice in postcolonial contexts and asks whether former colonizers might have contemporary obligations toward their former subjects. This is a multidisciplinary course drawing on sources from the social sciences, history, and literature.

Prerequisite: Must be an NYUAD student and have not completed the CCOL Core requirement.

Why is the present-day extinction crisis an existential threat to the future of humankind? We are living in the age of the Anthropocene, when the human impact on global biodiversity has led to a dramatic increase in the rate of extinction of animals and plants - the so called "sixth extinction". This course looks at the causes and consequences of extinctions in the modern era, as well as in the past. It takes a multidisciplinary and global perspective, drawing on evidence from earth science, paleontology, archaeology, climate science, genomics, ecology, and conservation biology. It examines what we have learned from the study of major mass extinctions and their proposed causes, including extra-terrestrial impacts, volcanism, and climate change. The course also looks at the factors associated with extinctions in the human fossil record and what role humans have played in past extinctions. It reviews contemporary extinctions across the globe and the steps being taken to conserve biodiversity. The final part of the course explores the possibilities of de-extinction, rewilding, and planned extinction, and the ethical issues that these raise.

The desert has been imagined as a barrier, a dry ocean, a bridge, and a hyphen between various ecological and cultural spaces across the globe. Drifting, parched tides of sand and vast, empty landscapes have made it seem uninhabitable and a metaphor for exile, difficult journeys, spiritual reflection, and death. This course explores the ways in which the desert has been depicted and experienced in various historical, cultural, and geographic contexts - from the Sahara to the Mojave, from the origins of Abrahamic religions to Burning Man, from desert oasis to urban food desert. This course will also consider the future of deserts and global challenges posed by climate change, desertification, and resources (water, oil, solar). Students will encounter the desert through diverse sources that include film, literature, soundscapes, musical performances, environmental and social history, artistic production, fieldtrips, and travel writings. So, even while the desert is an environmental reality that makes inhabitation difficult, it is still a space of demographic, cultural, and economic activity and exchange.

What is evil? We use the term to describe human behavior, political regimes, natural disasters, and epidemic disorder. The idea of evil is as old as humanity, and various religious, legal, political, and social arrangements aim to circumvent it. But definitions vary over time and across cultures, suggesting that evil may be contextual rather than universal. If so, can we say that evil is a constitutive part of the human condition? This colloquium offers a multi-disciplinary investigation into evil’s dimensions and its implications for peace, justice, and human understanding. It begins with the theological conundrum all major religions face: how to reconcile the evils of human suffering with the existence of a loving god. Additional topics include the concept of evil as a rationale for colonial and imperial projects; the Nazi use of gas chambers during WWII; and the Aversion Project in South Africa. Students will examine attempts to prevent evil, venturing into the realm of clinical psychology with the psychopathic serial killer and exploring Marx’s indictment of capitalism’s evils by considering alternatives to corporations’ pursuit of profit at the expense of ordinary people.

When was science invented or discovered? And is this issue still relevant to our interpretation and use of the scientific method? Because of the great wealth of scientific results obtained in the Hellenistic period of ancient Greece, the course will take up such questions starting from that period. We will analyze the works of Euclid and Archimedes and others in Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, and Geography, with a particular focus on very modern, and maybe still undiscovered, contents. The achievements of Hellenistic science and the issues it raised will be compared with some of those appearing in other golden ages of science, such as ancient Babylonia, the Islamic Golden Age, the Renaissance, and our times. The course will not consist of a review of established facts, but rather the exploration of sometimes controversial interpretations.

What is "the environment" and how can we conceptualize its history? Many historians are concerned with questions of voice, agency and power. How do we deal with these questions when writing about non-human actors like donkeys, cotton and coral reefs? Does focusing on the roles of non-human actors obscure other human dynamics like class, race, gender and sexuality? Further, the scholarly consensus on climate change and the varied responses to that consensus have motivated historians to contribute to the public discussion more actively. What is the relationship between understandings of environmental history and environmental activism? We will address these and other questions using the Middle East region as a case study, paying particular attention to how historians have approached these challenges in conversation with ecologists and other natural scientists. Students will also have the opportunity to write short environmental histories based on field trips, interviews, and sojourns into the digital humanities in the final part of the course.

What does it mean to relate, to differ? The poet and philosopher Edouard Glissant defined Relation as that which determines points of contact between differences, the modalities of their connectedness, the stories that result from their confluences and how their knowledge is passed on from place to place, generation to generation, like a passing of the Olympic torch. This course explores the idea of relationship in literature, film, and other forms, across time and space. Taking up relationships between different objects, cultures, and nations, without privileging some as primary models that the others imitate, the course aims to reveal unforeseen connections among environmental justice, inter-personal relation, and race-relation. Taking seriously Glissant’s argument that Relation is not a relation, unless we consider as equal the elements that come into contact with one another, we will ask, for example, whether we find, poetically and ecologically speaking, a relation and difference between a mountain in Peru and one in Martinique? Conversely, how can we talk about Relation in countries where minority races or ethnic groups live separately from the dominant cultures and races?

With dramatically rising rates of loneliness, isolation, alienation, and suicide around the world, the most pressing questions we can ask include: What is at the root of what is now called a global "crisis of connection"? How do we effectively address this crisis? The science of human connection, which incorporates a wide range of disciplines including developmental and social psychology, neuroscience, primatology, and the health sciences, approaches both questions by telling a five-part story that underscores: 1) the social and emotional nature of humans; 2) how cultural ideologies clash with our social and emotional natures and lead to a crisis of connection and; 3) how we can effectively address the crisis by creating a culture that better nurtures our nature rather than gets in the way.

Data are everywhere. We have massive datasets keeping track of humanity’s everyday minutiae from babies born to calories consumed, friends made to crimes committed. How can we use these data to make useful predictions and gain insights into ourselves and humanity in general? This course introduces the basics of learning from data and covers topics such as wrangling, exploration, analysis, prediction, and storytelling through data visualization.

Symmetries are ubiquitous in nature and permeate the arts. Beginning with both intuitive definitions and more formal mathematical descriptions, the course will explore the symmetries in the subatomic constituents of matter and their interactions, larger-scale chemical and biological compounds, and the macroscopic natural world. Students will explore ways in which the human psyche is primed to find symmetry beautiful and examine the symmetries that underlie artistic creations, from geometrical patterns in artwork, to rhythm and chord progression in musical composition, and meter and rhyme in poetry. After a thorough study of symmetry, the course will end with a discussion of asymmetries and broken symmetries in nature and aesthetics.

How do we find what we’re looking for? How do we know when we’ve found it? If we can't tell the future, how do we make choices that impact the rest of our lives, such as finding a life partner, a fulfilling career, or even a good Core course? This course examines the nature and implications of such search processes. Questions addressed include why marital selection (when and whom to marry) has changed so much over time. Why do more women than men now go to college in some parts of the world? What does the data suggest explains these major societal changes? Students will be tasked with obtaining country-level evidence on how changing legislation in different countries is observed to affect societal outcomes. Students will not only learn the nature of causal inference in data, but will better understand how and why society is changing. Additional topics include the search for knowledge (scientific method and causality), navigation (the search for home [and time dilation with GPS]), returns to matching (insect swarms and Tinder) and even shopping at the carpet souk.

Where do errors come from? How can we make better decisions? Should intuition be trusted? Can we nudge others to make better decisions, and should we? This course examines neural bases for human decisions and cognitive biases. Drawing from economics, psychology, and neuroscience, it takes an interdisciplinary perspective on topics including decision-making under risk (how humans deal with probabilities), intertemporal decisions (saving for the future), and social decisions (interpersonal allocations and fairness). Students will explore different notions of rational behavior, how data on human behavior and brain activity is collected, and how we can use these data to improve decisions. Hands-on experience will include lab visits (both behavioral and brain imaging) and data collection through online platforms as students gain familiarity with different models of decision-making (including expected utility theory vs. prospect theory for decisions under risk, exponential vs. hyperbolic discounting for intertemporal decisions, and selfish vs. social preferences for interpersonal decisions) and examine how these models reflect available neural evidence.

How do digital technologies impact efforts to archive human experience and culture? How do they change how we access that archive? In the age of ubiquitous smart devices, when we are all curators of digital content, what constitutes the digital archive? This course explores the implications of digital archive creation tools and practices for historical memory and understanding. Students will conduct reviews of digital archives and online repositories and will be invited to assess the role of digitization in the construction of history and memory. Focusing on the curatorial and technical decisions underlying digitization processes and the ways in which these decisions determine what is discoverable, accessible, and searchable, students will be introduced to relevant terms and concepts, such as metadata creation, machine-readable data, open access, the digital divide, algorithmic bias, the possibilities and the ethics of crowdsourcing, distant reading, etc. Offering a gentle introduction to computer-readable corpus creation and text analytics, the course takes a Humanities approach to interrogating digital tools and platforms we encounter on a daily basis.

In 1500 the economic, social, and political differences between Europe and Asia were small. By the twentieth century, the gaps were enormous. How can we explain this Great Divergence between Europe and Asia? The course will discuss the classical answers to this question given by Weber, Smith, Marx, and Malthus. Has modern research confirmed or contradicted their views? The roles of demography, politics, law, globalization, social structure, science, and technology will be discussed as well as the interconnections between them. The course aims to expose the methods that social scientists and historians use to answer grand questions of social evolution, so that the approaches can be compared, contrasted, and assessed.

Why is it so difficult to eliminate some of the greatest causes of human suffering - war, state-failure, poverty, and tyranny? This course examines moral and practical controversies over how we ought to respond to these problems. We will focus in particular on whether, and if so how, the international community is justified in intervening in poor and violent parts of the world. By the end of the course students will be better at analyzing and discerning the plausibility of policy proposals and ideas.

How are boundaries created and what are their roles in society? This class will explore human, natural, and political boundaries as processes accompanying genetic, linguistic, religious, and cultural divergence. It will also investigate changing boundaries over time in various regions to see how these changes explain both socioeconomic and political outcomes today. Students will be exposed to various interdisciplinary literature and will learn to create their own digital maps using both archival and contemporary resources. They will also work with these novel data to present their own research ideas.

Why do revolutions occur in some places and times but not others? Why are some revolutions successful in taking state power, and why do most of them fail? When are successful revolutions able to dramatically transform the politics, economy and culture of a society? With these general questions in mind, we explore the history of different types of revolutions throughout the world. Drawing on several disciplines, using academic essays, films, novels, and poems to explore both the causes and the consequences of revolutions (the forcible overthrow and replacement of a government by the governed) from their inception in the 17th century until today. After discussing general theories of revolutions, the course turns to the early modern democratic revolutions in England (1688) and France (1789), then turn to the Marxist-inspired revolutions in Russia (1917) and China (1949), anti-colonial revolutions in the United States (1776), Latin America (19th century), and Africa (mostly post-WWII), and conclude with the revolutions in Iran (1979) and North Africa and the Middle East known as “Arab Spring” (early 2010s).

This course examines the determinants of economic development in the modern world. The course is divided into two parts. The first reviews theories that place factors of production such as labor and technology as the main cause of cross-country differences in economic wealth. The second part of the course investigates the role of institutions, culture, religion, geography, and luck as deeper causes of comparative development. The main questions addressed throughout the course are: Why are there such large differences in income per capita across countries? Why have some countries developed steadily over the past 200 years while many others have not? Why do some governments adopt policies that promote economic development while others set up barriers to economic activity? These questions are analyzed from a theoretical and empirical perspective.

For thousands of years humans have studied the skies to help them grow crops, navigate the seas, and earn favor from their gods. We still look to the stars today to answer fundamental questions: How did the Universe begin? Will the Universe end, and if so, how? And what is our place in the Universe? Astronomy and Cosmology help us answer these questions. We have learned that our place in the Universe is not special: the Earth is not at the center of the Universe; the Sun is an ordinary star; and the Milky Way is an ordinary galaxy. Astronomers have even suggested that the Universe itself may not be unique. This course aims to understand the Universe from the Big Bang to its future.

This course provides a global viewpoint on the most theoretical foundations of science, within and across theoretical physics and mathematics. It addresses the concept of the infinite in math but also the (sought after) theory of grand unification in physics. While these subjects are quite daunting, the course will pursue a conceptual approach that is accessible to students. Topics and questions will include: First, what does infinity really mean? This seemingly simple question is one of the deepest in math. The current answers solve many problems but also lead to non-intuitive consequences. Second, is there a unifying theme in mathematics or a set of principles underlying all its branches? If so, would this set be complete? Consistent? Third, seeking a theory of everything in physics would unify all the forces of nature (electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces, and gravity) via combining quantum theory and general relativity. Is this a reasonable or attainable quest? What would its consequences be? Fourth, are the above quests related? Are unifying themes in one aspect of nature (e.g. physics) expected to reflect similar themes in another (e.g. math)?

Chance is a common word whose meaning can vary, but which generally applies to situations involving a certain amount of unpredictability. We all spend a lot of time and effort to evaluate and possibly increase our chances of success, or to minimize certain risks. If philosophical discussions about chance and randomness can be traced back to antiquity, probabilistic and statistical concepts appeared more recently in mathematics. The ambition of the theory of chance has been to deal rationally with this elusive notion. Starting with gambling strategies, the theory now applies to the core of almost all scientific and technical fields, including statistical and quantum mechanics, chaotic dynamics, phylogenetics, sociology, economics, risk management, and quality control. We will provide a broad introduction, organized as a journey in the history of ideas. We will investigate key concepts (including independence, expectation, confidence intervals, or tests), consider their applications to specific fields of science, and illustrate them by computer experiments. Readings include excerpts from Lucretius, Pascal, Hume, Laplace, Peirce, and Hacking.

Thinking is what we do when we solve problems, compare alternatives, and plan for the future. But what is thinking, and how do thoughts form? People throughout history have come to very different answers to this question and have offered different metaphors for thought. The French Philosopher Descartes drew inspiration for his theories of the mind from mechanisms that were powered by pneumatics. Our modern understanding of thinking is shaped by the computer revolution. The class will discuss the underpinnings of the main fields of Psychology (e.g. Behaviorism, Freudian, Cognitive), as well as to how thinking has been viewed in a broader historical and multicultural context. We will explore how thoughts on thinking have shaped our understanding of who we are and how our metaphors of thought have been inspired by technological developments and shaped by culture.

Pandemics share much in common with other disturbances in human-environmental systems--tipping points and non-linearities that make behavior counter-intuitive and hard to predict. Some processes change quickly or are very local; others shift slowly and reshape entire regions or nations. This mix of scales and connections affords the opportunity to ask (via models) a range of questions about people, their interactions, and their relationships with the environment. However, models must always be used with caution. They are built to answer particular questions and represent a set of assumptions about how a system behaves. Understanding how those assumptions shape and limit the range of inferences that can be made is critical for any model output to be treated as knowledge. Applying models critically across a wide range of problems, students will ask when we should (or shouldn’t) model, and what our models can and can’t tell us. No coding experience is necessary, but students should expect to make use of algebra and basic statistics.

What is self? What is identity? Do our perceptions of self and identity change over our lifetimes? This course discusses fundamental questions about biological concepts of self and identity, which are changing in the current era of genomics, as we are starting to appreciate ourselves better in the context of our environments. An emerging concept in biology is the link between self and the microbiome. Historically viewed as harmful pathogens, non-pathogenic microbes are vital for our existence and they are omnipresent in human bodies and the environment. These microbes change over our lifetimes mirroring our development from infancy to adulthood. Does this microbial development influence our perception of self?

What determines how a disease spreads in human populations? Biomedical scientists have greatly expanded our knowledge of the diseases caused by viruses, parasites, fungi or bacteria. Yet every year, epidemics of infectious diseases still cause large amounts of suffering, bereavement and economic loss throughout the world. Climate change, deforestation, and the globalization of economic activity might even accelerate the emergence of new infections and usher in an “era of pandemics.” In this course, students will draw on literature from the biomedical and social sciences, as well as historical accounts of outbreaks, to understand the dynamics of contagion. They will learn the tools used by epidemiologists and public health specialists to prevent the emergence, limit the spread, or even eliminate infectious diseases. They will investigate the ethical, behavioral, and political obstacles that might limit the adoption of protective behaviors during epidemics. Students will engage in debates and research related to the current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as in case studies of diseases including smallpox, influenza, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and Ebola.

Data science is changing our lives. While the importance of data science is widely acknowledged, there are also great concerns around it. How are data generated? How can they be used to make predictions and inform insights? What can be the potential dangers of applying data science techniques? What are the social and human implications of their uses? This multidisciplinary course explores these questions through hands-on experience on key technical components in data science and critical reviews of human and social implications in various real-world examples, ranging from social science to arts and humanities to engineering. In the course, students will 1) learn basic concepts and skills in data science (e.g., crawling and visualization); 2) apply these skills in a creative project; 3) discuss social and human implications of data science, including data privacy; algorithmic bias, transparency, fairness, and accountability; research ethics; data curation and reproducibility; and societal impacts. This course encourages students to reconsider our common-place assumptions about how data science works and be critical about the responsible use of data.

The hallmark of a successful scientific theory is its ability to predict the outcome of experiments. Yet the last century’s most shocking scientific development is the mathematical theory of chaos, with the subsequent realization that predictability has intrinsic limits. Such limits may have no practical importance (as in many engineering problems). Sometimes they shape an entire branch of science (as in meteorology). This course provides a challenging, but accessible, way to understand predictability’s limits, while still appreciating the bedazzling richness of phenomena that only theories which face these limits can possibly describe. The course brings together, in a cohesive whole, ideas about numbers and infinities; the inner working of computing machines; nuances and concessions occurring in model-building; the meaning of randomness and of determinism. Students will participate in the construction of mathematical models (mostly inspired by population biology) under the form of iterated maps, and interact with simple computer simulations of those models to illustrate key concepts of nonlinear dynamics: stability, limit cycles, attractors, and predictability.

Societies have traditionally used maps to represent, even construct, the spaces in which we live as well as the territories over which we assert control. But what has become of the map in the (post-)digital age? Has our relationship to human space changed in our data-rich world? Are we unknowingly map-makers by virtue of walking around with our devices? This course explores the specific role that technology can play in our understanding of both historical and contemporary map making. Through regional and global examples of urban culture mapping, the course’s focus on data discovery extends beyond working with official data to creating our own data within familiar environments. In addition to seminar discussion of readings and audiovisual materials, the course will host guest speakers. It also has a lab component with two main assignments. First, we focus on the larger Arabian Gulf region through the eyes of historical cartographers and colonial geographers. Second, we will turn to the city of Abu Dhabi itself to see how (and why) we might map some of its spaces of human culture using simple technology. The course assumes no prior computer skills, but a willingness to explore new technologies is essential for success.

What makes a system stable or unstable? How does a lack of stability translate into chaos or turbulence? Every new device, experiment, or idea, requires a check for system stability. Important in science, engineering, politics, economics, and daily life, understanding stability enables predictability and control. In the late nineteenth century, philosophers, physicists, and mechanical engineers laid the foundations of hydrodynamic stability, the field which analyses the stability and onset of instability of fluid flows. How have these breakthroughs helped us to determine whether a given flow is stable or unstable, or to describe how possible instabilities can cause turbulence? And how might insights drawn from such fields offer insight into other areas of our lives, from monetary or political systems to bridges to interpersonal relationships?

The study of temperature and of heat, as formulated in the laws of thermodynamics, will be used as a unifying guide to examine a variety of phenomena in our natural world. In the physical world, course topics will encompass the cooling of the Universe in its early minutes as well as the dramatic expansion in the first seconds after the Big Bang and the role that temperature fluctuations have played in the Earth’s history. In the animal world, the course covers the surprising discovery of heat-loving bacteria and the techniques mammals, including humans, have adopted for temperature regulation. Readings will include materials from various scientific realms such as cosmology, biology, and geology.

In the world of Big Data, information is everywhere; for example, Wikipedia biographies collect information for millions of individuals, translated into more than 200 languages for the most famous. The information is, however, not easily accessible for a quantitative analysis. The class will collect and analyze Wikipedia biographical information of one million biographies from 3000 BCE to now, with data scraping tools and text recognition techniques. It will extend the database (currently 1.9 million pages just in European languages) to terra incognita: based on students’ skills, editions in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Russian, Polish, Dutch, Magyar, Turkish, Ukrainian, etc. will be added to the current stock of knowledge. Students will learn tools to scrape the internet and collect information (Python); to transform text into a proper database; to check and minimize errors; to analyze the reciprocal causation relations between the concentration of scientists, artists, politicians on the one hand, and the economic and political expansion of large cities on the other, using basic econometric techniques.

Over half of the human population lives within 100 km of a coast and coastlines contain more than two-thirds of the world's largest cities. As a result, the world's natural coastal environments have been substantially modified to suit human needs. This course uses the built and natural environments of coastal cities as laboratories to examine the environmental and ecological implications of urban development in coastal areas. Using data from multiple coastal cities, student teams use field-based studies and Geographic Information System (GIS) data to examine patterns and processes operating in coastal cities. This course uses the local terrestrial, marine, and built environments as a laboratory to address these issues, and team projects requiring field work form a core component of the learning experience. As part of the NYU Global Network University this course is being offered simultaneously in several NYU sites globally and students are collaborating extensively with students from their sister campuses through the duration of this course.

This course will investigate two fundamental concepts: Identity (“Who am I?”) and Diversity (“How am I different from other human beings?”). These questions will be addressed from cultural, environmental, and biological perspectives. We will examine the origin of human diversity, how human diversity is measured and analyzed, and how our perception of diversity has changed through history. Emphasis will be placed on recent progress in genetics and evolution and how this progress affects our daily life and identity. Students will learn how genes can inform us about human history, ancestry, and evolution. The laboratory component of the course will demonstrate how data are generated and analyzed, and will explore the difficulty encountered by scientists in inferring processes from observations and experiments. Students will have the option to collect and analyze genetic data from their own genome.

“In the year of 1657 I discovered very small living creatures in rain water.” This quote is attributed to Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch merchant whose skillful use of glass lenses allowed him to peer into a world of microorganisms that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye. His careful observations gave way to advances in microscopy that have allowed scientists to observe detailed structures of plants, viruses invading cells, intricate crystal lattices, and the seemingly chaotic motion of small particles. In this course, microscopy is explored, first by examining the fundamental optical systems used to magnify objects, and eventually by using sophisticated microscopes to make observations. We explore seven wonders of the invisible world - natural animate and inanimate phenomena that include micro-animals, plant and animal cells, bacteria and viruses, fungi, proteins, and naturally occurring crystals.

This course explores definitions and theories of the mind and how it may work. Students will learn how philosophers, psychologists, computer scientists, and neuroscientists have studied the mind and will consider several demanding but stimulating questions about thought, memory, and behavior. Readings and discussions will review the historical and scientific developments that led to contemporary understandings of the mind and the challenges and answers that these views pose to our common-sense understanding of, for instance, the unconscious mind, the irrational mind, and the subjective nature of memories.

Microbes are the most abundant organisms on Earth. They practically exist in every environment on our planet and play major roles in defining our atmospheric composition, sustaining the food webs that feed us and significantly influencing our health. Yet, microbes are diverse; they vary in size from 0.2 micrometers (1/300th diameter of a human hair) to a few millimeters. Some microbes are loners while others live in communities that talk to each other and coordinate behavior. The class will introduce students to microbes by examining their importance, ecology and diversity. The class will take students on a journey of how early microbiologists classified microbes, isolated and cultured them and how today DNA sequencing has revolutionized the way scientists classify microbes. Throughout the course, students will isolate samples to image and culture microbes and isolate their DNA from around the NYU Abu Dhabi campus and the emirate of Abu Dhabi. DNA samples will be sequenced using portable DNA sequencing technology (MinION technology), which generates data rapidly. Students will finally use simple, streamlined computer language scripts to analyze sequencing data, classify microbes in their samples and present their findings to the rest of the class.

What are the consequences of framing the era of Earth's human habitation as "the Anthropocene," an epoch characterized by the irreparable and accelerated transformation of the planet by humans? And what are the artistic responses this understanding generates? This seminar explores some of the guiding texts that both define and respond to the anthropocene, including the critique of anthropocentrism, queer and feminist analyses of quantum physics, as well as theories that explore other temporalities and ways of being (including indigenous ways of being). Examining the senses - and particularly listening - as methods of knowing in the anthropocene, students will listen to companion and other species as well as to biological life at the cellular and astro-physical level. Understanding listening as doing something in the world, the course gives an ear to the microscopic, to the botanical, to animals, to humans and beyond to the cosmos. Writing with and through these ideas, students will draw upon poetry, creative non-fiction as well as "eco-activism"; explore forms of art that make an intervention in these conversations; and create their own activist responses.

Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Baghdad, Pompeii, Detroit, Alexandria: what links these six disparate places, separated by centuries, and what importance do they hold for us today? They have all in some way and at some time been ruined, either by natural forces (Pompeii, Alexandria) or human agency, (Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Baghdad, Detroit). Ruins, metaphorical, physical and imaginary, dominate much of our understanding of the world around us, its histories and possible futures and they make us face difficult questions, forcing us to confront our own finitude. In many ways we are now living in a time of geopolitical, economic, environmental, cultural and biological ruin, which underpins key discourses on current global challenges, such as the need to rethink and rebuild after natural or manmade disasters, exploring ‘ruin’ through the arts as both personal and community therapy for trauma and loss, or even whether we can ever come to terms with the toxic legacy of imperialism?

How does theater reflect upon the global impact of scientific discoveries that can in one turn contribute to the well-being of the planet and by another turn devastate it? The Drama of Science explores that question through the lens of dramatic literature by studying a series of plays that engage with issues of scientific practice and discovery and their consequences. But how do these different agendas come together? How are individual scientists portrayed, and how are scientific communities, sites, and practices evoked and understood? How do playwrights speak to the impact of science, especially nuclear power, genomics, and climate change on society? Relevant plays are read with an eye toward addressing the theater’s influence on the perception of science.

Throughout human history we have searched for a Panacea, a mythical remedy that can cure all disease and prolong life. In this course students will explore the intriguing origin stories of the life changing drugs which have shaped society and the ethical dilemmas raised by their use. The course will bring multidisciplinary perspectives to question the moral, legal and economic dilemmas posed by the commoditization of life. What happens when how we live and why we die is decided by a price tag? How do you allocate a limited resource? In a free market economy, who profits and who suffers? What are the consequences of government regulation? Have we become reliant on pills to remedy our personal and social ills? We will also investigate the ways in which language and communication are inseparable from the challenges facing modern medicine, from the anthropomorphism of scientific terminology to the power of misinformation. The issues discussed here are not unique, they reflect and inform how we address the global challenges of inequality, justice and sustainability facing society as a result of technological advancement. Except in this case, it may be a matter of life and death.

How are the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, racial slavery in the Americas, and colonial violence in Africa still shaping the world in which we live? Why are specific forms of discrimination and violence targeting people of African descent in different parts of the world to this day? And how have activists, artists, and thinkers across the African diaspora responded to centuries of systematic racism? This course addresses these questions by looking at key texts, films, and music in the black internationalist tradition. These works, produced by generations of men and women of African descent, have showed how much anti-black racism was constitutive of our modernity. As a response against de-humanization and white supremacy, black internationalists have built alliances and solidarity movements that have challenged imperial, national and linguistic boundaries. Their struggles for emancipation, from the Haitian revolution to the recent movement for black lives, have changed the world order at key junctures. Doing so, they also transformed commonly held assumptions about international relations, global justice, and the relation between aesthetic and politics.

How do we understand and make sense of the consequences of what has clearly become a climate emergency? What conditions catalyzed this moment of crisis? Why and how might we consider re-orienting our habits of thought and action to engage this global challenge? What are the limits of anthropomorphism or the anthropomorphic imagination, of assigning human attributes to nonhuman others? Our notions of "development" and "progress," our conception of natural resources, our relationship to the technocratic imagination have all contributed to the making of the Age of the Anthropocene, in which human agency reshapes our environment. This course will engage with a range of approaches that re-conceptualize the relationship of humans with nature. It will study the environmental consequences of urbanization, resource frontiers, extractive industries, the quest for sustainable energy, human-animal conflict, and the politics of conservation. It will conclude by asking what constitutes environmental justice as students explore the need to recalibrate multiple disciplines to generate a "multispecies" perspective on our world.

How does the ceaseless movement of people - a key feature of our globalized world - impact our sense of the self, of social identity, and indeed of political rights, all of which are anchored in a presumption of "belonging" that is secured by primordial ties of blood and soil. "Migrant," "Refugee," and "Indigenous" are among the most fraught terms in a time when the "Citizen" has been elevated to being the singular legitimacy. Formal citizenship often excludes migrants or those who were born to parents of foreign nationality. What are the tensions between citizenship and mobility? Can one recognize both the “right” to movement and mobility alongside assertions of the preeminence of "local populations"? How are these competing claims conceptualized and rights affirmed? What are the distinct valences of terms like "Neighbor," "Stranger," "Citizen," "Alien," "Guest," and "Resident"? And how do we debate the contrasting conceptual grounds of territorial claims and circulatory flows? In this multidisciplinary colloquium, students will engage these in order to understand better the place of the nation-state and the experience of citizenship in the context of globalization.

How do agricultural developments affect human population and demographic regimes? What constraints of traditional agriculture shape pre-industrial societies? Does human population, as the famous British political economist Thomas Malthus argued in 1798, increase faster than the means of subsistence, and if so, what are the implications? People need food and the production of food needs people (and land). The world’s population grew slowly, with major setbacks, from perhaps 200 million people in AD 1 to about 600 million in 1700 and to 2.3 billion on the eve of WWII. In just seventy years, it has soared to 7.7 billion, and the UN projects a total of 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 in 2100. How, then, has the per-capita intake of calories not declined worldwide and the balance of nutrients arguably improved? If past population growth was made possible by unprecedented agricultural expansion, will the future require a comparable increase? This colloquium offers broad economic and historical perspectives to approach practical dilemmas and ethical questions related to sustainability and global justice as students ask how best to feed the world’s current and future inhabitants.

We've all heard the truism: "You are what you eat." But are we also how we eat and how we procure what we eat? In an era of industrial food production and global climate change, we may need to ask what should we eat, in order to meet the challenges of food security and sustainable development. This colloquium asks what and how food can tell us about individual and community identities. It also asks how the ethics of individual food choice relates to the world's food systems. From the global Slow Food movement to novel approaches to food security and sovereignty here in the Gulf, what are the cultural politics of food? Is responsible eating a privilege or a human right? How do patterns in the production, distribution, and consumption of food promote such subjectivities as race, class, gender, and nation? How can asking what to eat serve as a vehicle for understanding the construction of such categories or contradictions in consumer behavior? How do scholars in various disciplines research local foodways in the context of the global food system? And what is food’s future in a world marked by increasing inequality, social injustice, and the devastating consequences of climate change?

The body plays a central role in today’s global challenges, including in the promotion of justice, equality, health, and human rights. But controversies surrounding these aspirations also reveal the existence of divergent - often opposing - definitions of the body. This course asks how current political struggles over issues such as gender identity, racism, and reproductive and human rights involve conflicting understandings of the body. What relationships do these notions establish or depend upon between the body, identity, power, and truth? How do body politics inform debates about the anti-vaccination movement, "political correctness," or body modifications? To denaturalize our ideas about the body, the course combines the exploration of current trends with the examination of views from diverse time periods and cultures. By identifying and analyzing these contrasting assumptions, the course seeks to better understand the challenges we face today, and how to address them. Major topics will include the problem of embodiment and the limits of our bodies; the role the body plays in the definition of racial and gender identities; bodily disciplines; and the human quest for truth.

Most of us agree that we should be tolerant of the beliefs and practices of others. Often the call for tolerance is grounded in some form of relativism—that is, in the thought that there simply isn’t an absolute or objective fact of the matter. After all, on what basis could we insist that others share our beliefs if those beliefs are subjective in some way, a function of our upbringing, our religion, our social norms, our culture, or our own peculiar tastes and concerns? But what reasons do we have to accept some such form of relativism? Can relativism really ground our commitment to tolerance? If not, then how else can we justify that commitment? We will explore these questions as they arise in a number of different philosophical and religious traditions. Readings will be drawn from both classical and contemporary sources and will include the work of anthropologists, literary and political theorists, philosophers, and theologians.

Across the globe, political conflict is increasingly defined by the notion of resentment - defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a "sense of grievance; an indignant sense of injury or insult received or perceived; (a feeling of) ill will, bitterness, or anger against a person or thing." In this Core Colloquium, we will endeavor together to better understand the role of resentment in politics. How should we define resentment, and how universal is this concept across cultures and nations? What tools or approaches can we use to assess its impact on contemporary political events? What are the relationships between resentment and desired end-states like equality, justice, and reconciliation? Course materials will include philosophical explorations, primary sources, conceptual mappings and empirical research on resentment. Students will also engage in basic data analyses exploring the causes and consequences of resentment worldwide.

This colloquium takes as its touchstone the idea that movement, actual and imaginative, has historically generated knowledge and sharpened our ethical sensibilities. Drawing on literature, film, and theory across disciplines, historical periods, and geographic fields, it explores how journeys - and associated experiences such as pilgrimage, nomadism, adventure, slavery, imperialism, migration, exile, commerce, tourism, and climate change - provide narrative frames for human inquiry. What is the difference between travels and journeys? What difference does it make, then, when journeys are chosen vs. forced? How might depictions of journeys enact representational and even physical power and inequality over those they survey? How do journeys transform individual and group senses of self, others, home, and the world? How do encounters with unknown places and others prompt questions about comparison, difference, commensurability, and co-existence? What roles might translation and adaptation play in this process? Such questions suggest that journeys provide much more than the discovery of destinations and may, in fact, facilitate self-discovery in unexpected ways.

Water is fundamental to life and to fundamental human rights such as adequate food and livelihood. Water's availability and quality have shaped civilizations; its place in our contemporary lives bears on global societal issues such as health, food security, gender equality, and economic policy. Despite making up most of the Earth's surface, water remains a precious resource to which billions of people have little or no access. This colloquium takes a multidisciplinary approach to the connections between water and society, including scientific, social, and economic perspectives. How does the availability of safe drinking water relate to health and sanitation? How are water, food, and energy linked? In what ways do human actions affect water-related ecosystems? What role does the water industry play in job creation? What recent advances have been made in water harvesting and desalination? Learning to weigh and synthesize multiple forms of evidence, students will develop the skills needed to address these and other questions and challenges posed with respect to water and society.

Most democracies in the world are multi-ethnic. But the jury is still out on the question of what ethnic diversity means for democratic stability and governance. This course combines materials from across many disciplines, including political science, political philosophy, economics, mathematics, anthropology, history, and the humanities to address questions including the following: Does ethnic diversity - based on race, color, nationality, language, tribe, caste, religion, sect and region - constitute an obstacle or an asset for successful democracy? What are the goals of individuals who mobilize politically on the basis of one or more of these identities? What are the principles that democratic systems should employ in responding to identity-based claims? And how should we evaluate public policies designed to respond to such claims, including affirmative action, federalism, cultural rights, educational policies, and electoral systems? The aim is to train students to think critically and comparatively about the global and local challenges faced by multi-ethnic democracies, using a combination of primary and secondary materials and real-world examples drawn from across several countries.

What is fair and what is unfair? Is fairness universal? Are equality and fairness synonyms? How can we build a fairer world? Anyone can recall a situation when someone exclaimed, "That’s not fair!" Whether arguing with your roommate about the upkeep of common areas, viewing the daily news, or analyzing fiscal policies, people often disagree on what constitutes a fair process or outcome. The plurality of fairness ideals may lead to a breakdown in negotiations, social conflict, or other undesirable outcomes. Social stability is at risk when systems are perceived as unfair. Potential business partners may fail to collaborate if they cannot agree on a compensation system that properly rewards efforts and employees may withhold labor or even sabotage production if they feel treated unfairly. On the upside, a shared sense of fairness may lead to mutually beneficial interactions, social cohesion, and smooth political decision-making processes. This Colloquium draws from disciplines including philosophy, psychology, political science, economics, and organizational behavior to question our own notions and judgments and arrive at a holistic understanding of fairness as a concept.

What are possibilities for feminist solidarity across borders, given deep and abiding divisions (such as class, race, sexuality, geography, and history) among women? How do transnational frameworks recast our understanding of feminism(s), and of the forces that shape women’s lives "here" and "elsewhere"? How are histories of capitalism, colonialism, and slavery important for understanding contemporary connections among women across national and other borders? This course explores these and other questions, with a focus on the intersecting transnational forces that produce gendered and sexualized bodies, practices, and discourses. It examines the ways the politics of gender and sexuality intersect with the politics of nationalism, neoliberalism, empire, the role of the United Nations, and religious radicalism in its various forms. Course material will include both empirical and theoretical texts from a range of disciplines and geographical areas. Throughout, students will assess possibilities for reconciling scholarship with activism, given the distinctly different responses of activists and scholars to concepts such as cultural relativism, liberal rights regimes, and female agency.

States form the building blocks of our global order, significantly impacting how people from diverse countries, cultures, and regional backgrounds interact with each other. Yet what does the concept of statehood entail and what is its role in a globalized world? The course examines the historical, legal, political, and cultural foundations of the concepts of state and statehood, along with related ideas, such as sovereignty, citizenship, and statelessness. A diverse range of literary, cultural, legal, and government sources will help create the course's conceptual framework as well as case studies of past and present challenges to state-building efforts. Examples will include state-building in the Global South, various forms of regional cooperation (e.g. the GCC, ASEAN, etc.), and the creation of supranational institutions such as the European Union. In addition, the course will examine questions of statehood/statelessness during times of war and conflict, and in relation to topics such as migration and refugees, social movements, gender, race and ethnicity, and civil and human rights.

Do women lead differently than men? What are the implications of women's and men's unequal distribution in leadership across many social domains? This course examines past and present challenges and opportunities related to women and leadership, empowerment, equality, and gender equity from a global perspective. In doing so it seeks to examine critically the historical contexts and conditions within which issues of women and leadership have been embedded. What are the effects of inequality, injustice, and discrimination on women's underrepresentation in leadership across the world? The course will take a variety of disciplinary approaches to the topic, drawing on autobiographies, biographies, novels, films, and TV series, alongside academic literature.

Humans, across culture and time, have turned to animals to address fundamental questions in biology. Select species coined model organisms have been widely used to study development, behavior, evolution, disease, and recently to demystify cognition and perception. By anthropomorphizing non-human species, we create frameworks for understanding and relating to them. Animal research has also been essential to addressing the global challenges to preserve declining and endangered species. This course tackles a number of biological paradigms where the animal has been a central figure. What determines which animals we use as subjects in research? What are the ethical and moral implications of animal-based experiments? How have animal-based research discoveries been communicated in the scientific community and popular media? And how might we tackle environmental and conservation issues through a non-human lens? As a final project, students will choose an animal and explore its representation in scientific and artistic practices. Creating short films about these subjects, they will give the animals unique perspectives and an opportunity to speak back to us.

"Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible" - Maya Angelou. Every society in the world struggles with intergroup prejudice to some degree. This colloquium explores the antecedents and consequences of (and potential remedies for) intergroup prejudice through the lens of multiple disciplines, including history, social science, literature, and the arts. It considers the perspectives of the perpetrators, targets, and observers of prejudice and discrimination and explores the following topics: the origins of prejudice, the different forms of prejudicial expression and their justifications, the conditions under which prejudice is exacerbated (or reduced), and the differential ways explicit and implicit prejudice manifests in individuals and institutions. We also discuss the burden of living in prejudicial societies, the social and psychological obstacles involved in acknowledging and confronting prejudice, and the costs associated with overcoming these obstacles.

What is gender? What does it mean to be male or female across time and space? How can thinking about gender inform the analysis of texts, societies, and politics? This class will explore these questions by drawing on a wide range of sources from religion, science, Islamic and Jewish law, psychoanalysis, philosophy, art, history, and literature including Marquis de Sade, Freud, Virginia Woolf, Anton Chekhov, and the feminist revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai. Using these and other sources, we will investigate how gender is constructed in relation to race, class, morality, social justice, and other norms of "appropriate" social behavior in different contexts. The class will conclude by drawing on examples from contemporary advertising and media to discuss the relationships between gender and power, violence, the economy, and humor.

No organism on Earth lives in isolation! This simple fact underscores the importance of interactions between species. But how do organisms interact? What languages do they use? This course explores how interspecies crosstalk sustains life on Earth and how challenges such as global warming influence such communication. Topics to discuss include the role of chemical communication between bacteria in causing infectious diseases and whether the overuse of antibiotics is sustainable; how communication between ocean algae coupled with global warming lead to recurrent "red tides"; the breakdown of coral-algae symbiosis and implications for coastal fisheries; disruption of the language bees use to maintain colonies and the rise of colony collapse disorder that threatens pollination globally; the potential use of plant language to combat bug infestation in lieu of pesticides; how our gut microbiota influence physical appearance and susceptibility to disease and whether our innate bacteria affect our social interactions; how human communication has influenced civilization and whether modern technological advances, such as social media, have positive or negative effects on us as a species.

What is war? Why do wars exist? What are the differences between wars in the past and those being waged today and how have the conditions of conflict changed throughout history? Is there an art of war? These questions are central to the purview of this course, which examines artistic responses to war across a wide range of historical and cultural contexts from antiquity to the present. The course explores how the arts, particularly music and musical practices, play a critical role in accompanying the sociological rituals of war from the military marches part of deployment, to the laments and requiems that figure centrally in processes of mourning in the aftermath of conflict. Drawing on histories and philosophies of war, students will engage with issues related to propaganda, censorship, detention, internment, torture, heroism, sacrifice, bravery, justice, history, memory, and death and with reference to work by Homer, Thucydides, Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Tolstoy, Shostakovitch, Britten, Picasso, Dix, Mishima, Wiesel, Tarkovsky, Kubrick, and John Lennon, among others.

How has the creation of structures and norms of global governance reshaped historical efforts at pacifying international relations, fostering economic development, and providing global public goods? Today, an expansive network of inter-governmental institutions exists, but global attempts to engage with poor, conflict-affected countries often struggle to meet local needs. This course examines global governance's origins, logic, and varying impact in local contexts. Students will explore and debate different perspectives on global governance and develop a better understanding of how power, institutions, and cultural norms shape interactions between global and local actors. Case studies include successes and failures of international attempts at 1) post-conflict peacebuilding in Namibia, Somalia, and Afghanistan; 2) facilitating transitional justice in Liberia and Yugoslavia; and 3) addressing refugee crises in Mozambique and Syria. The course will help students to grapple with the complex political and ethical dilemmas of global governance and devise more effective and context-sensitive strategies for resolving some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

How can we best address global challenges such as promoting peace and environmental sustainability? Hardly a week goes by without a major news story concerning the need for cooperation either between countries, political parties, organizations, or individuals. This course explores the topic of cooperation using insights from economics, evolutionary biology, mathematics, social psychology, and anthropology. The main questions to be addressed are: When is cooperation desirable? When should an individual, an organization, or a country expect others to cooperate? Why do some people fail to cooperate even when it would be to their benefit? Which factors undermine cooperation? How can we engineer cooperation to achieve better outcomes?

When looking at paintings of Rubens, pictures of fashion models, prehistoric Venus figurines or Greek sculptures, it is obvious that the appreciation for the human body has changed drastically through space and time. These differences of perception can generate inter-individual and cultural tensions and affect public policy, for example in the context of health care policy and equal opportunity in the work place. This course will examine how our understanding of human physiology, genetics, and development, as well as methods of investigations of human anatomy, have shaped the perception of the human body, through history, and across cultures. Students will examine the function of the body and how the understanding of bodily functions has changed (the working body). The course will also delve into the modifications the human body has experienced evolutionarily and how our own body is changing from a single cell until death (the changing body). Finally, it will examine deviations from the typical body plan and the causes for these deviations (the abnormal body). These topics will be explored using scientific and non-scientific literature, art, and movies.

From space, there is no view of Earth without blue - water is everywhere. From the ground however, there are many places - and many times - where there isn’t enough to go around. Water is critical to our bodies, to the growth of our food, and to flushing away the wastes of human, economic, and industrial development. However, as the number of human feet on the planet increases and their economic footprints grow, the sliver of Earth’s water that is available to us is spread thinner, and the distinction between water as a human need and right, and water as a scarce and precious resource, is blurred. To understand how to manage water in a way that respects both its scarcity (managing for efficiency) and the needs of those who use it (managing for equity), it is important to understand the myriad modes and scales through which water shapes the world we live in.

This course introduces students to a wide variety of cultural perspectives on the ways that nature is conceived in its relation to human agency, social organization, and political behavior. As we become increasingly caught up in a new and ever-changing dynamic of climate change that is transforming cultures and societies globally, understanding our relation to nature becomes a pressing global challenge. How are we to confront the environmental changes caused by industrialization and continuing technological change? How have our views of nature and of ourselves been transformed by urbanization and technological change? Does the global character of production inevitably lead to the dilution of individual and local identities together with previous conceptions of nature? Constructed around a series of discrete problems that will be contextualized historically and culturally, the course strives for a unifying, global perspective on the environmental crisis and will address a range of today’s most pressing eco-critical dilemmas.

What is "global heritage"? Is it simply our collective legacy as human societies - how we want to be remembered by future generations - or must we confront more difficult questions about identity, the ownership of culture, and conflicts between local and global stewardship of the cultural treasures and historical evidence? With time, negligence, and even military conflict working to erase the past, we must ask: Can a better understanding of our shared heritage assist us in addressing cultural differences in the present day? And how can science both help us understand the historic record and work to preserve it? This class examines ways in which scientific methods can help define "global heritage" and protect it for future generations. Students explore the history and the science behind the creation of paintings, frescoes, parchments, sculptures, ancient mummies, historical buildings, musical instruments, and other artifacts. They will also examine the methods used to differentiate between an authentic object and a fake and ask how some objects come to be valued more than others: distinctions that can lead, and have led, to cultural conflict in recent years.

Are people born indigenous or do they become indigenous? If the latter, what is the process of becoming, and what opportunities or tensions does it bring? This course explores trajectories of indigeneity, which may be both more and less than the quality of being "native," paying attention to relationships between indigenous peoples and their respective states, and to how legacies of conflict and accommodation raise difficult questions about economic, cultural, and political justice. Readings are drawn from a wide range of fields, including anthropology, history, environmental studies, public policy, and art history, and also include memoirs and personal testimony. Case studies are drawn from many world regions, including the Nahua, Australian Aborigines, Cree, Tuareg, Algonquin, Nasu, Alutiiq, among others.

How did the familiar, powerful, and problematic narratives of civilizations emerge that pit the "East" against the "West"? What are their consequences? Where and how have they been resisted? The course will analyze texts, events, images, and places that were influential in shaping these representations of the Orient/East, as well as key efforts, including Edward Said's, to outline the political consequences of such narratives. How was the Orient first encountered, written about, and even "produced" by European adventurers, travelers, and artists who "discovered" and "described" the people and places of the "East" in the 18th and 19th centuries? How did the travel writings, paintings, photographs, monuments, and museums that resulted both narrate the Other and simultaneously construct the "West" as well? Carefully considering Said's important theorization of Orientalism and a range of responses to it, the course will extend the applicability of these concepts to regions beyond the Middle East, especially South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, and will also consider such topics as gender, ethnography, aesthetics, and the shaping of post-colonial identities.

"There is that great proverb," the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe once said, "that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." Is history inevitably written by the winners? Who decides which stories are told and heard, or how they shape collective memory? Can artists effectively act as historians, with the agency to shape counter narratives? This course explores contemporary art that draws on documentary and archival material - the stuff of "history" - to create performance, films and installations that tell stories otherwise lost, forgotten, suppressed or displaced. Special attention is paid to how these stories may participate in the process of decolonization, shape understandings of postwar realities, and generate debates in the global art world and society at large. Through artist and curator talks, screenings and virtual exhibition visits, students engage with the work of artists from Japan, South Asia, and Southeast Asia who explore the mechanisms of postcolonial history at the intersection of fiction and nonfiction, poetry, and testimony. Texts include work by Spivak, Hobsbawm, Césaire, Butalia, Chakrabarty, and Prashad.

How does art capture, hold, and train our attention? How have artists, thinkers, spiritual masters, philosophers, and scientists understood attention across time and cultures? Today, attention and attention disorders have captured scientific and popular thought. Turning their "attention to attention" like never before, scientists identify a variety of attentional capacities and modes as well as a contemporary addiction to "narrow-focus attention." Predating modern science, literature and the visual arts excelled at describing human attention and complexly engaging it. This course plumbs the rich offerings of many traditions, including writing by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Buddhaghosa, Epictetus, Josef Czapski, Zora Neale Hurston, Kobayashi Issa, Nazik al-Malai'ka, Hisham Matar, Marcel Proust, Wislawa Szymborska, Virginia Woolf, Lu Xun, and films by the Lumiere Brothers, Dziga Vertov, Satyajit Ray, Isaac Julien, and others. These will be paired with readings from cognitive studies, psychology, philosophy, and disability studies, to help bridge the art/science divide and offer a more multifaceted understanding.

How do speculative genres speak to their own times, even as they imagine faraway futures? This course considers the metaphors and parables science fiction films create about present societies and the future of the human condition to explore such works negotiate the anxieties and fears of the present in imagined space and/or time. It focuses specifically on film - an art form that has had dramatic reach across global audiences, with technological advances allowing us to visualize increasingly complex alternative worlds. Drawing on films and television from the USA, Germany, India, Korea, the Middle East and elsewhere, many inspired by literature, the course allows students to consider what universal values these filmic narratives project and what solutions they offer to social, psychological, and environmental dilemmas. The course puts film in context with earlier forms of speculation about the future. Through the course, students will also consider what the science fiction of the future may look like by creating short narratives from which they will develop a podcast episode, short story or a treatment for a science fiction film or series.

How does one attempt to write or portray the self? If we associate that practice with traditional memoir and self-portraiture forms, what happens when subjectivity is fundamentally unstable or under attack? Is the genre also simultaneously deconstructed? How is subjectivity literally made and remade through the exploration of new forms? In this course we will look at text and image projects across cultures, eras, locations, and across art forms that raise questions about the self and the collective, representation and memory, and about the remarkable as well as the everyday. Sometimes the doubt about attempts at portrayals is philosophical, but it may also be cultural-historical and context-dependent. To explore this question, and to develop skills in art, to experiment with the studio habits of artists, and to generate our own poetics of memoir/anti-memoir we will generate text and image experiments that both create and investigate an anti-memoir body of work.

Tragic dramas from different cultures and periods have framed in memorable, though often contradictory, ways some basic questions about how human beings face suffering, violence, and death. Drawing on these broad traditions, students will explore the dramatic forms, social contexts, and rhetorical and political goals of tragedies in an attempt to understand how drama can turn catastrophe into art - and why. By what means does tragedy take horrific and often degrading experiences and transform them into artistic experiences that are (sometimes) intelligible, pleasurable, or beautiful? Should witnessing the misery of others ever be pleasurable or beautiful? Can we presume to make sense of another's suffering? How, more generally, can tragic drama help us come to terms with the violence and brutality of the human condition - or does it sometimes hinder this attempt?

This course explores the relation of knowledge and doubt in a wide variety of texts in different genres, historical periods, and cultural contexts. Some key questions will concern sources of knowledge and evidence, while others will be about the nature of our capacities for knowing things. These questions include: What sources of knowledge can we trust, if any? Are there ways to achieve knowledge by transcending our normal sensory and rational capacities? Might we be systematically deceived about the world and, if so, could we still find happiness in such a condition? Is our knowledge inevitably dependent on others or are our best sources of knowledge found within? How can our knowledge be distorted by strong emotions such as hatred or love? Readings will be from Mo-Tzu, Sophocles, Nagarjuna, Ibn Tufayl, Dante, Montaigne, Cervantes, Descartes, Hume, Rousseau, and Proust.

From mythological figures such as Coyote in North America, Hermes of Greek myth, and Eshu in West Africa, to modern icons of global pop culture like Charlie Chaplin, Bugs Bunny, and Bart Simpson, humans have long been fascinated with trickster characters who transgress boundaries, break rules, and unsettle fixed truths. Seemingly heedless of cultural norms, these characters in their many different guises point to the important role of play and disruption in the making of culture. In this course, students consider rogues, outlaws, and outsiders of various types from around the world and their portrayal in stories, novels, dramas, songs, and films. Building a repertoire of trickster characters, types, and tropes, students examine how these characters’ dynamic roles relate to central problems of art, creativity, and life.

How does “silence” help to define our sense of being and existence? Across different cultures, various philosophies of art, science, and society have viewed and thought about silence differently. This course invites students to think about and experience silence by asking three fundamental questions: 1) What does it mean to be silent? (Literally and metaphorically); 2) Does silence shape our lives? And if so, how? 3) Can we have an active relationship and recognition with silence just as we do with sound or action? Drawing on multi-disciplinary sources from around the world to explore the philosophical frameworks and thought systems that have engaged in the study and observation of silence, the syllabus will include works of art, literature, theater, films, architecture, and music, which students will engage via a mix of seminar, lecture, and studio methods of teaching, to enable the creations of their own artistic responses to their experience of silence and the material presented in class.

This course asks what dis/Ability is and considers how this concept plays out within a variety of musical contexts. Our focus is not just on musicians with disabilities, but also on a wide spectrum of human musical capabilities. Some scholars argue that our relationship to music is necessarily embodied. In other words, we bring a unique set of physical, sensory, cognitive, and affective capabilities into any musical situation. In this way of thinking, the body, with all its unique characteristics is a central focus of our inquiry. Further into the semester, there will be a unit on Deaf musicians. Students will be exposed to a cultural view of music that remains largely unseen by the hearing world. Thereafter, through self-initiated final research projects, students will work to find their own ways of making meaning of people’s varied musical capabilities.

What does art do to us? This course centers on the concept of “Art and Agency,” coined by anthropologist Alfred Gell, which holds that art works carry an agency factor that affects human beings - their mode of thinking, their emotions, their actions, their aesthetic experience. This concept has impacted the way art historians, in academia and the professional museum world, think about and display works of art. Through class discussions and visits to the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum, the course will examine a host of related ideas: the rhetorical concept of “energeia,” camouflage, iconoclasm, “animism” in prehistoric rock art, Western and Asian landscape imagery, medieval relics and miracle imagery, anthropomorphism and witchcraft in the early modern period, and the idea of “living presence” in abstract expressionism.

This course focuses on questions of religious and cultural difference through the 1001 Nights, the corpus of tales that has served as a point of encounter between Middle Eastern literary traditions and the politics of Western culture, including “Sinbad,” Aladdin” and “Ali Baba.” Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, Muslim and ‘pagan’ realms co-exist uneasily in the original cycle of tales that often confront protagonists with such differences as a problem. Cultural difference peaked the interest of the Arab storytellers and European translators who brought the Nights to Europe and pioneered travelogues respectively of Europe and the Middle East. Their writings would serve as points of departure for seminal works on the engagement with cultural difference and its representation, Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism and Said’s Orientalism.

Underlying performances of all kinds - theatre, dance, music, the performances of everyday life, sports, and popular entertainments - are ritual and play. These must be understood from multiple perspectives. In the course, we investigate roots of human ritual and play in animal behavior; human religious and social rituals; and children and adults at play. Examples include the Taziyeh of Shi'a Islam, the Ramlila of Hinduism, the Olympic Games, Noh Drama of Japan, American baseball, "deep" and "dark" play.

This course explores the ways in which the portrait has been used as a vehicle for artistic expression, for the construction of social identity, for self-examination, and for the representation of cultural difference. It examines many kinds of portraits and self-portraits in painting and photography from different times and cultures and encourages engagement with a range of major issues that include the nature of personhood, of private and public identities, and of art itself. The course draws upon the rich resources of London’s museums and galleries, especially the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Museum, and the Queen’s Collection.

This course asks how objects from the past obtain meaning long after they were made, and how they have come to express the identity of communities, nations, and religions. We will consider fundamental questions of identity by assessing how objects become imbued with meaning. Who ascribes these objects meaning and why? How do we relate to objects designated to represent us? We will explore object biographies from a range of periods, regions and traditions. We will discuss objects representing contested national and global identities, such as the Cyrus Cylinder from Iraq and the Koh-i-noor diamond from India, as well as material that facilitates discussion of socially and culturally defined identities. In all of these examples politics plays a constant role. Through case studies of iconic objects from around the world, students will compare significance in the originating society with place and function today to better understand how, why, and by whom identity is constructed.

Photo albums are meaningful, unique creations. Infused with intangible memories, they tangibly show specific, select moments of the past - some mundane, others poignant. Highly personal, photo albums also reveal shared encounters and assert human universals. How and by what means do our personal photo albums thus compile collective identities and histories? What stories lie behind their making? What narratives arise - formulaic or unexpected - when related or disparate photographs are organized or randomly displayed in the unifying context of photo albums? This course employs art practice and theory to investigate the curation of vernacular photography in family photo albums. Looking at the global history and contemporary manifestations of these practices, and drawing on NYUAD's Akkasah Center of Photography, it asks: What are the motivations, challenges, and implications of commissioning or taking, collecting, or curating photographs of one's family or oneself? How do we approach such collections as viewers? Who makes, owns, and passes down albums - to whom, for whom, and why? Students will also create photo albums as a generative means of engaging in and understanding this practice.

Is automation a science or a tool? Muslim contributions in automation, overlooked in the history of science, were long regarded as means for caliphs and the rich to impress the masses. But Muslim engineers excelled in creating complex automated systems, using them as gifts to foreign leaders, as public attractions, or to augment religious ceremony such as daily calls to prayer. Mainly powered by kinetic energy, these automata drew on scholars’ deep knowledge of hydraulics and complex levers and included musical instruments, horologia, automated drinking fountains, and clocks that told time using complex audiovisual tools. This course draws on historical sources and foundational science to explore Muslim advancements in automation. What roles did translation play as Muslim scientists encountered and documented the work of previous scholars? What were the basic automatic systems they developed and how do they compare to current technologies? How did they draw on environmental resources to develop automated systems without the need for non-renewable energy? Students will address such questions as they explore implications for their own projects in design and engineering.

It’s said the pen is mightier than the sword, and this course will help you develop the skills needed to make that true. In a world where we all recognize problems that need to be fixed, being able to write effectively, creatively, and persuasively can equip you, in any profession, to be heard as a citizen concerned with matters of equality, justice, and civic discourse. Drawing from a multidisciplinary perspective, and focused on global issues rooted in local contexts, citizen writers will examine and practice multiple formats, study rhetoric to become confident debaters, and think strategically and contextually to engage via traditional or social media. The complexity of free speech, and its opportunities and restrictions in varied societies, will be debated to form a nuanced understanding of how it limits and empowers you. The class will also write a constitution for a utopia we imagine together, draft personal manifestos, craft editorials, create essays to help you understand opposing and challenging views, and make animated explainer videos on foundational civic issues.

In the 3.8 billion years since life began on Earth, nature has evolved. Inspired by this process, humans have replicated key design features to develop novel materials, devices, and structures in fields such as the arts, design, engineering, and the social sciences by replicating key design principles and features. This course asks how biology has inspired human design and thinking across different cultures and fields. Students will examine various examples in engineering, art, architecture, music, and social science to discuss how the human capacity for analogical reasoning has enabled the transfer of properties, mechanisms, and ideas from biology to design principles such as shape, surface, structure, making, information-processing, and social behavior. Using bio-inspired products such as gecko tape, Velcro, self-cleaning surfaces, and neuromorphic chips for inspiration, students will develop their own designs to address some of the 21st century’s most pressing issues, such as energy, water, environment, food, and health.

What is the relationship between documents and identity? Do documents record, create, influence, mask, and/or shift identity? The course considers different types of identities (immigrant, criminal, racial, gender, normative, artistic) and documents (police records, personal and state archives, art objects). The course tracks the dynamic relationships among documents and identities through time and across cultures. We will study the history behind the creation and development of documents such as the passport or mug shot and weigh in on contemporary debates around racial profiling and immigration bans. At the same time, we will also study a diverse range of artistic attempts at documenting identity in print and visual media. For the final project each student will produce both an artistic project and a reflective essay that engage the intersections of documents and identity.

This course analyzes what we understand as "music." Drawing on music of different styles from all over the world, seminar members will explore what constitutes musical meaning, how it is produced, and how music expresses feelings. Taking advantage of the multicultural nature of NYU Abu Dhabi, students will explore the cultural and universal mechanisms at play when we listen to and understand music. A lab portion of the class guides students through basic musical elements such as notation systems, scales, and simple compositional techniques.

In November 2014, Volvo Race’s boat Vestas did not find her way to Abu Dhabi port and got stranded on a reef in the Indian Ocean instead. What went wrong? Is it still possible to get lost today, in the age of ubiquitous and democratized GPS? What does it mean to find one’s way? How do different environments create unique problems, as well as provide solutions? How do we find those solutions ourselves, and how can we intervene in the design of our working and living environments, in the design of our navigational practices, in order to avoid getting lost? What tools do we have? How do they work? What can we learn from navigation before GPS? Informed by new technologies, the demand for sustainability, and the inputs from cognitive studies, “wayfinding” has grown to become a field of research in its own right, related to both architecture and design. It studies the ways in which people orient themselves via the organization of sensory cues from the external environment. The course explores visual design components and theoretical ramifications and will include workshops on campus signage systems, with a focus on accessible design.

Design seems to be omnipresent, but what is it? This course (whose title is Latin for usage, beauty, and stability) explores how design influences our life and investigates the fundamentals of "good design." It takes a look at the status quo of the use of design in media, objects, and architecture, and observe its influence on art and technology from past to present. Design tools and processes will be highlighted. Based on the fusion of readings, study, discussion, and experiences, over the course of the semester students will develop an understanding of how mutually reinforcing and beneficiary a mix of Arts, Design, and Technology can be. Lecture and discussion will help develop the design of a bricolage: Every student will realize a product prototype to be displayed in an exhibition and a personal philosophy of about Arts, Design, and Technology.

Laughter is an essential part of the human experience. Why do we laugh, and what does it mean? How does laughter function within us as individuals, in our local circles, and as a global community? What evokes laughter that transcends culture, and what is culturally specific? In this course students will confront laughter and its capacity to disarm, connect, heal, teach, debunk, humiliate, reform, confront, expose, progress, politicize, humanize, and empower. The course readings will include literature, visual art, theater, film, television, animation, new media, psychology, and biology. Students will encounter such artists, writers, and thinkers as Nasreddin Hoca, Aristophanes, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Margaret Cho, Jim Henson, Frida Kahlo, Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov, Joss Whedon, Tina Fey, and Takashi Murakami.

It is easy to have an idea of the effects of significant loss of vision or hearing by closing our eyes or by wearing earplugs. What about a significant loss of the sense of touch? The answer might not come readily due in part to the subtle, effortless function of this sense. Far from being just an immediate skin sensation, touching is intimately blended into embodied experiences that are affectionate, expressive, personal, and interpersonal. The haptic modality is our fundamental mode of access to the physical world. This course provides a multidisciplinary, cross-cultural introduction to the dynamics and salience of the human sense of touch and traces a continuous thread through a number of fundamental questions and critical approaches related to human haptics. A variety of interpretations, disciplines, and experiences exploring the symbolic, cultural, ethical, social, and technical aspects of touch will be discussed. Topics include social and cultural development, memory, learning, digital design, tactile therapies, human computer interaction, multimodal interaction and sensory substitution, and privacy and security.

Is creativity a gift or a skill? Can creativity be learned? Because creativity is deeply personal, this course will address these questions through individual and collective experiences. The heart of this course is the Personal Creativity Project - an opportunity for students to practice creativity by designing and executing a project of their choice. The project may be on any topic, from art and music to computer programs and business model development. The project will be complemented by reading assignments (completed prior to class), class discussions, and one-on-one meetings with the instructor. Students will leave the course with a completed project and a personal philosophy of creativity, based on the fusion of readings, study, discussion, and experience. The course provides a great deal of freedom for learning and does not provide step-by-step instructions. As a result, the successful completion of this course will require a significant amount of self-motivation.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CSCI-UA 480 elective credit or counts for advanced Computer Science elective credit.

Shanghai Students: this course counts as a Computer Science elective and for the Data Science major. 

This course introduces students to the foundations of database systems, focusing on basics such as data models, especially the relational data model, query languages, query optimization and processing, indices and other specialized data structures, as well as transactions and concurrency control. Students build components of a database system and through research readings understand the design complexities of transactional and big data analytical systems.

This course introduces students to various techniques and concepts that are essential for data scientists. It also provides an in-depth survey of the latest research methodology and topics that prepare the students to produce high quality research in Data Science. This seminar-based course will cover applications from different fields, such as sociology, psychology, network analysis, and artificial intelligence. In this context, the course will cover the use of computational techniques to model and predict various phenomena using real data. Students will be required to complete a course project, and to write up the results in a short article.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to MATH-UA 120 Discrete Mathematics.

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to CSCI-SHU 2134 Discrete Math.

Discrete mathematics concerns the study of mathematical structures that are discrete rather than continuous, and provides a powerful language for investigating many areas of computer science. Discrete structures are characterized by distinct elements, which are often represented by integers. Continuous mathematics on the other hand deals with real numbers. Topics in this course include: sets, counting techniques, logic, proof techniques, solving recurrence relations, number theory, probability, statistics, graph theory, and discrete geometry. These mathematical tools are illustrated with applications in computer science.

Discrete Mathematics - Sample Syllabus.

Organizing and managing large quantities of data using computer programs is increasingly essential to all scientific and engineering disciplines. This course teaches students the principles of data organization in a computer, and how to work efficiently with large quantities of data. Students learn how to design data structures for representing information in computer memory, emphasizing abstract data types and their implementation, and designing algorithms using these representations. This course is taught using the C++ programming language.

Data Structures - sample Syllabus.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for the Computer Science major and the domain area course for the Data Science concentration.

Algorithms lie at the very heart of computer science. An algorithm is an effective procedure, expressed as a finite list of precisely defined instructions, for solving problems that arise in applications in any domain of knowledge. All computer programs are translations of algorithms into some programming language. Often the most difficult parts of designing an algorithm are to make sure that when it is programmed in a computer, it runs as fast as possible and does what it was designed to do. This course covers the fundamentals of algorithms, focusing on designing efficient algorithms, proving their correctness, and analyzing their computational complexity. The algorithms studied are taken from a variety of applications such as robotics, artificial intelligence, searching, pattern recognition, machine learning, music, bioinformatics, arithmetic, algebra, and geometry.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CSCI-UA 480 Advanced CS elective credit.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Computer Science elective credit.

This course is an intensive, hands-on study of practical techniques and methods of software engineering. Topics include design patterns, refactoring, code optimization, universal modeling language, threading, advanced object-oriented design, user interface design, web and mobile development, and enterprise application development tools. All topics are integrated and applied through intensive homework and a small group project. The aim of the course is to prepare students for dynamics in a real workplace.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CSCI-UA 101 Introduction to Computer Science.

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to CSCI-SHU 101 Introduction to Computer Science.

Computer Science is an innovative and exciting field that focuses on producing efficient solutions for solving problems in any field. This course introduces students to the foundations of computer science. Students learn how to design algorithms to solve problems and how to translate these algorithms into working computer programs using a high-level programming language. The course covers core programming concepts including basic computation, data structures, decision structures, iterative structures, file input/output, and recursion. Students also learn the elements of Object Oriented Programming (OOP), such as objects, classes, inheritance, abstraction, and polymorphism. A final project allows students to combine these concepts to produce a large program of their design.

Introduction to Computer Science - Sample Syllabus.

The course focuses on understanding lower-level issues in computer design and programming. The course starts with the C++ programming language, moves down to assembly and machine-level code, and concludes with basic operating systems and architectural concepts. Students learn to read assembly code and reverse-engineer programs in binary. Topics in this course include the C++ programming language, data representation, machine-level code, memory organization and management, performance evaluation and optimization, and concurrency.

Modern computational problems frequently involve processing massive amounts of data which are often not even available in advance but arrive at a high rate. Apart from the volume and speed, the data are often very high dimensional and noisy. The goal of this course is to teach foundational algorithmic techniques that can be used to build scalable and robust solutions for practical problems of this nature. Topics include map-reduce, near-neighbor search, clustering, regression and dimensionality reduction, streaming and sketching, graph analysis, and fundamentals of machine learning. The course will be taught using the Python programming language and assumes familiarity with the language.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CSCI-UA 202 Operating Systems.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for the Computer Science major.

The operating system is a computer’s chief manager overseeing interactions between users, applications, shared software and hardware resources. This course covers the fundamentals of operating system design and implementation. Lectures present the central ideas and concepts such as synchronization, deadlock, process management, storage and memory management, file systems, security, protection, and networking. Assigned readings and programming assignments illustrate the manifestation of these concepts in real operating systems.

Special Topics in Computer Science offers high-level courses on a wide variety of topics, including computer vision; computational geometry; cryptography; game programming; machine learning; wireless networks; information retrieval; and user interfaces.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CSCI-UA 480 elective credit or counts for advanced Computer Science elective credit. 

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Computer Science elective credit.

Have you ever wondered how the internet or Facebook is able to support a billion simultaneous users? This course teaches students the design and implementation of such Internet-scale networks and networked systems. Students learn about the principles and techniques used to construct large-scale networks and systems. Topics in this course include routing protocols, network congestion control, wireless networking, network security, and peer-to-peer systems. Upon completing this course students are able to initiate and critique research ideas, implement their own working systems, and evaluate such systems. To make the issues more concrete, the class includes several multi-week projects requiring significant design and implementation. The goal is for students to learn not only what computer networks are and how they work today, but also why they are designed the way they are and how they are likely to evolve in the future. Examples are drawn primarily from the internet.

Technology increasingly permeates every aspect of our lives (including communication, finance, health, utilities, etc.), and the security of the computer systems that enable these services has become a critical issue. This course is an introduction to fundamental cybersecurity concepts, principles, and techniques. In this course students learn basic cryptography, security/threat analysis, access control, distributed systems security, privacy-preserving mechanisms, and the theory behind common attack and defense techniques. The students will get an overview of the cryptographic foundations for securing computer systems, and will conduct hands-on activities for securing different types of systems and respective networks.

"The personal is political": Popularized by feminist activists in the 1970s, this phrase suggested that mundane experience - domestic work, reproduction, childcare, as well as gendered education and socialization processes - were deeply implicated in larger systems of political power. Narrating those experiences, calling them into question, was a political act that stood to reorder society. In the decades since, the notion has become commonplace. But how do writers - of any gender or other identity category - most effectively discuss and describe the political implications of their subjective experiences? What forms and platforms are most appropriate, and for which audiences or ends? In this workshop, students read a range of classic and recent works of personal writing (Woolf, Orwell, Baldwin, Adichie, Coates, and others) and develop their own voices as they grapple with the politics of individual experience. Group discussions and peer workshops will be supplemented by individual conferences with the professor.

An introduction to the history of the novel in a comparative context, as well as its development in European, colonial and indigenous forms. Special emphasis is placed on contemporary critical theory (including circulation studies, aesthetics, deconstruction, new historicism, Marxist approaches, postcolonialism and psychoanalysis). Theoretical readings include works by Bakhtin, Barthes, Lukacs, McKeon, Moretti, Schwarz, and Watt, among others. Prerequisite: one major required course or permission of the instructor.

Doomed lovers, military conquest, imported luxury goods, political treachery, religious conversion, spectacular bodies and pirates. These are some of the plot elements that figured stereotypes and represented transnational movement of people, objects, and stories around the globe in English Renaissance drama. This course will read English plays preoccupied with staging otherness from the 1580s to the 1640s in genres from city comedy to revenge tragedy to ask how these imaginative constructions draw upon the world to consider what it meant to be “English.” The course will examine the intersection of identity and nation as these ideas are insisted upon and fractured in the popular imagination of the theater. Questions will be asked: how is the self constructed in relation to the world? Which figures of the “Other” become particularly important to notions of English identity? How is the English body imagined, and what happens to English bodies when they venture elsewhere?

For the poet Aimé Cesaire, from the tiny island of Martinique, there was the master narrative of the middle passage, that brought African slaves to the Americas; there was the movement of labor and capital that circled the Caribbean in slavery’s aftermath; and there was the circulation of ideas that produced the radical collages of surrealism. This course examines a range of narratives of flight - that of the refugee, the immigrant, the exile, the migrant worker - in fiction, poetry, film, theater, painting and music. It also examines critical theories of migration on refugeeism, displacement, and immigration, in order to ask: How does "flight" produce new aesthetic forms? How have scholars theorized the range of concepts and problems engendered by such movement? Along the way, we will read about Iraqi refugees, Vietnamese "boat people", Indian painters, the Jewish dispossessed of World War II. Towards the end of the term, we use this theoretical vocabulary to consider the ocean still to cross (une mer encore à traverser) in relation to two contemporary crises: flight across the Mediterranean and the refugeed Rohingya of Myanmar.

What does it mean to be “postcolonial”? How can we understand the origins of the mixture of cultures and peoples that seems to define our “globalized” age? And what are the effects, cultural and political, of living under colonial rule? The rise in interest in the postcolonial condition has been marked by a body of work that engages questions relating to empire and decolonization and creates new models for the analyses of power, identity, gender, resistance, nation and Diaspora. In this class, we will examine fiction, poetry, film, and political writings from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and their diasporic communities. Theoretical readings draw from Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, M. K. Gandhi, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o, while fictional and cinematic texts will include work by V. S. Naipaul, Bapsi Sidwha, Jamaica Kincaid, and others. Our aim will be to understand both the ways in which these texts provide new models of analysis and the way they have changed the traditional study of literature in the academy.

From the mid-20th century onward, freedom was the original cry in the rapidly decolonizing world. This course considers the various registers of postcolonial freedom and the aesthetic forms they take, from the Caribbean surrealists, agitating against French colonialism, and articulating an aesthetics of negritude, to expatriate South Asian artists in Paris, who find new forms of freedom in abstractionist painting. The Dalit Panthers, modeled on the Black Panthers of America, articulated an anti-caste radicalism in the context of newly liberated India, while African writers from Nigeria to Kenya wrestled with the alienating English of the British empire, and the new languages of Independence. This course uses the dialectic of alienation and freedom, of anguish and exaltation, to think through the range of aesthetic forms that freedom takes: political, social, existential, while also interrogating the nature of caste, race, and gender-based forms of alienation. In doing so, we read some of the key figures that have shaped postcolonial modernities: Albert Camus and Franz Fanon, Simone de Beauvoir and B.R. Ambedkar, Aime Cesaire and Derek Walcott.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CRWRI-UA 815 Creative Writing: Intro to Fiction & Poetry. 

Shanghai Students: this course counts as a Humanities topic.

This workshop introduces the basic elements of poetry, fiction, and personal narrative with in-class writing, take-home reading and writing assignments, and substantive discussions of craft. The course is structured as a workshop, which means that students receive feedback from their instructor and their fellow writers in a roundtable setting, and that they should be prepared to offer their classmates responses to their work.

Travel is a form of knowledge. “The traveler,” wrote the British travel writer Robert Byron, “can know the world, in fact, only when he sees, hears, and smells it.” This course offers a unique opportunity to further expand and deepen the knowledge you’ll gain from the respective learning institutions you’re traveling to this semester, by making students venture beyond the confines of campus, and engage with the everyday people and proceedings of the places in which those institutions are situated. From their observations, reporting, interviews and research about what they’ve encountered, students will compose a feature-length narrative in the form of a classic “Letter From….” piece in The New Yorker magazine. NOTES: The course is open ONLY to NYUAD students and ONLY to those who are studying abroad this semester. The course is NOT open to students studying in Accra or London due to legal visa restrictions. Students studying in Madrid may ONLY take the section offered in Madrid. The course is NOT open to students from NYU New York and NYU Shanghai

An advanced fiction workshop that offers students the opportunity to hone their writing through peer critique and in-depth craft discussions. Extensive outside reading deepens students’ understanding of fiction and broadens their knowledge of the evolution of literary forms and techniques. The thematic focus of these courses will vary depending on the instructor. There may be multiple sections of this course running in the same semester, each of which may have a different topic. 

(Formerly LITCW-AD 321) This course focuses on writing poetry by experimenting with a variety of poetic forms and writing prompts, including 20th-century and contemporary poetry and statements and essays written by poets. Students will write poetry as well as learn terms for critical analysis. Some of the threads of inquiry and inspiration that will run through the workshop include: What is poetry? What does it do? What is the state of poetry now? What does it mean to write and read poems in English if it is not your home or only language? In addition to workshopping peers’ poetry, participants will learn about the chapbook tradition, make their own small books of between 15 and 25 pages, and organize readings to experiment with various performance-based approaches to poetry

People of movement, categorized as migrants, have always fascinated scholars, artists, and writers. Contemporary mainstream discourse about the Gulf has arguably placed a great deal of emphasis on profession, what people do, their social class, and why they came, especially those on the margins. How have these individuals been represented in the Gulf, by whom, what are their stories and where can we find them? The objective of the class is to try and answer these questions, as well as to produce original material in writing workshops, in order to try and address some of these issues, especially representation.

Our opportunities and our choices are shaped by our connections. The awareness that connections matter leads us to invest in them. And these investments give rise to networks of friendship, the World Wide Web, supply chains, research alliances, transport links, and many other networks which we see around us. These observations have inspired an exciting new research program which examines the origins and the implications of networks. The lectures in this course provide a rigorous introduction to this research.

New York Students: This course is equivalent to ECON-UA 13 Macroeconomics Analysis.

This course provides a formal study of aggregate, dynamic, stochastic, and economic analysis, with attention paid first to the determination of the level of income, employment, and inflation. Next, the class will examine theories and the policies associated with inflation and hyperinflation, entitlement reforms, and the formation of optimal monetary and fiscal policies. Throughout the course modern computational methods will be introduced and applied to solve economic models. 

Advanced Macroeconomics - Sample Syllabus.

Can China strike a balance between economic development and environmental protection? This question, perhaps the most important question facing China (indeed the world) over the next few decades, pits economy and environment against one another. How did this adversarial relationship come about? Is it necessarily adversarial? Is it rooted in long-term trends in Chinese history, or in the most recent decades of double-digit economic growth? Are there solutions? Or are there better ways of asking the question? This course will look closely at the benefits, the consequences, and the costs of economic growth to society, ecology, and environment in China. The focus in on present dilemmas, examined through an historical perspective.

