columbia creative writing courses

NOTE: Course information changes frequently, including Methods of Instruction. Please revisit these pages periodically for the most recent and up-to-date course information.

Summer 2023 pre-college prog: creative writing - advanced ps0100 section 003, creative writing: advanced workshop, creative writing: advance.

Summer 2024 & Fall 2024 applications are now open.

Explore courses, art and architecture.

Summer: In Person

In this course, students learn the craft and theory behind 2D character design for animated shows, movies, video games, anime, graphic novels, and your own intellectual property.

The art of character design will be approached through a step-by-step process, where students serve as storytellers to their own characters, designing not only their visual design, but their personalities and emotions through the art of facial expression, clothing, and posture. Using shape driven design and construction, poses and character turnarounds, students will gain the technical skills required to build their own figures and work towards creating their own portfolio of work. 

Sharing their work with their peers and instructor, students will receive thoughtful, in-depth feedback, culminating in the creation of their own character model sheets. 

Towards the end of the course, students will gain insight into the animation industry, including portfolio creation, professional design roles, avenues of study for college, and insight on industry design tests for jobs in animation and gaming. 

Course Materials: Students can work traditionally, or if working digitally, students should bring their iPad or laptop. All other materials will be provided. 

Summer A: In Person

June 24 to July 12, 2024

Monday–Friday, 11:10 a.m.–1:00 p.m. and 3:10–5:00 p.m. ET

Instructor(s):

• Michael Allen

GAMP0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 11503

Designed for students with experience in drama who are interested in developing original theatrical productions, the course emphasizes the working relationship between actor, director, and playwright, and the unique dynamic that exists between them when working on untried material.

Workshops and lectures during the first week introduce students to the demands of play development. Students then elect to specialize in one of three areas: acting, directing, or playwriting. The remainder of the course is given over to the development of short plays to be written, directed, and acted by the students under the supervision of theatrical professionals. In small, autonomous groups of actors, each with its own director and playwright, students create a production to be mounted at the end of the program.

Workshops are interactive, with the evolving pieces of each play periodically shown to the entire group for feedback in a safe, supportive environment. The course affords students a unique opportunity to experience the nuances of professional theatrical collaboration.

In the last two days of each session, several of the completed plays are performed for an audience of peers, friends, and family members. Students present two evening performances and one matinee.

Summer B: In Person

July 16 to August 02, 2024

Monday–Friday, 10:10 a.m.–1:00 p.m. and 3:10–5:00 p.m. ET

• Dyana Kimball

TCOL0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10366

Participants learn all the basics of making a strong, visually-driven short film with an emphasis on narrative storytelling. The course focuses on the fundamentals of video production: essential film grammar, story development, script, music, and sound.

Working in small groups, students shoot three shorter pieces before collaborating to make a final film. The exercises start off simply, adding a new element of filmmaking with each new assignment.

For the final film, students work sequentially through the stages of production: initial concept, synopsis, treatment, script, storyboards, and final shooting and editing. During pre-production participants learn how to work in a group to plan for and realize a short film from concept to shooting script. During production they work together to coordinate and shoot their script. And finally in post-production they edit and polish their projects. The instructor provides guidance throughout the process, emphasizing the students’ responsibility for carrying the project from inception to completion.

The emphasis throughout the three weeks is on collaborative teamwork. Over the course of the various exercises, each student takes on a number of different roles within the production teams (director, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, sound). For the final projects, only a handful of proposals are selected for production, so not every participant directs or writes his or her own film, though everyone plays a crucial role in the production.

On the last day of the program, students screen their completed films at a film festival attended by friends, family members, and other program participants. The completed films can potentially be used for submission to short film festivals and as portfolio pieces for film or art school applications.

Students should plan to be available to work on their final films on the weekend preceding the final week of the program. Laptops are recommended but not required for this class. Cameras and other film production equipment are provided.

Monday–Friday, 9:10–11:00 a.m. and 1:10–3:00 p.m. ET

• Mark Christopher

DIFI0207 | Section 001 | Call Number 11608

• Maria Maggenti

DIFI0207 | Section 002 | Call Number 12080

DIFI0207 | Section 003 | Call Number 11609

DIFI0207 | Section 004 | Call Number 12081

Studio arts courses are offered in conjunction with Columbia University's School of the Arts.

