2021-2022 University Catalog 
    
    Apr 29, 2024  
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2021-2022 University Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Course Descriptions

 

Environmental Studies
  

  • ENST 491 - Independent Study

    Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.

    Credits: variable
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term

Film and Media Studies
  

  • FMST 200 - Introduction to Film and Media Studies

    From the films we watch to the personal profiles we maintain online, media saturates our lives. Film and mass media can be powerful determinants of ideology, identity, and historical consciousness. This course is a historical survey of media technologies and environments, combining course readings with a required weekly film screening. The theoretical concepts introduced in this course enable students to critically approach the visual culture around them: just how immersed are we in the virtual, and what are the strategies for engaging with or disengaging from virtual worlds? Students learn to respond to film and media as proactive, critical, and articulate viewers. Students also acquire the vocabulary, conceptual strategies, and interpretive skills necessary to closely analyze the form and content of film and media, as well as the ability to set their own relation to the ideologies all representations convey.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite:    
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No Senior
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 200L - Required Film Screening

    Required corequisite to  .

    Credits: 0.00
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 210 - Global Cinema

    Explores the production and reception of film in a global context, as well as the various ways individuals and communities around the world create and receive film. Students explore the concept of “national cinema,” the interplay of local aesthetic traditions and transnational industrial and artistic practices, the role of cinema in diasporic communities, and the impact of global capitalism on film production, distribution, and exhibition. Films depicting immigration, exile, the refugee, insider/outsider status, and other modes of geographic movement are explored.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  
  

  • FMST 212 - Global Media: Flows & Counterflows

    Regulating and being regulated by a variety of information flows on a daily basis from SMS texts, snapchats, and tweets, to live news feeds, corporate data transfers, and government communiques. We increasingly experience our private and public lives as a hypermediated encounter with the world at large. What impact do these media flows have on our experiences of the local and the global? Simultaneously, how should we understand contemporary mass media themselves as “global”? Have transformations in print, broadcast, and digital media fundamentally altered how we think of the near and the far, the familiar and the foreign, the national and the transnational, the West and the non-West? This course will address these questions through the two structuring notions of the “flow” and the “counter-flow,” and analyze the role that media play as both a unifying and a divisive agent, consolidating identities and nationalisms in some instances, and de-territorializing the same in others.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  
  

  • FMST 224 - Introduction to Italian Cinema

    An introduction to major works of Italian cinema from the silent era to contemporary productions. Students will watch and discuss groundbreaking films by Italian directors such as Rossellini, Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, Wertmüller, Benigni, and others. Places Italian cinema within the context of European art cinema and film theory, and focuses on the ways these films represent and challenge Italian history, culture, and identity. It emphasizes the study of cinematic analysis and filmmaking techniques, as well as the historical and cultural situation in Italy from the 1920s to the present. Students are required to attend weekly screenings in addition to regular class meetings. Taught in English, with the option of a discussion group in Italian.

    Credits: 1.0
    Crosslisted:   
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FMST 225 - Visual Rhetorics

    Approaches the study of rhetoric by foregrounding the dynamic relationship of text and image. How does a writer’s combination of verbal and visual elements communicate different arguments when circulated among different audiences? How do verbal/visual texts imitate, represent, and/or constitute cultural identities, norms, values, or practices? With the goal of becoming effective rhetorical critics, as well as incisive consumers and producers of visual culture, students in this course study a variety of visual texts in print and electronic form and examine these texts’ complex powers of persuasion. The primary work is to develop and strengthen fluency in rhetorical discourse and visual literacy, as students work to perceive and analyze, as well as design and create, verbal-visual texts.

    Credits: 1.0
    Crosslisted:   
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 230 - LGBTQ Cinema/Transnational

    Examines lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer film cultures from transnational and global perspectives. Courses on LGBTQ cinema most often focus on North America and Western Europe, well-known for their prolific output of gay, lesbian, and transgender film and media. Less frequently included are the wide range of films produced (since the 1980s and 1990s) from India, Thailand, Hong Kong, Egypt, Tunisia, Guinea, Uganda, Israel, and Russia. Analzying these films alongside contemporary theoretical discussions of gender and sexuality, students will explore how LGBTQ concerns from non-Western countries continue to test the possibilities of film and media aesthetics and politics, and bring the cinematic form in dialogue with the complexities and geopolitics of gender and sexuality.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 230L - Required Film Screening

    Required corequisite to  .

    Credits: 0.00
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 235 - Independent Film Production (Study Group)

    Introduces students to the theory and practice of independent filmmaking. Students become familiar with the fundamentals of media production, including time-based visual storytelling; digital video and audio technologies; and image composition and framing. Simultaneously, students explore the history of independent film production in the United States and particularly in New York City, as well as the narrative, stylistic, industrial, and cultural aspects of contemporary U.S. independent film.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites:    
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 246 - Introduction to Performance Studies

    What is performance? The verb “to perform” can be variously defined as “to carry out an action,” “to discharge a duty,” “to accomplish a task,” and “to present to an audience.” Interdisciplinary in nature, students explores performance in the context of the performing and media arts, as well as in the context of ritual, politics, and everyday life. Emphasizes the relationship between performance and race, gender, sexuality, and other vectors of identity: how are various types of difference enacted, articulated, and represented through performative acts?

    Credits: 1.00
    Crosslisted: THEA 246   
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 270 - The Rhetoric of Comics

    Focuses on the ways that comics - often defined as the interplay of words and images - convey specific messages, whether instructional, narrative, persuasive, or other. Close analyses draw on principles of visual rhetoric, comics scholarship, photography, and related disciplines. Readings cover the theory, history, terminology, and genres of graphic narratives.

    Credits: 1.0
    Crosslisted:   
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 288 - New Media: History and Theory from Netflix to VR

    Focusing on 21st century media production and consumption, students explore the impact of digital technologies on film, television, and social media. In addition to viewing a wide range of recent and contemporary works, from web documentaries to interactive films and Virtual Reality, “New Media” engages more directly and materially with contemporary moving images, industries, and infrastructures. The course addresses key issues in recent film and media theory by historicizing and contextualizing recent debates surrounding movie-going, connected viewing, interactivity, and streaming.