New York Students: This course is equivalent to ECON-UA 2 Introduction to Microeconomics. 

Shanghai Students: This course is equivalent to ECON-SHU 2 Introduction to Microeconomics.

This course offers students an introduction to how economists look at the world and approach problems. It focuses on individual economic decision-makers (households, business firms, and government agencies) and explores how they are linked together and how their decisions shape our economic life. Applications of supply and demand analysis and the role of prices in a market system are explored. Students are also exposed to game theory, the theory of the competitive firm, the idea of market failure, and policy responses. The course relies on cases and examples and incorporates readings from classical and contemporary sources to shed light on modern economic principles and their application to solving the problems that face the global economy.

NY Students: This course is equivalent to ECON-UA 10 Intermediate Microeconomics (Policy track). 

SH Students: This course is equivalent to ECON-SHU 10 Intermediate Microeconomics.

This course introduces the major concepts and tools of modern microeconomic analysis. Students will study the manner in which consumers, producers and resource owners, acting through markets, determine the prices and output of goods and the allocation of productive resources. Consumers and producers are viewed as agents with well-defined objectives, choosing optimally under constraints on their resources. The price mechanism is viewed as an institution that disseminates information to decision makers—firms and consumers—and coordinates their behavior. Students will study circumstances under which markets promote an efficient allocation of resources, as well as sources of market failure where the price mechanism can lead to inefficient outcomes.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to FINC-UB 7 Corporate Finance.

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to BUSF-SHU 303 Corporate Finance.

This course introduces the student to selected problems and issues in financial management and corporate financial policy. Topics include: capital budgeting (strategy and techniques associated with the analysis and selection of capital projects, financial forecasting, and financial planning) and corporate finance (the cost of capital and issues associated with raising capital, mergers and acquisitions decisions, corporate bankruptcy, managerial control, and compensation strategies). Problem sets and case studies are integral parts of this course.

NY Students: This course is equivalent to ECON-UA 12 Intermediate Macroeconomics (Policy track).

SH Students: This course is equivalent to ECON-SHU 202 Intermediate Macroeconomics.

This course introduces the major concepts and tools of modern microeconomic analysis. Students will study the manner in which consumers, producers and resource owners, acting through markets, determine the prices and output of goods and the allocation of productive resources. Consumers and producers are viewed as agents with well-defined objectives, choosing optimally under constraints on their resources. The price mechanism is viewed as an institution that disseminates information to decision makers—firms and consumers—and coordinates their behavior. Students will study circumstances under which markets promote an efficient allocation of resources, as well as sources of market failure where the price mechanism can lead to inefficient outcomes.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Social Science (focus) credit or as an Economics elective.

This course will cover topics on the interface between economics and computer science, with special emphasis on issues of importance to economically developing regions. Students will work in teams to tackle real-world and interdisciplinary problems. Students will address questions of markets and economic development using Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICTD) techniques in the context of development.

Technology and Economic Development: Markets and Networks - Sample Syllabus.

This course offers a rigorous examination of the basic concepts and tools of modern finance. Students are introduced to cash flow analysis and present value, as well as basic concepts of return and risk, in order to understand how financial markets work and how financial instruments are valued. These instruments, including equities, fixed income securities, options, and other derivative securities, become vehicles for exploring various financial markets and their utilization by managers in different kinds of financial institutions to enhance return and manage risk.

Shanghai Students: this course counts as Humanities (survey) credit.

History offers a unique perspective on the process of globalization, by virtue of its insistence that human experience be understood in its spatial and temporal contexts. Rigorous global history questions and even supplants common understandings of globalization as Westernization. But how does history do this, and can a global historical framework enhance all forms of historical, humanistic, and social scientific inquiry? Following an assessment of foundational modern Western frameworks for understanding world history, including those of Marx and Hegel, students examine how and why people around the world have variously embraced and rejected such foundational accounts. Readings address all world regions, including Asia, Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania, and familiarize students with state-of-the-art knowledge about globalization.

History and Globalization - Sample Syllabus.

FinTech innovation is the hottest topic in Financial Services and touches all aspects of industry transformation. Digitizing a financial institution or competing with established players requires an interdisciplinary approach. For FinTech entrepreneurs and investors to be capable of creating or evaluating innovative business models that can generate revenues they need to possess knowledge on 3 key areas: Finance (quantitative methods and behavioral finance), Technology (artificial intelligence, blockchain, API) and Regulation (MIFID2, PSD2, GRDP). In this course we will cover these key three areas and study their implications for FinTech founders and investors, established financial institutions and regulators.

The computational analysis of large amounts of written material is becoming increasingly popular in the social sciences. Recent research has used textual analysis to examine, for example, attitudes, culture, and propaganda. This approach, however, raises many questions. What are textual data actually showing us? How representative are textual datasets? Does textual analysis provide insight into social mechanisms and causal processes? This course will address these, and related, questions by providing a foundational introduction to textual analysis for the social sciences. Students will read a combination of early, theory-oriented articles and recent, cutting-edge research. In addition, students will learn how to conduct textual analysis for the social sciences through a series of labs and an original final project.

Shanghai Students: this course counts Social Science Focus (300 level)

Business, Politics, & Society (BPS) is a case-based MBA-style course that introduces students to the political economy of firms. Substantively, the course focuses on the political and social underpinnings of the market system, analyzes corporate political strategy and corporate social responsibility, and presents tools for assessing and mitigating risks, especially as they relate to politics, law/regulation, ethics, and other actors in society. The goal of the course is to help students to learn to structure and solve complex problems in dynamic global markets. Case studies from a variety of countries and industries will be supplemented with academic readings. 

Business, Politics, and Society - Sample Syllabus.

This course introduces the students to the modern analysis of economic growth by addressing questions such as: What explains the considerable growth in incomes per capita that advanced economies have experienced since the late eighteen century? Why are some countries so much richer than others? Will poor countries close the gap with rich countries? What is the driving force of growth in the long run? Are the benefits of growth equally shared between different social classes? How does government policy affect growth? How do the underlying characteristics of an economy - such as its institutions, skill distribution, and demographic trends - affect its growth rate?

Economic policy may be seen as the ultimate goal of economic analysis. How to choose between alternative economic courses in some specific area or at the macroeconomic level? How to tradeoff one policy objective, e.g. equity, versus another, e. g, efficiency? How to take into account political constraints while looking for socially optimal policies? Such is the nature of the questions to be handled in this course, which may be taken as the natural culmination of an economic curriculum. Its aim is to make students familiar with the main contemporary issues in economic policy at national level and to equip them with the analytical instruments to understand what is at stake in policy debates around the world and, ultimately, to form one's opinion about what should be done in particular areas. The course will deal with economic policy issues as applicable to any country, even though special attention will be given to emerging and developing countries. As far as possible, it will also systematically emphasize the distributional consequences of policies and consequent political economy dimension? It will not deal with multilateral issues like trade, migration or environment.

NY Students: this course is equivalent to ECON-UA 266 Econometrics.

SH Students: this course is equivalent to ECON-SHU 301 Econometrics.

Application of statistics and economic theory to problems of formulating and estimating models of economic behavior. Matrix algebra is developed as the main tool of analysis in regression. Acquaints students with basic estimation theory and techniques in the regression framework and covers extensions such as specification error tests, heteroskedasticity, errors in variables, and simple time series models. An introduction to simultaneous equation modes and the concept of identification is also provided.

Econometrics - Sample Syllabus.

Social scientists and policy analysts rely heavily on research drawing on observational data. Students learn to manage and analyze such data and to deploy statistical techniques that are common in these applications, with an emphasis on how to translate social science theory into empirical research. Topics include review of basic regression analysis, building multivariate analytical models, and regression analysis with limited dependent variables. The course emphasizes practical training in these skills as well as evaluation, replication, and critical analysis of research conducted in the social science literature. 

New York Students: This course is equivalent to ECON-UA 342 Behavioral Economics.

Shanghai Students: this course counts as an Economics elective.

This course introduces students to the field of behavioral economics, which seeks to combine standard economic thinking with more psychologically-plausible assumptions about human behavior. This is accomplished by making nonstandard assumptions about human preferences, exploring nonstandard beliefs, and emphasizing the limitations of our decision-making faculties. Predictions about individual behavior are more accurate and the policies of governments are more effective when these more-realistic models are effectively used. The topics covered include, but are not restricted to, choice under uncertainty, overconfidence and competitiveness, stereotypes and discrimination, moral and social norms, and procrastination and intertemporal choice. Each topic is approached by examining evidence that is not easily explained by the canonical economic model and then asking how and why it can be better explained by making specific deviations from the standard rationality assumptions. Specific policy interventions that can be used to help people make better decisions will also be discussed. 

This will be an applied course that will introduce students to the python programming environment. It is intended for students who want to apply statistical, machine learning, information visualization, text analysis, and social network analysis techniques through popular python toolkits such as pandas, matplotlib, scikit-learn, nltk, and networkx to gain insight into any data. By the end of this course, students will be able to: (1) take any tabular data, clean it, manipulate it, and run inferential statistical analyses, (2) identify best practices in data visualizations, (3) identify the difference between supervised (classification) and unsupervised (clustering) techniques, and identify which technique they need to apply for a particular dataset and need, as well as, engineer features to meet that need, (4) be able to perform basic text mining and text manipulation, and (5) apply social network analyses techniques using the NetworkX library.

This course is a strong introduction to the theoretical and practical aspects of financial derivatives including Futures, Options and Swaps. Derivatives have recorded huge growth due to their hedging, speculative and bona fide applications and due to their profound effects in times of crisis. Derivatives are quantitative in nature; however, they also relate to theoretical knowledge and intuitive judgement in structuring and real-life applications. This course will use the quantitative tools learned as a prerequisite. The goal is to develop an understanding of how derivative securities work (pricing, trading, marking to market, hedging…), grow intuition on their application and expand on their basics to engineer innovative and exotic securities that allow tailoring the amount and kind of risk, be it risk associated with changes in interest rates, exchange rates, stock prices, commodity prices, inflation, weather, etc. The course will also explore the emergence of derivatives market and its applications in the local economy.

New York Students: This course is equivalent to ECON-UA 11 Microeconomic Analysis.

Shanghai Students: this course counts as an Economics concentration in the Data Science major or an advanced elective in the Economics major.

Building on the foundations laid down in Intermediate Microeconomics, this course provides a thorough treatment of some more advanced questions. The course starts with a careful study of the functioning of markets, culminating with the first and second theorem of welfare economics. The next topics cover an introduction to strategic behavior and game theory, and subsequently a study of market failures under adverse selection and moral hazard. This course involves more formal analysis than that used in Intermediate Microeconomics. 

Advanced Microeconomics - Sample Syllabus.

This course presents classical and modern ideas of finance with an applied focus. Students will master the analytic tools and the financial theory for making smart investments by using stocks and bonds but will also get their hands dirty with the data. The course starts with an overview of important methods from mathematics and statistics, software tools and financial data. It continues with the pricing of bonds and other fixed-income instruments, discusses the risks associated with fixed-income investments, demonstrates the methods to derive zero-coupon yield curves and shows how to hedge interest rate risk. The course then deals with stocks and covers the following topics: Predictability of stock returns, The cross-section of stock returns, Asset pricing theory (utility, discount factors, expected returns, CAPM, ICAPM, APT), Empirical asset pricing methods (time-series predictive regressions, cross-sectional Fama-MacBeth as well as Fama and French regressions). We also study the performance of Mutual funds and Hedge funds. The final session of the course will be devoted to answering questions related to this course that are frequently asked in the job interviews in investment banks.

This course studies causes, consequences, and remedies for market failures. Causes of market failure include insufficient competition (e.g., monopoly or oligopoly), consumption externalities, the presence of public goods, or the presence of information asymmetries (e.g., adverse selection or moral hazard).

NY Students: This course is equivalent to ECON-UA 238 International Economics (Policy track).

SH Students: this course counts for Economics elective credit.

Building on the material in Principles of Macroeconomics, Intermediate Macroeconomics addresses in depth four foundational aspects of macroeconomic theory and policy: (1) theories of exogenous and endogenous growth in per capita incomes; (2) theories of fluctuations in output, employment and other macroeconomic aggregates with a focus on policy and other economic stimuli that can lead to booms and recessions; (3) determinants of inflation including capacity constraints, money, credit and expectations; (4) the aims, objectives and tools of monetary and fiscal policies and their relationship with financial intermediation and its regulation. Throughout the course data will regularly be analyzed to critically assess the theoretical insights. It is recommended to take this course after Intermediate Microeconomics.

International Economics - Sample Syllabus.

Conservation laws play a fundamental role in the analysis of engineering problems by providing a framework to derive relationships between various physical properties of closed systems and control volumes. This course aims to introduce the students to these laws, namely the conservation of mass, conservation of force and linear momentum, conservation of torque and angular momentum, conservation of energy, conservation of chemical species, and conservation of charge — derived in integral forms. Selected case studies are used to demonstrate the application of these laws for the simplification of complex engineering problems. In addition, this course also helps the students develop a deeper understanding of the concepts of work, heat and thermodynamic properties of pure substances.

Real-world engineering problems require engineers with theoretical mastery of their chosen field as well as dexterity with a broad range of conceptual and practical tools. Professional ethics as well as the concepts and practical applications of field research and ethnography are introduced. Students research, discuss, and analyze relevant aspects of engineering ethics case studies and apply learned techniques of cultural discovery to reflect on the challenges, opportunities, and aspirations of a communities within which students will be embedded as active participant observers.

This course may be replaced with MATH-UH 1003Q (MATH-AD 107) or MATH-UH 2011Q (MATH-AD 150). Introductory course in probability and statistics with an emphasis on how these topics are relevant in engineering disciplines. Topics in probability theory include sample spaces, and counting, random variables (discrete and continuous), probability distributions, cumulative density functions, rules and theorems of probability, expectation, and variance. Topics in statistics include hypothesis testing, error types, confidence intervals, correlation, and linear regression. The course emphasizes correct application of probability and statistics and highlights the limitations of each method presented.

This course introduces students to the various manufacturing processes and their basic principles. Topics in this course include overview of different manufacturing processes and their applications, metal-casting fundamentals and processes, metal-forming processes including rolling, forging, extrusion, drawing, sheet-metal and powder-metal processes, fundamentals and types of machining processes, welding and other joining processes. The last part of this course will cover non-conventional manufacturing processes such as electrochemical machining, electrical-discharge machining, and abrasive jet machining and additive manufacturing (3D printing). Lab tours, experimental demonstrations and one 3D printing lab session will be part of the course.

Knowledge and understanding of transport processes is essential in characterizing physiological and cellular processes, designing biomedical devices, and developing new therapies. This course introduces students to transport phenomena in biological systems such as arteries and skin tissues through an integrated study of momentum, mass, and energy transfer using control volumes, conservation relations, boundary conditions, and dimensionless groups.

This introductory course to Bioimaging is designed to provide an understanding on how images of organs, tissues, cells and molecules can be obtained using different forms of penetrating radiation and waves. Students will learn the imaging techniques used for soft and hard tissue visualization such as X-ray, Computed Tomography (CT), Ultrasound (US), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Spectroscopy and Optical Imaging. The course will give students an insight into the theoretical physics of imaging, real-life clinical applications of these modalities and demonstration of post-processing of the images using high-level programming.

The course introduces students to the fundamentals of structural components analysis thus enabling them to employ that knowledge for structural analysis and for design of structural members. Topics include: three-dimensional analysis of stress; torsion of thin-walled sections; inelastic torsion; analysis of composite and unsymmetric beams; inelastic bending; beam deflections; elastic buckling of columns; and strength failure criteria.

This course provides an introduction to operations research models and techniques developed for a variety of problems arising in production and logistical systems. The course focuses on planning models for production, inventory, and distribution strategies. Topics include production planning, inventory management with deterministic demand, inventory management with stochastic demand, operations scheduling, facility location problems, and routing problems.

This course introduces current information modeling and management technologies applicable to the design and management of construction projects. Particular emphasis is given to the fundaments of building information modeling (BIM), lean construction, and parametric modeling. The course will provide an introduction to 4D, 5D modeling, and different BIM Levels. Students will get a good understanding of how information modeling and management technologies can be an asset for the different parties involved in construction projects. Awareness of the associated risks is also addressed. This course introduces current information modeling and management technologies applicable to the design and management of construction projects. Particular emphasis is given to the fundaments of building information modeling (BIM), lean construction, and parametric modeling. The course will provide an introduction to 4D, 5D modeling, and different BIM Levels.

This course introduces the development of foundation engineering, including site exploration, soil sampling, interpretation of boring logs, bearing capacity of footings, settlement of structures, lateral earth pressure. Design of retaining walls, design of braced excavations and sheet pile walls; and design of deep foundations are covered.

Batteries and fuel cells devices are essential components of electromobility (e.g. electrical cars) and renewable energy. This course discusses the operation principles of these devices. The course topics include the application of thermodynamics and kinetics to these electrochemical power sources. This course will also provide an introduction to the fundamentals of the materials science behind the performance and reliability of these devices.

This course presents an overview of embedded systems, covering a selection of topics including microcontroller architecture, assembler programming, interrupts, peripheral interfacing, embedded system design, higher-level languages on embedded systems, as well as a brief introduction to real-time operating systems. Practical lab exercises complement the lectures. The students further specialize and consolidate their knowledge through semester-long hands-on projects.

This course examines structural steel design principles and techniques based on the Load Resistance Factor Design (LRFD). A detailed treatment of material properties and design based on American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) codes is provided. Topics include: design of tension and compression members; design of beams and beam-columns; design for serviceability limit states; and design of simple bolted and welded connections. The course includes a design project in which students work in groups to simulate and solve specific design problems using structural analysis and design software.

The course focuses on electrical circuits and components, passive and active filtering for signal conditioning, dynamic measurement system response characteristics, analog signal processing, digital representation, data acquisition, sensors, actuators and actuator characteristics. Studies of measurement systems via computer simulation also are discussed. The laboratory experiments draw upon examples from all disciplines of engineering such as data acquisition, operational amplifiers, temperature measurement, and motion and force measurements.

This course introduces students to the field of mechanics through study of rigid bodies in static equilibrium. Knowledge and understanding of static equilibrium is essential for future study of topics as diverse as dynamics, solid mechanics, structures, robotics, and fluid mechanics. The methods, techniques, theory, and application of equilibrium in the solution of engineering problems are presented for two-dimensional systems. Topics covered include collinear forces, coincident forces, general equilibrium, moments and torques, structural analysis using the method of joints, the method of sections, the method of joints, trusses, frames and machines, Coulomb friction, centroid, center of mass, and moments of inertia.

This introductory course is designed to give freshmen and sophomores a glimpse of a broad selection of bioengineering topics that are currently underway in the field of biomechanics, biomaterials, bioimaging, and bioinstrumentation as well as in mechanobiology and biophysics. Students will become familiar with bioengineering applications in the various areas and see how engineering principles can be applied to solve a variety of biological and biomedical problems. This seminar-style lectures will also give students perspectives about the possibilities of working as bioengineers in academia and industry.

This module provides a rigorous introduction to topics in digital logic design mostly focusing on combinational circuits but also touching upon basic concepts in sequential circuits. Introductory topics include: classification of digital systems, number systems and binary arithmetic, error detection and correction, and switching algebra. Combinational design analysis and synthesis topics include: logic function optimization, arithmetic units such as adders and subtractors, and control units such as decoders and multiplexers. A brief overview of sequential circuits by introducing basic memory elements such as flip-flops, and state diagrams concludes the module.

Experimental methods course is presented as a process of investigation starting with an observation, leading to one or more hypotheses tested by experiments involving measurements, collection of results, analysis and conclusion. Students are first introduced to the historical significance of experimental discoveries, the importance of experimental design and measurement. Key examples are discussed. The importance of measurements, errors, uncertainty and its justification will be discussed in detail and students will learn how to estimate, use and report uncertainties. Techniques to compare, analyze and report different measurements are studied. Students are introduced to error propagation rules, random and systematic errors and standard deviation as the uncertainty in a single measurement. The measurement system in an engineering context and practical examples of measurement systems and how they work will be discussed, as will be professional ethics within this context. Students will be introduced to the basic concepts in dynamic measurements, first order systems, rejection of data and Chauvenet’s criterion. 

This course provides an introduction to electrical circuits. The topics covered include DC circuits, passive DC circuit elements, Kirchoff’s laws, electric power calculations, analysis of DC circuits, nodal and loop analysis techniques, voltage and current division, Thevenin’s and Norton’s theorems, and source free and forced responses of RL, RC and RLC circuits. The labs cover various electric circuits concepts such as demonstrating current and voltage division laws, Thevenin’s and Norton’s equivalent circuit, and RL, RC, and RLC circuits analysis.

The course covers discrete mathematics. Logic, truth tables, mathematical induction, and other proof techniques are covered. Sets, relations and functions, recursive functions, basic algorithms, counting techniques, inclusion-exclusion principle, and basic graph theory and trees are also covered.
Note: This course may be replaced with CS-UH 1002

This course is intended for students who are highly motivated and seek the opportunity to investigate and co-develop transformative concepts and solutions wherein the application of engineering and design methodologies are put to productive use in affecting social impact. Students with the necessary background course work and who, in the opinion of the faculty, possess intellectual independence and ability may register for this course. The course includes a required fieldwork component to be completed during spring break with the supervision of the faculty involved in this course. Course application forms available from the instructor.

This course introduces students to the principles of rigid dynamics. The course covers both kinematic (geometric aspects of motion) and kinetic (analysis of forces causing motion) approaches. The first section of the course focuses on particle dynamics, with rigid body dynamics covered in the second section. The applications of these methods to engineering problems are presented, and students have the opportunity for extensive practice in applying these principles. Specific topics include the following: rectilinear and curvilinear motion, equations of motion for a system of particles, work and energy for a system of particles, linear impulse and momentum for a system of particles, angular momentum, relative and absolute motion analysis, rigid body rotation, and general 2D rigid body motion.

Designed as a first course in the mechanics of materials, this course introduces students to the basic concepts of stress and strain in the normal and tangential directions, and the two dimensional transformations in various coordinate systems. Topics include stress-strain relationships for members subject to axial forces, torsion, and bending moments.

This course introduces students to the basic principles and equations of fluid mechanics. This course covers properties and definitions of fluids, hydrostatics, Bernoulli’s Equation and the use of control volume analysis and conservation laws previously introduced in the curriculum. These concepts are applied to internal flows, such as within a pipe, duct, or channel and to external flows, such as over flat surfaces and airfoils. The course introduces dimensional analysis and flow similitude. Common methods used for flow measurement in closed systems and open channels are also introduced. This course is limited to incompressible flow regimes.

This course follows Digital Logic and tops it up by covering sequential circuit design. The course will involve in-depth discussions on memory elements such as various types of latches and flip-flops, finite state machine analysis and design, random access memories, FPGAs, and high-level hardware description language programming such as VHDL. The course touches upon concepts such as formal verification and testing of logic designs.

This course builds on the foundations of the Circuits Fundamentals Course. The topics covered include sinusoidal steady-state response, complex voltage, current and the phasor concept; impedance, admittance; average, apparent and reactive power; polyphase circuits; node and mesh analysis for AC circuits; frequency response; parallel and series resonance; and, operational amplifier circuits.

This course aims at developing students’ sense of “what really happens” when software runs—and answers this question at several levels of abstraction, including the hardware architecture level, the assembly level, and the C++ programming level. The course starts with C++ programming, assembly and machine-level programming, with particular focus on developing good programming practice with assembly code and reverse-engineer programs in binary. The second part of the course covers low-level abstraction of a computer system from a programming point of view. Topics in this course include data representation, assembly language programming, the process of compiling and linking, low-level memory management, exceptional control flow, introduction to performance evaluation, and optimization.

The course covers functions of a complex variable. The topics covered are: derivatives and Cauchy- Riemann equations, Integrals and Cauchy integral theorem, harmonic functions, the exponential function, trigonometric functions, logarithmic functions, Contour integrals, anti-derivatives, Cauchy-Goursat theorem, Cauchy integral formula, Liouville's theorem, fundamental theorem of algebra, power and Laurent series, and residue theory.

The course focuses on the fundamental principles of biology from an engineering perspective. These principles are necessary to understanding the basic mechanisms of living organisms. As the laws of nature governing these mechanisms are expressed as differential equations, the main goal of this course is to introduce and model biological processes using tools from dynamical systems theory, with particular focus on the role of feedback. Throughout this course, students will learn how biological functions can be analyzed and designed using mathematical models, and how to use these models along with tools from controls and dynamical systems theory to predict and engineer the dynamics of biological systems. Note: This course may count for Biology credits towards engineering requirements.

An important goal of artificial intelligence (AI) is to equip computers with the capability of interpreting visual inputs. Computer vision is an area in AI that deals with the construction of explicit, meaningful descriptions of physical objects from images. It includes the techniques for image processing, pattern recognition, geometric modeling, and cognitive processing. This course introduces students to the fundamental concepts and techniques used in computer vision, which includes image representation, image pre-processing, edge detection, image segmentation, object recognition and detection, and neural networks and deep learning. In addition to learning about the most effective machine learning techniques, students will gain the practical implementation of applying these techniques to real engineering problems.

The course provides an in-depth coverage of structural analysis techniques. Topics in this course include: analysis of statically determinate beams, frames and trusses; influence lines for determinate beams and trusses; deflection calculations using geometrical and energy methods; analysis of statically indeterminate structures using superposition; slope deflection; moment distribution; and matrix analysis of structures. The course includes computer assignments using commercial structural analysis software.

This course introduces water and wastewater treatment; stream assimilation and public health; introduction to air pollution and solid waste management; and laboratory analysis of water and wastewater samples and treatment process tests. Students gain an understanding of the interrelatedness of environmental problems around the world and how different socioeconomic, technological, ethical, and other factors can impact both the environment and the approach to solving environmental problems. Factors and parameters affecting design of environmental systems are discussed and design in environmental engineering is introduced. 

This course offers a detailed treatment of the design of reinforced concrete members. Topics include: material properties of reinforced concrete, American Concrete Institute (ACI) load and resistance factors; flexural design of beams and one-way slabs; shear and diagonal tension in beams; serviceability and reinforcement detailing; and design of reinforced concrete columns. The course includes a design project in which students work in groups to simulate and solve specific design problems using structural analysis and design software. 

Electromagnetic wave propagation in free space and in dielectrics is studied starting from a consideration of distributed inductance and capacitance on transmission lines. Electromagnetic plane waves are obtained as a special case. Reflection and transmission at discontinuities are discussed for pulsed sources, while impedance transformation and matching are presented for harmonic time dependence. Snell’s law and the reflection and transmission coefficients at dielectric interfaces are derived for normal and obliquely propagating plane waves. Guiding of waves by dielectric and by metal waveguides is demonstrated.

The course introduces the principles of the various analog communication fundamentals. Topics covered include: analog modulation techniques such as FM, AM, and PM; noise performance of various receivers; and digital data transmission, data encoding, BER, modulation techniques such as ASK, FSK, PSK and QAM, and the effects of noise and bandwidth. The labs emphasize experiential learning of basic analog and digital communication theory concepts and applications, including experiments demonstrating analog and digital modulation techniques.

This course provides an introduction to computer-aided design (CAD) using solid modeling. Students learn to create solid object models using extrusions, revolutions, and swept paths, and learn to modify parts using cutting, patterns, fillets, chamfers, and other techniques. Assemblies of multiple parts are used to demonstrate the need for geometric tolerances, and students spend a large portion of class in hands-on use of software tools. The labs emphasize experiential learning of CAD concepts and applications using software tools.

This course focuses on the analysis and design of energy-conversion systems. It introduces students to power generation systems. Topics covered include gas and vapor power systems and their components; refrigeration and heat pump systems; combustion; boiling heat transfer characteristics; design of heat exchangers and cooling systems. Students gain an understanding of the fundamentals of such systems and the issues related to their operation from economic, environmental, ethical and safety points of view.

An important goal of artificial intelligence (AI) is to equip computers with the capability of interpreting visual inputs. Computer vision is an area in AI that deals with the construction of explicit, meaningful descriptions of physical objects from images. It includes the techniques for image processing, pattern recognition, geometric modeling, and cognitive processing. This course introduces students to the fundamental concepts and techniques used in computer vision, which includes image representation, image pre-processing, edge detection, image segmentation, object recognition and detection, and neural networks and deep learning. In addition to learning about the most effective machine learning techniques, students will gain the practical implementation of applying these techniques to real engineering problems.

Students study the basic theory and equations involved in the finite element analysis (FEA) for stimulating behavior of materials and structures. Topics include use of shape functions, numerical integration, assembly of finite elements into a structure, and solution of the resulting system of equations. The course emphasizes both theory and application of modeling for simulation. Students also learn to recognize modeling errors and inconsistencies that could lead to either inaccurate or invalid results.

This course provides students with practical and best practice project management theory and concepts so that they may effectively contribute in and lead multicultural team projects framed for the new global economy. The practical component includes a team-based software development project that runs throughout the duration of the course.

This course provides an introduction to systems optimization focusing on understanding system tradeoffs. Introduces modeling methodology (linear, integer, stochastic, dynamic, and nonlinear programming), with applications in production planning, scheduling and manpower planning, time-phased planning, inventory and logistics management, supply chain network design, facility sizing and capacity expansion, capital budgeting models, assignment and matching, and transportation models. In this class, you will learn powerful modeling and solution techniques for decision-making problems that are used today by thousands of successful companies to help them to reduce their operation costs and therefore saving millions of dollars. The course covers some of the optimization methods such as simplex method, duality analysis, branch-and-bound, and KKT Conditions for solving nonlinear convex programming problems.

Globalization, the acceleration of transportation and information technologies, transforms the experience of distance, producing perceptions of proximity and inter-connectedness across nations. It foregrounds movement and simultaneity, blurring boundaries between “real” and “virtual” worlds. Through texts emphasizing home, homelessness, migration, diaspora, transnationalism, and tourism, the course examines how literature, film, games, graphic novels, and new media guide readers in this new landscape by charting new concepts of space and place, community, and global citizenship.

Description will be added soon

This class is divided roughly into two broad sections: in the first half of the semester samples of the Qur’an are read, translated and analyzed for orthographic and phonetic features, as well as structure and meaning and basic aspects of variegated styles within the developing scripture. Early Surahs are read, as well as, later, samples of narrative and, in the last section, of legalistic (i.e. Medinan) materials. In the second half of the semester we read examples of Hadith and Qur’anic exegesis, highlighting throughout the styles and protocols of this literature. The Hadith come mostly out of Bukhari and the Sirah of the Prophet; and the exegesis includes readings from Baydawi, Qurtubi, Razi and Qushayri (the last being an example of mystical hermeneutics).

In postcolonial texts, representation and revolution intersect, as authors, filmmakers, and theorists re-invent literary and cinematic forms and seek to reconceive colonialism, nationalism, and modernity. Through this course, students will compare British, Caribbean, Latin American, South Asian, and African texts, including novels by Conrad, Rushdie, and Salih; films by Pontecorvo and Sembene; and selections from the critical writings of Anderson, Fanon, Said, and Spivak. Students will examine contradictions between Enlightenment concepts of reason, universal freedom, and rights, which established a common humanity of mankind while simultaneously justifying European sovereignty over non-Western peoples. The course examines how tradition and modernity; savagery and civilization; religiosity and secularism; self and other; subjectivity and collectivity; and violence and non-violence played a role in empire and decolonization while challenging received understandings of universalism. Finally, students examine how postcolonial studies is being re-shaped and in turn re-shaping understandings of the "Arab Spring" and the Anthropocene.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to ENGL-UA 200 Literary Interpretation.

This course introduces students to the demands and pleasures of university-level investigation of literature. Students develop the tools necessary for advanced criticism, including close-reading skills, knowledge of generic conventions, mastery of critical terminology, and introduction to a variety of modes of analysis, from the formal to the historical. The course emphasizes the writing and revision strategies necessary to produce sophisticated literary analysis.

Whatever revelations may appear in my 2018 memoir, they were written, I confess, for literary effect. Why I feel self-conscious about this admission, I'm not sure. As if confession should be salutary for it to be ethical. But whom should it serve? First person narratives are the lifeblood of twelve step programs. Roman law required confession, often forced, to legitimize the legal process. Foucault claims the West relies on confession for the production of truth. Perhaps I doubt I have the authority to claim a reader's sympathy unless I am performing self-abasement. And yet, I've managed to make this course description all about me. In an age of post-colonial guilt and racial melancholy (or so theorized), might confession provide a way to address structural inequities that modernity seems founded upon? What of allyship and the burden readers bear in "hearing" a confession? Does confession hold meaning outside the shadow of power and its implied expression, torture? When and how might confession prefigure reparations? In this course, we will read across cultures and engage with creative writing assignments to interrogate (perhaps a poor choice of words) the craft of confession.

New York City and Abu Dhabi is a laboratory for studying NYC and AD, works written about them, as well as creating new works inspired by them. New works - poems, short stories, short plays, visual essays, or films - that will serve as a map for possible journeys as they reinvent and talk back to debates on immigration and space, culture and literature. A cross-disciplinary and cross-border conversation that examines how urban life and the cityscape create imaginative spaces, and the way words create cities. NYC & AD as global spaces will be explored in the works of writers with backgrounds from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean. How does the city shape the form of writing and language? How has literature challenged certain theories on space, and narratives constructed around urban identities? We will explore different neighborhoods and their histories and meet different inventors. Students get the unique opportunity to meet numerous residents, from theater makers, designers, architects, artists, filmmakers, feminists, actors, comedians, chefs and bodega owners as well as be part of a podcast series and/or publish in one of the most important international literary magazines, Words Without Borders. Discussions will revolve around private and public spaces, ruins and constructions, traditions and modernity, memory and hyphenated identities, literature and society. The cities are stages that will inspire the students' new works.

Across human history, translation has mediated among traditions, languages, cultures, communities, and their histories. Yet, in the modern colonial projects, translation became a tool not to celebrate difference, but to turn difference into hierarchy. This course examines this relationship between language and colonization. It will cover how colonial projects transformed translation in service of colonization, and how it continues to do so in complex cultural encounters that are marked by differences in power. The course will draw on readings across multiple disciplines and histories to present an overview of the complex web of issues that connect the violence of modern colonization with meanings, languages, practices, and concepts. The course will also explore how the colonized subjects understood this process of linguistic colonization, and how they responded to it across different geographies. Class discussions will revolve around drawing connections between our readings and our understanding of translation both as a practice for colonization as well as in response to colonization.

In this course we will explore the literary languages of Arabic and as well as various political and socio-economic issues via a selection of short stories that hail from geographically diverse authors. Being attentive to detailed readings of texts, their contexts, and the social and political environments within which the authors composed them, we will engage with these short stories via reading, analytical writing, debates, and listening activities. While aiming to avoid the monolithic approach of reading stories as social documents that reflect or mirror their societies, in this course will be concerned with the aesthetics of the Arabic literary narratives as well as how the socio-economic and political issues evoked in the stories will be of relevance to the broader realms of Middle Eastern Studies. Tradition vs. modernity, the individual in opposition to the state, and gender issues are just some of the themes that we will discuss. In addition to the short stories, the class will engage with complimentary materials such as open source online videos and articles to expand on our knowledge of specific Arabic cultural and sociological phenomena and increase cultural as well as linguistic competency.

This course will examine three “encyclopedic” texts (War and Peace, Ulysses, and One Hundred Years of Solitude) that rehearse and interrogate inherited paradigms of cultural identity, purpose, and destiny. Through sustained attention to formal and ideological tenets of these specific texts, the students will also seek to interrogate some of the salient procedures of realism, modernism, and postcolonialism.

Description will be added soon

This course considers travel and geography as a theme in pre-modern Arabic and Islamicate literary cultures from the 7th century to the 19th century. During the semester, students will read from a wide variety of literary genres including love poetry, popular epics, travelers’ accounts, geographical works and Sufi mystical treatises from many different regions of the Muslim world, ranging from West Africa to South East Asia. Exploring the movement of people, goods, and ideas within works of literature and tracing the formation, circulation and transformation of Islamicate literary genres, the course focuses on the ways that literary works mediate between local, translocal, and global identities.

NYU Tandon Students: this course counts for Integrated Digital Media credit.

An introduction to the history, theory and practice of computer-aided artistic endeavours in the field of prose and poetry. This class will focus on the appearance and role of computers as a new way for artists to write and read both programming and natural languages. While elaborating and discussing concepts and paradigms specific to computing platforms, such as recomposition, stochastic writing and ambiguity, students will be encouraged to explore their own artistic practice through the exclusive use of their computers, by writing their own programs. As such, Software Art: Text will be a literary history and critical studies course with an active writing component (in both Python and English). Students will be exposed to new creative perspectives on reading and writing in the digital age. Software Art: Text is a complement to Software Art: Image, a 7-week course approaching software and computation from the perspective of the visual arts. The two courses can be taken in series or independently.

Software Art - Text - Sample Syllabus.

This course explores a selection of canonical and non-canonical works of literature from pre-Islamic Arabia to the so-called 19th-century Arab Renaissance. Through this course students will examine poetic and prosaic texts, while revising their understanding of literary genres and categories, especially in relation to the tradition of Arabic literature. Students will also learn about the major approaches to the study of this literary tradition, while immersing themselves in its rich language, imagery and historical moment. Readings include selections from: pre-Islamic heroic poetry; Umayyad love poetry; Abbasid courtly poetry and its influence on the Andalus; libertine poetry in all its registers from the early Abbasid to the Mamluk period. Prose literature will include the Qur'an; hadith; apocrypha of the prophets; picaresque maqāmāt; The Arabian Nights; and proto-novels from the 19th century.

Is there such a thing as global cultural heritage? This advanced research seminar uses the Star Wars media phenomenon as a case study in the creation and circulation of a contemporary saga. The course examines the saga’s multicultural influences, from Greco-Roman tragedy to Zen Buddhist philosophy, taking into account the ways that Star Wars has been transformed by fans across the world. Proposing that the Star Wars phenomenon can serve as a public platform for philosophy, the course examines Star Wars as a "cosmos-politan" text engaged with ideas of difference, and poses questions about the interplay between globalization/cultural imperialism and global texts in the age of Disneyfication.

Western media tends to produce a one-dimensional view of Middle Eastern cultures. The reality of the people is often very different. How do Middle Eastern writers represent themselves and their societies in fiction? How have they reacted to the dramatic changes in the Middle East from the early twentieth century on? In this course, students will consider the continuities and diversities of North African and Middle Eastern cultures by analyzing modern and contemporary novels and poetry, as well as films, from or about Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine. The following issues will be tackled: how do novelists translate the changes of their cultures into literary form? What literary traditions do they draw on? How do these reflect the different movements in Islam, and the other religions of the region? What kinds of worldly and personal representations emerge? How have these been changing recently, notably since the Arab Revolutions? How different are novels written in English or French for a global audience from those written in Arabic? What are the effects of reading them in translation? Do the conventions of Western literary criticism work for all literatures?