This course is aimed at developing a series of foundational drawings for a fine arts college-application portfolio.

Students explore various approaches to drawing from both observation and imagination while focusing on conceptually creative assignments. Each session develops the students’ approach to various materials, composition, and personal narratives into completed works that can be used for a final portfolio. Students have prolonged time to study and sketch the human figure from live nude models in class. Ideas are explored through assigned writings and developed in a sketchbook throughout the course.

A visit to a museum or gallery is scheduled as part of the course so as to facilitate discussion of relevant art historical concepts as well as contemporary approaches to drawing.

Lastly, participants learn how to prepare and digitally document works into a final portfolio for college applications.

Some previous experience with drawing is recommended, and the course is designed for students interested in applying to a visual arts undergraduate program in the future. All materials are provided.

Summer C: In Person

August 05 to August 09, 2024

Monday–Friday, 9:10–11:00 a.m. and 1:10–4:00 p.m. ET

• James Mercer

DRAW0100 | Section 001 | Call Number 11501

Summer: Online

This week-long class focuses on preparing the drawing portion of a fine art portfolio application for college submissions. As the week progresses, each student receives an in-depth critique from the instructor of their current work and of their plan for their portfolio. The course is focused on completing several large projects so as to showcase observational drawing skills, ranging from still life to architectural space to self-portraiture, as well as conceptual skills.

The course combines video demonstrations of drawing techniques, individual conferences with the instructor as well as online group critiques, and virtual studio visits with professional artists. Critical issues in art are addressed once a week through group writing prompts and online discussion, so as to generate meaningful debates as a context for studio work. An online demonstration of how to professionally document and edit work in Photoshop for a digital application concludes the week.

Participants are encouraged to contextualize their creative process through language and writing, with assigned creative writing prompts, short presentations, and an ongoing sketchbook practice. A final blog houses a virtual exhibit and work is shared regularly within the community on a social media platform.

Students will need to acquire their own materials, which will cost approximately $100. This course is intended for students ranging from beginners to advanced artists.

Summer C: Online

Monday–Friday, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. and 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET

• Ioana Manolache

DRAW0100 | Section D01 | Call Number 12155

In this beginner-level class, students explore various modes of looking at and interpreting the world through drawing. The course emphasizes drawing from both observation and imagination as ways to learn traditional drawing techniques and foster creativity and personal interpretation. Course assignments stress observation while focusing on experiments with materials so as to find creative approaches to visual problem-solving. Assignments include exercises in composition, use of charcoal and pencil, graphic drawing techniques, wet media, color theory, and optical illusions.

The course combines studio work, including the study of the human figure using live nude models, with outdoor drawing, individual and group critiques, and visits to major museums and art galleries. Critical issues in art are addressed once a week in the form of a short seminar, so as to generate meaningful debates as a context for studio work.

Participants also learn how to prepare a final portfolio for college applications, and the session concludes with a group show to which parents, friends, and other program participants are invited.

• Olivia Drusin

DRAW0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 11681

• Katherine Blackburne

DRAW0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 11604

In this course, students explore fashion with a particular focus on style and culture in New York City and then develop their own designs.

Participants get a first-hand look at the field through discussions with active figures in the fashion industry such as designers, marketing directors, and stylists. They take field trips to locations such as the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and the costume collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Readings on the history, theory, and culture of fashion include works by icons, artists, writers, editors, philosopher, and activists such as Diana Vreeland, Susan Sontag, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Rudofsky, and Marilyn Bender. As a springboard for inspiration and discussion, students view the works of a variety of designers through film clips and videos. Through explorations into fashion as art, students will encounter individuals who live and enact fashion through performative dress, at times challenging social and gender expectations

Having gained a firm grounding in the field, participants research and formulate their own original fashion concepts. Based on these concepts, they design their own unique collections. Concepts may center on a particular motif (e.g., technology as an extension of the human body), period or style (e.g., British monarchy, Imperial China, Ancient Egypt, imagined future, underwater or deep space), or material inspiration (e.g., mylar, fiber optics, recyclables, etc.). While sharing sources of inspiration and research discoveries, with attention to both craft and theory, in addition to producing individual collections, students engage in a collaborative design project.