    Credits: 1.0
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites:   
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 288L - Required Film Screening

    Required corequisite to FMST 288.

    Credits: 0.00
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 291 - Independent Study

    Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.

    Credits: variable
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 303 - The Rhetoric of Data Visualization & Infographics

    Our world is increasingly visual; more and more of the information we consume and produce is presented in images. This course focuses on the visual presentation of numerical information - everything from box-and-whisker plots to flashy infographics - and specifically how such information can effectively persuade its readers. Emphasis will be on both analyzing and making visualizations; there will be no attention to data collection or analysis. Students can expect to improve their visual literacy skills; no facility with statistics or software packages is required.

    Credits: 1.0
    Crosslisted:   
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FMST 324 - Cinema, Sensation, & Body

    To what extent does watching a movie imitate the body’s own sensorial encounters with the world? How do filmmakers use color, sound, lighting, movement, editing and space to create embodied experience? This course is an introduction to these and related questions by examining both cinema’s bodily representations, and the relationship between the viewer’s body and the events on the screen. The approach is organized around weekly film screenings that include silent film, art cinema, experimental cinema, classical Hollywood melodrama, and the horror film. Readings explore phenomenological theories of the body by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Vivian Sobchack, Jennifer Baker, Elena del Rio, Laura Marks, Martine Beugnet, and Steven Shaviro. Students explore related approaches such as affect theory, feminism, and the relationship of bodily representation to painting, especially in the depiction of masochism.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: FMST 324L  
    Prerequisites:   
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FMST 325 - The Narrative in New Media

    Students will explore the ways in which innovations in media have changed the shape of narrative and textuality. People often assume that new media is a 20th-century development, but this course will be a more historicized view; the printing press, after all, changed media more fundamentally than anything since. Starting with a foundation of media theory and narrative theory, the course will then work through the ages: printing; newspapers; color printing; radio; television; electronic fiction; fan fiction; hypertext; remix aesthetics; and video games.

    Credits: 1.0
    Crosslisted:   
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FMST 333 - Documentary Film

    Surveys the traditions of personal, experimental, ethnographic, and political documentary filmmaking. This overview of the history and aesthetics of documentary examines its origins, forms, goals, and contemporary styles while at the same time problematizing its canonical readings and reception. Issues covered include documentary styles, documentary representation of history and memory, the filmmaker’s relationship to the subject and the viewer, and the impact of technology on documentary techniques. Particular attention is paid to the influence that certain social and political movements have had on documentaries and filmmakers. A required film series accompanying the class includes works by directors such as Flaherty, Riefenstahl, Wiseman, Rouch, Morris, Moffatt, and many others.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites:    or a cinema studies course
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FMST 340 - Music, Film, and Media

    Explores the various ways in which sound and music have functioned in visual and sonic media. Tracing the history of sound(ing) media from the advent of the phonograph and the rise of radio through silent film and classical Hollywood cinema, to the concept album and music on television, and finally, to the turn to the digital and sound “in the cloud,” students examine a series of musical media “objects” and the theory, rhetoric, and practice that has surrounded them. Particular attention will be devoted to the integration of film, music, and media industries and the ways in which music and sound work with other elements of film and media to reflect and construct social and cultural identities. Through readings, screenings, and written assignments, students acquire the tools and language to analyze and discuss the complex ways in which music, film, and media interact.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites:   
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  
  

  • FMST 341E - Performing & Media Arts in Hong Kong (Extended Study)

    A three-week extended study course in the spring. The course offers students an immersive experience in Hong Kong’s vibrant performing and media arts scene. It includes visits to live performances, film screenings, museums, and galleries, as well as lectures and walking tours with Hong Kong-based scholars on the city’s history, arts, and culture.

    Credits: 0.50
    Crosslisted:   
    Prerequisites:   or (  or  )
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 360 - The Cultural History of the Internet

    Examines the emergence, development, and socio-political outcomes of the explosion of online networks and social groups in the 20th and 21st Century. As the lines between the virtual and the real comingle with increasing fluidity, the defining characteristics of community, society, democracy, nation, and selfhood are fundamentally transformed. The hyper-accelerated and globalizing force of the Internet has been met with triumphalism from cyber-utopians and vehement caution from skeptics. Only one thing is certain, the organizing forces of online life have transformed the social fabric of global society. Examining the fluctuating character of citizenship, community, social identity, leisure, labor and economy, love and sexuality, privacy, and social mobilization, we will examine a cross-section of literature on post-Internet life.

    Credits: 1.00
    Prerequisites:   or   
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 374 - Anthropology of Media: Mass-Mediated Cultures

    Examines media in local, national, and global contexts. More specifically, it draws on media theory and on specific ethnographic cases to discern the social force of modern mass-mediated communication within and across contemporary cultures. Topics include the technologization of old media, language and performance; the emergence of mass-mediated “imagined” communities; and new media social networks.

    Credits: 1.00
    Crosslisted:    
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • FMST 380 - New York Media (Study Group)

    Examines the diverse film and media ecosystem of New York, including the interplay between independent film and media-making, community-based media projects, and corporate film and media-making, in order to develop a nuanced understanding of the aesthetic, cultural, political, and economic context in which media operate in New York. Students explore New York’s role as an exhibition hub for globally-produced film and media, applying academic discourses on film and media to the critical analysis of film/media festivals, institutions, organizations. Throughout, students simultaneously engage the historical and contemporary forces shaping various regions of New York, including immigration, racial and economic disparity, rural/urban and upstate/downstate politics, and gentrification and displacement. How do New York’s complex social issues shape, manifest in, and impact its arts and media institutions, its artists and media-makers, and the art/media they create?