New York Students: this course is equivalent to ENGL-UA 101: Introduction to the Study of Literature; if a student takes LITCW-UH 1002 then this course counts as an elective.

This course introduces students to fundamental terms and critical methods employed by literary scholars through an examination of two case studies: lyric poetry and the novel. Topics to be investigated include: the relationship between text and context; close versus distant reading; the nature of authorship, genre, the interplay of local, national, regional, and world modes of categorization; translation, book history, and the relationship between literature and other forms of art. Each unit of the course is constructed around an anchoring text or texts that will be contextualized both historically and generically through a wide range of primary and secondary readings.

FRENL-UH 1002 is designed for students who wish to pursue the study of French at a higher level, and who have either successfully completed the first level course, or been placed at this level following a placement test. In this course, the students will deepen their knowledge of the French language and its diverse cultures. Communication, the core of the methodology, is emphasized all along this course through interactive activities arranged in a visual and contextualized format. This dynamic learning approach allows and encourages the students to communicate more effectively in a group setting. At the end of the course the students will be able to tackle more complex texts, develop an argument, write longer essays and more. 

Elementary French 2 - Sample Syllabus.

FRENL-UH 2002 is the continuation of Intermediate French 1. The course is built upon the knowledge acquired in the Intermediate French 1 level and is designed for students who have covered the basic mechanics of the French language necessary to communicate effectively and confidently in any group setting. In this course, students will continue to discuss more complex texts and literary pieces; write essays; watch and discuss short films, give oral presentations, etc.

Intermediate French 2 - Sample Syllabus.

Whether narrative or non-narrative, the visceral, emotional, and intellectual power of film depends on understanding the elements that make for engaging and effective screenwriting across forms and genres. This course analyzes and puts into practice principles of different forms of dramatic and dynamic writing: narrative and documentary films as well as various non-dramatic forms, including music videos, video art, and experimental films. No single style or genre is prescribed. Writing assignments include both critical analyses and creative exercises. 

This course focuses on the practice of Creative Documentary while engaging critical debates in documentary filmmaking. This course enables student to explore their artistic practice to expand the idea of both storytelling and knowledge production. The emphasis through the semester is on developing the students critical ways of seeing and supporting the process to develop artistic choices to express their vision. Documentary filmmaking is anchored around a research question and the use of cinematic language (image, sound and editing) to express the exploration of the subject. Students will be expected to develop, execute and present an independent documentary film project at the end of the semester. Students are required to crew for each other and are discouraged from shooting their own projects in a one-person crew.

This class is divided roughly into two broad sections: in the first half of the semester samples of the Qur’an are read, translated and analyzed for orthographic and phonetic features, as well as structure and meaning and basic aspects of variegated styles within the developing scripture. Early Surahs are read, as well as, later, samples of narrative and, in the last section, of legalistic (i.e. Medinan) materials. In the second half of the semester we read examples of Hadith and Qur’anic exegesis, highlighting throughout the styles and protocols of this literature. The Hadith come mostly out of Bukhari and the Sirah of the Prophet; and the exegesis includes readings from Baydawi, Qurtubi, Razi and Qushayri (the last being an example of mystical hermeneutics).

The importance of quality sound in film and new media cannot be overstated - it is often said that “sound is seventy-percent of what you see.” Production Sound for Film and New Media explores a variety of recording techniques, emphasizing dialogue and capturing the nature and aesthetics of sound on location. This course aims to give students high quality training in the theory and practice of sound recording using state-of-the-art 4K multi-camera. as well boom training. Additional topics include basic sound editing, microphone characteristics, the sound recording chain, and discerning what can be fixed in post versus what can only be done during production.

Sound lends depth and expands space to the two-dimensional image on screen, while locating us within the scene. A crucial difference between visual and aural manipulation of the audience is that even sophisticated audiences rarely notice the soundtrack. Sounds can speak to us emotionally, and subconsciously put us in touch with a character. This course focuses on the importance of audio as a narrative medium in film. Students study how audio creation, manipulation, restoration, and mixing can go beyond the simple techniques of sound design to profoundly alter the cinematic experience. Students learn the complicated practice of making sound for multichannel in surround, down mix, and audio restoration using Izotpe RX, all as applied to international loudness standards and deliverables. Working with Pro Tools as a creative medium, students practice non-linear content, editing to Timecode SMPTE, working in conjunction with the AVID S6 mixing board. Creativity and technology work in tandem in this class to create the emotional sound narrative for Film. The aim for this course is to give students numerous opportunities to apply creative techniques learnt in class to make films, from capstone projects to films nominated for international film festivals.

New York Tisch Film Students: this course counts for a Core Production course.

An intensive and practical production workshop introducing the fundamental principles of storytelling through sound, image (stills and video), and visual sequencing. Students learn the essentials of cinematic language from composition to editing by integrating theory and practice. Themes of Sense of Place, Portrait, and Memoir are explored in the context of projects assigned. Diegetic and non-diegetic sound, and/or voiceover supplement the visual storytelling. Students work individually and in collaboration. Goals of the course include an understanding of professional protocol and the dialogue of critique. Four mandatory lab sessions are scheduled outside of the scheduled lecture time.

This course introduces students to the history, theory, and practice of photography. Students will learn foundational image-making techniques with a focus on Black and White analog photography. A range of studio and darkroom tools and approaches will be explored. Students will be introduced to key artists, themes, and developments in photography and will consider the impact of photographic media on the development of art and society. 

Foundations of Photography - Sample Syllabus.

NY Tisch Film Students: this course is equivalent to FMTV-UT 4 The Language of Film or count for the History/Criticism requirement.

This course is an introduction to the basic concepts of film and new media studies. The course provides an overview of the historical development of film as an art, technology, and industry and the role of new media as an extension to and reinvention of models for production, distribution, exhibition, and reception. Students are introduced to documentary, experimental, and narratives modes within different historical and cultural contexts, comparative aesthetics, and the lines of critical enquiry that have been developed for film and new media in dialogue with other fields in the arts and humanities.

New York Tisch Film Students: this course counts for History/Criticism requirement.

SH Students: this course counts as Humanities (survey).

This course introduces students to the rich and diverse history of film within the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia as a context for understanding some of the complexities of contemporary film and new media in the United Arab Emirates. By examining pre-cinematic artistic practices, aesthetic traditions, cinematic styles, political economies of media, and social change, the course provides a context for understanding productions from major industries in Cairo, Chennai, Istanbul, Mumbai, and Tehran alongside work by independent filmmakers and new media collectives from throughout the regions. Students are encouraged to attend film festivals and engage in original research with the NYUAD Library special collection of MENASA film.

Filmmaking is collaboration between highly specialized crafts. Students will learn how to operate equipment and direct crew safely in multiple hands-on production scenarios. With these skills at their disposal, students will learn methods for executing creative choices from a technical perspective. By the end of the course, students will have abilities that not only allow them to operate safely and productively, but also allow for artistic growth and flexibility.

A practical and hands-on introductory course focusing on both the art and craft of cinematography and digital image-making. The course begins with the essential foundations of video and film, covering various video formats, codecs, compression types, and camera sensors and then moves into practical applied use of camera and lens choices, camera types, waveforms monitors, histograms and light meters. Both the technical and artistic aspects of film lighting will be covered, with numerous lighting exercises on the sound stage and locations – including specialized situations such as shooting at night, on locations, and green screen work. The class will move on to intermediate skills such as breaking down screenplays visually, multi-camera shooting, live event shooting, and techniques of how to move a camera using handheld, cranes, jibs and dollies. Students will be expected to crew and rotate as DP/Manager of a working film set during class times. This class is ideal for any student with an interest in becoming a cinematographer or camera operator on film and video projects and will provide you with material for a personal show reel. 

This course will present an introduction to the history and stylistic range of the documentary film genre with a focus on film language, techniques, aesthetics, structure and other elements of visual non-fiction storytelling. Through the study of selected films, readings, lectures and discussions, we will gain a foundational knowledge of various stances filmmakers take in relation to their subjects and stories. We will also analyze the constructed nature of documentaries, and the problematic notions of representing “truth” and “unbiased” representations.

New York Tisch Film Students: this course counts for History/Criticism requirement.

Fact may or may not be stranger than fiction, but invariably both exert strong influences in creating narrative. This course explores how documentary and fiction are combined throughout history and in different cultures. The course will include an examination of the work of ten filmmakers who have merged both formats to create singular hybrid films. Dramatic reconstructions, manipulated imagery or fictional interstitials are frequently incorporated into documentaries to elevate realism. Conversely, fiction occasionally crosses over into documentary to create a sense of authenticity or truthfulness. Lastly, the division is sometimes completely eradicated making it difficult to distinguish the reality from the imaginary. Over the course of the semester, students will create their own docu-fiction short films. Students will bring together fiction and non-fiction story elements, reflecting on how each form complements the other.

Docu-Fiction - Sample Syllabus.

New York Tisch Film Students: this course counts for a Core credit, equivalent to FMTV-UT 43 Sight & Sound Filmmaking.

This course is designed to develop techniques and skills in generating ideas for short films that are shot on digital video and edited on nonlinear editing software. It will focus on strong visualization of story and camera techniques, as opposed to dialogue-based work. Students will develop skills in the elements of visual storytelling through the process of storyboarding and creating shot lists, then working in small crews to direct and shoot the projects. Students will gain knowledge of new photographic techniques, moving the camera dynamically, and the ways in which the craft of editing and sound design can be used to support story.

Intermediate Filmmaking - Sample Syllabus.

Principals of Post Production focuses on techniques for editing, color grading, and compositing motion pictures. Using industry standard software, students will explore continuity editing techniques and theory, color grading and picture finishing, and compositing effects such as green screen and set extensions. Students will also engage new media technologies such as post for 360 Video, and VR Cinema. The course is designed to give hands-on experience that enable students to work across the production pipeline to meet international standards in the creation of entertainment products and communications media. 

New York Tisch Film Students: this course counts for a Core credit, equivalent to FMTV-UT 1040 Intermediate Narrative Production Workshop.

In this intensive course, Film and New Media majors will produce their Capstone short films. This course expands and nurtures the student’s individual and unique voice as a filmmaker while providing the student with practice in communicating and managing a set effectively. Through exploring advanced directing techniques in various modes of fiction and non-fiction expression and with an emphasis on evoking emotional responses to dramatic situations and scenes, students will learn how to translate scripts and scriptments into impactful films. Students will learn the different roles and responsibilities of a film production by crewing and participating in all productions. 

Advanced Filmmaking - Sample Syllabus.

How can we better understand humanity's relationship with the sea? This course applies interdisciplinary and experimental approaches to historical, archaeological and social evidence from the Bronze Age to the present to answer this question. Through analysis of sites, objects and narratives students will explore how this maritime past manifests in the heritage of the UAE and the region. The course will examine the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean as a case study for interrogating the complex human relationship with- and interdependence on- the sea throughout history and in the present. In particular, the class will focus on two periods of significant maritime expansion in the Gulf and Indian Ocean. First, it will explore the earliest origins of long-distance maritime trade in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, and then the expansion of maritime trade routes along the 'monsoon wind systems' in the Early and Middle Islamic periods, as examples of humans' ambitious engagement with their environment.

Can objects of heritage be owned or alienated as property? Who can or cannot benefit from protecting traditional knowledge or indigenous heritage as intellectual property if infringed in developing countries? Is art fraud or forging heritage a crime against humanity or a crime against personal property? Should heritage be favored by public or private ownership? This seminar investigates society's engagement with the past and explores how history is converted into heritage and property into patrimony. By reading landmark civil and criminal cases, court dockets, and policies set by UNESCO, ICOMOS, ICCROM, UNIDROIT, WTO, WIPO, NPS students will debate what should and should not be done to protect and conserve heritage as property. They will compare how museums secure collections and curate heritage management alongside repatriation demands for the restitution of archaeological artifacts to those from which it was taken. Legal strategies including alternative dispute resolutions are reviewed to preserve tangible/intangible heritage worldwide against developing threats by armed conflict, violence, transit/destination supply markets, and the impact of climate change on tourism.

This course introduces students to readings and lectures on current topics in the fields of music studies and musicology with a focus on historiography, which is the study of the way history has been written. Within this broad framework, the course will engage with the study of music and its history under a number of different guises, including the historical study of music, addressing both research methodologies as well as the historical narratives used to tell the different “stories” about music history. While the course is organized thematically providing an examination of music at its intersection with issues related to gender and sexuality, social justice and conflict, race, popular music, as well as media and technology it is structured historically, providing a forum for an examination of music and musical practices across a wide range of historical and cultural situations from ancient times to the present. This course introduces additional readings, providing students with a framework for the development of their own research within the field of music studies as a basis for field work and independent research.

Intellectual property rights arise upon the creation of art works. As an introduction to intellectual property law, this class will identify and examine the copyright, trademark, design patent, and patent rights which may attach to art works in the fields of literature, visual arts, theater, dance, and film. Focusing on copyright, the extent of the distribution of ownership, transferability, and assignment of these exclusive rights, as well as mechanisms for their registration, transfer, and enforcement, will be addressed and compared across common and civil law jurisdictions including the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United Arab Emirates. Such study will ensue with the analysis of national legislative frameworks and interpretive case law, and other international materials. Exceptions to the exclusive rights in the art works will also be examined in the context of national and international public policy priorities. Additional topics may include: negotiating music recording contracts, commissioning art installations, bringing concerts to the UAE, identifying art in money laundering, and returning Nazi-era art.

The course will explore the beginning of colonial museums in Europe, in particular the early museums established in Britain, France, Belgium and Netherlands in the 19th and the 20th centuries. Set against the backdrop of empire building, the course will discuss how museum spaces, collections, display and labeling of objects was planned to fit the colonial ideology of racial supremacy and territorial conquest on the one hand, and establish the "otherness" of the colonial subjects on the other. The museums were also meant to display the "splendours" of the colonies such as crafts, flora, fauna and minerals, produce knowledge about the acquired territories as well as disseminate this knowledge among museum visitors. Finally, the course will shift the focus to colonial museums of South Asia and analyze how museum-making has shaped the way in which we understand the history and heritage of these former colonies and how these museums are being restructured in the present day, post-colonial world.

Archaeologists ‘read’ information from artifacts, architecture, and the environment to understand people’s lives in the past. Archaeology can tell us about the development of the world’s first cities and empires, the beginnings of farming, ancient exchange networks, and other important changes across human (pre)history. This course offers a rich introduction to the ways archaeologists study the past and what these analyses reveal about pre-Islamic Western Asia. Students will be introduced to new ways of seeing the past through a series of hands-on laboratory sessions and activities. The material records of ancient Western Asia, especially Southern Arabia and Central Asia, will serve as case studies for exploring how scientific methods like high-powered microscopy and neutron activation analysis can answer fundamental questions about the past. The semester’s coursework culminates in the completion of an individual research project and paper.

New York Students: this course counts for Sociology elective credit.

The course offers a practical introduction to the theoretical and methodological issues of ethnographic field research. The course offers students hands-on experience to carry out ethnographic field research, conduct in-depth interviews and carry out participant observations.

Ethnographic Field Research - Sample Syllabus.

This course situates artistic production in the late middle ages and early modern period in the maritime cultures of Indian and Atlantic Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea. Informed by approaches from art history, history, economics, and anthropology, it examines the role of cross-cultural exchange, banking, trade, finance, collecting, and patronage in shaping artistic production. Secondly, it explores in turn the ways in which works of art played a role in the evolution of commercial and political culture of the period. It will begin with an examination of the recent scholarship on the connectedness of the early modern world and the formulation of Global Renaissance. While looking from the perspective of Europe and the Islamic world, it will pay particular attention to interactions between the latter and Italy.

Countries in Western Asia, Southeast Asia and China are witnessing a significant rise in the number of art museums as part of their urban regeneration. Focusing on examples from these regions, the course will examine the changing role and function of art museums in the 21st century offering a theoretical and practical understanding of the current discourse on contemporary art, social practice and the community. Students will meet with curators and administrators at art museums, galleries and alternative art spaces to analyze how art exhibitions and museum acquisitions are shaping art history and the relationships between the art institution and society. Class will gain an understanding of the forces that are shaping the UAE art history and its nascent art ecosystem.

Installation Art is a hybrid genre which escapes traditional categorizations. This course approaches Installation Art as a methodological framework across cultural, social and geopolitical discourses in order to analyze new models of spectatorship that expand the limits of what could be identified or recognised as art: installations can be participatory or not, can involve performers or lack human presence, can be site-specific or nomadic, can intervene in urban context or taking place in nature, can be durational or limited in time.

Instead of following a genealogy of installation art, the course is structured around focal points such as theatricality, site-specificity, immersion, interaction. Through artist and curator talks, screenings and virtual exhibition visits, students engage with the work of leading artists such as Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Hiwa K, Monira Al Qadiri, Brett Bailey, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Ahmet Ögüt, Ibrahim Mahama, Tania Bruguera, Pedro Reyes, Yinka Shonibare. Drawing on a wide range of theoretical texts in theater, art history, philosophy and spatial politics, this course explores the artistic, social and cultural effects of installation art.

Shipwrecks hold multiple meanings. For many, shipwrecks embody the romance of the sea and the lure of treasure. For others, shipwrecks can be seen as a unique archaeological phenomenon. More than any other archaeological site, they represent a time capsule, a snapshot of a society at a particular moment in time. This course introduces students to maritime archaeology through an exploration of underwater cultural heritage and through field work and practical application of this relatively young discipline.

In the twentieth century, the protection and promotion of heritage has become prominent in the minds of policy makers, museum curators, and tourism planners. Heritage is no longer just the domain of archaeologists, architects and historians but has become a publicly owned commodity. But why does heritage need to be managed and how can management practices be effectively established? The course combines lectures, field trips and case studies to illustrate the many perspectives on heritage. Invited guest lecturers from institutions across the UAE and further afield will discuss the challenges and approaches of heritage institutions and practitioners in real-world management contexts of the Arabian World.

This course critically examines how women feature in contemporary debates about employment, development, and nationalism in the context of the Gulf Cooperative Council countries. The course provides a philosophical foundation for debates about women, work, and difference based on feminist theories. Students will explore postcolonial perspectives on feminism and difference, feminist Marxist critiques of capitalism, and feminist Islamist critiques of modernity. The course provides an overview of how women in the Gulf feature in contemporary discourses as participants in “globally competitive” economies, mothers of “future generations of citizens”, and symbols of “tradition and culture”. The third part of the course addresses public policy and legal frameworks shaping women’s work, exploring how different categories of “women” are produced through public policy programs such as workforce nationalization, education policy, social policy, and the interplay of national and international laws governing domestic work, human trafficking, and domestic abuse. The course will host a number of academics, activists, and policymakers.

Women and Work in the Gulf - Sample Syllabus.

Popular discourse and media are saturated with images of violence attributed to religion. Whether it is a 'freedom of speech' dispute over cartoons, the abduction or killing of schoolgirls, or domestic violence, religion (and its proxy, 'culture'), invariably seems to be implicated. This course deploys the concepts and methods of anthropology to illuminate the complex and entangled nexus of religion, violence, and gender. We ask how and where to draw lines between religious and secular forms of violence, the ideological work of representations of gendered and racialized violence, as well as the relationship of religiosity to the production of gendered and sexualized violence.

The first part of the class will deal with definitional and conceptual issues around the three key terms we explore throughout the semester: gender, religion/culture, and violence. In the second half of the course, we critically engage with existing anthropological scholarship on a range of issues of contemporary concern: 'honor' killings, sexual and minority rights, freedom of speech, violence against women, terrorism and Islamophobia, and the politics of veiling.

This course examines how research psychologists study and understand sex and gender. We will address gender issues that are complex, wide-ranging, and often controversial. My expectation is that your considerable “inside” understanding of gender will undergo expansion and transformation through course readings, lectures and discussions. We will concentrate on studies that put to scientific test common and uncommon notions about gender. The broad topics for the course include: Defining Gender, Psychological Perspectives on Gender, Gender and Sexual Identities, Acquiring/Doing Gender, Stereotypes and Bias, Gender Comparisons, Gender Consequences, Gender Roles/Relationships.

This course examines the relationship between gender politics, legal theory, and social policy. Students will study the role that the legal arena and certain historical conditions have played in creating, revising, and protecting particular gender identities (and failing to protect other gender identities) and examine the political effects of those legal constructions.

What is feminist theory and what is its relevance to our world today? What compulsions and reservations do some people have around the “F” word? Can gender be theorized across cultures in ways that adequately address inegalitarian sociopolitical and economic conditions? A body of thought that arose to explain how gender creates social meaning, feminist theory has evolved to address the political impacts of gender’s intersection with race, class, nationalism, sexual orientation, and other categories. Its interdisciplinarity allows for broad applicability and has secured ongoing relevance for global civic engagement. The course begins with a look at “first wave” or “liberal” feminism’s battles for women’s economic, political, and domestic parity with men before examining how post-structural feminist and queer theory has questioned the very basis of gender difference as social construct. How have rights-based approaches to equality provoked socialist and Marxist, postcolonial, or Islamist critiques? Can feminist theory confront the ethical imperative for global citizens to improve conditions for everyone regardless of sex, gender, race, class, or creed?

What does art do to us? This course centers on the concept of “Art and Agency,” coined by anthropologist Alfred Gell, which holds that art works carry an agency factor that affects human beings - their mode of thinking, their emotions, their actions, their aesthetic experience. This concept has impacted the way art historians, in academia and the professional museum world, think about and display works of art. Through class discussions and visits to the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum, the course will examine a host of related ideas: the rhetorical concept of “energeia,” camouflage, iconoclasm, “animism” in prehistoric rock art, Western and Asian landscape imagery, medieval relics and miracle imagery, anthropomorphism and witchcraft in the early modern period, and the idea of “living presence” in abstract expressionism.

This course understands gender as a social construct rather than as self-evident and immutable, and examines the ways in which constructions of gender shift across time and place. Some of the questions we will consider include the following: what does it mean to be “male” or “female,” “masculine” or “feminine,” and how do the meanings of such categories vary across historical periods and geographic locations? How do we understand gender in relation to other social differences such as race, class, sexuality, religion, nationality, and disability? How have ideologies of gender been central to colonial and nationalist projects from the nineteenth century to the present? How does gender shift in the context of diaspora, migration, and globalization? Students will approach these questions through a consideration of aesthetic practices and representational forms from many periods and cultures - literature, film, visual art - that suggest alternatives to a binary logic of gender and instead articulate different visions of gender justice.

The body plays a central role in today’s global challenges, including in the promotion of justice, equality, health, and human rights. But controversies surrounding these aspirations also reveal the existence of divergent - often opposing - definitions of the body. This course asks how current political struggles over issues such as gender identity, racism, and reproductive and human rights involve conflicting understandings of the body. What relationships do these notions establish or depend upon between the body, identity, power, and truth? How do body politics inform debates about the anti-vaccination movement, "political correctness," or body modifications? To denaturalize our ideas about the body, the course combines the exploration of current trends with the examination of views from diverse time periods and cultures. By identifying and analyzing these contrasting assumptions, the course seeks to better understand the challenges we face today, and how to address them. Major topics will include the problem of embodiment and the limits of our bodies; the role the body plays in the definition of racial and gender identities; bodily disciplines; and the human quest for truth.

What is gender? What does it mean to be male or female across time and space? How can thinking about gender inform the analysis of texts, societies, and politics? This class will explore these questions by drawing on a wide range of sources from religion, science, Islamic and Jewish law, psychoanalysis, philosophy, art, history, and literature including Marquis de Sade, Freud, Virginia Woolf, Anton Chekhov, and the feminist revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai. Using these and other sources, we will investigate how gender is constructed in relation to race, class, morality, social justice, and other norms of "appropriate" social behavior in different contexts. The class will conclude by drawing on examples from contemporary advertising and media to discuss the relationships between gender and power, violence, the economy, and humor.

NY Social and Cultural Analysis Students: this course counts for the Gender and Sexuality Studies and SCA majors and Gender and Sexuality Studies minor

In every society, whether one is born male or female affects how one is expected to behave and the opportunities one confronts. However, how gender is organized varies between societies and across time. This course draws upon research from sociology, economics, psychology, and anthropology to examine gender, providing information on how gender is organized in various parts of the world. Topics include how male and female children are socialized, women’s and men’s roles in the family, trends in women’s education and employment, the sex gap in pay, and how gender is affected by public policies.

Gender and Society - Sample Syllabus.

Social scientists have in the past described family structures and gender roles in the Arab World as based on relatively uniform and unchanging principles. However, during the last two decades many Arab societies have been subject to tremendous changes. In this course we will examine how in the social sciences the “classical” Arab family along with its underlying kinship systems and gender orders has been conceived; and how modern developments, such as urbanization, women’s education, work migration, war and exile, assisted reproduction, genetic counseling programs, TV serials, etc., are contributing to the emergence of new forms of family and gender. Also, we shall scrutinize the societal challenges brought about by these developments, such as the economic hardships of young couples, the erosion of “traditional” support networks for elderly and diseased persons, and the “neo-liberalization” of marriage. Finally, we shall take a close look at the various ways in which contemporary Arab men and women define, negotiate, and legitimate their gender identities by drawing on Islamic values, traditional ideas and practices as well as national and transnational discourses.

This course focuses on love in Africa, from the late 19th Century to the present. By doing so, the course introduces students to a multiplicity of themes in African history, from the history of gender and sexuality to popular culture, generational conflicts, and the AIDS epidemics. Studying love is central to understanding how Africans have imagined and lived their lives as gendered individuals and members of their societies, often in the face of oppressive colonial regimes and strenuous living conditions. The course will view love in its various declensions: as an emotion and expression of intimacy (the notion of romantic love), as virtue (love in theological and political discourses), as a set practices at the chore of conjugality and sexuality, and as an object of debate in the public sphere. Students will learn how to historicize affects and their relationships to society, politics, and economy. We will read fiction and primary sources, watch movies, and discuss recent academic works that will help us understand change and continuities in how individuals and communities across Africa have defined, debated, and experienced love.

From the jungle palaces of Angkor Wat to the eight million person futuristic metropolis of Kuala Lumpur; from the fall of Saigon to President Obama slurping Pho in the street of Hanoi; from the Portuguese, Persian, and Arabic trading ships sailing the Strait of Malacca to Bangkok's Tom Yum Kung crisis, Southeast Asia has always been a vital nexus for the interaction of cultures from both within Southeast Asia and without. This course explores key themes in Southeast Asia's connections with world history: colonialism, maritime trade connections and cultural contacts, religious division, the diversity of political regimes, war and conflict, economic development, and international relationships with Great Powers. Paying special attention to the history of diversity within and across countries in this region clarifies how politics operates and produces different social and economic outcomes for different national and non-national communities. The first part of the course reviews long-term history trends. The second part turns to a series of thematic discussions on issues related to ASEAN nations' constructive engagement, conflict management, and international relations.

Archaeologists ‘read’ information from artifacts, architecture, and the environment to understand people’s lives in the past. Archaeology can tell us about the development of the world’s first cities and empires, the beginnings of farming, ancient exchange networks, and other important changes across human (pre)history. This course offers a rich introduction to the ways archaeologists study the past and what these analyses reveal about pre-Islamic Western Asia. Students will be introduced to new ways of seeing the past through a series of hands-on laboratory sessions and activities. The material records of ancient Western Asia, especially Southern Arabia and Central Asia, will serve as case studies for exploring how scientific methods like high-powered microscopy and neutron activation analysis can answer fundamental questions about the past. The semester’s coursework culminates in the completion of an individual research project and paper.

At the crossroads between Asia, Africa and Europe, the region that Europeans and North Americans labeled “The Middle East” presents a dynamic and heterogeneous landscape of peninsulas and isthmuses, republics and monarchies, oil producing countries, and labor exporting nations. This course examines the recent history of the region from the mid-18th century until the Arab uprisings of 2010–2012. We explore the last Islamic empires, the intrusion of European colonial powers, the modernist, nationalist and Islamic reactions to aggression, the creation of authoritarian systems of power and the multiform protests that have shaken them. The Egyptian, Iranian, Palestinian, and Saudi experiences are examined more closely. 

This course introduces students to readings and lectures on current topics in the fields of music studies and musicology with a focus on historiography, which is the study of the way history has been written. Within this broad framework, the course will engage with the study of music and its history under a number of different guises, including the historical study of music, addressing both research methodologies as well as the historical narratives used to tell the different “stories” about music history. While the course is organized thematically providing an examination of music at its intersection with issues related to gender and sexuality, social justice and conflict, race, popular music, as well as media and technology it is structured historically, providing a forum for an examination of music and musical practices across a wide range of historical and cultural situations from ancient times to the present. This course introduces additional readings, providing students with a framework for the development of their own research within the field of music studies as a basis for field work and independent research.

How is history written? This course offers a survey of the major theories and practices that have defined history as a scholarly discipline, and as a way of writing, over the last fifty years. Students are introduced to the major theoretical and narrative perspectives that have shaped historiography: to the kinds of historical questions that drive the research agendas of contemporary historians; and to the kinds of historical literature historians write, including analytical, narrative, scholarly, popular, and experimental. How do historians find and interpret their sources? How do they engage with existing scholarship while still striving to push their discipline forward? What methods do they apply to communicate the results of their research to other scholars and to a wider public readership? Students will learn to evaluate a wide array of different historical sources (including written documents, material artifacts, oral histories, and visual culture). They will also gain experience in meeting the challenges of writing their own works of historical scholarship, producing an original piece of written history by the end of the semester.

Writing History - Sample Syllabus.

Can China strike a balance between economic development and environmental protection? This question, perhaps the most important question facing China (indeed the world) over the next few decades, pits economy and environment against one another. How did this adversarial relationship come about? Is it necessarily adversarial? Is it rooted in long-term trends in Chinese history, or in the most recent decades of double-digit economic growth? Are there solutions? Or are there better ways of asking the question? This course will look closely at the benefits, the consequences, and the costs of economic growth to society, ecology, and environment in China. The focus in on present dilemmas, examined through an historical perspective.

The key events you read about in your morning twitter feed or on your favorite news sites are usually not unique in world affairs. They have a background, a context, that makes them more understandable and often more interesting. History is about everything that happened before you started reading this course description. And thinking historically means trying to make sense of the new in the context of what human beings have done before. In this lecture series, historians and scholars employing a historical perspective in their work will take you on a behind the scenes tour of current events you thought you knew, with the goal of making you a better observer and analyst of the world around you. This is a two-credit course designed to show students how thinking historically can help them understand better the key issues in the world around them. The weekly 90-minute meeting begins with a lecture by a specialist with the remaining portion of the session devoted to Q&A and discussion. Course can be repeated one-time for a maximum of four credits.

This course introduces students to the colonial origins of Latin America and examines colonialism’s lasting impact on the region. It follows the unfolding and demise of a new social order under European rule over a period spanning from the 16th-century conquest through the early 19th-century wars of independence, highlighting international and global connections that shaped this region’s social, cultural, and political history. Specific topics covered include Pre-Columbian worlds, Native-European confrontations and negotiations, the Catholic Church and popular religiosity, patriarchy and honor codes, racial dynamics and slavery, the development of capitalism, anti-colonial struggles, imperial rivalry, reform and decline, and colonial legacies.

Shanghai Students: this course counts as Humanities (survey) credit.

History offers a unique perspective on the process of globalization, by virtue of its insistence that human experience be understood in its spatial and temporal contexts. Rigorous global history questions and even supplants common understandings of globalization as Westernization. But how does history do this, and can a global historical framework enhance all forms of historical, humanistic, and social scientific inquiry? Following an assessment of foundational modern Western frameworks for understanding world history, including those of Marx and Hegel, students examine how and why people around the world have variously embraced and rejected such foundational accounts. Readings address all world regions, including Asia, Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania, and familiarize students with state-of-the-art knowledge about globalization.

History and Globalization - Sample Syllabus.

The course will explore the beginning of colonial museums in Europe, in particular the early museums established in Britain, France, Belgium and Netherlands in the 19th and the 20th centuries. Set against the backdrop of empire building, the course will discuss how museum spaces, collections, display and labeling of objects was planned to fit the colonial ideology of racial supremacy and territorial conquest on the one hand, and establish the "otherness" of the colonial subjects on the other. The museums were also meant to display the "splendours" of the colonies such as crafts, flora, fauna and minerals, produce knowledge about the acquired territories as well as disseminate this knowledge among museum visitors. Finally, the course will shift the focus to colonial museums of South Asia and analyze how museum-making has shaped the way in which we understand the history and heritage of these former colonies and how these museums are being restructured in the present day, post-colonial world.

Scholars across academic disciplines have begun to "think big" in new ways about the Ancient World. By recasting ideas and events that seem historically remote, the deep past becomes more relevant than ever to understanding our present. Did globalization begin in the ancient world? Was there an early anthropocene? Can our current crisis of global sustainable development be traced back to the origins of agriculture? Are there ancient world origins to the forms of social inequality we struggle to overcome today, and can our struggles succeed if we overlook what came first? Finally, what can we learn from studying the collapse of ancient civilizations, as we contemplate the possibility of our own? Incorporating readings and materials from across the disciplines, this class will explore foundational questions about continuities between the ancient and modern worlds.

This course is about globalization as a very long-term historical process of spatially expansive mobility, communication, exchange, and territorial transformation, in which Asia is an open space of perpetual globalization, with no fixed boundaries, spanning Arctic and Tropics and lands from the Mediterranean to Pacific, all around the Indian Ocean, from Africa to Fiji. The standard view of Asia as being a static collection of fixed bounded territories, cut off from Europe, Middle East, Africa, and America, and propelled by Europeans into modernity, is dangerously archaic. In this course, we explore the ways in which Asia’s long globalization launched and sustained the imperial production of the modern world economy and energized global capitalism in a world of nations. We see the rise of Global Asia today as a key to Asian history, with a long-term Asia-centric view of modern World History.

What can the long history of humanitarian interventions in Africa teach us about global justice and our shared humanity? This course explores more than two centuries of interactions between the West and Africa through the prism of humanitarianism. Many humanitarian campaigns and movements analyzed in the course used a Manichean rhetoric of good versus evil. Yet, their motivations were often complex; and their effects, sometimes questionable. During the first part of the course, students formulate questions about the ethics of modern humanitarianism by exploring scholarly works by anthropologists, political scientists, and sociologists, as well as films and literary texts. Students then use these questions to review historical case-studies, from the abolition of the slave trade to the #Kony2012 campaign. The course invites students to critically reflect on the logic of "salvation" projects and to deconstruct problematic clichés about the African continent.

The Indian Ocean has provided an important avenue for the movement of people, traditions and ideas over centuries. The course explores the cultural exchange in the Indian Ocean world with the spread of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and later Christianity. How are the different regions of the Indian Ocean littorals tied together through networks of piety, pilgrimage and mythologies? Do the surviving material remains that dot the littorals - built structures, religious iconography, inscriptions, maps, travelogues, legends and poetry of traveling saints and mythologies about the Oceanic waters itself, attest this dynamic exchange and interconnectedness? How do the circulation of people, relics and mythologies connect the hinterland with people and places across the waters?

How do we study peoples, places, and societies that lie within "borderlands," spaces that either connect or separate larger powers? This course considers that questions through two examples of borderland regions that lie within and between southeast Asia and China. The first is a place that appears on no world map by which scholars now call "Zomia," the densely populated upland regions of mainland Southeast Asia and Southwest China. We will look at different ways studying this "non-place," test the heuristic limits of key analytical categories like nation, state, and citizenship, and explore alternative notions of political and cultural community. The second borderland region is the South China Sea, which others call the Champa Sea, or the Philippine Sea, or the North Natuna Sea. It is a place that few people inhabit, but which has been a crucial source of natural resources and mobility for states and peoples claiming ownership or rights to parts of it. Some fear it may be the flashpoint of a third world war, and how we understand its history may make the difference.

The saying goes, "If all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail." What if all you have is a 3D Printer? In this course, students will be introduced to, and engage critically with, a range of contemporary machines inside and around the Interactive Media Lab. Leveraging historical perspectives, current use-cases, and hands-on making, the course will explore how machines enhance, or limit, our creative processes. Readings and discussion will be paired with practical designing, prototyping, and making of creative computer controlled devices, such as drawing machines, musical instruments, and a collaborative Rube Goldberg contraption. Over the course of the semester, students will be exposed to a variety of tools, materials, and fabrication techniques as well as learn how to use micro-controllers and software to give their machines unique behaviors and abilities. By thinking about machines, using machines, and making machines, the course will offer insight into our creative relationships with our tools.

In this course we will take a tour of the materials and techniques utilized by artists in the emerging field of biological art - that is art which uses life itself as a medium. This hybrid art and science class will introduce concepts in genetic engineering, personal genomics, the microbiome, epigenetics, microscopic imaging, tissue culture/bioprinting, biopolitics, and bioethics as sites for artistic exploration. Organized in thematic modules students will learn basic lab techniques while studying the work of artists in this interdisciplinary field. The three core areas are: Input/Output (imaging and printing with biology, tissue culture), identity after the genome (genetics, personal genomics, microbiome, epigenetics, portraiture), and final projects. Weekly readings and written responses will supplement lab activities. The course will culminate in the creation of original biological artworks by each student, which will be exhibited in the Interactive Media Showcase at the end of the semester.

This course exposes students to the art of music production, engineering and recording, as well as fundamentals of audio theory and engineering, audio production technique in both the studio environment and location specific recording, playback, post-production applications, and musical acoustics. Students will learn to multitrack record, overdub, edit, and mix music using Pro Tools HD. This is a very "hands-on" and practical course. Students build on concepts learned in the Music Technology Fundamentals course, from working in a digital environment to an analog based recording studio (NYUAD Studio A). They learn how to master the SSL mixing board as well patchbay routing, signal flow, recording ticks, microphones techniques/ placements, and how to work with different outboard processors with their music production (1176 compressor, LA2A, Manley VariMu Stereo compressor, API, maselec mla-2 mastering equalizer and more) to enhance their sound. Students gain analytical and professional skills needed for a variety of music production-focused careers including music producer, recording engineer, mix engineer, mastering engineer, live sound engineer, sound technician, and more. 

Recording and Producing Techniques - Sample Syllabus.

Installation Art is a hybrid genre which escapes traditional categorizations. This course approaches Installation Art as a methodological framework across cultural, social and geopolitical discourses in order to analyze new models of spectatorship that expand the limits of what could be identified or recognised as art: installations can be participatory or not, can involve performers or lack human presence, can be site-specific or nomadic, can intervene in urban context or taking place in nature, can be durational or limited in time.

Instead of following a genealogy of installation art, the course is structured around focal points such as theatricality, site-specificity, immersion, interaction. Through artist and curator talks, screenings and virtual exhibition visits, students engage with the work of leading artists such as Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Hiwa K, Monira Al Qadiri, Brett Bailey, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Ahmet Ögüt, Ibrahim Mahama, Tania Bruguera, Pedro Reyes, Yinka Shonibare. Drawing on a wide range of theoretical texts in theater, art history, philosophy and spatial politics, this course explores the artistic, social and cultural effects of installation art.