• Eva Goodman

FASH0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 11614

This intensive introduction to key concepts in architecture focuses on architectural history and theory combined with dedicated time for independent design. Participants are familiarized with the fundamental vocabulary employed to describe architectural ideas. The course covers how to analyze a building visually and formally, and introduces a spectrum of significant historical and recent designs while instilling an understanding of how the built environment is generated and transformed. Class discussions are supplemented with architectural tours of the Columbia University campus and visits to prominent works of modern architecture in New York City.

Hands-on application introduces participants to the conceptual skills employed by architectural designers. Instructors provide students with training in technical drawing and introduce them to the process of conceptualizing and developing architectural ideas.

Course participants will be required to purchase approximately $250 of basic studio supplies prior to the start of class.

• Thomas Wensing

ARCT0120 | Section 001 | Call Number 10386 - CLASS IS FULL!

• Thomas Negaard

ARCT0120 | Section 002 | Call Number 11512

• Diana Trushell

ARCT0120 | Section 003 | Call Number 12048

ARCT0120 | Section 004 | Call Number 10387 - CLASS IS FULL!

ARCT0120 | Section 005 | Call Number 12049

ARCT0120 | Section 006 | Call Number 12050

ARCT0120 | Section 007 | Call Number 12051

Art appreciation can take many forms. From visiting museums to reading literature to listening to oral histories, absorbing the stories behind pieces provides perspective and insight into creative expression from all over the world. Through this course, students will explore a variety of works and learn how to analyze and discuss their complexities and meanings. Further, students will become acquainted with period pieces in multiple modalities (sculptures, videos, etc.) and discuss thought-providing interpretations from academics, philosophers, and theorists. Additionally, the course will have an experiential component, providing students with the opportunity to physically and virtually view major collections at NYC landmarks like the Frick, MoMA, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, and the Metropolitan. At course completion, students will be able to intelligently converse about art, as well as acquire a sophisticated foundation for further study.

• Thomas Ian Campbell

ARAR0103 | Section 001 | Call Number 10367

NYC is one of the most exciting cities in the world. The city grid is filled with iconic architecture, from tenements to skyscrapers. This said, it is no secret that NYC has always symbolized extreme inequality and opportunity all at once. Where one lives in NYC determines access to jobs, schools, food, and even life expectancy. Additionally, with NYC being the most racially segregated metropolitan area in the US, poverty, racism, and unhealthy living conditions are both persistent and contested. Together, the real estate and social justice components yield community design opportunities that budding urban planners and architects need to explore.

Through this introductory course in NYC community design, students will learn how pressing social justice issues impacts planning, as well as activism. Additionally, through lecture and experiential study, students will learn how to pinpoint community needs, and plan neighborhood development around them. This course culminates in a small design exercise where students design a playground based on community needs.

This course is a good choice for students interested in community planning, social justice, environmental justice and in the social dimension of architecture.

ARCH0103 | Section 001 | Call Number 10388

This course introduces students to examine and understand the effects of the physical environment on human experience. The students will learn to see architecture not only as a material and formal practice but also as a social one. How does architecture contribute to community building, social (in)equality, and sustainable consumption of natural resources? The course will emphasize hands-on learning and contemporary architecture of New York City, engaging the city as a living laboratory for learning. In addition to learning through reading, direct observation, and analysis, students also learn to expand their imagination through model-making as a way of thinking with their hands, as well as sketching as a means to observe and analyze buildings.

The class will visit works of architecture in complex urban settings, which may include the Lincoln Center, the Highline, and the Grand Central Station, to look beyond appearance and to study social impacts of architecture. The course is suited for students who may be interested in studying architecture in college, as well as those who want to deepen their understanding of architecture through hands-on experiences.

***Please note this course runs an additional hour in the afternoon to accommodate field trips and model-making. The course will run 9:10am-11am in the morning and 1:10 pm-4pm in the afternoon.