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites:   
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 382 - Media Industries: Practice and Perspectives (Study Group)

    Explores the contours and practices of media industries (film, television, print, video game, podcast, and mobile technologies through both academic study and structured internship and shadowing opportunities. Students examine how and why contemporary media content, hardware, and software become situated within industrial structures of production, distribution, and exhibition both historically and in our contemporary moment. Students also explore the ways in which media and technological developments are impacted by ownership, conceptions of genre and markets, funding structures, and regulation, offering students terminological and theoretical frameworks for understanding media industries. Offered as part of the New York City Study Group.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites:   
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 390 - Special Topics in FMST

    Offers an advanced level study of a specific and narrowed field within the discipline of film and media studies. Each year, students focus on topics that reflect the breadth of film and media studies at Colgate. Faculty teach in the area of their scholarly expertise on a rotating basis. Focus may be on an in-depth study of a filmmaker, or a school of film, or genre, or focus on an advanced study of the history and theory of television or media, among other things.

    Credits: 1
    Corequisite: FMST 390L
    Prerequisites: FMST 200
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: None
    Formerly: Formerly FMST 400


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 390L - Required Film Screening

    Required corequisite to FMST

    Credits: 0
    Corequisite: FMST 390
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 391 - Independent Study

    Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.

    Credits: variable
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 410 - Senior Seminar in Film and Media Studies

    Examines a constellation of debates, topics, and methods in film and media studies. Emphasis is placed on close analysis of media objects, critical evaluation of contemporary film and media theory and methodologies, and the application of interdisciplinary approaches. Topics for consideration might include: modernity and mass culture; media aesthetics, politics, and power; film and media historiography; spectatorship practices; media and identity; film and the digital; media installations and site specificity; and spectacle and surveillance.

    Credits: 1
    Prerequisites:   
    Major/Minor Restrictions: Only Film & Media Studies Majors
    Class Restriction: Only Senior
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FMST 491 - Independent Study

    Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.

    Credits: variable
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term

French
  

  • FREN 121 - Introduction to French Language & Culture I

    The FREN 121,122 sequence is a highly interactive course that introduces students to the basic skills of understanding, speaking, reading and writing in the French language. The sequence acquaints students with the rich world of Francophone culture through conversations, the discussion of short texts, the French language table and coffee hours, film, and other resources. Online tools help students understand and appreciate the nuances of French grammar, vocabulary, and expression. Language Placement Guidelines

    Credits: 1.00
    When Offered: Fall semester only

    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FREN 122 - Introduction to French Language & Culture II

    FREN 122 builds upon the skills of understanding, speaking, reading and writing in the French language acquired in FREN 121. Increased proficiency in speaking is achieved through class presentations, debates, films and discussions relating to contemporary issues in the Francophone world. Language Placement Guidelines

    Credits: 1.00
    When Offered: Spring semester only

    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FREN 195 - Elementary-Level French Language Abroad

    Elementary-level language courses taken abroad with a Colgate study group, an approved program, or in a foreign institution of higher learning.

    Credits: 1
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FREN 201 - Intermediate French: Conversation and Composition

    Designed to improve students’ ability to understand, speak, read, and write French. Class time is devoted to communication activities, a study of intermediate grammar, conversational vocabulary, and Francophone culture. Language Placement Guidelines

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two or three years of secondary-school French, or a one- year college elementary French course.
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Restrictions: Not open to students who score 3 or higher on the French AP language exam
    Recommended: May be taken as a refresher course by students who studied French in secondary school as follows: three years of study ending at least one-half year before, four years of study ending at least a year and a half before.
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 202 - Intermediate French: Language, Culture, and Literature

    Designed to increase the student’s ability to understand, speak, read, and write French. Study includes a review of the more difficult points of intermediate grammar, vocabulary, conversational practice, and short compositions. Additionally, focus is on building familiarity with concepts and skills necessary for the study of literature. Through the practice of the language, the reading of short literary texts, and the use of other materials, students are introduced to diverse aspects of French and Francophone cultures.  Language Placement Guidelines

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Three to four years of secondary-school French, or   or equivalent
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Restrictions: Not open to students who have received credit for 202 by scoring 4 on the AP exam
    Recommended: Students with more than four years of HS French should not register for FR 202. Those students should register for the appropriate 300-level courses.
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • FREN 222 - French and Francophone Literature in Translation

    Analyzes some outstanding works of literature originally written in French that are available in translation. Works are chosen from various periods and are considered within their historical and cultural context. Taught in English.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FREN 291 - Independent Study

    Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.

    Credits: variable
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FREN 295 - Intermediate-Level French Language Abroad

    Intermediate-level language courses taken abroad with a Colgate study group, an approved program, or in a foreign institution of higher learning.

    Credits: 1
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


    Click here for Course Offerings by term
  

  • FREN 351 - Introduction to French Literature: From Chivalry to Versailles

    As an introduction, through reading and discussion, to three diverse and formative periods of French literature, this course shows the inspiration and variety of expression that mark each period. Readings include selections from La Chanson de Roland, courtly romance, the fabliaux (all medieval writings are read in modern French versions); prose and poetry of Renaissance France; tragic and comic writers of the French classical theater. Language Placement Guidelines

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: At least four years of secondary-school French or    
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Restrictions: Students who complete a 400-level course in French may not register for this course.
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 352 - Introduction to French Literature: Birth of the Modern

    Studies major works, principal authors, and literary movements of French literature in the 18th and 19th centuries. Language Placement Guidelines

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: At least four years of secondary-school French or   
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Restrictions: Students who complete a 400-level course in French may not register for this course.
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 353 - Introduction to French Literature: Literary Innovations in the 20th to 21st Centuries

    Offers a close reading of some representative works of the 20th and 21st centuries. Selections are chosen from the shorter fiction, drama, and poetry  of major French writers and studied in the context of French history and major intellectual, literary, and artistic movements. Authors may include Apollinaire, Gide, Sartre, Camus, Ionesco, Ponge, Ernaux and Modiano. Language Placement Guidelines

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: At least four years of secondary-school French or   
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Restrictions: Students who complete a 400-level course in French may not register for this course.
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 354 - Introduction to French Literature: The Francophone World