This course provides an introduction to computer-aided design (CAD) using solid modeling. Students learn to create solid object models using extrusions, revolutions, and swept paths, and learn to modify parts using cutting, patterns, fillets, chamfers, and other techniques. Assemblies of multiple parts are used to demonstrate the need for geometric tolerances, and students spend a large portion of class in hands-on use of software tools. The labs emphasize experiential learning of CAD concepts and applications using software tools.

Students in this course will produce sculptural and site-specific works of Sound Art, using sound, materials, and space as their palette. The class will focus its study on artists who primarily work with sound in gallery-based situations and the surrounding fine art discourses. While the term “Sound Art” is not as old, the practice of using sound as both material and concept in the context of gallery-based visual arts stretches back over 100 years, and comes from various artists and art movements, such as Marcel Duchamp, the Futurists, Dada, and forward to the happenings of Fluxus, the Minimalists, specifically Robert Morris, and through to the procedural art making methods of John Cage and the countless artists he influenced. We will examine the use of the term "Sound Art" carefully and draw our own conclusions about its utility, while exploring the use of sound to unlock sculptural, architectural, material, and conceptual potentials. 

Sound Art - Sample Syllabus.

NYU Tandon Students: this course counts for Integrated Digital Media credit. 

Shanghai Students: this course count for IMA elective in Art and Design. 

This course explores the possibilities and challenges of designing alternate physical network interfaces. Through weekly readings, class discussions, and a series of projects, students will create physical objects that talk to each other over distance. Various protocols such as Bluetooth, Zigbee, and WiFi, and GSM/GPRS are used in the context of creating novel “smart” devices. Topics of discussion in this course include networking protocols and network topologies; network time versus physical time; mobile objects; and wireless networks.

Network Everything - Sample Syllabus.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms affect many aspects of our lives whether we realize it or not: banking transactions, healthcare treatments and diagnoses, entertainment recommendations, smart car functionality, customer service agents, financial trading… the list goes on and on. The power of these algorithms lies in their ability to leverage computers to "study" and "learn". Instead of programming a computer to do a specific task, we program the computer to train and teach itself how to do any number of tasks. As artists, how can we harness the power of these algorithms and apply them towards creative endeavors? This class will explore that basic question. Through a combination of high level applied machine learning techniques, speculative design of artificial intelligence, and some basic understanding of how these algorithms work at a low level, students will explore this rich new field. With their machine counterparts, they will create images, sounds, text, intuitive interactions, chatbots, and more.

What happens when the arts and humanities are represented in digital form? What kind of new insights can we have when by looking at the data of the humanities? This course will look at intersections between computers and the humanities, a form of inquiry known as “digital humanities.” The course is structured around a broad examination of concepts important in today’s society (computational thinking, digital identity, text as data, dataset, pattern, algorithm, network, location). Students will discuss these concepts critically, explore real-life examples and put them into practice in hands-on activities. Examples of such hands on work might include, but are not limited to, creating accessible web design, analyzing text digitally, building and visualizing a dataset, curating an open bibliography, thinking about art as data, building a Twitter bot, teaching a computer to recognize human handwriting, visualizing social networks or making digital maps. The course assumes no prior technical skills, but a willingness to explore new technologies is essential for success.

What does it mean to become a "temporary expert?" How does one develop one's own creative research-based practice? This course will address these questions by engaging with Abu Dhabi's environmental and social dimensions as a subject for research, context and imaginative art and design opportunities. Students will adopt a wide variety of tools and strategies in order to lay the foundations for a research-based art practice that considers materials, media, context, and audience, as well as one's personal strengths and desires. Over the course of the semester, students will develop art and design projects that interface with a multiplicity of other disciplines, and engage in idea exchange with experts in the field. Through hands-on practice, case studies, and readings on systems thinking, communication, and the idea of "the public," we will explore method, documentation and presentation of research, as well as the merits of both success and failure.

Principals of Post Production focuses on techniques for editing, color grading, and compositing motion pictures. Using industry standard software, students will explore continuity editing techniques and theory, color grading and picture finishing, and compositing effects such as green screen and set extensions. Students will also engage new media technologies such as post for 360 Video, and VR Cinema. The course is designed to give hands-on experience that enable students to work across the production pipeline to meet international standards in the creation of entertainment products and communications media. 

NYU Tandon Students: this course counts for Integrated Digital Media credit. 

Shanghai Students: this course counts for IMA Core: Interactive Lab.

With the advent of digital computation, humans have found a variety of new tools for self-expression and communication. Thinking about how we interface with these tools beyond the mouse and keyboard, we can approach software and electronics as artists and designers and explore new interactions with machines and each other. This introductory course will provide students hands-on experience with screen and physical interaction design through programming and electronics using microcontrollers, electronics, and writing our own software. Weekly exercises encourage students to experiment freely, creating their own novel interfaces and controls for working with machines.

Introduction to Interactive Media - Sample Syllabus.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for IMA Core: Communications Lab.

Not recommended for Integrated Digital Media majors. 

With the advent of digital computation, humans have found a variety of new tools for self-expression and communication. Thinking about how we interface with these tools beyond the mouse and keyboard, we can approach software and electronics as artists and designers and explore new interactions with machines and each other. This introductory course will provide students hands-on experience with screen and physical interaction design through programming and electronics using microcontrollers, electronics, and writing our own software. Weekly exercises encourage students to experiment freely, creating their own novel interfaces and controls for working with machines.

Communications Lab - Sample Syllabus.

While our relationships between ourselves, our environment, and other people are inherently political, computer technologies and technology companies consistently claim to remain “neutral”. This course will assume the opposite - software is political - and focus on how software applications share commonalities with political systems, how they affect their users as political actors and how we can build alternatives to those systems. This course is aimed at deconstructing the design and implementation of software as a political medium, such as Facebook’s timeline algorithm, city officials’ use of computer simulations to orchestrate urban life, blockchain-backed proof of ownership and algorithmic criminal assessment. Along with an introduction to political theory and media studies, coupled with an exploration of the underlying political impacts of those systems, students will work on several hands-on projects to offer functioning alternatives to those systems. To that end, this course will include several workshops in JavaScript and Python.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for IMA Core: New Media & Entertainment or Computer Science elective credit.

NYU Tandon Students: this course counts for Integrated Digital Media credit.

This course will introduce students to the design and development of Virtual Reality experiences. We will examine these increasingly popular means of delivering content and social interactions and identify their unique a ordances over existing platforms. Students will be challenged to harness the specific advantages of VR from conception through functional prototype. The class will also cover case studies of elective use of VR in information delivery, as well as social and artistic experiences.

Alternate Realities - Sample Syllabus.

This seminar course is an introduction to the theories, questions, and conditions that encompass interactive media. Students will engage in readings that critically examine both the impact that interactive media and technology have on culture and societies as well as the ways in which social contexts shape the development and application of these technologies. The contexts become apparent by examining interactive media and interactivity through the lenses of relevant perspectives including politics, ethics, race, gender, and cybernetics. Throughout the semester students will leverage theory to analyze interactive media works and build a vocabulary for making sense of our increasingly mediated world. The course thus serves to lay a conceptual foundation for students to inform and direct their own creative practice. Readings, discussions, research, and writing constitute the body of this course.

The future: let’s patch it together from scraps. Future studies and strategic foresight are methods of guiding businesses and politics. Punk means to take the master’s tools apart, repurpose them to serve our own goals, to outsmart our adversaries, and to prevail. The compound of the words future and punk, just like in cyberpunk or steampunk, indicates that in the case of future punk, future itself would be setting the stage for the narrative, provide the condition against which the human beings in the world of the story would have to struggle: So in the good old punk tradition, we, too, want to take futurism and use it for our own creations. This class introduces speculative fiction and the more scientific forms of speculation as a means to students to envision, draft, and draw and paint their own images and imaginations of alternative worlds. Students will apply the futurist methods to creative projects and in addition, discuss and critique the field.

NYU Tandon Students: this course counts for Integrated Digital Media credit.

An introduction to the history, theory and practice of computer-aided artistic endeavours in the field of visual arts. This class will focus on the appearance of computers as a new tool for artists to integrate in their artistic practice, and how it shaped a specific aesthetic language across traditional practitioners and newcomers alike. We will be elaborating and discussing concepts and paradigms specific to computing platforms, such as system art, generative art, image processing and motion art. Drawing on those areas, students will explore their own artistic practice through the exclusive use of their computers. The course will also serve as a technical introduction to the OpenFrameworks programming environment to create works of visual art. As such, Software Art: Image will be an art history and critical studies course with a studio component. Software Art: Image is a complement to Software Art: Text, a 7-week course approaching software and computation from the perspective of poetry and fiction. The two courses can be taken in series or independently.

Software Art - Image - Sample Syllabus.

NYU Tandon Students: this course counts for Integrated Digital Media credit.

An introduction to the history, theory and practice of computer-aided artistic endeavours in the field of prose and poetry. This class will focus on the appearance and role of computers as a new way for artists to write and read both programming and natural languages. While elaborating and discussing concepts and paradigms specific to computing platforms, such as recomposition, stochastic writing and ambiguity, students will be encouraged to explore their own artistic practice through the exclusive use of their computers, by writing their own programs. As such, Software Art: Text will be a literary history and critical studies course with an active writing component (in both Python and English). Students will be exposed to new creative perspectives on reading and writing in the digital age. Software Art: Text is a complement to Software Art: Image, a 7-week course approaching software and computation from the perspective of the visual arts. The two courses can be taken in series or independently.

Software Art - Text - Sample Syllabus.

What can machines tell us about the human condition? Is something that appears to be intelligent, really intelligent? Is a device that appears to have likes and dislikes "alive"? As robots and Artificial Intelligence become more powerful and prolific, what makes us unique? This course will address these questions by exploring a series of increasingly complex software "creatures" which seem to have qualities usually associated with living beings. This course will primarily follow a classic text that proposes "experiments in synthetic psychology", with excursions into cybernetics and how it relates to art. Course material will incorporate both theoretical and practical components. Readings include critical analysis regarding the historical and contemporary theories and practices in these fields. Students will develop software "vehicles" which will embody the ideas being explored. By creating and simulating multiple and increasingly complex vehicles, interactions and behaviors will be explored.

This course will provide the basic mathematical toolkit needed for students who do not wish to pursue calculus but still need to be exposed to the mathematical concepts and techniques that are required to study elementary statistics and mathematical models in the social sciences. Emphasis will be placed on the understanding of important concepts and on developing analytical skills rather than just on computational skills, the use of algorithms, and the manipulation of formulae.

Mathematics is a convenient and powerful language, providing a deep, unified framework for all scientific developments. All existing results from the three fundamental categories of mathematics—geometry, algebra, and analysis—can be formally expressed in terms of set theory, predicates, quantifiers, and logical connectives. This course explores the axiomatic method, some elements of logic and formal languages, and set theory. In addition, the system of real numbers and all other fundamental number systems can be firmly established on the ground of natural numbers; therefore, the course introduces elementary arithmetic and the universal method of constructing new objects from already known sets by means of equivalence relations. Abstract concepts are introduced through basic but fundamental and universal examples or problems, carefully chosen as illuminants of broader ideas and sources of new theoretical and practical applications.

Foundations of Mathematics - Sample Syllabus.

This course presents the basic principles of calculus by examining functions and their derivatives and integrals with a special emphasis placed on the utilitarian nature of the subject material. Since the derivative measures the instantaneous rate of change of a function and the definite integral measures the total accumulation of a function over an interval, these two ideas form the basis for nearly all mathematical formulas in science, engineering, economics, and other fields. This course also provides instruction in how to model situations in order to solve problems. Applications include graphing, and maximizing and minimizing functions. In addition to two weekly lectures, students attend a weekly recitation focused on applications. Placement into Calculus with Applications is decided by discussion with mentors and the results of a mathematics placement examination. This course focuses on the needs of students in science and engineering.

This course presents the foundations of calculus by examining functions and their derivatives and integrals with a special emphasis placed on the utilitarian nature of the subject material. Since the derivative measures the instantaneous rate of change of a function and the definite integral measures the total accumulation of a function over an interval, these two ideas form the basis for nearly all mathematical formulas in science, engineering, economics, and other fields. This course also provides instruction in how to model situations in order to solve problems. Applications include graphing, and maximizing and minimizing functions. In addition to two weekly lectures, students attend a weekly recitations focused on applications. Placement into Calculus with Applications is decided by discussion with mentors and the results of a mathematics placement examination. This course focuses on the needs of students in economics.

This course explores functions of several variables and has applications to science and engineering. Specific topics include: vectors in the plane and space; partial derivatives with applications; double and triple integrals; spherical and cylindrical coordinates; surface and line integrals; and divergence, gradient, and curl. In addition, the theorems of Gauss and Stokes are rigorously introduced.

This course explores functions of several variables and has applications to science and engineering as well as economics. This special course for those majoring in economics includes: vectors in the plane and space; partial derivatives with applications; Lagrange multipliers; constrained and unconstrained optimization; double and triple integrals; spherical and cylindrical coordinates; surface and line integrals.

NY Students: this course is equivalent to MATH-UA 140 Linear Algebra.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for the Data Science Linear Algebra requirement.

In many applications of mathematics, a response of some systems is nearly a linear function of the input. These linear systems, which arise in elasticity, in electrical engineering, and in economics for example, involve linear equations in many unknowns. The associated matrix algebra is a rich and beautiful field of mathematics. It is also central to the analysis of linear ordinary and partial differential equations. The material in this course places emphasis on theorems and proofs, and includes systems of linear equations, Gaussian elimination, matrices, determinants, Cramer’s rule, vectors, vector spaces, basis and dimension, linear transformations, eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and quadratic forms.

Linear Algebra - Sample Syllabus.

This course is a transition from vector calculus to differential geometry, the study of curved spaces. The course plan is to move from a study of extrinsic geometry of curves and surfaces in space, familiar from multivariable calculus, to the intrinsic geometry of manifolds. This includes the study of tangent spaces and vector fields and the concept of Riemannian manifolds and leading to explicit characterizations of metrics, connections, and curvatures. Computational tools will include tensor algebra and differential forms. Using these, derivatives on manifolds and integration on manifolds will generalize the corresponding notions from multivariable calculus. Further topics also include the Euler characteristic, The Gauss-Bonnet theorem, symmetry, homogeneous spaces, and applications such as Electromagnetism and General Relativity.

The course provides an introduction to rigorous probability theory using measure theory. The necessary notions of measure theory are introduced as needed, and the proofs of essential introductory results of measure theory and probability theory are presented in detail. The main topics of the course include the definition and construction of probability spaces and random variables, limit theorems, conditional expectations, martingales, Markov chains and stochastic processes.

Often, the most difficult task of the applied mathematician is the formulation of an analyzable model in the face of a perplexing phenomenon or data set. This course gives students an introduction to all aspects of this process. It consists of several modules, each a self-contained problem, taken from biology, economics, and other areas of science. In the process the student experiences the formulation and analysis of a model and its validation by numerical simulation and comparison with data. The mathematical tools to be developed include dimensional analysis, optimization, simulation, probability, and elementary differential equations. The necessary mathematical and scientific background is developed as needed. Students participate in formulating models as well as in analyzing them. 

Mathematical Modeling - Sample Syllabus.

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to MATH-SHU 263 Partial Differential Equations.

Many laws of physics are formulated as partial differential equations, including the propagation of sound waves, the diffusion of a gas, and the flow of a fluid. This course discusses the simplest examples of such laws as embodied in the wave equation, the diffusion equation, and Laplace’s equation. The course also discusses nonlinear conservation laws and the theory of shock waves. Applications to physics, chemistry, biology, and population dynamics are discussed.

Partial Differential Equations - Sample Syllabus.

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to MATH-SHU 235 Probability and Statistics.

This course is a first introduction to probabilistic and statistical procedures for data analysis and their applications. The procedures used to summarize and describe the important characteristics of a set of measurements are studied. The course provides students with an overview of descriptive and inferential statistics, introducing at the same time some probability distributions that are useful in the applied sciences. Statistics is inherently applied; the course emphasizes solutions to problems in a variety of settings. Measures of location and variability, graphical summaries of data, discrete and continuous distributions, sampling and sampling distributions, hypothesis testing and estimation with confidence intervals, correlation and regression are explored. The course gives also a brief introduction to Bayesian estimation.

Probability and Statistics - Sample Syllabus.

Shanghai Students: this course counts as a Math/Honor Math elective.

Real Analysis builds a more rigorous foundation for calculus and prepares the way for more advanced courses. The emphasis is on the careful formulation of the concepts of calculus, and the formulation and proof of key theorems. The goal is to understand the need for and the nature of a mathematical proof. The course studies the real number system, the convergence of sequences and series, functions of one real variable, continuity, connectedness, compactness, and metric spaces.

Analysis 1 - Sample Syllabus.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to MATH-UA 262 Ordinary Differential Equations. 

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to MATH-SHU 262 Ordinary Differential Equations.

Ordinary differential equations arise in virtually all fields of applied mathematics. Newton’s equations of motion, the rate equations of chemical reactions, the currents flowing in electric circuits, all can be expressed as ordinary differential equations. The solutions of these equations usually evolve a combination of analytic and numerical methods. The course studies first- and second-order equations, solutions using infinite series, Laplace transforms, linear systems, numerical methods.

Ordinary Differential Equations - Sample Syllabus.

This course is a continuation of the study of algebraic structures started in Abstract Algebra 1. The notion of rings and fields are thoroughly studied, as well as polynomials over rings such as the ring of integers. This course develops ideas to prepare the students to study Galois theory, one of the most important theories in algebra. The topics include Euclidean domains, principal ideal domains, unique factorization domains, imaginary and real quadratic number fields, extension fields and roots of polynomials, constructions with straight edge and compass, and elements of Galois theory.

Abstract Algebra 2 - Sample Syllabus.

The second part of the analysis series is devoted to the calculus of functions of several variables. The transition from a single variable to many variables involves important new concepts, which are essential to understanding applications to the natural world. The course entails a rigorous study of functions of several variables, limits and continuity, differentiable functions, the implicit function theorem, Riemann integral, Stokes formula and an introduction to Lebesgue integration. 

Analysis 2 - Sample Syllabus.

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to MATH-SHU 282 Functions of Complex Variables.

Complex analysis, also known as the theory of functions of a complex variable, is the branch of mathematical analysis devoted to complex valued functions of complex variable. It is further used in other branches of mathematics, including algebraic geometry and number theory, and also has diverse applications in science and engineering: fluid dynamics, elasticity, nuclear and electrical engineering, to name just a few examples. The geometrical content of analysis in the complex plane is especially appealing. Topics covered include: complex numbers and complex functions; differentiation and the Cauchy-Riemann equations, Cauchy’s theorem, and the Cauchy integral formula; singularities, residues, Taylor and Laurent series; fractional linear transformations and conformal mappings.

Functions of Complex Variables - Sample Syllabus.

Live coding is a performing arts form and creativity technique where music and visuals are improvised through live edits of source code. Live coding is most visible in performance, however the 'live' in live coding refers not to a live audience but to live updates of running code. Working across genres, live coding has been seen in algoraves (events where people dance to music generated from algorithms), jazz clubs, and concert halls. Code is projected during performances, exposing the underlying algorithms at work, and thus the patterns of creative thought the performer is developing in real time. Programs are instruments that can change and algorithms are thoughts that can be seen as well as heard. This course explores this new art form and the related themes of algorithmic thought, pattern transformation, artificial language, information theory, improvisation, listening, perception, and structural composition. Students will learn how to create music with code, as well as how to create advanced computer graphics. Students will develop algorithmic audio/visual pieces individually as well as in groups. The course culminates in an algorave.

This seminar course is an introduction to the theories, questions, and conditions that encompass interactive media. Students will engage in readings that critically examine both the impact that interactive media and technology have on culture and societies as well as the ways in which social contexts shape the development and application of these technologies. The contexts become apparent by examining interactive media and interactivity through the lenses of relevant perspectives including politics, ethics, race, gender, and cybernetics. Throughout the semester students will leverage theory to analyze interactive media works and build a vocabulary for making sense of our increasingly mediated world. The course thus serves to lay a conceptual foundation for students to inform and direct their own creative practice. Readings, discussions, research, and writing constitute the body of this course.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for IMA Core: Communications Lab.

Not recommended for Integrated Digital Media majors. 

With the advent of digital computation, humans have found a variety of new tools for self-expression and communication. Thinking about how we interface with these tools beyond the mouse and keyboard, we can approach software and electronics as artists and designers and explore new interactions with machines and each other. This introductory course will provide students hands-on experience with screen and physical interaction design through programming and electronics using microcontrollers, electronics, and writing our own software. Weekly exercises encourage students to experiment freely, creating their own novel interfaces and controls for working with machines.

Communications Lab - Sample Syllabus.

New York Tisch Film Students: this course counts for History/Criticism requirement.

SH Students: this course counts as Humanities (survey).

This course introduces students to the rich and diverse history of film within the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia as a context for understanding some of the complexities of contemporary film and new media in the United Arab Emirates. By examining pre-cinematic artistic practices, aesthetic traditions, cinematic styles, political economies of media, and social change, the course provides a context for understanding productions from major industries in Cairo, Chennai, Istanbul, Mumbai, and Tehran alongside work by independent filmmakers and new media collectives from throughout the regions. Students are encouraged to attend film festivals and engage in original research with the NYUAD Library special collection of MENASA film.

Video heralded a mediated form of expression, quickly embraced by artists, journalists, and provocateurs. This course explores alternative methods of working with video signals in the context of performance and installation. Students develop their own work while examining technical, aesthetic, and theoretical concepts embedded in existing pieces, following video art from the late 1960s to contemporary practices. Topics include thinking about scale, projection mapping, using a camera as a sensor, real-time video manipulation, and alternative screens like LEDs. Previous video experience is recommended, though not required.

NY Tisch Film Students: this course is equivalent to FMTV-UT 4 The Language of Film or count for the History/Criticism requirement.

This course is an introduction to the basic concepts of film and new media studies. The course provides an overview of the historical development of film as an art, technology, and industry and the role of new media as an extension to and reinvention of models for production, distribution, exhibition, and reception. Students are introduced to documentary, experimental, and narratives modes within different historical and cultural contexts, comparative aesthetics, and the lines of critical enquiry that have been developed for film and new media in dialogue with other fields in the arts and humanities.

This course examines the political ramifications of the way that economic resources are produced and distributed in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Students will examine a range of political-economic issues both in historical context and current debates. The class will cover post-colonial development initiatives and their long-term ramifications on MENA states; current issues of economic redistribution, social services and inequality; the implementation of liberalization programs and the rise of crony capitalism; the role of oil in economic development and state formation in the Gulf; and the ramifications of widespread youth unemployment in the region. Students will be expected to write a research paper examining data on a current political-economic topic from the region and its relevance to politics in one or more Middle Eastern countries.

Archaeologists ‘read’ information from artifacts, architecture, and the environment to understand people’s lives in the past. Archaeology can tell us about the development of the world’s first cities and empires, the beginnings of farming, ancient exchange networks, and other important changes across human (pre)history. This course offers a rich introduction to the ways archaeologists study the past and what these analyses reveal about pre-Islamic Western Asia. Students will be introduced to new ways of seeing the past through a series of hands-on laboratory sessions and activities. The material records of ancient Western Asia, especially Southern Arabia and Central Asia, will serve as case studies for exploring how scientific methods like high-powered microscopy and neutron activation analysis can answer fundamental questions about the past. The semester’s coursework culminates in the completion of an individual research project and paper.

This course critically examines how women feature in contemporary debates about employment, development, and nationalism in the context of the Gulf Cooperative Council countries. The course provides a philosophical foundation for debates about women, work, and difference based on feminist theories. Students will explore postcolonial perspectives on feminism and difference, feminist Marxist critiques of capitalism, and feminist Islamist critiques of modernity. The course provides an overview of how women in the Gulf feature in contemporary discourses as participants in “globally competitive” economies, mothers of “future generations of citizens”, and symbols of “tradition and culture”. The third part of the course addresses public policy and legal frameworks shaping women’s work, exploring how different categories of “women” are produced through public policy programs such as workforce nationalization, education policy, social policy, and the interplay of national and international laws governing domestic work, human trafficking, and domestic abuse. The course will host a number of academics, activists, and policymakers.

Women and Work in the Gulf - Sample Syllabus.

Taking the arrival of Alexander the Great in Central Asia as its pivot point, this course explores relations between the various steppe and oasis cultures in Central Asia and the Mediterranean world from the Achaemenid period up to the early Middle Ages. These relations are characterized by a broad spectrum of different forms of contact and exchange. Direct contacts were established, for example, by military campaigns, diplomatic exchanges, migrations or colonization. Less direct forms of cultural transmission resulted from complex transcontinental trade flows. The course will focus on the consequences different forms of communication with the Mediterranean had on Central Asian art and material culture. Students will consider topics such as urbanism, architecture, iconography, and historiography as well as specific aspects of material culture including ceramics, arms and costume.

This course will introduce students to a wide range of contemporary photographic practices in the Middle East, South Asia, and the Far East. Through slide lectures, readings, museum visits and presentations by local artists, students will explore the issues that artists, photography collectives and competitions of the region are concerned with. This course will cover a range of genres, including Landscape, Performance, Portraiture, and Documentary.

This course considers travel and geography as a theme in pre-modern Arabic and Islamicate literary cultures from the 7th century to the 19th century. During the semester, students will read from a wide variety of literary genres including love poetry, popular epics, travelers’ accounts, geographical works and Sufi mystical treatises from many different regions of the Muslim world, ranging from West Africa to South East Asia. Exploring the movement of people, goods, and ideas within works of literature and tracing the formation, circulation and transformation of Islamicate literary genres, the course focuses on the ways that literary works mediate between local, translocal, and global identities.

Taking the arrival of Alexander the Great in Central Asia as its pivot point, this course explores relations between the various steppe and oasis cultures in Central Asia and the Mediterranean world from the Achaemenid period up to the early Middle Ages. These relations are characterized by a broad spectrum of different forms of contact and exchange. Direct contacts were established, for example, by military campaigns, diplomatic exchanges, migrations or colonization. Less direct forms of cultural transmission resulted from complex transcontinental trade flows. The course will focus on the consequences different forms of communication with the Mediterranean had on Central Asian art and material culture. Students will consider topics such as urbanism, architecture, iconography, and historiography as well as specific aspects of material culture including ceramics, arms and costume.

Western media tends to produce a one-dimensional view of Middle Eastern cultures. The reality of the people is often very different. How do Middle Eastern writers represent themselves and their societies in fiction? How have they reacted to the dramatic changes in the Middle East from the early twentieth century on? In this course, students will consider the continuities and diversities of North African and Middle Eastern cultures by analyzing modern and contemporary novels and poetry, as well as films, from or about Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine. The following issues will be tackled: how do novelists translate the changes of their cultures into literary form? What literary traditions do they draw on? How do these reflect the different movements in Islam, and the other religions of the region? What kinds of worldly and personal representations emerge? How have these been changing recently, notably since the Arab Revolutions? How different are novels written in English or French for a global audience from those written in Arabic? What are the effects of reading them in translation? Do the conventions of Western literary criticism work for all literatures?

Social scientists have in the past described family structures and gender roles in the Arab World as based on relatively uniform and unchanging principles. However, during the last two decades many Arab societies have been subject to tremendous changes. In this course we will examine how in the social sciences the “classical” Arab family along with its underlying kinship systems and gender orders has been conceived; and how modern developments, such as urbanization, women’s education, work migration, war and exile, assisted reproduction, genetic counseling programs, TV serials, etc., are contributing to the emergence of new forms of family and gender. Also, we shall scrutinize the societal challenges brought about by these developments, such as the economic hardships of young couples, the erosion of “traditional” support networks for elderly and diseased persons, and the “neo-liberalization” of marriage. Finally, we shall take a close look at the various ways in which contemporary Arab men and women define, negotiate, and legitimate their gender identities by drawing on Islamic values, traditional ideas and practices as well as national and transnational discourses.

Commonly (and wrongly) people take for granted the existence of such political and cultural units as France and Germany, or Japan and India. But in the Middle East, states and national cultures are at the same time ancient and recently created. Here the complex processes of state-formation are still current, and the United Arab Emirates, which is barely forty years old, serves as a rich and richly varied example for the comparative understanding of state-building, cultural imagination, and economic development.

State Formation: The Case of the United Arab Emirates - Sample Syllabus.

This seminar introduces students to the main theoretical and epistemological trends in the study of the Arab crossroads region, and offers practical examples of the methodologies used by scholars in the humanities and the qualitative social sciences. We begin with the strengths and weaknesses of area studies, and the politics of producing knowledge on a region of global economic and political importance, then turn to specific areas of research that have attracted attention in the fields of history, anthropology, literature, and politics, before exploring the various methodological approaches used by practitioners of these fields. The course culminates in an extended research proposal for a capstone project.

How have anthropologists encountered, written about, and produced the “Arab world” over the past century? Beginning with early Western travelers’ imaginaries of Arabia and ending with a reflection on the role of anthropology in the Arab world (and more globally) today, this course provides an introduction to the anthropological project and to the everyday realities of people living in the region. Through ethnography, literature, film and fieldwork, we will explore such topics as Orientalism and its legacy; constructs of youth, gender, family and tribe; poetry and mediation; generational and social change; oil, development and globalization; transnational labor, migration and diaspora; Indian Ocean networks; pilgrimage and piety; the Islamic Revival; faith, medicine, and bioethics; displacement and dispossession; refugees and human rights; and the Arab uprisings.

Sample Syllabus.

The spectacular development of Gulf cities in the second half of the 20th century was accompanied by great demographic and social change. This course, conceived as an introduction to the field of Gulf studies, explores the transformations of Gulf urban societies in the modern and contemporary periods, as well as their social, political, and economic outcomes. Departing from dominant paradigms such as the rentier state theory, we will rely on social history and anthropology in order to explore these processes at the level of urban societies themselves. We will first probe the materiality of Gulf cities, exploring the power relations which govern the production of space, from the role of State-mandated experts in urban planning to the multiple appropriations of urban space by city-dwellers. We will then turn our attention to the diversity of populations resulting from historical and contemporary migrations to the Gulf, looking at the complex questions they raise in terms of belonging and citizenship. From there, we will examine how social change has affected relations between generations and gendered roles, and how these are embodied in daily urban life through language or clothes.

This course critically examines theories and case studies of religious social movements with a special focus on Islamist social movements in the Middle East. The course will begin by introducing students to the theories of social movements, highlighting the different repertoires movements adopt based on the political and cultural contexts in which they are embedded. It will then move on to exploring the role of Islam in local and global social movements. The course will turn to empirical cases of Islamist movements, analyzing their characteristics in relation to topics such as nationalism, colonialism, human rights, inequality, civil society, Sufism, and the role of women. Students will compare Islamist movements from a wide variety of countries in the region, including Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia as well as transnational and jihadi movements. The class will end with a discussion of the popular upheavals in the region commonly referred to under the rubric of the Arab Spring.

Dispossession and forced migration in the contemporary Middle East is often regarded as synonymous with the Palestinian population. At a stretch of the imagination, it might also take in the Kurdish problem. This course, however, situates both the Palestinian and Kurdish migrations of the twentieth century into the wider and pervasive involuntary movement of populations which has indelibly marked the region throughout the last 100 years. It firmly places the dispossession of peoples in the Middle East as part of the policy of empire, carried further by the colonial and neo-colonial and well as neo-conservative political encounters with the East and the West. 

 Sample Syllabus.

This course explores the lived experiences of exiles, refugees, and forced migrants, through anthropological texts on displacement, encampment, resettlement, asylum, memory, and belonging. It looks at how forced migrant identities are formed and transformed, and at notions of home, and belonging. The class examines interactions between forced migrants, aid agencies, governments and the UNHCR. The course explores each stage of forced migration, the institutions refugees encounter, the factors behind human movement, and the anthropology of social crisis. It also examines processes of flight and displacement in ethnography. We will also study the experience of encampment and its effect on social organizations, memory and identity. The class ex amines critiques of humanitarian assistance, scrutinizing micro-level practices of aid along with concerns regarding the modern state, its obligations, constraints, and approach to citizenship and belonging. The class then addresses asylum, immigration and the anthropology of borders and border crossing. To conclude, the course considers issues of integration and resettlement, examining how people make a new life in a different culture.

In this course we will explore the literary languages of Arabic and as well as various political and socio-economic issues via a selection of short stories that hail from geographically diverse authors. Being attentive to detailed readings of texts, their contexts, and the social and political environments within which the authors composed them, we will engage with these short stories via reading, analytical writing, debates, and listening activities. While aiming to avoid the monolithic approach of reading stories as social documents that reflect or mirror their societies, in this course will be concerned with the aesthetics of the Arabic literary narratives as well as how the socio-economic and political issues evoked in the stories will be of relevance to the broader realms of Middle Eastern Studies. Tradition vs. modernity, the individual in opposition to the state, and gender issues are just some of the themes that we will discuss. In addition to the short stories, the class will engage with complimentary materials such as open source online videos and articles to expand on our knowledge of specific Arabic cultural and sociological phenomena and increase cultural as well as linguistic competency.

What kinds of knowledge pass through the ear? In this course we understand Islam from the vantage point of aesthetics (from the Greek aisthesthai, to perceive). In particular, we explore sound knowledge - the kind of knowledge that comes through listening. What happens when we listen to Islam? And how does the concept of samaa - spiritual listening - inform the sound worlds of Islam? Examining Sunni and Shi’ite rituals, as well as celebrations, festivals, commemorations and ceremonies, we will read about and experience Islamic forms of expression order to understand the power of aesthetic performance in its local expression and on the global stage.

What is Islamic law? What kinds of sources do we use to access Islamic law, and how has Islamic legal thinking and practice changed historically? This course introduces students to topics in Islamic law while addressing questions of continuity and change in the Islamic legal tradition from medieval to modern times. The first part of the course will introduce aspects of substantive Islamic law, including criminal and penal law, family law, and the law of war, through the eyes of a twelfth-century jurist's legal handbook. The second part will explore the diversity of Islamic law across chronological and geographic space, examining topics from classical jurisprudence to Ottoman constitutionalism, the encounter with colonialism and contemporary Islamic states.

Roughly one third of the Middle East population today is between 15 and 29 years old - a demographic “bulge” which has brought Middle Eastern youths at the forefront of media and government concerns both at the regional and global scale. But from the figure of the young jihadist to that of the Arab spring revolutionary, dominant perceptions of these youths often fall into highly polarized archetypes. Moving the focus away from politics and religion, this course explores the everyday worlds of Middle Eastern youths and the complex interactions - with institutions, peers and family members - which characterize their daily lives. By analyzing multiple youth cultures divided along the lines of gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or social class, students will address the diversity of Middle Eastern youths and question the universality of age categories. A large space will also be devoted to the voices of Middle Eastern youths themselves, from Egyptian literature and Emirati cinema to Moroccan hip-hop. These cultural productions will allow students to look at the way Arab youths use globalized artistic genres to address regional issues and express their fears, hopes and desires.

New York students: this course counts for Art History elective credit.

In the short span of thirty years art of the Arab World moved from the periphery of international art to the center of global visual art production. This course examines the conditions that prompted this change and the theoretical framework that currently situates Arab art within the global discourse on visual art. Focusing on selected artists from key periods of art production, the course will explore the impact of political, social and market forces on the region’s art. Examining art production in relation to state formation, identity, gender politics, representation and reception, globalization, and activism. The course will also explore the recent discourse on Islamic art and its links to modern and contemporary art of the region.

From the beginning of the 8th to the beginning of the 17th century, Islam played a crucial role in the history of the Iberian Peninsula. Today this period is often portrayed as one of inter-religious harmony, while Al-Andalus is simultaneously mourned in contemporary Islamist discourse as a lost paradise. In this course we investigate the rich and complex history of Al-Andalus, focusing on the changing relationships between Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities.

This course examines the history and culture of the Jews in the medieval Islamic world, beginning with the historiographical debate about this contentious subject. The syllabus moves from the early encounter between Islam and the Jews at the time of the Prophet Muhammad, discussing the Qur’an and other foundational texts, to the legal and actual status of the Jews. We will examine how the famous Cairo Geniza documents illuminate Jewish (and Islamic) life, and how changes in the economy affected developments in Jewish law. The course will also examine the organization and functions of the Jewish community and will address the large question of how much autonomy the Jews actually had. We will also read literary sources showing how deeply influenced the Jews were by Arabic culture. Where relevant, comparisons will be drawn with the situation of the Christian minority in the Islamic world and with that of Jews living in Medieval Latin Europe.

How do those who live in the Middle East relate to their past(s), and what discourses do they draw on to represent and authorize it today? How is the past recovered, commemorated, embodied, erased, marketed and consumed in the modern Middle East? This course focuses on various thematics of history, heritage, and memory practices: national commemorations and contested sites and events; embodied and gendered memories; invented traditions and structural nostalgia; the problems of writing oral histories; the politics of archaeology; museums and exhibitions; and the construction (and destruction) of tangible, intangible, and world heritage.

Connecting three continents for four centuries, the Ottoman Empire brought locations as far flung as Yemen, Tunisia and Bosnia into the same cultural, legal and economic space. This course explores the Empire’s legacy in what has come to be known as the Middle East and beyond. After examining themes in Ottoman history starting in the 13th century through to World War I, we will discuss the Empire’s legacy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, revisiting our ideas about nation-states, constructions like the Middle East and the Arab World, and the boundaries between East and West. 

This course examines two simultaneous processes in the Middle East since the mid-20th century: 1) how war has become mediatized, and 2) how media has been militarized. Beginning with the wave of independence and anti-colonial movements in the region, this course will analyze wars and political violence as mediated moments that rely on communicative acts and technologies. Simultaneously, the course will analyze how various media technologies - including radio, film, satellite TV, and internet-are formed through moments of war, conflict, and violence. Through these analyses, students will gain an understanding of the experiences of, conflicts over, and representations of notions such as territory, landscape, body, nation, gender, memory, terror, freedom, and spectacle.

Mysticism is an integral aspect of every religious tradition. In recent years, however, Sufism or Islamic mysticism has often been described as somehow separate from Islam itself. In this course we will investigate the historical origins of Sufism and the nature of the long-standing tension between certain Sufi practices and the Muslim legal establishment. We will also chart the evolution of Sufism from personal spiritual practice and experience to the establishment of mystical brotherhoods in which, depending on time and place, a large portion of Muslim society participated. Finally, we will turn to the continued importance that Sufism has played in the Muslim World (including the Arab Gulf) and the United States during a period in which its practices have come under criticism. Sufi authors examined will include Rumi, al-Hallaj and Ibn al-Arabi.

Founded in the year 750 C.E., the Abbasid caliphate was one of the world’s great empires. At the height of its strength, the Abbasid caliph ruled over a vast region extending from North Africa to Central Asia. This course will examine the historical rise of the Abbasids as a watershed moment in the history of Late Antiquity that would have a profound and lasting impact on the political, religious, intellectual life of Eurasia for the next millennium. Through an engagement with primary texts and secondary studies across a wide variety of Islamicate intellectual disciplines (historical writing, philosophy, law, theology, science, political theory and belles-lettres), students in this class will come to understand some of the complex dynamics that went into the formation of a distinctive Islamic state and society, and what consequences Abbasid rule would have for later generations.