ARCH0103 | Section 001 | Call Number 12046

ARCH0103 | Section 002 | Call Number 12047

Each moment of a film involves countless decisions: where to place the camera, where to position the actors, choosing how they will dress, should there be music in the background, the relation of a shot to those that precede it and those that follow it, among endless other decisions. Throughout the course, students will focus on these considerations, stepping into the mindset of a filmmaker to learn what techniques they use to convey meaning—and create the sense of a world through film. 

In the first three days of class, an introduction to the major avenues of expression in cinema—cinematography, editing, mise-en-scène, sound and narrative—will be explored. In the final two days of class, students will engage in close, detailed readings of two films that will elucidate not only the filmmakers’ technical choices, but the reasons behind those choices.

• Michael M. Reinhard

FILM0202 | Section 001 | Call Number 10365

This course introduces students to the major historical styles of architecture in the Western hemisphere, with a consideration of notable examples from the East. Stylistic models from both the recent and ancient past have influenced how buildings look today. Likewise, social changes have shaped the way we inhabit the built environment. Understanding architecture in a historic context can enrich our experience of traveling, or of merely walking down the street where we live. It helps us connect our personal spaces and neighborhoods to places from different times and geographies. 

Participants learn to recognize and describe the formal characteristics of architecture broadly defined as Classical, Medieval, Modern, and Postmodern while recognizing that few buildings are designed in a “pure” or exclusive idiom. We analyze historic and modern images of structures which exemplify the most recognizable styles of each era, region, or culture. We also look at current trends in global architecture. When possible, we visit New York City buildings that represent or evoke one or more styles under discussion.

• Nenette Arroyo

ARAR0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10370

This course is aimed at introducing students to basic oil painting techniques. Participants explore various approaches to painting from observation. Each session focuses on assignments covering concepts such as composition, color theory, the use of materials, creativity, and visual communication in painting. Students work with live nude models and explore diverse approaches to the study of the human figure.

A visit to a museum or gallery is scheduled as part of the course so as to facilitate discussion of relevant art historical concepts as well as contemporary approaches to painting. Participants also learn how to prepare a final portfolio for college applications.

Some experience with drawing is recommended but not required. All materials are provided.

• Miguel Cardenas

PNTG0100 | Section 001 | Call Number 11502

In this course students explore various approaches to painting from observation. They learn oil painting techniques, the basic principles of color theory, and, by working with live nude models, diverse approaches to the study of the human figure. Assignments focus on composition, color theory, the use of materials, and creativity and visual communication in painting.

Studio work is complemented by individual and group critiques as well as lectures and field trips to major New York City museums and galleries. Critical issues in art are addressed once a week in the form of a short seminar, so as to generate meaningful debates as a context for studio work.

PNTN0210 | Section 001 | Call Number 11606

PNTN0210 | Section 002 | Call Number 11607

This course introduces students to the art and analysis of cinema through examination of works by filmmakers ranging from Orson Welles to Martin Scorsese. Readings, screenings, the analysis of clips and full-length movies, as well as hands-on exercises such as storyboarding, blocking, shooting, and editing a scene all combine to convey the excitement and artistry of film.  

Week One : 

Students learn how motion pictures developed their own language—their own, universally understood visual system of representation—by studying the masters of early and contemporary cinema: the edge-of-your-seat last minute rescue scenes of D.W. Griffith; the bravura long takes of Jean Renoir; the nail-biting tension created by Quentin Tarantino; and the nerve-tingling suspense that is the hallmark of Alfred Hitchcock. Using their smartphones, students try their own hand at conceptualizing, blocking, and editing scenes in the continuity style of classic Hollywood cinema.  

Week Two :  

Having learned Hollywood’s tricks of the trade, we branch out into international cinema, where other nations developed different systems of representation—their own languages—that challenged but also inspired the American film industry. Meet the Soviet style of filmmaking that revolutionized cinema in every sense of the word; the Gothic excess of German Expressionism, whose use of lighting, setting, and costume echoes in all contemporary horror flicks; and the samurai swordplay of Akira Kurosawa and its reincarnation in gun-slinging Hollywood Westerns. Each student writes a review of one contemporary American film that owes a debt to foreign cinema—or vice versa.  