    Offers an overview of various bodies of literature written in French outside of France, focusing on five main geographical areas that historically constituted the French empire: the Caribbean, North Africa, West and Central Africa, Asia, and North America. Full texts as well as excerpts from a variety of genres are studied in the context of the history and geography of those regions. Through the exploration of key literary texts, particular attention is given to the effects of colonialism on language, identity, and artistic creation. Language Placement Guidelines

    Credits: 1.00
    Crosslisted:    
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: At least four years of secondary-school French or   
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Restrictions: Students who complete a 400-level course in French may not register for this course.
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • FREN 361 - French Composition, Grammar, and Conversation

    Structured as a review of grammatical principles with emphasis on correctness in expository composition in French. Not open to students who score 5 on the AP language exam, except by special permission of instructor. Must be taken on campus to fulfill major or minor requirements. Language Placement Guidelines

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites:   or   or   or   
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Restrictions: Not open to students with a score of 5 on AP language exam, except by permission of instructor. Must be taken on campus to fulfill major or minor requirements.
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 391 - Independent Study

    Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.

    Credits: variable
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 395 - Advanced-Level French Language Abroad

    Advanced-level language courses taken abroad with a Colgate study group, an approved program, or in a foreign institution of higher learning.

    Credits: 1
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 421 - The Classical Stage

    Traces the development of French theater through close readings of major and influential theatrical works from the 17th and 18th centuries. Major dramatic genres such as tragedy, comedy, and Romantic drama and their development are examined in their historical and cultural contexts. Through critical readings of these plays, students identify an evolving sensibility concerning the definition of the hero and the contingencies of fate, love, and personal choice. Students consider as well the shifting set of literary conventions through which playwright and audience negotiated these ideas. Authors studied may include Corneille, Racine, Molière, Marivaux, and Beaumarchais.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level French literature courses 
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 423 - The 18th-Century Epistolary Novel in France

    Examines some of the French 18th century’s most celebrated “letter novels.” Through readings of Montesquieu, Graffigny, Rousseau, and Laclos, the course focuses on the formal and thematic development of the epistolary genre over a period of some 60 years. The novels are read against a historical background stretching from the reign of Louis XIV through the French Revolution.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None Two 350-level French literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 425 - Libertine Fiction of the French 18th Century

    Beginning in the 17th century under the label libertinage érudit, libertine fiction evolves into a major genre in the Enlightenment. The course follows its development through readings of Prèvost, Crébillon fils, Diderot, Denon, and Sade, and explores the following questions: How do philosophy, fiction, and sexual politics coalesce in libertine literature? How can one reconcile libertinage - a way of living and writing frequently reduced to passion and sensuality - with the broader currents of the most “rational” century in French literary history? An exploration of libertine literature thus entails a focus on cultural history, and serves as a point of departure for a broader reflection on the Enlightenment.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level French literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 427 - Literature of the Renaissance

    A detailed study of the lyric poetry of Louise Labé, Pierre Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay, and Clément Marot. The course explores how each writer seeks to create his or her own unique poetic style within the context of the intense literary creation and experimentation that characterize Renaissance France. Special attention is given to the themes of love and Classical mythology as sources of poetic inspiration. Some attention to Renaissance painting, to the lyric poetry of François Villon, and to selected prose of Marguerite de Navarre, Montaigne, and Rabelais is given in order to illustrate the enormous and varied impact of humanism and the Italian Renaissance.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level French literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 429 - The Age of Enlightenment

    Examines some of the relationships between Enlightenment thought and the dominant forms of written expression in the French 18th century. Through readings, students consider a number of the Enlightenment’s most pressing concerns, such as moral and political philosophy, religious and civil tolerance, natural law, and the role of literature and the arts in society, among others. Authors read include Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Beaumarchais, and Sade.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level French literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 430 - Literature of Adventure and Quest

    Studies the evolution and transmutation of conventions of quest literature from the Middle Ages to the present day. Examines the significance of the changes within the genre as reflections of the cultures from which they emerge. Readings range from the romances of Chrétien de Troyes to the contemporary French novel.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level French literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 431 - Molière and La Fontaine

    The course provides a detailed study of two major comic writers of French classical literature, emphasizing especially the creation of individual comic and satirical styles within the classical tradition. The course examines both specific themes such as the images of king, court, and society, and also more general literary and cultural questions. These include the nature of comedy, the relationship between popular culture and literary art, and the problem of literary translation. Readings are drawn from the farces, short plays, and major works of Molière and from the Fables, the Contes et nouvelles, and selected minor poems of La Fontaine, as well as from La Fontaine’s legacy in pictorial art and folklore.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level French literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 433 - The Court of Louis XIV

    The theme of the court is used to explore the major works in prose and poetry of classical France, reading these works as examples both of insightful social analysis and of outstanding achievements in literary style and art. Readings are drawn primarily from the works of Madame de Sévigné, Racine, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Madame de Lafayette, and La Bruyère. Key topics include the relationship between writer and society in 17th-century France, Versailles as a theatrical setting for the Sun-King, and literature as both social commentary and divertissement. The seminar also studies the theme of the court as it is expressed in 17th-century painting and music.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level French literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 441 - Readings in French Poetry I

    Focuses on some of the major poets of the 19th century, by studying their work in the context of the greater political, social, and historical events of the time. Readings concentrate on representative texts of the following poets: Lamartine, Alfred de Vigny, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Hugo, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, and others.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level French literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 445 - Writing the Self in the 20th Century: Autobiography in French

    Examines the development and specificities of 20th-century autobiographical texts. While the main focus is on the texts themselves, some related theoretical problems are also considered, such as the conditions and possibility of writing the “self”; autobiography’s link to other types of personal writings; its relationship to fiction; and its role in our modern definition of “humanity.” This genre being rooted in questions of the emergence of the “self,” particular attention is given to writers who, because of their gender and/or sexual identity and their designations as francophone writers, were traditionally regarded as “other.” Authors read may include Gide, Sartre, Beauvoir, Sarraute, Bouraoui, and Daas.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level French literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 450 - French Narrative in the Early 20th Century