This course introduces the study of music as culture, variously called the anthropology of music or ethnomusicology. The first part of the course will look broadly at the anthropological study of music and musicological study of humanity, delving into scholarly writings from the early twentieth century to the present. Students will examine how music has been conceptualized as a human endeavor, and how anthropological thinking on music has shaped scholarly and public conversations on culture, race, and ethnicity. The second part of the course will focus on the key anthropological method of ethnography, the recording and analysis of human practice, and its use in music studies. Students will read three full-length ethnographic books on musical topics to examine the utility of ethnographic research methods in music studies and explore the insights and dilemmas these methods present. Students will also try their own hands at ethnographic research and writing on music.

Arab music culture, understood as an assemblage of ideas, practices, instruments, and traditions of sounding and listening, flourishes across the Arab world and in other places where Arabs have settled. This course provides a thorough overview of Arab music culture in the contemporary world, by investigating a number of its iterations within and beyond the Middle East and North Africa. Course materials, including sound recordings and films as well as written works, utilize music as a prism to view other aspects of society, such as religion, nationalism, and diaspora. By engaging critically with these materials, students cultivate ways of speaking and writing about music and culture in Arab and other contexts. The course thus prepares students for further work in ethnomusicology, the study of music as culture. 

Arab Music Cultures - Sample Syllabus.

This interdisciplinary course meets at the intersections of applied ethnomusicology, performance studies, and heritage studies and contemporary Khaleeji Musical heritage with a focus on Kuwaiti Pearl Diving music between roughly 1900 and the present. With influences spanning from Zanzibar to Bombay to Kuwait and the coastal civilizations in between, this hybrid and cosmopolitan music was born of trade and cultural exchange. As a music of the Indian Ocean civilizations trade, it is also extra-Khaleeji and extra-Arabic. It changed with each pearling and trading season as sailors and divers played music with the locals as they waited for monsoon winds to change direction before sailing home, eager to share the new sounds and instruments upon their return. What happens to this tradition as it is appropriated into the realm of heritage performance as static national-capital? How does this music exist today as a dialogic and fluid expression of the pre-national past? How does cosmopolitanism play with national discourse? The class will also create a virtual Modern Khaleeji ensemble where we will collectively and virtually perform music.

New York Steinhardt Music Students: this course counts for elective credit.

This seminar is an introduction to music studies, which investigates music as both a text and social practice across a broad range of historical and cultural contexts. Beginning with music in the myths and ancient histories of Sumeria, India, Egypt, and Greece, the seminar concludes with an examination of musical practices within global and transnational networks of power, where new technologies of mediation are radically re-orchestrating our experience of music and the world. Introducing students to key theories, methodologies, and debates within music scholarship, the course provides a critical examination of the increasingly interrelated disciplines of musicology and ethnomusicology with a focus on issues of gender, sexuality, race, religion, politics, and media. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of music studies, the course engages with anthropology, phenomenology, ethics, aesthetics, literary studies, hermeneutics, semiotics, cultural studies, and historiography in order to raise fundamental questions about the study of music in the global context of today.

Music: Histories and Cultures - Sample Syllabus.

Why have humans, across time and cultures, turned to music to imagine the vastness of the cosmos? From Native American creation myths, recited in song, to Gustav Holst’s Planets Suite; from the “golden record” of Bach’s 2nd Brandenburg concerto, placed in NASA’s Voyager probe, to the space-race novelty hit “Sputnik (Satellite Girl),” music creates other worlds as a way to understand our own. How did space exploration, mediated by recordings and radio and television broadcasts, affect artists’ thinking about individual identity, our place in the world, communication, alienation, and life beyond earth?

The course orbits three seminal figures, each of whom conversed with, claimed to originate from, or channelled the music of, another planet: Sun-Ra (1914-1993), Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007), and David Bowie (1947-2016) in his Ziggy Stardust role. Exploring a diverse range of musical genres, including the rich interplay of Afro-Futurism, Glam Rock and the Avant-Garde, and artists’ self-fashioned alter-egos, the class also considers the rise of electronic musics; class, gender, and race in space-age aesthetics; and the sounds of cold war paranoia’s sci-fi soundscapes.

This applied-ethnomusicological course takes an interdisciplinary approach in addressing the migratory influences that spurred both diverse and overlapping musical traditions and instruments within the contexts of the Western Indian world. The geographic trajectory of this course follows the two most common trade routes in the Western Indian Ocean where the first starts in Basra during winter monsoon season (between November and February) and travels south to the Northeast African coast. While the second starts during the summer monsoon season (between April and September in Mombasa) in Mombasa and travels due east toward to the cities of Quilon and Calicut; before heading north along the Malabar coast and on to Persia on route back to Basra. 1. How has a system of debt and trade impacted the diverse and cosmopolitan music of the Western Indian Ocean? 2. Where can we find residual connectivity within musical aesthetic characteristics within contemporary diasporic communities? 3. What is the geopolitical legacy of the impact of hundreds of years of trade on the popular musics of the region?

This course introduces the study of music as culture, variously called the anthropology of music or ethnomusicology. The first part of the course will look broadly at the anthropological study of music and musicological study of humanity, delving into scholarly writings from the early twentieth century to the present. Students will examine how music has been conceptualized as a human endeavor, and how anthropological thinking on music has shaped scholarly and public conversations on culture, race, and ethnicity. The second part of the course will focus on the key anthropological method of ethnography, the recording and analysis of human practice, and its use in music studies. Students will read three full-length ethnographic books on musical topics to examine the utility of ethnographic research methods in music studies and explore the insights and dilemmas these methods present. Students will also try their own hands at ethnographic research and writing on music. Engaging with additional readings beyond that of MUSIC-UH 1005, this seminar provides students with a framework for the development of their own research within the field of music studies.

Description will be added soon

How can music provide a framework for understanding conflict, as well as protest and peace movements, across a wide range of historical and cultural contexts from the twentieth century to the present? This seminar examines the role that diverse musical traditions and practices play in shaping the complex sociological rituals of war. Whether hearing John Lennon’s song “Give Peace a Chance” as the anthem of the peace and protest movement against the Vietnam War during the 1960s or engaging with music as a basis for cultural and heritage preservation in post-conflict contexts, this seminar draws on scholarship from musicology, ethnomusicology, sound studies, and sociology, among other fields, to explore music as a contested practice during times of conflict.

How does the encounter with mortality both define human experience and serve as an impetus for aesthetic response? Can musical texts memorialize and immortalize the dying and the dead? From its inception, Western opera has registered changing cultural attitudes towards death. Exploring the myths, legends, and ancient histories that shaped the stories and plots of early operas, the seminar also engages with histories and philosophies of modernity to examine works shaped by the cataclysmic events of the 20th century. Radical changes in the historical conditions of death have resonated far beyond the battlefield, shaping fundamental questions about the meaning of the self, time, and history. How has opera registered these changes and participated in these shifts? Can musical work like an opera provide a map for examining uncharted places beyond the thresholds of human experience? Can opera’s music, language and images address the historical challenges of representing death on stage? Drawing on scholarship from diverse fields, the seminar examines operatic works from the 17th century to the present with a special focus on the arias and songs of this genre’s dying protagonists.

This course focuses on the art and practice of singing. Through a framework of practical approaches (individual instruction and ensemble practice labs), and weekly lectures, students will explore the practical and theoretical evolution of vocal repertoire and performance in relation to their own vocal development. This will lead to the application of a critically informed understanding of the development of vocal music to their own performances, reflecting stylistic changes, both temporal and global.

Description will be added soon

This course examines the interplay of music, technology, and law in capitalist societies. Developments in intellectual property law—particularly in the area of intellectual property law known as copyright—have profoundly shaped how music is created, experienced, and conceptualized. At the same time, technology-driven changes in music production and consumption have profoundly shaped intellectual property law. This course critically examines this dialectical relationship between music and law and its ramifications for both, by drawing together perspectives from music studies, legal studies, and a range of other disciplines. In addition to the central concerns of musical authorship, creativity, and piracy, topics include music copyright and institutionalized racism; the legal facets of musical heritage and repatriation; and copyright in music economies of the Global South.

This course exposes students to the art of music production, engineering and recording, as well as fundamentals of audio theory and engineering, audio production technique in both the studio environment and location specific recording, playback, post-production applications, and musical acoustics. Students will learn to multitrack record, overdub, edit, and mix music using Pro Tools HD. This is a very "hands-on" and practical course. Students build on concepts learned in the Music Technology Fundamentals course, from working in a digital environment to an analog based recording studio (NYUAD Studio A). They learn how to master the SSL mixing board as well patchbay routing, signal flow, recording ticks, microphones techniques/ placements, and how to work with different outboard processors with their music production (1176 compressor, LA2A, Manley VariMu Stereo compressor, API, maselec mla-2 mastering equalizer and more) to enhance their sound. Students gain analytical and professional skills needed for a variety of music production-focused careers including music producer, recording engineer, mix engineer, mastering engineer, live sound engineer, sound technician, and more. 

Recording and Producing Techniques - Sample Syllabus.

Digital audio is the basis for practically every sound recording in the 21st century. Following the rapid development of integrated circuits, the transition to computers and digital equipment has changed the history of music production. This course introduces concepts that underlie audio engineering, music production, and sound recording of any kind within the digital domain. During this course, students will acquire an in-depth, theoretical and practical knowledge of Digital Audio Workstations using the industry standard Pro Tools software through two weekly, lab-based lessons.

This intensive course is designed to develop skills in sound synthesis techniques and procedural music, with a focus on their specific application in composition, sound design, New Instruments of Musical Expression (NIME), and games. The course will consist of extensive exploration of analog modular synthesis, Max, and SuperCollider, in recreating algorithms used by synthesis and computer music pioneers (Xenakis, Chowning, Risset) as well as new talents in electronic music such as Agostino Di Scipio, Alessandro Cortini or Richard Devine. Previous knowledge of working with Max and/or SuperCollider is required for this course or students may have to take a complementary lab in order to be able to follow the class.

Further exploration of melody, harmony, and counterpoint in tonal and modal musics through projects in directed composition and analysis, transitioning into 20th-century and contemporary musical developments. Topics include small-and large-scale musical forms, modulation, mixture, chromaticism, and an array of modernist and post-modernist compositional practices. 

Music Theory & Analysis II - Sample Syllabus.

The Introduction to Musical Programming sequence will introduce students to programming for the development of applications of generative music and audio, ranging from standalone musical compositions to fun and engaging musical games or intelligent musical instruments. These applications will be developed in Max, a widely used and very popular graphical programming environment for electronic music and interactive media. The course is articulated in two sections of 2 credits each (Introduction to Musical Programming I and II), each taught over seven weeks. Although these sections may be taken independently, they are thought as a series. This section will introduce the students to the Max programming environment. Introduction to Musical Programming II will introduce the students to generative music and Max for Live programming. By the end of this section students will have become familiar with the Max programming environment and its potential for developing interactive media applications.

The Introduction to Musical Programming sequence will introduce students to programming for the development of applications of generative music and audio, ranging from standalone musical compositions to fun and engaging musical games or intelligent musical instruments. These applications will be developed in Max, a widely used and very popular graphical programming environment for electronic music and interactive media. The course is articulated in two sections of 2 credits each (Introduction to Musical Programming I and II), each taught over seven weeks. Although these sections may be taken independently, they are thought as a series. This section will introduce the students to the Max programming environment. Introduction to Musical Programming II will introduce the students to generative music and Max for Live programming. By the end of this section students will have become familiar with the Max programming environment and its potential for developing interactive media applications.

This course exposes students to the art of music production, engineering and recording, as well as fundamentals of audio theory and engineering, audio production technique in both the studio environment and location specific recording, playback, post-production applications, and musical acoustics. Students will learn to multitrack record, overdub, edit, and mix music using Pro Tools HD. This is a very "hands-on" and practical course. Students build on concepts learned in the Music Technology Fundamentals course, from working in a digital environment to an analog based recording studio (NYUAD Studio A). They learn how to master the SSL mixing board as well patchbay routing, signal flow, recording ticks, microphones techniques/ placements, and how to work with different outboard processors with their music production (1176 compressor, LA2A, Manley VariMu Stereo compressor, API, maselec mla-2 mastering equalizer and more) to enhance their sound. Students gain analytical and professional skills needed for a variety of music production-focused careers including music producer, recording engineer, mix engineer, mastering engineer, live sound engineer, sound technician, and more. 

Recording and Producing Techniques - Sample Syllabus.

Beginning Group Music Instruction - Clarinet is designed to introduce students to a new musical instrument. The course focuses on establishing basic technical competencies, along with musical literacy skills, which will serve as the basis for developing performance skill and increasing musical mastery.

Beginning Group Music Instruction - Flute is designed to introduce students to a new musical instrument. The course focuses on establishing basic technical competencies, along with musical literacy skills, which will serve as the basis for developing performance skill and increasing musical mastery.

Beginning Group Music Instruction - Oud is designed to introduce students to a new musical instrument. The course focuses on establishing basic technical competencies, along with aural skills, which will serve as the basis for developing performance skill and increasing musical mastery.

Beginning Group Music Instruction - Saxophone is designed to introduce students to a new musical instrument. The course focuses on establishing basic technical competencies, along with musical literacy skills, which will serve as the basis for developing performance skill and increasing musical mastery.

A diverse array of ensembles is offered each semester. Participants develop skills in active musicianship: performance, listening, communication, and collaboration. Ensembles are offered at beginner, intermediate, and advanced performance levels. Ensemble formations include, for example, NYUAD Vocal Ensemble, A Capella group, or chamber music ensembles. Please contact the instructor or Head of the Music Program for details.

Individual Instruction in Music is designed for students willing to develop their skills in one or more musical instruments, vocal performance, or wanting to learn compositional techniques and strategies to help them create musical work under supervision.

This section of Group Instruction is designed for students who already have a basic level of competency with the instrument. The focus of this course is to build upon established musical skills, while working toward mastering more challenging musical repertoire.

This practical course endeavors to expose students to the various processes and tools by which music is creatively conceived and brought to public life. Students gain the necessary footing to develop/envision themselves as music practitioners/makers in a changing global landscape, as we endeavor to focus on cosmopolitan music practices that draw on the uniqueness of the United Arab Emirates as a global site. Students work in creative music projects involving original writing/composition, recording, and performance. The course additionally has a historical scope in which students consider how these practices have been addressed at different key moments in history and differed according to national and regional contexts. 

Making Music - Smaple Syllabus.

New York Steinhardt Music Students: this course counts for elective credit.

This seminar is an introduction to music studies, which investigates music as both a text and social practice across a broad range of historical and cultural contexts. Beginning with music in the myths and ancient histories of Sumeria, India, Egypt, and Greece, the seminar concludes with an examination of musical practices within global and transnational networks of power, where new technologies of mediation are radically re-orchestrating our experience of music and the world. Introducing students to key theories, methodologies, and debates within music scholarship, the course provides a critical examination of the increasingly interrelated disciplines of musicology and ethnomusicology with a focus on issues of gender, sexuality, race, religion, politics, and media. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of music studies, the course engages with anthropology, phenomenology, ethics, aesthetics, literary studies, hermeneutics, semiotics, cultural studies, and historiography in order to raise fundamental questions about the study of music in the global context of today.

Music: Histories and Cultures - Sample Syllabus.

Beginning Group Music Instruction - designed to introduce students to an instrument. The course focuses on establishing a basic foundation at the instrument that will become the basis for developing a comfortable posture and beautiful tone.  Instruments include cello, clarinet, flute, oud, piano, saxophone, trumpet, and arabic percussion.

Beginning Group Music Instruction - Sample Syllabus.

This course introduces students to readings and lectures on current topics in the fields of music studies and musicology with a focus on historiography, which is the study of the way history has been written. Within this broad framework, the course will engage with the study of music and its history under a number of different guises, including the historical study of music, addressing both research methodologies as well as the historical narratives used to tell the different “stories” about music history. While the course is organized thematically providing an examination of music at its intersection with issues related to gender and sexuality, social justice and conflict, race, popular music, as well as media and technology it is structured historically, providing a forum for an examination of music and musical practices across a wide range of historical and cultural situations from ancient times to the present. This course introduces additional readings, providing students with a framework for the development of their own research within the field of music studies as a basis for field work and independent research.

This course examines the historical foundations, sociocultural contexts, and formal characteristics of twentieth- and twenty-first-century African popular music, covering a range of genres from across the continent. Drawing on a rich corpus of scholarly and popular works by anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, historians, filmmakers, and journalists, it explores African popular music genres as cultural phenomena that are complexly woven into the social fabrics of urban African locales. A major theme is the intersection of popular culture and politics on the continent. By listening to and reading about popular music, students will gain a thorough understanding of the production and mobilization of publics, and the dynamics of nationalism in modern African societies.

This course combines theory with intensive listening to examine popular songs in the Arabic-speaking world from the 1950’s to the present. Students will develop familiarity with a wide range of Arab singers and their work by way of audiovisual playlists, scholarly and journalistic writing, and social media commentary. The course will introduce basic theoretical issues in popular music studies to provide students with tools for engaging in analysis and writing. We will begin with an exploration of cross-linguistic classification of musical genres and ideologies of the popular and continue to study the ways in which music is linked to political, cultural, religious, and economic forces. The primary forms of assessment are weekly listening quizzes, periodic entries in a shared class blog, and a mid-term and final paper.students with tools for engaging in analysis and writing. We will begin with an exploration of cross-linguistic classification of musical genres and ideologies of the popular and continue to study the ways in which music is linked to political, cultural, religious, and economic forces. The primary forms of assessment are weekly listening quizzes, periodic entries in a shared class blog, and a mid-term and final paper.

Sound lends depth and expands space to the two-dimensional image on screen, while locating us within the scene. A crucial difference between visual and aural manipulation of the audience is that even sophisticated audiences rarely notice the soundtrack. Sounds can speak to us emotionally, and subconsciously put us in touch with a character. This course focuses on the importance of audio as a narrative medium in film. Students study how audio creation, manipulation, restoration, and mixing can go beyond the simple techniques of sound design to profoundly alter the cinematic experience. Students learn the complicated practice of making sound for multichannel in surround, down mix, and audio restoration using Izotpe RX, all as applied to international loudness standards and deliverables. Working with Pro Tools as a creative medium, students practice non-linear content, editing to Timecode SMPTE, working in conjunction with the AVID S6 mixing board. Creativity and technology work in tandem in this class to create the emotional sound narrative for Film. The aim for this course is to give students numerous opportunities to apply creative techniques learnt in class to make films, from capstone projects to films nominated for international film festivals.

This course surveys the political science and economics literature on social conflict and peacebuilding. The class will focus on major themes and issues such as the determinants of peaceful cooperation and sustainable peace; the root causes of armed conflict; the determinants of ethnic conflict; the political economy of civil wars; the variables affecting the duration and termination of wars; the phenomenon of different forms of political violence-including protests, riots, military coups, political assassinations, and terrorism; and the politics and economics of peacebuilding. The course is highly interdisciplinary and will cover a wide variety of cases from a comparative perspective.

Is there a point or significance to life as a whole? That is the question about the “meaning of life.” Though this question is notoriously hard to make precise, in one form or another it has animated much literature and art, and also much philosophy. Some philosophers have provided disheartening answers: life is suffering, and then it ends; life is absurd and never gains any meaning. But other philosophers have provided more uplifting answers that support the quest for personal significance. Bot h kinds of answers deserve scrutiny. After reviewing various pessimistic and more optimistic approaches to the meaning of life, we will turn to the subject of death. We will all die eventually. We normally encounter the death of our family and friend s before we must deal with our own. These themes too are the subject of philosophical reflection. We finish the semester with a discussion of the connection between individual significance and the future of humanity. This class will integrate references to art and literature as well as to science where appropriate, but its main focus is on contributions by recent thinkers in the analytical tradition of philosophy.

An exploration of the thought of major philosophers from the Indian subcontinent, beginning with the ancients in the fifth century BCE and concluding with thinkers on the eve of colonialism in the eighteenth century CE. Indian philosophy has been and continues to be a major world philosophy. The reach of its ideas has been vast, both historically and geographically, spanning the philosophies of Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, and Hinduism, as well as the philosophy of law, of medicine, of mathematics, and of politics and society. It is most strongly associated with wide-ranging discussions in the philosophy of mind, the study of language, epistemology, and metaphysics. The aim of the course is to present a balanced and impartial picture of the richness, diversity, and depth of philosophy in this region.

This course will examine the roles of space, time, and motion in physical theorizing, and various metaphysical and epistemological puzzles associated with those concepts. Among the questions we'll investigate are: Do space and time (or spacetime) exist in the same sense as material objects? Do material objects really have instantaneous velocities? How might we come to know facts about the geometry of physical space? Does time 'pass' or 'flow' in a particular direction, such that only the present moment is real? Is time travel possible, conceptually and physically? Indeed, how do the considerations relevant to addressing the preceding questions change (if at all) as we move from classical physics to the modern spacetime frameworks of special and general relativity? No background in physics is presupposed, but you should be prepared to engage with the scientific material introduced in class. This course fulfills the theoretical elective distribution within the Philosophy major.

This course is an examination of the origins of Western philosophical thought in ancient Greece and Rome, with a special focus on the views of Plato and Aristotle. Through their work, students will grapple with a range of pressing philosophical questions, including: Is happiness more than a subjective state of consciousness? Is death harmful? Do we have free will? Do we have obligations to others that override the pursuit of our own self-interest? What is the relation between the mind (or the soul) and the body? Since most of the philosophers that will be studied thought that philosophy must be systematic, we will also try to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of this kind of approach to philosophical questions.

This course is an advanced investigation of various aspects of symbolic logic and reasoning, with an emphasis on subjects of philosophical relevance. Specific topics vary by semester, but are generally drawn from the following: modal logic (the study of reasoning about necessity, possibility, counterfactuals, and tense); metalogic (the study of provability, completeness, and other higher-order properties of logical systems); nonclassical logic (the study of three-valued logical systems, free logics, and the logic of relevance); and mathematical logic (the study of logical systems intended to model arithmetic reasoning).

Description will be added soon

Epistemology is the study of knowledge and rational belief. In this course we will examine various central epistemological questions, including: What is knowledge, and how does it differ from belief? Can we ever know that the world actually is the way it appears to us, or must we concede to the skeptic that we do not really know anything? Does knowledge always have to be based on secure foundations? If you know something, will you always know that you know it? Will you always be able to prove that you know it? What sort of attitude is belief, and what sort of control do we have over what we believe? What is evidence, and what is the connection between knowledge and evidence? Do we have any good reasons to believe some things rather than others? Is it ever rational to believe in the absence of evidence? What should we do when our epistemic peers disagree with us?

"Socrates was poisoned." With those vocal sounds or marks on a page, I can make a claim about someone who lived in the distant past. How is that possible? How do our words manage to pick out or latch onto particular portions of reality, even ones with which we've never had any contact? How does language enable us to convey thoughts about everything from Abu Dhabi, to the hopes of a friend, to the stars beyond our galaxy? For that matter, what are the thoughts, or the meanings, that our words carry or communicate? We will explore these and other philosophical questions about language through a reading of seminal works by twentieth-century thinkers.

This course examines a variety of issues in the metaphysics and epistemology of mathematics. Mathematics poses interesting questions for philosophers. Mathematical statements appear to state objective truths, but it is difficult to see what the grounds of that truth are. Does mathematics somehow depend on us and our practices? Is it grounded in logic? Does it instead depend on the arrangement of some pre-existing objects, "the numbers"? These numbers appear not to be located in space-time. If they are not, how do we come to know about them? What explains the tremendous success of mathematics in providing useful applications in other disciplines? What does it take for something to count as a mathematical "proof"? We consider some surprising mathematical results, including Godel's incompleteness theorems, multiple sizes of infinity, and the status of the continuum hypothesis, and examine their philosophical significance. This is a course in the philosophy, not the practice, of mathematic s. No specific mathematical knowledge or skills will be assumed. Students will, however, be asked to cope with sometimes difficult and abstract mathematical concepts.

Torture, abortion, taxes, physician-assisted suicide, terrorism. People disagree fiercely about the morality of these and countless other human concerns. What moral theories and concepts shape these debates? Can we use these debates to refine or evaluate those theories and concepts? Is it possible to find common ground in shared ethical principles that will allow us to engage in rational debates rather than in disrespectful shouting matches (or worse)? These topics will be the guiding questions in this course as we investigate several contemporary moral controversies.

Description will be added soon

An advanced seminar that involves the careful study of some particular theory, philosopher, or set of issues in contemporary theoretical philosophy. Examples: realism and antirealism, David Lewis, theories of truth, formal epistemology, philosophy of logic, consciousness.

Description for Spring 2021: Personal Identity - Most of us have a special and intense interest in what will happen to us. If you learn that someone will be run over by a truck tomorrow, you feel pity for them. If you are then told that the someone is you, a whole new set of emotions arises. An analysis of this additional bit of information--that the person who will be run over is you - is what is offered by a theory of personal identity, for to say it is you that will be hit is just to say that you and the person who will be hit are one and the same. Philosophical theories of personal identity aim to give an account of what it is for a person at one time to be the same person as a person at another time. In this course, we will be studying various classical and contemporary theories of personal identity. We will consider philosophers from the Western tradition such as Descartes, Locke, Hume, Derek Parfit, and Bernard Williams, as well as philosophers from the phenomenological, Indian, Buddhist, and contemporary Christian traditions. We will consider ordinary cases of personal identity, as well as somewhat nonstandard ones, like survival in Heaven, Hell, or some other sort of life after death, survival after a brain transplant, or survival as a computer into which one's mind was uploaded before (what seemed to be) death.

Quantum mechanics (QM) continues to fascinate physicists and non-physicists alike in virtue of its strikingly unorthodox characterization of the world. Some of the counter-intuitive features we've learned to accept, whereas others continue to generate controversy. This course begins by introducing students to the basic structure of QM, its experimental basis, and some of the bizarre (if well-established) features of the quantum world. We then examine two conceptual problems in the theory’s foundations the measurement problem and the problem of local beables that threaten to render the entire theoretical edifice incoherent, and survey proposed ways to address those problems. Among the interpretations of quantum mechanics, we'll investigate are spontaneous collapse theories, pilot wave theories, and many-worlds theories, each of which aims to solve existing issues but often at the expense of raising new ones. This is not a 'popular science' course: we’ll be reading physicists and philosophers who engage substantively with the foundational questions. However, there are no prerequisites, and none of the texts we use presuppose any familiarity with either QM or philosophy.

Description will be added soon

Do we have free will? Can we think of ourselves as responsible agents while also regarding ourselves as part of the natural order? Some philosophers have argued that if our actions are causally determined, then freedom of the will is impossible. Others have argued that freedom does not depend on the truth or falsity of causal determinism. Is free will possible in a world where every event is causally determined? Are there different kinds of freedom? If so, are all kinds of freedom equally worth having? Must we act freely in order to be responsible for our actions? Do the social institutions of reward and punishment depend for their justification upon the existence of responsible, free agents? Students will discuss the nature of persons, action, freedom, and responsibility in an effort to answer these questions.

This course aims to provide you with a set of analytical tools distinctive of philosophy that will help you to think systematically and critically about issues of legal relevance. We will begin by exploring foundational issues concerning the nature of the law and its authority over us. We will then examine whether and how particular patterns of assigning legal responsibility and imposing legal punishment are justified, with an emphasis on the criminal law.

It is often thought that knowledge is inherently valuable and that “truth” is an objective notion independent of social considerations. This course examines various reasons we might have for holding these views and various challenges that have been raised against them. Why should we care about knowledge as long as our beliefs prove useful and efficacious? Is truth and thus knowledge more accurately understood as a culturally relative notion, so that what’s true for you might not be true for me?

New York Students: this course is equivalent to PHIL-UA 1 Central Problems in Philosophy.

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to PHIL-SHU 150 Central Problems in Philosophy.

An introduction to the discipline of philosophy by way of several central philosophical problems. Topics may include free will, the nature of the self, skepticism and the possibility of knowledge, the ethics of punishment, the existence of God, the requirements of justice, the relation between our minds and our bodies, the nature of moral principles, and various logical paradoxes.

Central Problems in Philosophy - Sample Syllabus.

Science is often taken to be a distinctly rational form of empirical inquiry. This course examines various questions concerning the nature and practice of science that arise from this widespread attitude. For example, scientific theories are often thought to be subject to empirical scrutiny in ways that other theories are not. To what extent is this belief well-founded? Is it rational to believe that our best scientific theories are even approximately true? What justifies the claim that different types of evidence lend varying degrees of support to a particular theory, or that a single piece of evidence supports one theory more than another? Similarly, it is often claimed that scientific theories provide us with "real" explanations of physical phenomena, whereas other theories aren’t "genuinely explanatory." To what extent is this true? What exactly is a scientific explanation, and how is it different (if at all) from a mere prediction or mathematical derivation? Can false theories provide good explanations? Some familiarity with science would be helpful but is not required.

This course is a survey of European philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one of the most important and exciting times in the history of philosophy. We will be focusing on six philosophers who lived and worked in this period: René Descartes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. Through their writings, we will trace and study philosophical arguments and debates concerning the possibility and extent of our knowledge of the external world, the nature of the self, the nature of substance and causation, the existence of God, and the relation between our minds and our bodies.

An advanced seminar that involves the careful study of some particular theory, philosopher, or set of issues in contemporary theoretical philosophy. Examples: realism and antirealism, David Lewis, theories of truth, formal epistemology, philosophy of logic, consciousness.

Description for Spring 2021: Personal Identity - Most of us have a special and intense interest in what will happen to us. If you learn that someone will be run over by a truck tomorrow, you feel pity for them. If you are then told that the someone is you, a whole new set of emotions arises. An analysis of this additional bit of information--that the person who will be run over is you - is what is offered by a theory of personal identity, for to say it is you that will be hit is just to say that you and the person who will be hit are one and the same. Philosophical theories of personal identity aim to give an account of what it is for a person at one time to be the same person as a person at another time. In this course, we will be studying various classical and contemporary theories of personal identity. We will consider philosophers from the Western tradition such as Descartes, Locke, Hume, Derek Parfit, and Bernard Williams, as well as philosophers from the phenomenological, Indian, Buddhist, and contemporary Christian traditions. We will consider ordinary cases of personal identity, as well as somewhat nonstandard ones, like survival in Heaven, Hell, or some other sort of life after death, survival after a brain transplant, or survival as a computer into which one's mind was uploaded before (what seemed to be) death.

Many laws of physics are formulated as differential equations or partial differential equations, e.g. the propagation of sound waves, the diffusion of a gas, and the flow of a fluid. These equations are usually nonlinear and the study of their dynamical properties (long time behavior, changes of properties of solutions, …) turns out to be very difficult. The goal of this course is to study some simple aspects of dynamical systems and chaos. Applications to physics, chemistry, biology, and population dynamics are given. In particular, the course will involve the study of many examples coming from physics, biology and engineering. The examples studied will depend on the interests of the students and their majors.

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to MATH-SHU 282 Functions of Complex Variables.

Complex analysis, also known as the theory of functions of a complex variable, is the branch of mathematical analysis devoted to complex valued functions of complex variable. It is further used in other branches of mathematics, including algebraic geometry and number theory, and also has diverse applications in science and engineering: fluid dynamics, elasticity, nuclear and electrical engineering, to name just a few examples. The geometrical content of analysis in the complex plane is especially appealing. Topics covered include: complex numbers and complex functions; differentiation and the Cauchy-Riemann equations, Cauchy’s theorem, and the Cauchy integral formula; singularities, residues, Taylor and Laurent series; fractional linear transformations and conformal mappings.

Functions of Complex Variables - Sample Syllabus.

This course is intended to give students a deeper understanding of electricity and magnetism at the introductory level. It provides a necessary bridge between Foundations of Science 3–4 and the intermediate level course Electricity and Magnetism. The topics include derivations of divergence, gradient and curl, Stokes' Theorem, the Vector Potential, and origin of magnetic fields. The connection between electricity, magnetism, and special relativity is also explained, including time dilation, length contraction and other bizarre phenomena that occur when charges and other matter travel at velocities close to that of light.

Electromagnetism and Special Relativity - Sample Syllabus.

This course covers electromagnetism at the introductory and intermediate level. Electromagnetism is one of the fundamental forces underlying almost any kind of device that we use on a daily basis. Understanding electromagnetism is an indispensable element of a engineer’s knowledge. The course starts from the definition of electric charge and Coulomb force and then continues with the derivation of Maxwell’s equations and their applications to physical problems. The last part is dedicated to EM waves and their properties.

In this course, the quantum mechanical framework, introduced in Quantum Mechanics (PHYS-AD 302), is taken to a more advanced level. This course is indispensable to understand the origin of a wide range of atomic and elementary particle phenomena and to learn fundamental techniques used throughout physics. Students will explore time-independent and dependent perturbation theory, the variational principle, the WKB approximation, the adiabatic approximation, scattering processes. Applications of these formalisms to problems in atomic physics, nuclear physics, or astrophysics will also be explored.

Quantum Mechanics II - Sample Syllabus.

This is a new course that will be offered in Spring 2022 for the first time. More details to follow.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for the Advanced Physics Lab requirement for the Physics major.

In this course the students assemble and perform key experiments of modern physics. Physics is an experimental science, and this course gives a unique opportunity to experience hands-on some of the phenomena that students have covered in lectures. Activities cover quantum mechanics, particle physics, optics, and atomic and nuclear physics. 

Advanced Physics Laboratory - Sample Syllabus.

General Relativity is currently the leading description for gravity. This topic is important for determining the evolution and fate of the universe, to the motion of small objects in the Solar System and the Earth, and is perhaps the best tested theory in all of physics. This course will involve learning the basic mathematical framework of general relativity (including differential geometry and field equations), as well as applications to various topics in astronomy and astrophysics.

This course focuses on fields of current research interest where numerical techniques provide unique physical insight. In fact, modern physics needs computers to solve problems and simulate systems. Topics are chosen from various branches of physics and engineering, including numerical solution of ordinary and partial differential equations, eigenvalue problems, Monte Carlo methods in statistical mechanics, dynamical systems, fluid dynamics, radiative transfer, and chaos.

Computational Physics - Sample Syllabus.

Astronomy is about the observation and study of what exists beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. Until the 20th century, that meant only the use optical telescopes, but starting with the discovery of cosmic radio waves in 1931, the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum has begun to be available to astronomers. This course is indispensable to students that want to pursue a career in astronomy or astrophysics or simply want to know more about objects and processes taking places outside our planet. The course covers all the different wavelengths now open to astronomy: radio, microwave, infrared, optical, X-ray, and gamma-ray, and their respective detection technologies and analysis methods. Emission mechanisms, sources, and primary science questions relevant to each observing band will also be addressed.

Multi-wavelength Astronomy - Sample Syllabus.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for the Computer Engineering major or the Mechanics requirement for the Physics major.

This course concerns the analysis of the motion of physical systems subject to forces in the classical (Newtonian) framework. Classical mechanics is required to understand the physical behavior of our world and is the basis to approach quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics and particle physics. This course also provides an excellent arena within which students learn problem solving techniques. The course starts from a review of Newton’s laws and moves to the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of mechanics. Topics in the course include central forces, the dynamics of rigid bodies, oscillations.

Mechanics - Sample Syllabus.

This course focuses on modern instrumentation for the UV, optical and infrared imaging and spectroscopy. We will cover the principles of operation of CCD and CMOS detectors, diffraction grating spectrographs, including their design and applications. Students will gain hands-on experience in data acquisition, processing, calibration and analysis. A comprehensive understanding of advanced imaging and spectroscopic technologies would allow students to contribute to research projects in a great variety of scientific or engineering fields. For the Physics students with specialization in Astronomy, this course will cover topics specific to modern space-based and ground-based telescopes. The lab exercises will include examples of imaging and spectroscopy applications in astronomy with emphasis on low signal to noise data. However, the course material is broader in scope and the data acquisition, reduction and analysis skills the students will gain are transferable skills for imaging and spectroscopy in general.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for the Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics requirement for the Physics major.

This course is about the behavior of macroscopic systems composed of many particles. Phenomena like the behavior of polyatomic gases, magnetism, thermal radiation, phase changes and many others can be understood through statistical mechanics. Topics include the relation of entropy to probability and energy to temperature, the laws of thermodynamics, Maxwell-Boltzmann, Bose-Einstein, and Fermi-Dirac statistics, equations of state for simple gases, and chemical and magnetic systems, and elementary theory of phase transitions.

Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics - Sample Syllabus.

New York Students: this course counts for credit in the Analytical Politics field.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Social Science (foundational) credit.

This course provides an introduction to some of the primary questions in the study of politics and the theories used by political scientists to understand the world. Among other questions, students will consider why we live in nation states, why peaceful solutions can be so elusive, and why the will of majority often goes unrealized. The course focuses on individual decision makers in the world of politics (citizens, voters, legislators) and explores how they are linked together and how their decisions shape political outcomes. The course also explores how political institutions, such as electoral rules or the design of legislatures, can structure the interactions of these actors. The course relies on cases and examples and incorporates readings from classical and contemporary sources to illustrate how these theories of political behavior and institutions can shed light on current political events.

Introduction to Political Thinking - Sample Syllabus.

This course will provide students with the “foundations” to undertake research in social science. You will learn how to identify an interesting research question. You will be introduced to different approaches that social scientists take to answer these questions. And because many of the questions we are interested in are causal (What leads to Y? What is the impact of X?), you will learn about different strategies to get at causality. We will also discuss other key issues related to good research like transparency and ethics. This class is hands on. During the course you will create your own research design. Furthermore, we will make use of examples to critically evaluate existing research. This class is highly recommended to students who plan to write a capstone or a research paper.

Social scientists and policy analysts rely heavily on research drawing on observational data. Students learn to manage and analyze such data and to deploy statistical techniques that are common in these applications, with an emphasis on how to translate social science theory into empirical research. Topics include review of basic regression analysis, building multivariate analytical models, and regression analysis with limited dependent variables. The course emphasizes practical training in these skills as well as evaluation, replication, and critical analysis of research conducted in the social science literature. 

New York Students: this course is equivalent to POL-UA 500 Comparative Politics.

This course introduces students to the study of comparative politics and the study of domestic political institutions around the world. The course emphasizes the use of theory and evidence to generate and test hypotheses about both the causes and the consequences of the observed variation in domestic political institutions. For example, the course investigates the factors that lead some countries to democratize, and others to institute authoritarian governments, as well as the consequences of those institutional choices for policy outcomes. The course also looks at the variations in institutional arrangements within both democratic and non-democratic governments.

Introduction to Comparative Politics - Sample Syllabus.

Shanghai Students: this course counts as Humanities (survey) credit.

History offers a unique perspective on the process of globalization, by virtue of its insistence that human experience be understood in its spatial and temporal contexts. Rigorous global history questions and even supplants common understandings of globalization as Westernization. But how does history do this, and can a global historical framework enhance all forms of historical, humanistic, and social scientific inquiry? Following an assessment of foundational modern Western frameworks for understanding world history, including those of Marx and Hegel, students examine how and why people around the world have variously embraced and rejected such foundational accounts. Readings address all world regions, including Asia, Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania, and familiarize students with state-of-the-art knowledge about globalization.

History and Globalization - Sample Syllabus.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to POL-UA 700 International Politics.