Week Three : 

Putting it all together, Week Three culminates in group analyses of some of the masterworks of classical and contemporary cinema such as Citizen Kane, La La Land, and Run, Lola, Run. We examine and discuss the ways in which sound and image, editing, and the elements of mise-en-scène combine to create transporting cinematic experiences that have the ability to make audiences cry, experience fear, feel empathy and joy and, above all, marvel at the magic of movies.  

Assigned readings include film reviews and essays on film analysis, technique, and history. Students are also responsible for an oral presentation on a specific scene, film, or director of their choice. 

Please be aware that some of the films viewed contain violence and mature subject matter.

FILM0100 | Section 001 | Call Number 10364

Making urban areas livable, sustainable, and desirable is a top priority for governmental bodies, economists, business leaders, realtors, and many other key stakeholders. Shaping the way our society operates is a big job, and it’s why urban planning is such a sought-after career. Becoming an urban planner requires a combination of sophisticated skills that includes architecture, engineering, and design. Through this course, students will explore the fundamentals of urban planning, learn how to build effective communities, and discuss the best practices of working with land (including infrastructure, water, and air) to design healthy, happy, and in-demand habitats. Additionally, students will explore how transportation, business districts, and environmental concerns impact development. By the end of the course, students will have an acumen for discussing history, theory, and pressing social issues that impact both real estate and residents’ quality of life. Note: This class will focus on this topic from a United States perspective. 

SURB0105 | Section 001 | Call Number 12128 - CLASS IS FULL!

SURB0105 | Section 002 | Call Number 12129

Business, Economics, and Entrepreneurship

This practical course equips students with the skills necessary to realize their entrepreneurial visions. Students will learn about the entrepreneurial process, from the preliminary stages of research, to the legalities of setting up, as well as financials and marketing. Students will be introduced to the different types of enterprises, for profit and nonprofit, as well as social entrepreneurship. Through real examples, the course takes a closer look at common pitfalls, and stories of successes within the business world. 

Class time is divided between interactive lecture and guided hands-on work. Students will be expected to develop a business idea over the duration of the course, culminating in a final presentation and the submission of a business plan proposal. 

Participants are required to bring laptops for this class and should have an entrepreneurial idea in mind that they would like to develop during the duration of the course.

• Ciara Ungar

ENIN0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10414

• Daniel Ahmadizadeh

ENIN0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 10395

Summer: In Person | Online        Spring: Online

Can economic growth be reconciled with sustainability? Can social entrepreneurs find solutions to climate adaptation challenges? How do we incentivize fishermen to conserve the world’s fisheries? Can microfinance loans to the entrepreneurial poor reduce global poverty? What practices can businesses adopt to align their bottom lines with sustainability? How can we do well while doing good – and while embracing principles of equity, access, participation, and human rights?

In the context of policies, course participants are introduced to key concepts and skills associated with social entrepreneurship, finance, and economics and are consequently enabled to think proactively about solving some of the world’s biggest problems – while also probing how profitability and social justice might intersect and at times come into conflict.

Students are introduced to economic concepts such as supply and demand, utility, macro- and microeconomics, the time value of money, and the use of indicators. They also engage with key concepts relating to business formation and management, raising funds using debt or equity, and financial accounting.

Participants begin to see some of the largest social problems we face today as essentially economic challenges – and are then asked to come up with potential solutions. 

EESJ0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12086

• Kim Gittleson

EESJ0101 | Section 003 | Call Number 12440

Summer A: Online

July 01 to July 12, 2024

Monday–Friday, 8:00–11:00 a.m. ET

EESJ0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 12156

• Isabelle Delalex

EESJ0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 12087

EESJ0101 | Section 004 | Call Number 12441

Summer B: Online

July 15 to July 26, 2024

Monday–Friday, 5:00–8:00 p.m. ET

EESJ0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 12157

EESJ0101 | Section D03 | Call Number 12158

January 20 to March 24, 2024

EESJ0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 11444

Fall: Online

This course provides students with strategies and tools to elevate the efficacy of social innovations by integrating insights from behavioral science research and practice. Through readings and hands-on innovation projects, participants will gain skills to deeply understand user psychology, frame opportunities focused on specific behavior changes, develop interventions using evidence-based techniques, rapidly prototype concepts, and rigorously evaluate impact on behaviors. 