    The first part of the 20th century marks a shift in the modern Hexagonal French narrative from the pursuit of objectivity and the representation of social structures and systems, to a greater preoccupation with subjectivity, the exploration of personal identity, and interpersonal relations. Through the close study of texts by authors such as Gide, Proust, Breton, and Yourcenar, this seminar examines the ways in which questions of personal identity and subjectivity are explored through new approaches to traditional narrative forms.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level French literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 453 - Contemporary Literature in French

    Focuses on major works of literature written in French in the late 20th and 21st centuries. Examines how questions of individual and collective identity, agency, and intersectionality inform literary expression, and how literature can be used to make sense of those questions. Through the study of select texts from France and the francophone world,students are invited to consider the role of history and the place of individual voices in complex colonial and post-colonial contexts. Authors may include de Beauvoir, Duras, Sarraute, Djebar, Bey, Cixous, and Chami.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level French literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • FREN 455 - Francophone Voices from North Africa

    This seminar examines the literature written in French by Maghrebi and Beur women authors since the early 1980s. The product of a colonial and post-colonial history, this is a literature where cultures, histories, identities, genres, and languages intersect. It gives voice to new questions of identity and self-definition through the exploration of traditional as well as innovative forms of writing. In order to establish the historical and cultural contexts in which this body of literature has emerged and is growing, the course includes an overview of the history of Franco-Maghrebi relations and Maghrebi immigration to France. Through the reading of texts by Maghrebi and Beur authors, this course explores and discusses issues such as imperialism and colonialism, post-colonialism, cultural translocation, identity politics, gender and race, religion, multilingualism, sexuality, urban development and design, etc.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level French literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • FREN 481 - Major French Authors

    This seminar, offered on an irregular basis, provides the opportunity for extensive study of the works of the most distinguished authors writing in the French language before 1800. It is taught by faculty members who have particular interest and expertise in the literature to be examined. FREN 481 is a category 1 course.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 482 - Major French Authors

    This seminar provides the opportunity for extensive study of the works of the most distinguished authors writing in the French language after 1800. It is taught by faculty members who have particular interest and expertise in the literature to be examined. Counts toward Category II for the major.

    Credits: 1.00
    When Offered: On an irregular basis

    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: Two 350-level literature courses
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 490 - Honors

    Students pursuing honors in French enroll in this course.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • FREN 491 - Independent Study

    Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.

    Credits: variable
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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Geography
  

  • GEOG 105 - Climate and Society

    Human-induced climate change–global warming–is the defining environmental and social issue of our times. That people are dramatically altering the climate is now the resounding consensus in the scientific community. Potential short- and long-term impacts include biodiversity loss, sea-level rise and coastal flooding, more intense storms, threats to human health, and disruptions of freshwater supplies and food security. But while the global community increasingly understands the basic processes driving climate change, and is starting to appreciate the consequences of a warmer world, the coupled social and biophysical dynamics of global warming are complex and the issue remains controversial. This course explores climate-society relationships in industrial and pre-industrial periods, and considers the multifaceted natural and human dimensions of global warming. It also highlights the integrative natural and social science modes of analysis commonly used in the discipline of geography.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None
    Formerly: GEOG 205


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  • GEOG 107 - Is the Planet Doomed?

    “End of the world” scenarios have been linked to global pandemics, super-volcanoes, artificial intelligence, and melting permafrost. “Is the Planet Doomed” uses these and other examples to study contemporary catastrophism. The course explores arguments that suggest the world may have reached “peak humanity.” Potential mass extinction events arise from the convergence of biological, climatic, economic, technological factors on one hand, and war on the other. The course analyzes these factors using the integrative modes of analysis commonly used in the discipline of geography. And it exposes how geography affects the catastrophic imaginary.

    Credits: 1.00
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None
    Formerly: GEOG 207


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  • GEOG 121 - Earth, Society, and Sustainability

    The spatial scale, magnitude, and pace of human-induced environmental changes over the past 300 years are unprecedented. It is essential to undertake reasoned assessments of the complex and interrelated political, socioeconomic, technological, cultural, and biophysical factors leading to environmental changes if society is to manage them appropriately. This course is an introduction to the major environmental problems of resource depletion, pollution, and ecosystem transformation. It explores the effects of environmental changes on society, as well as societal responses to them, and enhances understanding of the causes of these changes from multiple theoretical perspectives.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 211 - Geographies of Nature, Economy, Society

    Acquaints students with the approaches and subject matter of human and nature-society geography. It introduces geography’s longstanding concerns with spatial location, place, and nature-society interaction, as studied through ways of knowing that are central to the discipline—spatial representation and analysis, cross-scalar comparisons, integrative synthesis, and the social construction of space and environment. Case studies, drawn from all world regions, illustrate how geographers use these tools and perspectives to clarify such issues as human well-being and inequality, economic and sociocultural globalization, population patterns and processes, human impact on the environment, and sustainable development in the Anthropocene.

    Credits: 1.00
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements
    Formerly: GEOG 111


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  • GEOG 231 - Geography of the Physical Environment

    Provide students with a general understanding of the processes and spatial distribution of the Earth’s primary physical systems and the ways in which humans interact with these systems. Course emphasis is divided into three areas: atmospheric processes, the spatial dynamics of vegetation and soils, and landform development. Students are introduced to the basic physical processes and interactions that operate within each of these categories, with special focus on the ways in which these factors relate to contemporary environmental problems.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior
    Area of Inquiry: Natural Sciences & Mathematics
    Liberal Arts CORE: None
    Formerly: GEOG 131


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  • GEOG 245 - Geographic Information Systems

    Focuses on the theory, function, and application of geographic information systems (GIS). The analytical powers of GIS are rooted in its ability to manage large volumes of geographically referenced data representing both physical and social characteristics. As such, GIS has become an important analytical approach in most subfields of geography. Students begin with an examination of basic mapping concepts, geographic data issues, symbolism, and generalization. Emphasis then shifts to issues in GIS data structure, collection, and input. Once a solid understanding of these GIS foundation issues is achieved, attention turns to the analytical powers and applications of GIS. These topics are reinforced by a series of exercises dealing with local geographic data. Students make use of the ArcGIS geographic information system and involves map digitization, geographic data collection (using global positioning systems, satellite imagery, and aerial photography), database management, and spatial analysis.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 245L - Geographic Information Systems Lab

    Required corequisite to  .