The goal of this course is to introduce the basic analytical concepts and techniques that are essential for understanding international politics. The course is especially concerned with analytically exploring major issues in international politics, such as the causes of war, the emergence of cooperative trade relations between states, the origins and functioning of international organizations such as the United Nations, and the political determinants of financial crises. The focus of the course is neither historical nor descriptive; rather, it requires students to exercise skills in logic and to think of imaginative ways to apply subtle techniques to gain a clearer grasp of the above political issues.

Introduction to International Politics - Sample Sylllabus.

Organizations both drive and react to technological change. This course introduces students to computer-based technologies that are transforming the nature of work in the modern world. The primary focus of this course will be on developing competence in computer programming, especially with respect to data construction, management, visualization and analysis, with the goal of understanding the fundamentals of business analytics. The second half of the course applies these skills in examining case studies in current business analytics, especially in artificial intelligence and robotics. The course is a prerequisite for the entrepreneurship capstone. (Selected courses in Interactive Media and Computer Science may substitute).

How have the concepts of religion and politics been understood in Islamic legal traditions? How have those understandings changed in response to colonialism and the emergence of the modern state? What is “secularism” today, and how does it relate to Islamic legal thinking in the contemporary world? This course works from the assumption that these three questions can no longer be separated from one another. We draw from recent work in ethnography that shows the everyday reality of Islamic law, in addition to texts in politics, history, and comparative legal theory. We will interrogate dimensions of secularism, sovereignty, and political authority as they intersect with the daily lives of contemporary Muslims in Malaysia, Egypt, Britain and elsewhere. The course begins with a brief, foundational introduction to Islamic law, then proceeds to study the impact of European colonialism in the Middle East and South Asia, the apostasy case against Nasr Abu Zayd, Imam Khomeini’s fatwas on sex reassignment, and several cases of religious conversion; the course concludes with studies of how Muslims navigate the landscape of legal pluralism in contemporary Europe.

Can China strike a balance between economic development and environmental protection? This question, perhaps the most important question facing China (indeed the world) over the next few decades, pits economy and environment against one another. How did this adversarial relationship come about? Is it necessarily adversarial? Is it rooted in long-term trends in Chinese history, or in the most recent decades of double-digit economic growth? Are there solutions? Or are there better ways of asking the question? This course will look closely at the benefits, the consequences, and the costs of economic growth to society, ecology, and environment in China. The focus in on present dilemmas, examined through an historical perspective.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to POL-UA 575 The Political Economy of Institutions or counts for Politics elective credit.

The course explores recent research on the economic causes and consequences of differences in political institutions: authoritarian vs. democratic in general, and various kinds of authoritarian (military, personalistic, etc.) and democratic (chiefly proportional vs. majoritarian and parliamentary vs. presidential) regimes. Among the economic aspects to be considered are: the wealth and economic inequality in the given society; who garners the rents that the given regime offers; and the degree of oligopoly vs. competition that characterizes economic policy.

Political Economy of Institutions - Sample Syllabus.

What role does identity play in politics? Does culture affect political behavior? What is culture? In this course students examine the formation and role of identity in politics - and how identity and culture affect outcomes such as public goods provision, inter-group violence, democratization, and economic growth. Here, identity is not treated as fixed but as constructed, and its formation itself an outcome to be explained. Students will examine identity and its relation to distributive politics, representation, political mobilization, conflict, and coordination. Similarly, culture is not treated as static, but is dynamic. Students will seek to understand changes in culture over time as well as their effect on behavior, and assess different approaches to the study of culture.

This course examines the relationship between media and politics: how mass and social media influence political beliefs and behavior, and how political forces shape media landscapes. The class will study the role of media in ensuring a well-informed citizenry and improving government accountability through elections and collective action. It will then focus on institutional and personal constraints that hinder the ability of media to fulfill these goals. In particular, this class will cover media slant, censorship, fake news, and polarization on the institutional side, and motivated reasoning, correlational neglect, and selective exposure on the personal side. The readings are meant to familiarize students with classical and recent research on media and politics, as well as raising issues of relevance. The questions discussed in this course will not always have easy answers. This will especially be true when we discuss the role of social media in contemporary politics.

Foreign policy decisions, like any other decisions state leaders make, are products of the pulls and pushes of domestic and international actors whose capabilities, tastes, and stakes compete to determine policy outcomes. These decisions are, thus, strategic. To teach the implications of various strategic settings for decision-making processes, the first seven weeks of the course offer an introduction to the toolbox of analytic techniques that are essential for understanding, analyzing, predicting, and eventually engineering policy choices in international politics. The second seven-week part of the course will cast the students as advisors on the most challenging decisions any political leader has to make. Using the analytical tools students mastered in the first part of the course, they will advise leaders in deciding how they should act in the face of foreign policy crises such as the Iran nuclear deal or disputes over natural gas drilling in the Mediterranean Sea. Throughout this part of the course, students will engage in red-teaming, write short strategic options memos and detailed case studies to inform policymaking with a model-based approach.

New York Students: this course counts for the Politics Quantitative Requirement for the Honors Politics Major.

This course introduces students to the use of statistical methods in social science research. Topics include: descriptive statistics; introduction to probability; sampling; statistical inference concerning means, standard deviations, and proportions; correlation; analysis of variance; linear regressions. Applications to empirical situations in the Social Sciences are an integral part of the course.

Statistics for the Social and Behavioral Sciences - Sample Syllabus.

Social scientists and policy analysts rely heavily on research drawing on observational data. Students learn to manage and analyze such data and to deploy statistical techniques that are common in these applications, with an emphasis on how to translate social science theory into empirical research. Topics include review of basic regression analysis, building multivariate analytical models, and regression analysis with limited dependent variables. The course emphasizes practical training in these skills as well as evaluation, replication, and critical analysis of research conducted in the social science literature. 

How have the concepts of religion and politics been understood in Islamic legal traditions? How have those understandings changed in response to colonialism and the emergence of the modern state? What is “secularism” today, and how does it relate to Islamic legal thinking in the contemporary world? This course works from the assumption that these three questions can no longer be separated from one another. We draw from recent work in ethnography that shows the everyday reality of Islamic law, in addition to texts in politics, history, and comparative legal theory. We will interrogate dimensions of secularism, sovereignty, and political authority as they intersect with the daily lives of contemporary Muslims in Malaysia, Egypt, Britain and elsewhere. The course begins with a brief, foundational introduction to Islamic law, then proceeds to study the impact of European colonialism in the Middle East and South Asia, the apostasy case against Nasr Abu Zayd, Imam Khomeini’s fatwas on sex reassignment, and several cases of religious conversion; the course concludes with studies of how Muslims navigate the landscape of legal pluralism in contemporary Europe.

The purpose of this course is to equip you with a thorough understanding of the key features of the European Union (EU) and its legal order. Given the significant impact of EU law and policies on the Member States and beyond, understanding this area of law is vital for any legal practitioner. The study of EU law is also extremely rewarding from a more academic perspective, as it teaches us important lessons about the interaction between different legal orders, the limits of State sovereignty and the role of international institutions. In recent years, the EU has become a source of continual political conflict: both over the content of its measures and the legitimacy of its institutions. We will consider these questions throughout the course and in particular in the context of two major crises that the EU is currently facing: the refugee crisis and Brexit. The first part of the course will focus primarily on the institutional and procedural law of the EU, while the second part of the course will be concerned with the rules governing two key substantive policy areas, the internal market and the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ).

How did the borders of South Asian countries come to be formed? What explains the variation in the types of regimes—democratic and authoritarian—across South Asia? To what extent do these countries vary in the structure of their states as well as regimes? How does ethnic diversity affect the politics of South Asian countries? What is the pattern of economic growth across these countries, and their human development record and why? What explains the high levels of violence in some South Asian countries and patterns of variation across these countries? These are some of the questions that this course addresses, with a primary focus on India and a secondary focus on Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Burma, and Bhutan. Although students learn a vast number of facts about the history and politics of the region, the primary purpose of the course is to identify overarching patterns that characterize the politics of these regions—and to teach students to think analytically and comparatively about these patterns.

Shanghai Students: this course counts Social Science Focus (300 level)

Business, Politics, & Society (BPS) is a case-based MBA-style course that introduces students to the political economy of firms. Substantively, the course focuses on the political and social underpinnings of the market system, analyzes corporate political strategy and corporate social responsibility, and presents tools for assessing and mitigating risks, especially as they relate to politics, law/regulation, ethics, and other actors in society. The goal of the course is to help students to learn to structure and solve complex problems in dynamic global markets. Case studies from a variety of countries and industries will be supplemented with academic readings. 

Business, Politics, and Society - Sample Syllabus.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to POL-UA 725 Political Economy of Development.

It is now widely acknowledged that politics plays a central role in influencing economic development. This makes the political economy of development a central area of research. While a student with an introductory background to political economy will have familiarity with theories based on voting, this course stresses a variety of other factors that explain why some countries are rich and democratic while others are poor, corrupt, and unstable. After discussing the real meaning of development, the course surveys classical and contemporary theories of economic growth and development ranging from neoclassical to structural to recent endogenous growth theories. Specific topics reviewed in the second part of the course include population growth, migration, the security of property rights, the creation of market and non-market institutions, lobbying and rent-seeking, corruption, social conflict, and the political economy of redistribution. Examples from historical experience as well as modern developing countries would be used throughout the course.

Political Economy of Development - Sample Syllabus.

This course examines the political ramifications of the way that economic resources are produced and distributed in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Students will examine a range of political-economic issues both in historical context and current debates. The class will cover post-colonial development initiatives and their long-term ramifications on MENA states; current issues of economic redistribution, social services and inequality; the implementation of liberalization programs and the rise of crony capitalism; the role of oil in economic development and state formation in the Gulf; and the ramifications of widespread youth unemployment in the region. Students will be expected to write a research paper examining data on a current political-economic topic from the region and its relevance to politics in one or more Middle Eastern countries.

The purpose of this course is to equip you with a thorough understanding of the key features of the European Union (EU) and its legal order. Given the significant impact of EU law and policies on the Member States and beyond, understanding this area of law is vital for any legal practitioner. The study of EU law is also extremely rewarding from a more academic perspective, as it teaches us important lessons about the interaction between different legal orders, the limits of State sovereignty and the role of international institutions. In recent years, the EU has become a source of continual political conflict: both over the content of its measures and the legitimacy of its institutions. We will consider these questions throughout the course and in particular in the context of two major crises that the EU is currently facing: the refugee crisis and Brexit. The first part of the course will focus primarily on the institutional and procedural law of the EU, while the second part of the course will be concerned with the rules governing two key substantive policy areas, the internal market and the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ).

This course focuses on the politics of nuclear weapons. Why do states seek nuclear weapons? What advantages do they provide to states in international crises? What explains the variation of states' reactions to another state’s pursuit of nuclear technology? When do non-proliferation deals emerge, and what explains their content? To answer these questions, we will review the relevant academic literature on the spread of nuclear weapons, and study the histories of various nuclear programs. While some of the literature we will cover uses game theory, there are no prerequisites for this course.

This course draws on readings from the disciplines of political science and international law to examine how strategic international and domestic politics influence international law, and vice versa. Core topics include treaties and custom; state responsibility; bargaining and cooperation in the enforcement of international law; commitment and compliance; and the politics and law of international adjudication, arbitration, and prosecution. Special coverage is given to law on the use of force, international criminal law, human rights law, and landmark cases from the International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, United Nations tribunals, European Court of Justice, and World Trade Organization. An original research project, homework, and exams are required.

Many of contemporary environmental challenges are global in scope: issues, such as climate change, air pollution, biodiversity loss, clean water access, ozone layer depletion, overfishing and deforestation, transcend borders. Addressing these environmental threats requires international cooperation. This can be difficult since there is no global authority to enforce agreements between countries or to ensure that all countries contribute to international efforts. This course will analyze the nature of environmental problems and differences between countries in their domestic demand for environmental protection. The course will then consider cross-national characteristics of environmental problems and their implications for global action, as well as the effect of international political and economic conditions on environmental cooperation. The goal of the course is to explore how ideas, interests, interactions, and institutions shape global environmental politics.

New York students: this course counts for Art History elective credit.

In the short span of thirty years art of the Arab World moved from the periphery of international art to the center of global visual art production. This course examines the conditions that prompted this change and the theoretical framework that currently situates Arab art within the global discourse on visual art. Focusing on selected artists from key periods of art production, the course will explore the impact of political, social and market forces on the region’s art. Examining art production in relation to state formation, identity, gender politics, representation and reception, globalization, and activism. The course will also explore the recent discourse on Islamic art and its links to modern and contemporary art of the region.

This seminar-style course constitutes a comparative study of the post-colonial politics of the North African region - specifically the states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Through a combination of intensive reading, in-class discussion, and writing, students will develop an in-depth understanding of the politics in these four individual states and comparisons between them. This course aims to identify the most significant specificities of the region’s politics, whilst connecting common themes with wider politics in and beyond the Middle East (e.g. Islamism, the political role of the military, the salience of sub-national ethnic identities, and anti-corruption struggles for political accountability). This course is divided into two main parts. The first focuses on eight essential aspects of North African politics across the four countries. The second dives into the political dynamics that have shaped, and in some cases transformed, politics in North Africa during and since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CHEM-UA 226 Organic Chemistry II and Lab; CHEM-UA 228 Majors Organic Chemistry II and Lab; CHEM-UA 9244-9246 Organic Chemistry II and Lab (London).

Organic Chemistry 2 is a continuation of Organic Chemistry 1, with an emphasis on multifunctional organic compounds and their reactions from both a synthetic as well as a mechanistic viewpoint. The topics include conjugated systems, aromatic compounds, including phenols and aryl halides as well as a thorough discussion of delocalized chemical bonding; aldehydes and ketones; amines; carboxylic acids and their derivatives; and biologically important molecules. The course continues the emphasis on modern analytical methods that are the cornerstone of contemporary organic chemistry.

This introductory course to Bioimaging is designed to provide an understanding on how images of organs, tissues, cells and molecules can be obtained using different forms of penetrating radiation and waves. Students will learn the imaging techniques used for soft and hard tissue visualization such as X-ray, Computed Tomography (CT), Ultrasound (US), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Spectroscopy and Optical Imaging. The course will give students an insight into the theoretical physics of imaging, real-life clinical applications of these modalities and demonstration of post-processing of the images using high-level programming.

What determines how a disease spreads in human populations? Biomedical scientists have greatly expanded our knowledge of the diseases caused by viruses, parasites, fungi or bacteria. Yet every year, epidemics of infectious diseases still cause large amounts of suffering, bereavement and economic loss throughout the world. Climate change, deforestation, and the globalization of economic activity might even accelerate the emergence of new infections and usher in an “era of pandemics.” In this course, students will draw on literature from the biomedical and social sciences, as well as historical accounts of outbreaks, to understand the dynamics of contagion. They will learn the tools used by epidemiologists and public health specialists to prevent the emergence, limit the spread, or even eliminate infectious diseases. They will investigate the ethical, behavioral, and political obstacles that might limit the adoption of protective behaviors during epidemics. Students will engage in debates and research related to the current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as in case studies of diseases including smallpox, influenza, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and Ebola.

This course uses fundamental concepts from the Foundations of Science curriculum to examine essential elements of organ physiology, including the nervous system with an emphasis on humans. After an initial introduction to the basic principles of physiology, the course emphasizes normal and pathological functions in humans. It explores how the nervous and the endocrine systems allow communication among cells and organs to enable an organism to maintain homeostasis and to respond to environmental changes. The anatomy of the nervous system is also used to address structure, function, homeostasis and adaptability.

This course covers the principles, technologies, methods and applications of biosensors and bioinstrumentation beginning with an examination of the ethical, legal, cultural, religious, and social implications of nanotechnologies. The objective of this course is to link engineering principles to understanding of biosystems in sensors and bioelectronics. The course provides students with detail of methods and procedures used in the design, fabrication, and application of biosensors and bioelectronic devices. The fundamentals of measurement science are applied to optical, electrochemical, mass, and pressure signal transduction. Upon successful completion of this course, students are expected to be able to explain biosensing and transducing techniques; design and construct biosensors instrumentation.

The course focuses on the fundamental principles of biology from an engineering perspective. These principles are necessary to understanding the basic mechanisms of living organisms. As the laws of nature governing these mechanisms are expressed as differential equations, the main goal of this course is to introduce and model biological processes using tools from dynamical systems theory, with particular focus on the role of feedback. Throughout this course, students will learn how biological functions can be analyzed and designed using mathematical models, and how to use these models along with tools from controls and dynamical systems theory to predict and engineer the dynamics of biological systems. Note: This course may count for Biology credits towards engineering requirements.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to PSYCH-UA 1 Introduction to Psychology.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Core: Experimental Discovery in the Natural World credit.

Introduction to the fundamental principles of psychology, emphasizing both the unity and diversity of a field that spans major theoretical and research areas, including biological bases of human behavior, learning, cognition, perception, language, development, motivation, as well as social and abnormal behavior. Opportunities to apply knowledge gained in lectures and readings are available through computer-based demonstrations, in-class exercises, and required field experiences.

Introduction to Psychology -Sample Syllabus.

Students majoring in life sciences and bioengineering require hands-on experience with variety of biotechnology techniques to better prepare them for a graduate degree or industry. Students will be trained to master biochemical techniques for the manipulate of macromolecules and build a firm understanding of how research is conducted in postgraduate institutions. Inquiry based learning will drive students to learn biophysical tools for the characterization of proteins’ structures and functions. Discussions on fundamental biochemical principles and experimental techniques will assist the students to design and conduct a research project. Students in groups of two will propose a project, run experiments, present data to their peers, and write a final report. First, a protein will be expressed in E. coli, purified using column chromatography on a Fast Protein Liquid Chromatography (FPLC) system. The amount of protein will be quantitated then run it on protein gel to determine its purity and molecular weight. Analysis will include kinetic and enzyme mechanistic characterization, structural characterization using circular dichroism (CD) and fluorescence spectroscopy, and thermodynamic stability using Differential Scanning Fluorimetry (DSF) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC).

No organism on Earth lives in isolation! This simple fact underscores the importance of interactions between species. But how do organisms interact? What languages do they use? This course explores how interspecies crosstalk sustains life on Earth and how challenges such as global warming influence such communication. Topics to discuss include the role of chemical communication between bacteria in causing infectious diseases and whether the overuse of antibiotics is sustainable; how communication between ocean algae coupled with global warming lead to recurrent "red tides"; the breakdown of coral-algae symbiosis and implications for coastal fisheries; disruption of the language bees use to maintain colonies and the rise of colony collapse disorder that threatens pollination globally; the potential use of plant language to combat bug infestation in lieu of pesticides; how our gut microbiota influence physical appearance and susceptibility to disease and whether our innate bacteria affect our social interactions; how human communication has influenced civilization and whether modern technological advances, such as social media, have positive or negative effects on us as a species.

Shanghai students: this course counts for Biology major elective credit.

A typical cell expresses thousands of gene products and synthesizes nearly as many metabolites. How do these components interact with each other and what are the rules governing such interactions? Systems biology attempts first to define what the cell’s parts list is, then through establishing how these elements interact, define the emergent properties of such interactions. This course combines lecture, class discussions, and lab experiments to explore key elements of systems biology while exploring the genetic basis of disorders with complex inheritance pattern, such as autism and schizophrenia. Students will carry out high-throughput transcriptome sequencing of human brain RNA samples to measure the expression of gene products implicated in complex neurological disorders such as autism or schizophrenia. Clustering, gene-set enrichment, and network reconstruction will be carried out to explore the relationship between gene expression and gene function. Last, students will be introduced to yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) technology through carrying out pairwise interaction assays; reconstruction of networks based on existing Y2H datasets, particularly those relevant to autism, will also be carried out and studied. 

This course offers a comprehensive view of modern immunology at the evolutionary, cellular and molecular levels and enables the students to understand the defense mechanisms in the vertebrate immune system. The course presents the major groups of pathogens and their transmission. The fundamental principles of cellular and molecular immunology will be discussed, with emphasis upon the interrelationships between innate and adaptive host defense. The nature of immunological specificity and its underlying molecular biology will be presented. This will be followed by a discussion on the emergence and evolution of the vertebrate immune system. The course concludes with presentation and discussion of new and emerging concepts and methodologies in tumor immunology and treatment of infectious diseases.

When looking at paintings of Rubens, pictures of fashion models, prehistoric Venus figurines or Greek sculptures, it is obvious that the appreciation for the human body has changed drastically through space and time. These differences of perception can generate inter-individual and cultural tensions and affect public policy, for example in the context of health care policy and equal opportunity in the work place. This course will examine how our understanding of human physiology, genetics, and development, as well as methods of investigations of human anatomy, have shaped the perception of the human body, through history, and across cultures. Students will examine the function of the body and how the understanding of bodily functions has changed (the working body). The course will also delve into the modifications the human body has experienced evolutionarily and how our own body is changing from a single cell until death (the changing body). Finally, it will examine deviations from the typical body plan and the causes for these deviations (the abnormal body). These topics will be explored using scientific and non-scientific literature, art, and movies.

New York Students: this course counts for Psychology elective credit.

Biopsychology is the study of the biological basis of behavior. In this course, students discover connections among psychology and biology, pharmacology, and endocrinology. Lectures cover the structure, function, and development of the human nervous system and how this system can give rise to basic sensory, motor, cognitive, and regulatory processes that characterize human behavior. This course uses examples of the effects of brain damage and nervous system disorders to provide insight into how pathological thoughts and behaviors are rooted in physiological causes. Additionally, students develop a basic understanding of the methods used in biopsychology and evaluate the contributions as well as limitations of these approaches.

Biopsychology - Sample Syllabus.

In this course we will take a tour of the materials and techniques utilized by artists in the emerging field of biological art - that is art which uses life itself as a medium. This hybrid art and science class will introduce concepts in genetic engineering, personal genomics, the microbiome, epigenetics, microscopic imaging, tissue culture/bioprinting, biopolitics, and bioethics as sites for artistic exploration. Organized in thematic modules students will learn basic lab techniques while studying the work of artists in this interdisciplinary field. The three core areas are: Input/Output (imaging and printing with biology, tissue culture), identity after the genome (genetics, personal genomics, microbiome, epigenetics, portraiture), and final projects. Weekly readings and written responses will supplement lab activities. The course will culminate in the creation of original biological artworks by each student, which will be exhibited in the Interactive Media Showcase at the end of the semester.

Abnormal psychology is the study of mental disorders from a psychological perspective. The central rational for this course is to provide students with a better understanding of how different mental health disorders may be caused, how they manifest themselves, and how they may be treated. Abnormal psychology constitutes a very controversial and contested field of study and clinical practice, as the manifestation of mental health issues and when they may or may not be diagnosed as abnormal invariably come up against socially and culturally acceptable standards as to what constitutes normal, and how persistent deviation from the norm should be labelled and treated. Hence an important purpose of the course is to introduce students to different perspectives on what it means to have a mental health disorder and how such disorders should be treated by mental health services, families and the wider community. Finally, this course also aims to introduce students to elements of clinical practice in the diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to BIOL-UA 30 Genetics.

Shanghai students: this course counts for Neural Science elective credit or a Biology major elective.

Why do offspring often exhibit physical features of their parents? Why do combinations of certain features in offspring translate into specific characteristics that either enhance or diminish the organism’s fitness? The course covers the concepts, principles and research methods used in the field of genetics. Students learn about the major types of genetic variation and how they are generated, distributed and maintained across genomes and between individuals. The course covers concepts such as mutation, recombination, transmission systems, cytoplasmic inheritance, population genetics, and multifactorial inheritance. Emphasis is placed on patterns of Mendelian and non-Mendelian inheritance and the use of genetic methods to analyze protein function, gene regulation, and disease.

This course presents the basic principles of calculus by examining functions and their derivatives and integrals with a special emphasis placed on the utilitarian nature of the subject material. Since the derivative measures the instantaneous rate of change of a function and the definite integral measures the total accumulation of a function over an interval, these two ideas form the basis for nearly all mathematical formulas in science, engineering, economics, and other fields. This course also provides instruction in how to model situations in order to solve problems. Applications include graphing, and maximizing and minimizing functions. In addition to two weekly lectures, students attend a weekly recitation focused on applications. Placement into Calculus with Applications is decided by discussion with mentors and the results of a mathematics placement examination. This course focuses on the needs of students in science and engineering.

This course explores functions of several variables and has applications to science and engineering. Specific topics include: vectors in the plane and space; partial derivatives with applications; double and triple integrals; spherical and cylindrical coordinates; surface and line integrals; and divergence, gradient, and curl. In addition, the theorems of Gauss and Stokes are rigorously introduced.

This course will provide the basic mathematical toolkit needed for students who do not wish to pursue calculus but still need to be exposed to the mathematical concepts and techniques that are required to study elementary statistics and mathematical models in the social sciences. Emphasis will be placed on the understanding of important concepts and on developing analytical skills rather than just on computational skills, the use of algorithms, and the manipulation of formulae.

New York Students: this course counts for the Politics Quantitative Requirement for the Honors Politics Major.

This course introduces students to the use of statistical methods in social science research. Topics include: descriptive statistics; introduction to probability; sampling; statistical inference concerning means, standard deviations, and proportions; correlation; analysis of variance; linear regressions. Applications to empirical situations in the Social Sciences are an integral part of the course.

Statistics for the Social and Behavioral Sciences - Sample Syllabus.

Shanghai students: this course counts for Biology elective credit or a Neural Science requirement.

The behavioral response of an animal to a stimulus is the summed effect of a variety of internally coordinated processes starting at the molecular level and resulting in a change of activity in associated neural circuits. This course covers the molecular, physiological and anatomical bases of behavior, with particular emphasis on mammalian sensory, motor, regulatory, and motivational mechanisms. Students will also consider higher mental processes such as those involved in language and memory.

Shanghai Students: this course is equivalent to MATH-SHU 235 Probability and Statistics.

This course is a first introduction to probabilistic and statistical procedures for data analysis and their applications. The procedures used to summarize and describe the important characteristics of a set of measurements are studied. The course provides students with an overview of descriptive and inferential statistics, introducing at the same time some probability distributions that are useful in the applied sciences. Statistics is inherently applied; the course emphasizes solutions to problems in a variety of settings. Measures of location and variability, graphical summaries of data, discrete and continuous distributions, sampling and sampling distributions, hypothesis testing and estimation with confidence intervals, correlation and regression are explored. The course gives also a brief introduction to Bayesian estimation.

Probability and Statistics - Sample Syllabus.

Synthetic biology aims to use state-of-the-art molecular tools to redesign biological systems by employing the approaches of engineering. The guiding principle in designing synthetic projects is often derived from a systems-level understanding of cellular networks, with metabolic network analyses playing a key role in offering informed hypotheses on how to modify cellular wirings for a desired outcome. This course combines lectures, class discussions, and lab experiments. The course engages students in a guided research project to learn advanced molecular techniques and systems-level analysis. Students become familiar with engineering concepts such as defining biological components as “parts” and cataloging them in synthetic biology parts registries.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CHEM-UA 882 Biochemistry II.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Biology or Chemistry elective credit.

Biochemistry investigates the chemical structures, reactions and processes that occur in living systems. Indeed, the very principles of chemistry, biology, physics, and math converge in the field of biochemistry, and biochemical concepts provide a focal point for many disciplines, including biology, healthcare, the pharmaceutical industry, environmental studies and ecology, and our understanding of evolution. This course opens the study of metabolic pathways by which cells catabolize and metabolize carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins. The course examines the mechanisms of the different reactions that constitute these pathways and the regulatory mechanisms that control their efflux in living systems. Review of scientific literature broadens students’ understanding of metabolism in the human body with special focus on human diseases.

Biochemistry: Metabolism - Sample Syllabus.

NY Students: this course is equivalent to CHEM-UA 225 Organic Chemistry I and Lab; CHEM-UA 227 Majors Organic Chemistry I and Lab; CHEM-UA 9243-9245 Organic Chemistry I and Lab (London).

Organic chemistry is the study of carbon-containing compounds. Organic Chemistry 1 presents the structure and bonding, conformational analysis, stereochemistry, and spectroscopy of organic materials, subjects that partly trace their roots to the development of quantum theory. The topics covered include basic reaction mechanisms, such as substitution and elimination, and the reactions of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, alcohols, ethers, carbonyl compounds, and carboxylic acids. The course incorporates modern analytical methods that are the cornerstone of contemporary organic chemistry.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to CHEM-UA 711 Inorganic Chemistry.

Inorganic chemistry is the study of all elements in the periodic table as well as the compounds they form and the reactions that lead to the formation of new compounds. This course includes the study of structure from atomic level to molecular level and understanding how atoms connect to form molecules and to understanding how molecules are assembled together to form the structure of materials. This course also studies the properties of elements and the different compounds they form.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to PSYCH-UA 32 Social Psychology.

This course covers a wide range of topics in social psychology. Social psychology illustrates how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by social situations and the real or imagined presence of others (including parents, peers, authorities, and groups). This course covers several important subfields in social psychology, and uses this knowledge to understand and address social problems. Concepts discussed are attitudes, values, roles, norms, communication and conformity; areas emphasized are group processes, influence, social motivation, prejudice and authoritarianism.

Social Psychology - Sample Syllabus.

This course examines how psychodynamic, phenomenological, narrative, and cognitive psychology have informed therapy and counselling. Students will study how these alternative explanations for the mind and human behavior have contributed to the creation of different kinds of therapeutic intervention. Students will also have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with fundamental communication and interpersonal skills that counsellors/therapists have to be able to apply and to learn about ethical issues that need to be taken into account when working with vulnerable individuals. Finally, the course will include a critical examination of the extent to which the different approaches to counselling are informed by empirical research and been evaluated in terms of their effectiveness.

This course poses the fundamental questions: “What is law?”; “What is a legal system?"; and “What is the rule of law?” Appreciating that law reflects different cultural and historical facts, the course employs a comparative methodology in order to explore the fundamental questions from the perspective of various legal traditions. This comparative methodology considers jurisprudence from African, Chinese, Hindu, Marxist, Islamic, Southeast Asian, and Western legal traditions. In relation to these diverse legal traditions, the course examines the topics of natural law, legal positivism, interpretivism, legal realism, justice, human rights, critical legal studies, feminist jurisprudence, critical race theory, and post-modernist jurisprudence.

This course provides an introduction to sources of law, legal research, legal reasoning, and interpretative methodologies. The course discusses the sources and techniques for basic legal research. It develops and hones students’ ability to write about complex legal issues in a variety of settings and for a variety of audiences. The course focuses on the interpretation of texts, developing clear and persuasive arguments, and the use of available library resources including technologically available legal materials. It also treats the drafting of legal briefs, memorandum, and other legal documents. A central feature of the course is to lay the groundwork for working with various law-related texts as a foundation for legal studies and for the eventual senior capstone thesis.

The law has become a central subject in the world of business, setting the rules and regulations under which economies operate. This course explores the legal environment in which businesses operate and studies the interaction between business and the legal system. The course will first introduce students to the legal and constitutional environment of business and business dispute resolution. Students will then be introduced to intellectual property and internet law, business crime and regulatory compliance, business contracts on a comparative law basis, business negotiable instruments such as checks and banking, letter of credits, documentary credits, debtor-creditor relationships and more specifically creditor’s rights, bankruptcy, reorganization, employment relations, agency, labor and immigration. This course will then examine the business organizations such as sole proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies and different topics that dictate how to form, buy, manage, run, close or sell a business.

Climate change will be a foremost theme that will influence financial activities, and policy and legal framework for years to come. In a noticeably short time span, climate change has become a global challenge calling for collective action. Climate change law is emerging as a new legal discipline. Students in this course will explore how climate change law relates to other areas of law and how climate change has elicited rulemaking process at the international, regional, national and local levels. The class will be invited to study the negotiation process, implementation and current status of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement. The class will then proceed to evaluate the various legal tools that are available at national and international level to address climate change, including cap-and-trade, carbon taxation, command-and-control regulation, litigation, securities disclosures, and voluntary actions.

Common law has for the best part of half a century been a part of European Union law and common law has thus, through international and European links, reattached to its historical and linguistic roots in civil law. The study of substantive law begins with the division, inaugurated in classical Rome, between persons, actions and things. Law operates either in personam, or in rem, through the person or the thing. The study of law thus begins with the concept of subjective right and the law of persons, the framework of citizenship and the definition of the Constitution. Public law, the separation of powers, the legal framework of criminal law and other regulatory domains, and particularly the administration of justice, and the professional responsibility of lawyers, fall within this classification. The domain of private law divides into the basic disciplines of Contract, Tort, and Property. The links from these basic divisions to Commercial, Environmental, and Intellectual Property law will be tracked and framed.

This course examines the relationship between government and religion in the United States. We concentrate on the interpretation, meaning, application, and wisdom of 16 words from the American Constitution: “Government shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Using the opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest Court in the nation and final authority on constitutional interpretation, we explore how these words broadly prohibit the government’s entanglement with religion while also bestowing the responsibility to protect religious freedom. Prior knowledge is not required. Students must, however, participate in an orientation session, four introductory classes with Professor Sexton, and four recitations during the Fall II term in Abu Dhabi prior to the J-term meetings in NYC and Washington, D.C. Through this course, students learn the foundation of a liberal arts education: reading complex texts, deconstructing sophisticated arguments, constructing their own reasoned opinions, and valuing differences in opinion. Further, students examine frameworks for thinking, social organization, and behavior. This course is available only to NYUAD students studying in Abu Dhabi during the fall semester.

This course examines the ethical issues raised by the function of law and lawyers in protecting individual rights and advancing the common good. The increasing globalization and transnational practice of law warrants a comparative perspective with regard to specific issues in legal ethics. Legal materials are drawn from a variety of jurisdictions, such as Australia, China, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States, in order to elucidate the relevant issues in legal ethics. Among the issues addressed are the legal profession and professional identity, trust, truth telling, confidentiality, conflict, client autonomy, access to legal services, cause lawyering, ethical breaches, and malpractice. These ethical issues in law are considered from a range of philosophical, cultural, social, economic, political, and religious perspectives.

In Law Schools throughout the world 'constitutional and administrative law' - also referred to as ‘Public Law’ - is concerned primarily with the legal rules and processes that structure and regulate a country’s government. In addition, in this course, we pay equal attention to the study of the historical and contemporary social and political facts and values which qualify the function of such rules. Studying the public law together with the key political facts and values that determine its real function is particularly appropriate in the United Kingdom because its constitution, unlike most other countries', is neither codified in a single, legally binding document nor considered to be supreme law that could override the Parliament’s will. Instead, the UK parliament is considered entirely free to legislate on any subject matter. As a result the sources of the un-codified British constitution range from a plethora of statutes (Acts of Parliament) and common law (judge-made rules) to political habits ('conventions') all of which are subject to change. Part One will focus on constitutional law and its general structure in the UK, and Part Two will focus on administrative law and judicial review.

Companies of all sizes, and across all sectors, are doing business in various forms beyond their domestic borders. This course is designed to provide the students with theories and comprehensive information on the legal and ethical implications and ramifications of doing business internationally, along with the related cultural, political and economic issues. The course will first introduce the students to the world’s major legal systems; i.e., the Civil and, Common Law systems. Students will be introduced to the methods pertaining to international business such as international commercial transactions, corporate governance, foreign direct investment issues, transfer of technology, intellectual property with the construction of hypothetical examples. The students will then analyze the scope of liability for the conduct of international business under various theories and approaches within these legal systems (foreign corrupt practices, extraterritorial regulation, tortuous liability, corporate social responsibility). The students will also be introduced to the various methods of resolving international business disputes.

Globalization has affected the way business is conducted. It has also modified and intensified the interaction between government policies and business. In order to evaluate the risk of international business projects and protect the companies against international business uncertainties, knowledge of globalization, cultural and societal environment, trade theory, government in international business, entry modes, economic integration, emerging markets, financial institutions, management strategy, and the legal regimes that shape the trade and investment in Europe, Asia, Middle East, and in North America in areas such as trade of goods, trade in services, intellectual property transfer arrangements, transfer of technology, and foreign direct investment is crucial. The aim of this course is to enable students to better analyze and understand the opportunities and challenges that companies face when expanding their activities internationally.

Students attend weekly sessions that entail delivering speeches, debating and/or mooting. The sessions are intended to foster clear analysis, the development of persuasive arguments, and effective oral presentation. Students who fulfill the course requirements (as stipulated in the course syllabus) receive 1 credit hour per semester up to a maximum of 4 credit hours over the course of four academic semesters. First year students are not eligible to enroll in this course during their first semester.

This introductory level course on renewable energy examines the historical and legal origins of energy regulations and emerging policies. The course provides an introduction to the renewable sources and basic terms and concepts, regulatory trends and other emerging issues. The primary focus of the course will be on renewable energy policies and laws of the developing countries. We will spend considerable time with Africa, Small Island States, United Arab Emirates, and examples from other countries. The centerpiece of this course is to focus on a specific renewable energy project (in a developing country) completed with international cooperation and assistance. The course will also focus on global institutions and policymaking, the divide between industrialized countries and developing countries, the nexus between global climate change and renewable energy, sustainable energy sources, and challenges that global policymakers will face in future. The course will look at the wide variety of local and regional laws, regulatory techniques, and policy objects.

What is Islamic law? What kinds of sources do we use to access Islamic law, and how has Islamic legal thinking and practice changed historically? This course introduces students to topics in Islamic law while addressing questions of continuity and change in the Islamic legal tradition from medieval to modern times. The first part of the course will introduce aspects of substantive Islamic law, including criminal and penal law, family law, and the law of war, through the eyes of a twelfth-century jurist's legal handbook. The second part will explore the diversity of Islamic law across chronological and geographic space, examining topics from classical jurisprudence to Ottoman constitutionalism, the encounter with colonialism and contemporary Islamic states.

This course aims to provide, from a critical perspective, an historical introduction to the various ways of theorizing Property and Property Rights in the West, some analytics about the key concepts of the field (once called Laws of Things), and a survey of contemporary debates about Property. The method of the course is genealogical. After a brief presentation of pre-modern ways of theorizing Property, the course is first devoted to the rise and triumph of Property as a subjective, absolute and exclusive right. Then, it examines various attempts to overcome this conception, mainly social, analytical and realist critiques, to conclude with a view on the current debate in Property Theory.

How do people, states, and organizations articulate their rights in diplomacy and dispute settlement? What roles do codified law, precedent, and politics play in the resolution of disputes arising from public, commercial, and civil interactions? How do courts and tribunals shape these practices, and how have they created doctrine on jurisdiction, admissibility, interpretation, responsibility, liability, defenses, and evidence? How do lawyers develop legal strategies when law is emerging, fragmented, and precedents are non-binding? This course guides students to answers to these questions through mooting: researching, writing, and presenting legal arguments for hypothetical cases in standardized competitions. The course first introduces dispute settlement and/or prosecution in the international context; legal research techniques, briefing, and argumentation; and sources relevant for a mooting competition. Students then research, write, and practice legal arguments. Qualified students may form a team to compete in international mooting competitions in Dubai, Washington, The Hague, Nuremburg, Hong Kong, or Vienna.