    Credits: 0.25
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 250 - Research Methods

    Acquaints students with key principles and practices of original scholarly research. First emphasizes the key role in research of a clearly formulated question, one that is significant and workable and is grounded in a conceptual framework drawn from the existing literature. Then focuses on the techniques and rationale of a particular method of research, which will vary from semester to semester. Examples of possible foci include statistical analysis, interviews, community-based and participatory research, content analysis, or the interpretation of historical primary sources. In close consultation with the instructor, students design, carry out, and report on a research project employing that method to answer a question of their own design.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 251 - Media Frames and Content Analysis

    Mass media is a key set of institutions in modernity that shape our perceptions of the world, with important impacts on what we take to be reality. The media “frames” that structure how media is produced, conveyed, and consumed form the discourses that we use to understand mass politics and culture in our daily lives. This course provides students with the methodological tools to empirically study media frames through content analysis. Content analysis takes the stuff of media, such as music lyrics, news stories, or advertisements, and systematically analyzes the content for the explicit and implicit frames that represent the issues and perspectives conveyed through media. The course provides students hands-on training in content analysis through a series of workshops on content sampling, collection, coding, and analysis that culminate in a final research project. This course meets for the first 7 weeks of the term and may be used to satisfy the 0.50-credit methods requirement for the sociology major.

    Credits: 0.50
    Crosslisted: SOCI 251 
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: Only Geography, Sociology, Environmental Geography Majors and Minors
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 291 - Independent Study

    Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.

    Credits: variable
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 304 - Criminal Underworld: Drugs, Guns, Bodies

    Examines the violent networks of the illicit global economy: from guns and drugs smuggling, to human trafficking and animal poaching among others. Drawing from multiple scholarly traditions, it compares the concrete geographical organization of these illicit networks - that is, where and how they become grounded - and asks the following questions: What are the relationships of these illegal activities to legal circuits of power and profit? In what ways are transnational criminal networks redefining the nature of contemporary violence and the meaning of peace?

    Credits: 1.00
    Crosslisted: PCON 304 
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 305 - Geopolitics of the Middle East

    Focuses on episodes in modern history when events in the Middle East have had geopolitical consequences. Students examine how things happening “over there” have repercussions (or generate concerns about repercussions) in the international system of states as a whole. In order to pay close attention to the systemic effects of events in the Middle East, case studies privilege the moments in between major wars that shook the region. Of necessity, the course focuses extensively on the period known as “The Cold War.” Analyses are organized around the careers of three fluids: oil, water, and blood. The first two are quite “dear” in the Middle East and have organized entire political economies. The evidence would suggest that the third has not been considered as precious, particularly by the great powers and would-be hegemons of the modern era.

    Credits: 1.00
    Crosslisted: MIST 305  
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • GEOG 306 - The Geography of Happiness

    Achieving some degree of happiness is a primary goal for most people. Certainly, a huge industry has emerged in recent years to feed the public’s desire for ways to improve their happiness. There is also a rapidly growing amount of research on the subject. This course starts with an overview of the diverse, multidisciplinary scholarship on factors that may contribute to happiness. But the main goal of the course is to consider themes central to the discipline of geography: how do environmental changes, efforts to achieve sustainable development, and culture affect the geography of happiness? Do people achieve a greater sense of well-being when interacting with wilderness or by exploring nature in their backyards? Does environmental stewardship improve happiness? What roles do attitudes about food and leisure play in how happy people are? Students explore these questions via out-of-class excursions, films, a diverse mix of scholarly and popular press readings, guest speakers, and individual research projects.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No Senior, No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 309 - Latin America: Critical Landscapes of Development

    Explores the development experience of Latin America through examination of pressing environmental, economic, political, and social issues that currently face the region as a whole and play out differently across the region. The focus is guided by a critical reading of development theory, paying particular attention to Latin American theorizations and empirical experiences, and concern for the subjects, places, and scales that have been excluded from the presumed benefits of development. Mindful that Latin America’s development experience is historically embedded, students examine the transformation of Latin American societies and environments through legacies of conquest and colonialism, processes of globalization and neo-liberalization, dynamics of rural and urban change, changes in gender and race relations, and transformations of political and civil society dynamics. These issues are grounded in case studies drawn from Central America, the Caribbean, Andean countries, the Southern Cone, and Brazil. The course’s point of entry is contemporary environmental crises and the role of natural and human resources in shaping the development experience of the region.

    Credits: 1.00
    Crosslisted:    
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • GEOG 310 - Geopolitics

    Broadly defined, Geopolitics is the study of “the relationship among politics and geography, demography, and economics, especially with respect to the foreign policy of a nation.” As the study of political geography on a global scale, geopolitics examines the relationship between territories, boundaries, and states in the “closed system” we call planet earth. But geopolitics is more than an academic field. Geopolitical thought has actually instructed states how to relate to one another in the contest for territory, security, and resources. For example, the history of geopolitical analysis is closely connected to – and has often justified – various imperial projects. As a result, this course examines the relation between the development of geopolitical thought on one hand, and geopolitical events on the other. Of particular importance to the relation between theories of geopolitics and the actual geostrategies of states has been the development of conflict on a planetary scale. And so, this course traces that relation through the study of geopolitical thought and practice in the course of imperial struggles in the 19th century, World Wars and the threat of nuclear wars in the 20th century, and new global challenges such as resource wars and environmental security in our own time.

    Credits: 1.00
    Crosslisted: PCON 310 
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 311 - Global Urban

    An exploration of contemporary urban geography and academic writing about the city. It introduces students to the ways in which urban geography has played a role, along with other disciplines that focus on the urban, in understanding cities and the issues that surround them. This includes an examination of how cities are conceived, lived, and represented. The course investigates the following topics: What are the various ways that people create, and attempt to materialize, their geographical imaginations of what they want the city to be? What are the ways in which different social groups make claims on space and place, and how does the scale at which these activities occur have effects? What are the critical questions to ask about urban landscapes today? How would you formulate a research proposal on such topics? The course offers a theoretical and practical framework within which to examine the city as a site of socio-cultural and political-economic transformation. In this framework, students analyze how the state, market, and civil society intersect, and how this has changed over the 20th century in the U.S. and other parts of the world.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • GEOG 312 - The American City

    Focuses on the historical development and contemporary spatial patterns and processes of American cities. Topics emphasized include the decentralization of people and jobs within urban areas, metropolitan political fragmentation, racial residential segregation, inner-city gentrification, urban public service provision issues, the role of new immigrant groups, and feminist perspectives on urban geography, plus international and interregional comparisons to elicit distinctive characteristics of urbanization in the US.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • GEOG 313 - Geographical Political Economy: Asia in Globalization

    Contemporary sociocultural and environmental issues cannot be understood without a good grasp of globalizing, yet place-specific political economic contexts in which these issues are embedded. The course aims to prepare students with conceptual and analytical foundations of economic geography with a particular attention to the roles of states, firms, and workers in the increasingly interconnected world. A strong empirical emphasis is given to Asia, although other world regions are addressed throughout the course for comparative and integrative purposes. Questions asked in this course include: what causes territorial economic growth and decline? How do place-specific economic structures influence policies? How are “the economy” and environment interrelated? Does advanced technology make geography irrelevant? Does economic growth produce socio-spatial inequality? In answering these questions, Asia offers a critical empirical arena to test theories and hypotheses, many of which have been developed primarily in the Euro-American contexts.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 315 - Sustainable Livelihoods in Asia

    We are living in the world of growing uncertainty filled with various “shocks” such as natural disasters, financial crises, and development projects, and more insidious “distress” via resource depletion, excessive industrial specialization, and demographic transitions. This course focuses on how households and communities cope with, resist, adapt to, and challenge these large structural “disturbances” in locally specific and ingenious ways in order to take control and enhance their livelihood opportunities and cultural identities. Case studies are drawn from various parts of Asia, with a particular focus on Japan. Although theoretical foundations of this course are grounded in the literature on sustainable livelihood and community resilience in geography and neighboring fields, it is designed for students with various disciplinary backgrounds and interest in Asia. Students are expected to apply their disciplinary skills and regional knowledge to the course project.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 316 - Environmental and Public Health Geographies

    Considers patterns of spatial and social distribution of disease and of health and medical resources. Alternative analytical approaches to describing and explaining these patterns of distribution are demonstrated. Selected topics include disease systems and disease ecology, the population analysis of mortality and morbidity, environmental influences on health, and the distribution and accessibility of health resources. Examples are drawn from both contemporary and historical societies throughout the world.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • GEOG 318 - International Migration, U.S. Immigration, and Immigrants

    Introduces students to approaches to the study of international migration, immigrant assimilation and adjustment, ethnic social and economic stratification, and immigration policy formation and analysis. These topics are explored within the historical and contemporary context of the United States and New York. The class considers theoretical perspectives that have been applied to the study of migration as well as approaches used by sociologists and geographers in empirical analyses of US immigration, immigrant populations, and ethnic relations. These analytical issues are considered in detail for immigrant and ethnic groups within New York State and the New York metropolitan community. Finally, students consider the relationships among patterns of immigration and ethnic relations, cultural change, international relations and transnational linkages, and US immigration policy reform.

    Credits: 1.00
    Crosslisted: SOCI 318  
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 319 - Population and Environment

    Engages students in the analysis of the relationship between historical and contemporary human population dynamics and environmental processes and change. Theoretical perspectives on the relationships between and among population processes and the environment are considered on the basis of empirical evidence and also within the context of political debate and popular discourse. Students engage this topic through analytics skills in demography to measure and model population characteristics such as growth, distribution, fertility, mortality, and migration; and in selected environmental processes including climate and weather, land and landscapes, water resources, and biological resources and biodiversity. Having gained perspectives and skills to address population and environment interactions, students examine a global, national, or regional case study of observed and expected relationships between population processes and environmental resources, processes, and systems.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 321 - Gender, Justice, and Environmental Change

    Explores how the environment (both physical and social) shapes, and is shaped by, the roles of ascribed in society to women, men and transgender persons. Addresses environmental issues from the dual perspective of gender relations and social justice to advance understandings of the fundamental relationship between human activities and our physical and social environments. To this end, students work across diverse geographies to explore (1) the social relations underlying environmental problems; (2) the ways in which gender, class, race, ethnicity, age and dis/ability intersect in environmental issues; and (3) the social and environmental processes that underlie the construction of gender and the life-worlds of the individuals in those “geographies.” Students bring a global perspective to the issues by drawing out local-global linkages. Case studies are drawn from North America, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • GEOG 323 - Arctic Transformations

    The Arctic is one of the most rapidly changing regions of the world today, environmentally, culturally, and politically. Rapid biophysical change occurs here today due to climate change, but equally noteworthy are cultural, social, and political transformations experienced by people living and working in the Arctic. People are under increasing pressure to change along with transformation of their biophysical environments, particularly as new actors express interest in the Arctic as space opening up to global transportation, mineral exploration, and trade and ecotourism. Within geography, interest in Arctic phenomena includes grappling with complex issues related to social and biophysical changes in this region, which often originate beyond the region but have specific meaning for the region. Students investigate three vibrant areas of Arctic transformation: cultural transformation occurring among indigenous and local peoples, biological and physical transformation of the environment, and political transformation within and related to the region.