Description will be added soon

Description will be added soon

How does law concern itself with crime? Indeed, how is crime defined in law and is its conceptualization temporally determined? This course will seek to examine the notion of criminality with reference to the subject of the ‘criminal’ and the juridical apparatus that seeks to punish it. Here, we will look at juridical concepts of criminal responsibility as well as key criminal legal doctrines. We will situate the juridical notions alongside social, political, and historical contexts. For this we will engage with various perspectives on the historical developments of the idea of punishment, and conclude with the contemporary criminological turn to the management of crime through preventative measures, and surveillance technologies.

The course examines the effectiveness of the tort system in compensating individuals suffering personal injury, injury to reputation, psychological damage, economic loss or incursions on private property as a result of accidents, disease or intentional acts. Focusing on the tort of negligence in particular, the course explores the social, economic and political contexts in which the rules and principles of tort are applied. The course is divided into three parts. The first part will explore the historical development of tort, the nature of tort law and the relation between tort and other branches of the law of obligations and tort's relation with other legal systems. It provides an in-depth exploration of two organizing themes (fault and damage) within tort law drawing upon a range of examples from tort law and from the tort of negligence. Part two contains the core of the course and is an extensive exploration of the tort of negligence, with special emphasis on an examination of the duty of care concept. The final part of the course explores some intentional torts, with emphasis on torts aimed at the protection of reputation, confidential information and the quiet enjoyment of land.

This course examines the relationship between gender politics, legal theory, and social policy. Students will study the role that the legal arena and certain historical conditions have played in creating, revising, and protecting particular gender identities (and failing to protect other gender identities) and examine the political effects of those legal constructions.

The aim of this course is to study human conditions, social arrangements, and social processes that are sites of social, political, cultural, and moral contestations in contemporary societies. They are perceived as ‘social problems’ and divide public opinion about the appropriate ways to protect society from their deleterious effects. Lectures first focus on sociological perspectives on social problems and examine the role of social structure and social processes in their production and reproduction. Subsequent lectures focus on exploring selected social problems such as: suicide, suicide terrorism, euthanasia, aging, genocide, incest, genomics, and religious fundamentalism. The selected social problems are examined in a global perspective, focusing on contemporary industrialized societies.

The role of women in the economy changed drastically in the 20th century. Many women around the world enjoy unprecedented freedom to decide what to study, where to work, and when to have a family, nowadays. These changes coupled with the evidence of a persistent gap in the earnings of men and women around the world raise important questions about family planning, female participation in the labor force, and public policy. These questions are at the center of this course. That is, we will explore how men and women make decisions about work and family that have a long-lasting impact on their lives. Using insights from economic theory and empirical data - predominantly from Europe, the USA and the UAE- the course covers topics such as the different incentives for men and women to study and participate in the labor market, as well as explore the reasons behind gender differences in earnings and employment. Students will learn about trends in fertility and marriage rates, and discuss recent government policies aimed at combating discrimination, encouraging women to participate in the labor force, and achieving a better work-life balance.

This course is about the economic activities of government, largely revenue raising and spending, in a global context. The course considers market failures; the evaluation of public expenditures; and the incidence, efficiency, and effects of various taxes. The primary purpose is to use economic tools (mainly microeconomic) to study the impact of government policy on the distribution of resources. Topics include: welfare economics; public goods and externalities; public choice; important issues of government expenditure, taxation, and activity (e.g., international public goods and institutions, tax competition and coordination, education, social security and health care); fiscal federalism (including European integration); and mechanisms of political influence (e.g. elections and lobbying).

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Social Science (foundation)

Public policy affects our lives in profound ways even when we are not aware of them. What we eat, how we recycle, or when we disclose personal information on the internet are all examples of choices largely determined by public policies. This course is an introduction to public policy, why it is important, and how it involves simultaneous ethical, political, and problem-solving processes. The course introduces students to the ways in which a variety of actors and institutions at the national and transnational levels interactively contribute to public policy. The course is divided into two parts. The first part provides an overview of the basic concepts underlying the public policy process and the second part provides critical perspectives on public policy-making in theory and practice.

Introduction to Public Policy - Sample Syllabus.

This course is an intermediate public policy class. Students will build on skills introduced at the intro level such as the drafting of public policy memos and press releases; and how to best frame policy challenges to explain proposed solutions and defend policy decisions. In addition, students will be asked to compile full dossiers on specific public policy issues to allow for policy makers to knowledgeably make effective decisions. Students will learn wider theoretical frames and debates as well as crisis management. The course will cover a wide range of global policy challenges revolving around issues such as immigration, the climate crisis, food quality and security using current case studies with particular focus and emphasis on the Global South. Finally, students will explore the politics of policy-making and learn how to maneuver in a competitive policy environment. Select speakers will share challenges and opportunities that they have encountered in the field based on the case studies that will be explored during the course.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to PSYCH-UA 29 Cognition.

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and human thinking. This course is aimed at providing the student with a better understanding on how we humans perceive and think about ourselves and about the world. Our perception and thought processes are fraught with biases that nonetheless routinely inform human actions. Knowing about these biases and understanding their effects is crucial in a world in which human societies are becoming increasingly more interconnected.
The course covers different aspects of attention, memory, language, concepts, reasoning, problem solving, expertise, creativity, decision making, conscious and unconscious cognition, and theory of mind. The course will emphasize how psychologists use experiments to learn about the structure of the human mind.

Cognition - Sample Syllabus.

This course is an introduction to the scientific study of language as a cognitive ability. We will explore questions such as: What is a language from a cognitive perspective? What should a scientific theory of language explain? How can we describe our cognitive ability for language in the terms of cognitive (neuro-)science (such as representations and processes)? What does a scientific theory of language tell us about the complexity of the human mind? How is it that children can acquire languages relatively effortlessly while adults require intense training and practice? And, ultimately, how can we use our scientific knowledge of language to be better citizens in a global society? By the end of this course, students will be able to apply the tools of language science to their own languages, and apply the lessons that we learn about the nature of language to their own experiences in the world.

This methods course focuses on training students in the practice of transformative interviewing, a method of semi-structured interviewing and analysis used to disrupt stereotyping and to foster connection. It is a tool based on the science of human connection that tells a five-part story of who we are as humans, how stereotypes get in the way and cause a crisis of connection, the consequences of the crisis, and the solutions. Transformative interviewing is a solution to the crisis of connection. Each class is divided into two parts: 1) Discussing the course reading that describes different interviewing techniques and methods of analysis than transformative interviewing and 2) Learning the method of transformative interviewing. The objectives of this course are to: 1) provide a brief overview of the science of human connection; 2) understand and learn how to conduct transformative interviews; 3) learn how to construct an interview guide containing a variety of primary and secondary questions following a sequence appropriate for the purpose of the interview; and 4) learn how to analyze transformative interviews using qualitative techniques.

This course will examine visual representations of women, men, and non-binary individuals, femininity and masculinity, sexual minorities, and gender norms and relations from a psychological perspective. We will closely survey the nature of social perception, consider several systems for coding and interpreting visual images and language in media, and examine how gender images psychologically impact those who see them. We will explore questions such as: How is gender portrayed visually? What are the methods that psychologists employ to assess this? And, what are the psychological consequences of exposure to certain kinds of gender images? Students in the course will develop media literacy and expand their knowledge of how gender is represented in media in ways that both mirror and reinforce cultural stereotypes. They will gain a deep understanding of the tools that psychologists employ to study media content and its effects on viewers scientifically. Students will apply what they learn in the course by conducting a research project of their own.

Visual perception is the primary sense through which we interact with the world. This course provides the tools to help you probe the neural mechanisms underlying visual perception. You will design, conduct and analyze data in the context of 4 projects, which combine behavioral and neuroimaging techniques. You will gain a working understanding of how visual information is coded and processed in the brain. Furthermore, the course will help you understand differences in visual performance in terms of neural differences. The course will cover relevant vision science and programming principles throughout the semester. As such, courses such as Computer Programming for Engineers (ENGR-UH 1000), Biopsychology (PSYCH-UH 1003) and Perception (PSYCH-UH 2411) are recommended but not required. By the end of this course, you will be able to design, conduct and analyze data from your own visual neuroscience experiment. You will be able to analyze the data - by writing your own data analysis/model fitting tools if no pre-written tools are available, and critically evaluate your results.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to PSYCH-UA 34 Developmental Psychology.

The course considers current theoretical issues and research in developmental psychology in an effort to understand how we develop as perceiving, thinking, and feeling beings. Throughout the semester, theories, methods and interdisciplinary findings are explored, covering physical/biological foundations of development, cognitive processes, social and emotional development. The course explores how various systems and contexts shape an individual’s development, with a focus on risk and resilience. Attention is given to applying current research findings to trends in policy and intervention. Moreover, the course links conceptual frameworks to applied areas in the field of developmental psychology. The course also considers dynamics of culture, society, and social change on human development.

Developmental Psychology - Sample Syllabus.

The course provides an overview of the major theories and findings in research on motivation and volition. It addresses the history of research on motivation and volition, classic phenomena of being motivated versus lacking motivation and willpower, the psychology of goals, disorders of self-regulation, and cognitive-neuropsychological research as well as the perspective of economics on motivation and volition.

This course examines how psychodynamic, phenomenological, narrative, and cognitive psychology have informed therapy and counselling. Students will study how these alternative explanations for the mind and human behavior have contributed to the creation of different kinds of therapeutic intervention. Students will also have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with fundamental communication and interpersonal skills that counsellors/therapists have to be able to apply and to learn about ethical issues that need to be taken into account when working with vulnerable individuals. Finally, the course will include a critical examination of the extent to which the different approaches to counselling are informed by empirical research and been evaluated in terms of their effectiveness.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for the Neural Science major elective, advanced Psychology.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to PSYCH-UA 22 Perception.

How do we construct an understanding of the physical world based on our sensory experience? This course provides a survey of basic facts, theories, and methods for studying sensation and perception. The major emphasis is on vision, but other modalities (hearing, touch, vestibular system, olfaction, taste) may be covered. Representative topics include: eye and brain; receptor function and physiology; color; motion; depth; psychophysics of detection, discrimination, and appearance; perceptual constancies; adaptation; pattern recognition; interaction of knowledge and perception.

Perception - Sample Syllabus.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to PSYCH-UA 1 Introduction to Psychology.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Core: Experimental Discovery in the Natural World credit.

Introduction to the fundamental principles of psychology, emphasizing both the unity and diversity of a field that spans major theoretical and research areas, including biological bases of human behavior, learning, cognition, perception, language, development, motivation, as well as social and abnormal behavior. Opportunities to apply knowledge gained in lectures and readings are available through computer-based demonstrations, in-class exercises, and required field experiences.

Introduction to Psychology -Sample Syllabus.

New York Students: this course counts for Psychology elective credit.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Social Science Methods.

Knowledge acquired through scientific research is bounded by the conditions under which the research is carried out. Consequently, informed consumers of information must understand how scientific research is carried out in order to decide what is true. This course provides an introduction to scientific research methods in psychological science, experimental design, and data interpretation. Students develop an appreciation for the methods involved in carrying out research on issues in psychology and, hopefully, become critical—but not cynical—consumers of scientific results, learning to distinguish sound conclusions from those based on faulty reasoning or flawed studies. Students in this course gain real experience by designing and conducting an experiment of their own, and presenting and reporting their results.

Research Methods in Psychology - Sample Syllabus.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to PSYCH-UA 32 Social Psychology.

This course covers a wide range of topics in social psychology. Social psychology illustrates how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by social situations and the real or imagined presence of others (including parents, peers, authorities, and groups). This course covers several important subfields in social psychology, and uses this knowledge to understand and address social problems. Concepts discussed are attitudes, values, roles, norms, communication and conformity; areas emphasized are group processes, influence, social motivation, prejudice and authoritarianism.

Social Psychology - Sample Syllabus.

New York Students: this course counts for Psychology elective credit.

Biopsychology is the study of the biological basis of behavior. In this course, students discover connections among psychology and biology, pharmacology, and endocrinology. Lectures cover the structure, function, and development of the human nervous system and how this system can give rise to basic sensory, motor, cognitive, and regulatory processes that characterize human behavior. This course uses examples of the effects of brain damage and nervous system disorders to provide insight into how pathological thoughts and behaviors are rooted in physiological causes. Additionally, students develop a basic understanding of the methods used in biopsychology and evaluate the contributions as well as limitations of these approaches.

Biopsychology - Sample Syllabus.

New York Students: this course is equivalent to PSYCH-UA 10 Statistical Reasoning for the Behavioral Sciences.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Social Science Methods.

Statistics form a critical component of research, and this course is designed to introduce students to the foundations of statistical principles in psychological science. This course covers basic-level statistics concepts such as central tendency and variability; the theory and logic underlying hypothesis testing and statistical decision-making; and the basic principles behind linear models commonly used in psychology, including correlations, t-tests, analysis of variance, and basic regression. The course also introduces students to basic statistical computer programs.

Statistics for Psychology - Sample Syllabus.

This course provides a detailed overview of multiple regression (MR) analyses as a data-analytic method. Theory and practice of the General Linear Model will be reviewed in order to show how MR can be used to carry out analyses of quantitative and categorical data. Practical problems in estimating and testing regression models will be emphasized. Students will gain experience in carrying out MR analyses using computer software.

Abnormal psychology is the study of mental disorders from a psychological perspective. The central rational for this course is to provide students with a better understanding of how different mental health disorders may be caused, how they manifest themselves, and how they may be treated. Abnormal psychology constitutes a very controversial and contested field of study and clinical practice, as the manifestation of mental health issues and when they may or may not be diagnosed as abnormal invariably come up against socially and culturally acceptable standards as to what constitutes normal, and how persistent deviation from the norm should be labelled and treated. Hence an important purpose of the course is to introduce students to different perspectives on what it means to have a mental health disorder and how such disorders should be treated by mental health services, families and the wider community. Finally, this course also aims to introduce students to elements of clinical practice in the diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders.

The course provides students with a strong foundation of knowledge in early childhood education. The course begins with a description of historical movements and the contemporary international landscape of early education. Students then identify processes of early childhood development as they apply to learning and teaching in early childhood education programs, including the service for children with special needs. As part of the course students observe an early childhood education classroom and work on a research project that requires them to collect and/or analyze data, and to write up their research results.

This course is designed to provide a survey of gender in politics and policies around the world. The course is divided into three modules. First module provides an overview of access to formal political power. This module discusses women's participation in politics, the history of suffrage, and role of quotas in politics. It also discusses the role of activists and social movements in highlighting gender-based policy agendas. The second module focuses on some major issues of public policy which are related to gender including reproductive and gender affirming healthcare; work and employment; gender based violence; education and global economy. Final module focuses more specifically on different regions of the world to discuss the specific challenges in creating gender equity resulting from geopolitical and historical specificities.

Social scientists have in the past described family structures and gender roles in the Arab World as based on relatively uniform and unchanging principles. However, during the last two decades many Arab societies have been subject to tremendous changes. In this course we will examine how in the social sciences the “classical” Arab family along with its underlying kinship systems and gender orders has been conceived; and how modern developments, such as urbanization, women’s education, work migration, war and exile, assisted reproduction, genetic counseling programs, TV serials, etc., are contributing to the emergence of new forms of family and gender. Also, we shall scrutinize the societal challenges brought about by these developments, such as the economic hardships of young couples, the erosion of “traditional” support networks for elderly and diseased persons, and the “neo-liberalization” of marriage. Finally, we shall take a close look at the various ways in which contemporary Arab men and women define, negotiate, and legitimate their gender identities by drawing on Islamic values, traditional ideas and practices as well as national and transnational discourses.

New York Students: this course counts for Sociology elective credit.

The course offers a practical introduction to the theoretical and methodological issues of ethnographic field research. The course offers students hands-on experience to carry out ethnographic field research, conduct in-depth interviews and carry out participant observations.

Ethnographic Field Research - Sample Syllabus.

The spectacular development of Gulf cities in the second half of the 20th century was accompanied by great demographic and social change. This course, conceived as an introduction to the field of Gulf studies, explores the transformations of Gulf urban societies in the modern and contemporary periods, as well as their social, political, and economic outcomes. Departing from dominant paradigms such as the rentier state theory, we will rely on social history and anthropology in order to explore these processes at the level of urban societies themselves. We will first probe the materiality of Gulf cities, exploring the power relations which govern the production of space, from the role of State-mandated experts in urban planning to the multiple appropriations of urban space by city-dwellers. We will then turn our attention to the diversity of populations resulting from historical and contemporary migrations to the Gulf, looking at the complex questions they raise in terms of belonging and citizenship. From there, we will examine how social change has affected relations between generations and gendered roles, and how these are embodied in daily urban life through language or clothes.

Shanghai Students: this course counts Social Science Focus (300 level)

Business, Politics, & Society (BPS) is a case-based MBA-style course that introduces students to the political economy of firms. Substantively, the course focuses on the political and social underpinnings of the market system, analyzes corporate political strategy and corporate social responsibility, and presents tools for assessing and mitigating risks, especially as they relate to politics, law/regulation, ethics, and other actors in society. The goal of the course is to help students to learn to structure and solve complex problems in dynamic global markets. Case studies from a variety of countries and industries will be supplemented with academic readings. 

Business, Politics, and Society - Sample Syllabus.

This will be an applied course that will introduce students to the python programming environment. It is intended for students who want to apply statistical, machine learning, information visualization, text analysis, and social network analysis techniques through popular python toolkits such as pandas, matplotlib, scikit-learn, nltk, and networkx to gain insight into any data. By the end of this course, students will be able to: (1) take any tabular data, clean it, manipulate it, and run inferential statistical analyses, (2) identify best practices in data visualizations, (3) identify the difference between supervised (classification) and unsupervised (clustering) techniques, and identify which technique they need to apply for a particular dataset and need, as well as, engineer features to meet that need, (4) be able to perform basic text mining and text manipulation, and (5) apply social network analyses techniques using the NetworkX library.

Why did some countries industrialize before others? Why was it Europeans that conquered the world? How can we explain the great divergence in per capita income across countries? What are the social and political impacts of economic growth? What is the role of political institutions in underpinning economic progress? This course addresses these and other similar questions using simple tools from across the social sciences. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding the role of economic incentives and political institutions in underpinning economic and social development.

New York Students: this course counts towards Society and the Social Sciences requirement.

This course offers students an introduction to how economists look at the world and approach problems. It focuses on individual economic decision-makers (households, business firms, and government agencies) and explores how they are linked together and how their decisions shape our economic life. Applications of supply and demand analysis and the role of prices in a market system are explored. Students are also exposed to game theory, the theory of the competitive firm, the idea of market failure, and policy responses. The course relies on cases and examples and incorporates readings from classical and contemporary sources to shed light on modern economic principles and their application to solving the problems that face the global economy.

How is social order possible? How does it emerge, how is it maintained, and how does it transform? This course will approach these questions with an examination of various ways in which people form social relations, and how those relationships condition the way they act. The first part of the course is about how social roles and social status are constituted by social relations in everyday life. Second, we will study how groups and the boundaries between groups are constructed and maintained, and how group membership structures individuals’ life chances and wellbeing. Third, we turn we turn our focus to mechanisms – robust processes by which individual level actions cumulate into the macro-level structures in which we are embedded. Finally, we examine some of the resulting characteristics of contemporary societies, as well as how and why social change occurs.

In a world where interests and values often conflict, how should societies be governed? Which form of government is best? Have we reached what Francis Fukuyama famously termed ‘The End of History’—the notion that there are no serious contenders to liberal democracy? Subjects in this course include ancient and modern theorists such as Aristotle, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and Burke as well as contemporary Chinese critics of Western liberal democracy.

This course introduces students to the use of statistical methods in social science research. Topics include: descriptive statistics; introduction to probability; sampling; statistical inference concerning means, standard deviations, and proportions; correlation; analysis of variance; linear regressions. Applications to empirical situations in the Social Sciences are an integral part of the course.

In a world where interests and values often conflict, how should societies be governed? Which form of government is best? Have we reached what Francis Fukuyama famously termed ‘The End of History’—the notion that there are no serious contenders to liberal democracy? Subjects in this course include ancient and modern theorists such as Aristotle, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and Burke as well as contemporary Chinese critics of Western liberal democracy.

This course focuses on major works that take a critical position vis-à-vis the Western canon. It will explore themes of power, identity, inequality, and social order in the context of modern nationalism, capitalism, and imperialism. To provide context, the course will begin with core thinkers from the Western canon, ranging from John Locke to Sigmund Freud. Then it will focus on the response of their critics, including feminists and postcolonial writers from across the globe such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Mao Zedong, Frantz Fanon, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Edward Said.

The computational analysis of large amounts of written material is becoming increasingly popular in the social sciences. Recent research has used textual analysis to examine, for example, attitudes, culture, and propaganda. This approach, however, raises many questions. What are textual data actually showing us? How representative are textual datasets? Does textual analysis provide insight into social mechanisms and causal processes? This course will address these, and related, questions by providing a foundational introduction to textual analysis for the social sciences. Students will read a combination of early, theory-oriented articles and recent, cutting-edge research. In addition, students will learn how to conduct textual analysis for the social sciences through a series of labs and an original final project.

This course introduces the key concepts and theoretical approaches in the sociological study of crime and deviance. The objective of the class is not to provide a mass of hard facts about crime and deviance, but to make students familiar with different ways of viewing and explaining crime and deviance and to develop a critical, analytical perspective and an ability to use concepts and theories from the criminological tradition to frame arguments about crime-related issues from a sociological perspective.

This course covers how to analyze data and test theory from a practical perspective. The course begins with techniques for describing data and then moves to the basics of linear regression, a technique that allows researchers to ask how two variables are related to one another while controlling for other variables. The course explores how regression works as well as things that can go wrong with regression, examining diagnostics, errors and collinearity. The course also examines regression models for some special cases, such as yes/no dependent variables and special cases of data that are clustered, such as students located within the same schools. The course focuses on the interpretation of results, with particular emphasis on visualization to aid understanding of complex statistical models and nonlinear relationships.

We live in a society of organizations. We are born inside organizations, we are educated inside organizations, we work inside organizations, and when we die, we may be buried by organizations. Hence, we cannot really understand what drives economic, technological, social, and political change without reference to organizations. In this course, students will endeavor to understand the organizations that comprise society by looking at how they are shaped by their environment and propose solutions to organizational problems arising from external challenges and internal dynamics. This course has two primary units. First, students will learn the organizational decision-making process and organizational structures to understand the concept of organization as an independent entity. Then, students will explore the major organizational theories that guide contemporary understandings of the relationships between organizations and their environments, such as institutional norms, social capital (or networks), and organizational learning and cognition.

How does one ‘read the news’? It might be trickier than it sounds. The construction of what becomes ‘news’, its dissemination and interpretation are complex and inherently contentious social processes. Finding your way in the realm of mass communication, propagandistic conflicts, and public debate requires both theoretical lenses and good practical skills which this course intends to supply.

New York Students: this course counts for Sociology elective credit.

In every society, whether one is born male or female affects how one is expected to behave and the opportunities one confronts. However, how gender is organized varies between societies and across time. This course draws upon research from sociology, economics, psychology, and anthropology to examine gender, providing information on how gender is organized in various parts of the world. Topics include how male and female children are socialized, women’s and men’s roles in the family, trends in women’s education and employment, the sex gap in pay, and how gender is affected by public policies.

Gender and Society - Sample Syllabus.

An exciting question that appears when conducting social science research is how it can be applied beyond academia. In this course, students will engage with research on social hierarchies (race, class, gender, citizenship) in the UAE while exploring what it can look like to benefit the communities this research is about. There have been international efforts by academics to address social hierarchies in various ways, ranging from university public outreach or service-based learning. But the UAE has its own limitations, restrictions and opportunities. What can community-engaged scholarship look like in this context? The class will explore the research that navigates social hierarchies in the UAE. What assumptions does this research challenge (or promote)? How does it allow us to see the complexity of different communities in an often-misrepresented region? More importantly: Can this research be used to benefit the communities it is about? Students will look at examples of applied research conducted in the UAE, whether being applied in communities or informing public policy.

This course critically examines theories and case studies of religious social movements with a special focus on Islamist social movements in the Middle East. The course will begin by introducing students to the theories of social movements, highlighting the different repertoires movements adopt based on the political and cultural contexts in which they are embedded. It will then move on to exploring the role of Islam in local and global social movements. The course will turn to empirical cases of Islamist movements, analyzing their characteristics in relation to topics such as nationalism, colonialism, human rights, inequality, civil society, Sufism, and the role of women. Students will compare Islamist movements from a wide variety of countries in the region, including Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia as well as transnational and jihadi movements. The class will end with a discussion of the popular upheavals in the region commonly referred to under the rubric of the Arab Spring.

New York Students: this course counts for Sociology elective credit.

This course will teach students how to design and implement a survey, and what to do once the data is in. The course is practice oriented: the course will use a lot of examples and students will create their own survey design. Students will spend more than a quarter of the course learning Stata. At the end of this course students will be able to design and implement their own, high quality survey. Moreover, students will question much of the data that is collected by others because they know all the things that can go wrong in the process.

Survey Research - Sample Syllabus.

This course serves as an introduction to qualitative research methods with a focus on interviewing. Students will discuss a range of interview-based research methods. In qualitative research, researchers often have a significant impact on the lives of study participants and are in turn changed by the experience of fieldwork. This carries with it some weighty responsibilities and introduces unique issues of ethics and data interpretation. Students will deal systematically with these issues and with the procedures of research design, transcribing interviews, coding and analyzing data, and finally writing up the research in a coherent paper. Students will have extensive opportunity to learn through doing. One goal of the course is to get students to practice and hone their craft.

We live in a society of organizations. We are born inside organizations, we are educated inside organizations, we work inside organizations, and when we die, we may be buried by organizations. Hence, we cannot really understand what drives economic, technological, social, and political change without reference to organizations. In this course, students will endeavor to understand the organizations that comprise society by looking at how they are shaped by their environment and propose solutions to organizational problems arising from external challenges and internal dynamics. This course has two primary units. First, students will learn the organizational decision-making process and organizational structures to understand the concept of organization as an independent entity. Then, students will explore the major organizational theories that guide contemporary understandings of the relationships between organizations and their environments, such as institutional norms, social capital (or networks), and organizational learning and cognition.

NY Social and Cultural Analysis Students: this course counts for the Gender and Sexuality Studies and SCA majors and Gender and Sexuality Studies minor

In every society, whether one is born male or female affects how one is expected to behave and the opportunities one confronts. However, how gender is organized varies between societies and across time. This course draws upon research from sociology, economics, psychology, and anthropology to examine gender, providing information on how gender is organized in various parts of the world. Topics include how male and female children are socialized, women’s and men’s roles in the family, trends in women’s education and employment, the sex gap in pay, and how gender is affected by public policies.

Gender and Society - Sample Syllabus.

Commonly (and wrongly) people take for granted the existence of such political and cultural units as France and Germany, or Japan and India. But in the Middle East, states and national cultures are at the same time ancient and recently created. Here the complex processes of state-formation are still current, and the United Arab Emirates, which is barely forty years old, serves as a rich and richly varied example for the comparative understanding of state-building, cultural imagination, and economic development.

State Formation: The Case of the United Arab Emirates - Sample Syllabus.

New York Students: this course counts for Sociology elective credit.

The course offers a practical introduction to the theoretical and methodological issues of ethnographic field research. The course offers students hands-on experience to carry out ethnographic field research, conduct in-depth interviews and carry out participant observations.

Ethnographic Field Research - Sample Syllabus.

NY Students: this course is equivalent to ECON-UA 266 Econometrics.

SH Students: this course is equivalent to ECON-SHU 301 Econometrics.

Application of statistics and economic theory to problems of formulating and estimating models of economic behavior. Matrix algebra is developed as the main tool of analysis in regression. Acquaints students with basic estimation theory and techniques in the regression framework and covers extensions such as specification error tests, heteroskedasticity, errors in variables, and simple time series models. An introduction to simultaneous equation modes and the concept of identification is also provided.

Econometrics - Sample Syllabus.

Shanghai Students: this course counts for Social Science (foundation)

Public policy affects our lives in profound ways even when we are not aware of them. What we eat, how we recycle, or when we disclose personal information on the internet are all examples of choices largely determined by public policies. This course is an introduction to public policy, why it is important, and how it involves simultaneous ethical, political, and problem-solving processes. The course introduces students to the ways in which a variety of actors and institutions at the national and transnational levels interactively contribute to public policy. The course is divided into two parts. The first part provides an overview of the basic concepts underlying the public policy process and the second part provides critical perspectives on public policy-making in theory and practice.

Introduction to Public Policy - Sample Syllabus.

Social networks are the subject of some of the most exciting recent advances in the natural and social sciences. This course provides an introduction to the major discoveries in the field of social networks, particularly advances during the last decade. It also provides students with an introduction to the methods and software used to analyze and visualize social networks. Topics include the small-world puzzle (six degrees of separation), the strength of weak ties, centrality, complexity, thresholds (‘tipping points’), and the spread of diseases and fads. Case studies used in the course include topics such as the contagion of suicides, social influence on musical taste, sexual relationships among adolescents, inter-organizational networks, and the network structure of the internet. Course readings are an engaging blend of popular social science texts, journal articles, and scientific papers.

This course introduces the key concepts and theoretical approaches in the sociological study of crime and deviance. The objective of the class is not to provide a mass of hard facts about crime and deviance, but to make students familiar with different ways of viewing and explaining crime and deviance and to develop a critical, analytical perspective and an ability to use concepts and theories from the criminological tradition to frame arguments about crime-related issues from a sociological perspective.

Beginning Spanish 1 is for students with no prior knowledge of Spanish. It serves as an introduction to Spanish and focuses on the four key areas of language study: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The primary purpose of the course is to prepare students to communicate effectively in Spanish and to learn about Spanish culture. Students will learn how to fulfill simple everyday life tasks in Spanish, including introducing themselves in professional and personal settings, booking tickets, asking for directions, and ordering food in a restaurant. Students will master proper Spanish sentence constructions, articles and adjectives, subject-verb agreement, and verb conjugations in the present tense. Students will be provided opportunities to read, write, listen, and speak Spanish while they work towards becoming linguistically and culturally literate. It corresponds to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL) level A1.1. This is a pass/fail course (no letter grade).

This course focuses on the theory and practice of constructed and staged photography. The class will be structured as a semester-long investigation in which students develop projects and make commentaries on issues of personal and/or greater social significance. Students will study and experiment with several visual communication techniques and processes with the goal of developing and refining a portfolio of work.

Whether planning images, sculptures, movements, maps, or more, drawing allows for the quick transposition of ideas. It is the foundational language of the artistic mind. Foundations in 2D explores the diverse practice of drawing across media and form, from charcoal to pencil to pastel to wet media; from figure to object to abstraction. This investigation is for novices and advanced drafters alike. The first part of the course focuses on practicing traditional drawing approaches in class, while homework assignments allow for greater subjectivity in applying the technique. Midway through the course, concept development takes center stage, with students learning about artists who have expanded upon traditional notions of drawing and/or subverted them. We study postmodern principles and use them to analyze works of art and to guide original pieces. For beginners, the class will help confront expectations about what drawing entails, allowing them to develop an emboldened drawing practice free from previous conceptions. Advanced artists' practices will be challenged and interrupted in order to invite creative risks and new conceptual approaches, expanding their practice.

This intermediate level drawing class takes mark-making to be the foundation of drawing, and entertains the idea that there are many ways to make a mark: through process, experiment, cutting, folding, staining, thinking, writing, and using a variety of materials to do so. The motivation for mark-making may not be to render a likeness - and this is an ancient as well as a contemporary approach to art; so-called "non-representational" art has many historical roots - from conceptual and process-based art grounded in fairly recent art historical developments, and also from traditions of patterning, calligraphy, textile work, and durational experiments not necessarily coming out of "main stream" art.

This course is designed to give students a chance to master lighting through working on a body (or bodies) of work which use light quality to achieve a consistent interpretation of the artist's place and ideas in the world. Light, and its behavior, is literally the universal constant for all physical law and forms the experimental basis for all interpretations of physical reality. In classic physics, all measurements of time and space are defined by the speed of light. Similarly, all artists use the quality of light in depictions of the physical world to create interpretations of idiosyncratic universes, with an implied set of consistent physical laws. Photographers/cinematographers and painters don’t simply "light" for description of a person, scene, or object, they create entire cosmologies through the manipulation of light. Lighting is used as a means to motivate content.

This course introduces students to 2D media (e.g., painting, drawing, printmaking, calligraphy), materials and design. Areas of study include plane, figure/ground relationships, scale and proportional transformation, patterning, composition, value, color, methods for conveying time, and spatial illusion. Using a wide variety of traditional and nontraditional materials and methods, the course emphasizes content issues and the historical and cultural context in which works of art are produced.

Foundations of 2D - Sample Syllabus.

This course explores the medium of sculpture and other 3D forms through the principles of three-dimensional design and the concepts that drive developments in contemporary art. Projects may include mold making, ceramics, and the use of wood working tools, as well as the use of sculpture as costume, performance, environment, or kinetic form. Students use a variety of materials from wood and cardboard to metal, plaster, paper, cloth and found objects to expand their understanding of form and space.

Foundations of 3D - Sample Syllabus.

Printmaking at its most basic level involves the creation of a matrix (wood block, litho stone, etching plate, etc.), inking that matrix, and then transferring the ink onto paper. Essential to printmaking is the production of multiples and repetition. This class will introduce several printmaking media and techniques including, but not limited to: drypoint, woodcut, linocut, screenprinting and monotype. The focus will be on fine art printmaking. The technical aspects of each technique will be presented and then investigated through in-class demonstrations, readings, and slide lectures, all designed to tie the history of printmaking with hands-on learning. Success in this course depends on combining technique with strong concepts, the development of an aesthetic, and a willingness to take risks to challenge your abilities and ideas. Through group critiques you will learn to speak effectively about and to analyze your work and the work of others, questioning the decisions made in the development of the image, and assessing how successfully the technical and conceptual work together to communicate ideas.

Print Studio 1: VISAR-UH 2116 - Sample Syllabus.

This course introduces students to the history, theory, and practice of photography. Students will learn foundational image-making techniques with a focus on Black and White analog photography. A range of studio and darkroom tools and approaches will be explored. Students will be introduced to key artists, themes, and developments in photography and will consider the impact of photographic media on the development of art and society. 

Foundations of Photography - Sample Syllabus.

This immersive studio course in graphic design combines practice and reflection through a project-based approach to branding. Logos are graphic marks or emblems used by commercial enterprises, organizations and individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition. How are Logos doing today? How designers are coping with new emerging standards? How do we deal with a brand when a Favicon or screen buttons become more important than header paper? We will see how some of the most successful logos only seem to be set in stone, while in reality they constantly mutate and adapt. We also examine how and why certain logos in the last two decades have become metaphors for the worst outcomes of corporate cultures and the targets of anti-globalization activists everywhere. We investigate how and why in our Age of Brands, logos ended in the spotlight for reasons opposite to the ones they were created for. Particular emphasis will be placed on the challenges faced by contemporary designers when handling assignments outside their own cultural backgrounds: do we have what it takes to make a logo function at its best in Abu Dhabi, New York or Shanghai?

In this course students learn the history, criticism, and variety of theoretical approaches to photography while developing their own skills in the photographic media. The course begins with the origins of the medium in France, England, and the United States in the 1830s, and proceeds to a broader look at photography throughout the world. Photography is considered as art, medium of communication, formulator of political and propaganda concepts, advertising tool, and an aspect of popular culture. Students produce a portfolio of their photographs.

Photography as Art and Practice - Sample Syllabus.

Students in this course will produce sculptural and site-specific works of Sound Art, using sound, materials, and space as their palette. The class will focus its study on artists who primarily work with sound in gallery-based situations and the surrounding fine art discourses. While the term “Sound Art” is not as old, the practice of using sound as both material and concept in the context of gallery-based visual arts stretches back over 100 years, and comes from various artists and art movements, such as Marcel Duchamp, the Futurists, Dada, and forward to the happenings of Fluxus, the Minimalists, specifically Robert Morris, and through to the procedural art making methods of John Cage and the countless artists he influenced. We will examine the use of the term "Sound Art" carefully and draw our own conclusions about its utility, while exploring the use of sound to unlock sculptural, architectural, material, and conceptual potentials. 

Sound Art - Sample Syllabus.

This course takes a sculptural approach to exploring and reimagining the city by looking at the existing landscape of Abu Dhabi. Students will visit public parks, streetscapes, the markets, super-blocks, the port, shopping malls, and industrial districts. We will document our observations through field notes, drawings, photography, video and sound recordings. This research will serve as a foundation for creating objects, sculptures, and installations. Students will learn to develop forms of artistic and architectural presentation and representation that reflect the urban design and development of the city. This research and artistic production will be accompanied by selected readings that address theoretical, historical and contemporary perspectives from authors and artists such as: Atelier, Bow Wow, Denise Scott Brown, Homi Baba, Dan Graham, Kevin Mitchell, Robert Venturi, Andrea Zittel.

Advanced Projects in 2D focuses on the development, execution, and presentation of an independent project, as well as the development of an art practice. One of the most challenging aspects of artmaking is seeing highly detailed, laborious works through to their completion. Students enter the class with an idea they are dedicated to spending 50 or more hours physically making. Though this artwork may span multiple canvases or media, it is conceived of as single work. The course begins with students designing art studio spaces to suit their needs. Studios might be the span of a desk, a portable art-in-a-cart, or occupy a whole room. This conscientious mindset of studio design is carried over into the ritualized formulation of an art practice. Various methods of organizing, researching, archiving, etc. are introduced. The culmination of the semester-long course is a highly evolved artwork and the empowered experience of an autonomous art practice.

New York Tisch Drama Students: this course counts for Drama elective credit.

Students develop advanced performance skills by using techniques associated with Patsy Rodenburg, Shin’ichi Suzuki, Stanislavski, Anne Bogart, and Yoshi Oida, among others. Training exercises are used to develop kinesthetic awareness, focus, listening, character, action, creativity, imagination, and collaboration. Through a holistic approach connected to recent findings in cognitive science, students build technical craft as well as begin to remove obstructive physical, vocal and mental habits, so as to release the full potential of the responsiveness, expressivity, and presence of their actor/performer instruments: the body-mind.

Character and Action - Sample Syllabus.

This course continues the work begin in Directing in a Lab setting. Students will work with material from Susan-Lori Parks 365 Plays/Days, Samuel Beckett’s short plays or bring in material of their own choosing. Our weekly sessions will include sharing work in process, discussion of major issues both ethical and practical in the field of Directing, and the building of comradery as we explore the form.

New York Tisch Drama Students: this course counts for Theatre Studies B or C

This course examines how theatrical simulations of reality from the mid-20th century until now inform our understanding of the world in which we live. Particular attention is given to how theater artists and theorists have tried to intervene in the course of history by constructing their own version of events. Course reading includes a wide range of plays that directly engage real events across a broad spectrum of personal, social, political and historical circumstances by using witness accounts, film footage, photographs, documents, legal transcripts, interviews, and the reality and fiction of staged objects. Students will gain an understanding of the performativity of bodies, memory, nation, terror, and the archive.

Representing the Real - Sample Syllabus.