    Credits: 1.00
    Crosslisted: REST 323  
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • GEOG 325 - Water and Society

    No natural substance is more vital to human existence or used in more different ways than fresh water. This course considers the natural and social processes (with primary focus on the latter) that shape water use both within and outside of the United States, including physical factors, technology, economics, culture, law, and political systems and ideologies. The focus is on the services that water provides, the causes and consequences of water scarcity, and the ways in which water’s services might be obtained in more sustainable ways.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 326 - Environmental Hazards

    Environmental hazards are threats to people and the things they value. Hazards are a complex mix of natural processes and human actions; thus, they do not just happen, but are caused. This course emphasizes the role of institutions, technology, and human behavior in hazard creation, as well as ways in which society responds to hazards of multiple origins: case studies center on earthquakes, hurricanes, and wildfire (natural hazards); toxic pollution (technological hazards); and invasive species (biological hazards). A key theme explores ways in which society may mitigate the risk of environmental hazards and manage them more effectively.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No Senior, No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 327 - Australia’s Stolen Generations: The Legacies of Carrolup (Extended Study)

    The intellectual goal of this extended study is to address issues of both population vulnerabilities and cultural resilience by considering Aborigines in Australia, and specifically engaging the historical geography and the contemporary experience of the Noongar community in Western Australia. Three themes form the curricular program of the extended study. (1) Students study the historical geography of Aborigines in Australia within the context of European colonization and settlement, federation and nation-building. These issues are framed using concepts of population vulnerability, environmental impact, and cultural heritage and identity at the national, regional and local geographic scales. (2) Students study the impacts of national, regional and local policies directed toward indigenous peoples on Aboriginal families and children, given particular focus to programs concerning part-Aboriginal children, Australia’s “Stolen Generations.” (3) Students learn the ways in which Aboriginal culture and ‘care for country’ has remained resilient across time, space, and generations.

    Credits: 0.50
    Crosslisted: PCON 327  
    Corequisite:   
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: None
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 328 - Sustainability and Natural Resources

    Uses social science perspectives on sustainability and sustainable development to analyze the production and consumption of major natural resources. Addresses the following questions: What are natural resources, and how do their geographies combine with those of wealth and poverty, of political power and technological and institutional capacity, to affect the potential for actions towards sustainable development? How is our understanding of sustainable resource development enriched by critical perspectives from the social sciences about the meaning of such contested concepts as sustainability and development, and about issues of equity, power, participation, property rights, and unequal impacts (of both resource depletion and environmental policies)? How can the three dimensions (environmental, social, and economic) of sustainability better guide the production and consumption of natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, in different places and by different actors? The topical and regional focus of the course varies from year to year; it may, for example, focus on oil (or energy more generally), on minerals, or on biological and genetic resources; and on specific geographic areas, such as central New York, Latin America, or the Arctic.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: Global Engagements


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  • GEOG 329 - Environmental Security

    About how the environment poses one of the most important security threats of the 21st century. From an interdisciplinary perspective, students are introduced to the different ways that climate change and environmental problems more generally are presenting new kinds of security threats. In many ways, greater environmental concern from governments and international organizations over the dramatic environmental changes afoot in the world is a welcome development. But will the “environmental security” framework reinforce global inequalities and maintain the status quo? Or might it mean rethinking the very foundations of what we mean by “security”?

    Credits: 1.00
    Crosslisted: PCON 329  
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No Sophomore, No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 331 - Environmental Data Science

    Introduces fundamental concepts and tools central to the emerging field of Environmental Data Science. Satellites, environmental sensors, and citizen science networks collect a tremendous amount of geospatial data that offers unprecedented insight into the environment. The integration of computational tools, statistics, and an understanding of the earth system is essential for utilizing big data to understand environmental processes (e.g. climate change, food security). Topics covered include data provenance and reproducibility, data fusion, visualization, and statistical programing for environmental data. Students learn how to manipulate and analyze large climatic, ecological, and geospatial data sets using a statistical programing language. No prior programming experience is required.

    Credits: 1
    Prerequisites:   or    None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: None
    Area of Inquiry: Natural Sciences & Mathematics
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 332 - Weather and Climate

    Focuses on the principles of meteorology and climatology with particular emphasis on Earth/energy dynamics, atmospheric circulation, and middle latitude climatology. Elements of Earth’s energy system are used first to establish the basic causal forces that drive all weather phenomena. These concepts are extended into a section on atmospheric forces and thermodynamics, and used to build an understanding of the middle latitude climate system, including middle tropospheric circulation vorticity concepts and surface cyclone and anticyclone development. During this process, students perform several exercises that focus on atmospheric data analysis and forecasting. These exercises make use of numerous online meteorological data resources and culminate in a case study project involving the detailed analysis of a significant weather event.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Natural Sciences & Mathematics
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 336 - Biogeography

    Focuses on the factors that influence plant and animal distributions at scales ranging from population to biome. To set the stage for discussing the geography of life, students first examine the earth’s physical setting. This leads to consideration of the fundamental processes determining plant and animal distributions. The interactions among these processes are also examined, thereby introducing the concept of the ecosystem. The functions of an ecosystem are discussed with focuses on energy and matter flow, population dynamics, succession, and disturbance. The culmination of these processes is reflected in broad-scale geographic patterns. Thus, the characteristics of the major biomes are examined. Finally, because humans and the environment are inextricably linked, students explore several impacts humans have on the landscape, including fragmentation, extinction, and species introductions.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Natural Sciences & Mathematics
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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  • GEOG 338 - Earth System Ecology

    Examines how plants influence exchanges of energy, carbon, and water between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Begins with an examination of key biological and physical processes that regulate ecosystem carbon and water cycles, paying particular attention to critical linkages between the two. This leads to a consideration of how these processes function at larger spatial scales, and how they vary with time in response to climatic drivers. The land surface energy balance is discussed here as well, because it is inextricably linked with ecosystem carbon and water cycling. Finally, the interplay between ecosystems and climate is examined.

    Credits: 1.00
    Corequisite: None
    Prerequisites: None
    Major/Minor Restrictions: None
    Class Restriction: No First-year
    Area of Inquiry: Natural Sciences & Mathematics
    Liberal Arts CORE: None


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