The sessions cover opportunity framing, customer discovery, creative ideation, prototyping, and experimentation. Students will learn how applying behavioral economics, psychology, and cognitive science can enhance the innovation process and drive positive social change.

September 23 to December 03, 2023

Sunday, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET

• Jack McGourty

Summer: In Person | Online

Intended for students interested in creating new business or social enterprises, this hands-on course focuses on the creation, evaluation, development, and launch-readiness of new business or social ventures. Participants are guided through the new venture creation process as applied to student team-selected venture ideas. Through interactive lectures, short case studies, and structured peer activities, students explore the elements of the new venture planning process in an innovative modular format.

For each student venture, key issues are addressed in a fashion highly consistent with other formal venture-planning processes including: business model development, customer discovery, product-market validation, in-depth industry and market analysis, product or service innovation, brand development and go-to-market strategies, team selection and management, profit models, financing, and legal considerations.

Students work through a series of structured activities and assignments that correspond with each phase of new venture planning. Throughout the class they refine their venture’s hypothesized business model on the basis of instructor and peer feedback. At each stage of venture plan development, they learn critical terms, apply tools that support research and decision making, and develop a deep understanding of how each major planning activity fits into formal venture creation. Additionally, they hone critical professional skills including creative problem-solving, communication and negotiation, project management, financial analysis, and collaborative leadership. By the end of the class, participants have generated robust business models, with supportive venture plan documents, investor pitches, websites, and crowd-funding videos. 

ENIN0201 | Section 001 | Call Number 10358 - CLASS IS FULL!

• Stephane Goldsand

ENIN0201 | Section 002 | Call Number 10415

ENIN0201 | Section 003 | Call Number 10396

• Sarah Beston

ENIN0201 | Section D01 | Call Number 11783

ENIN0201 | Section 004 | Call Number 10359 - CLASS IS FULL!

ENIN0201 | Section 005 | Call Number 10416

ENIN0201 | Section 006 | Call Number 10397

Monday–Friday, 12:00–3:00 p.m. ET

ENIN0201 | Section D02 | Call Number 11784

This intensive course takes an applied, practical approach to the development, testing, and validation of customer or community-driven product solutions. By learning and applying contemporary design-thinking concepts and tools, students generate innovative solutions to important customer or community problems. During the program, students identify and define a major problem to be solved, work with real customers to better understand the problem from their perspective, generate multiple solutions, then choose a solution to test with real customers. Students acquire practical knowledge and tools focusing on the development, testing, and validation of new products that solve real customer problems and needs, from idea to early product development.

Students can expect to learn how to:

• identify and articulate customer problems in an accurate way, reflecting how individuals truly experience the problem and its challenges
• create effective customer surveys to help validate your assumptions on customer problems (pain points), solutions, and benefits (expected outcomes)
• assess current solutions provided in the marketplace in order to build on best practices as well as identify gap areas
• develop a minimal viable product in order to gain additional feedback on specific solution features
• measure and validate customer needs fulfillment or social impact assumptions
• develop a solution (business or social enterprise) model to test your assumptions about customer interests, acceptance, and use

In-Person participants are expected to bring laptops for this class.

ENID0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10394

ENID0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 10417

ENID0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 11785

Summer: In Person        Fall: Online

Game theory is the science of strategy. Within this ever-evolving field, practitioners are responsible for working through economic concepts that depend on rationality, as well as choice and uncertainty. Specifically, those working in this field help with optimal decision making between an independent agent and competing actors. The result of this work can take many forms, including when (and if) to launch a product and how to price it, or when to be cooperative in a negotiation (or not), or even whether to confess to a crime (or not). Throughout the course, students will study the works of key pioneers in Game Theory, as well as synthesize and triangulate readings to topics in economics, business, political science, and project management. Students will be expected to apply learnings to solving work complex probability sets and analyze decision-maker payoffs. By the end of the course, students will have a new appreciation for how Game Theory directly impacts - and influences - major decisions. Additionally, they will be able to work through choices and outcomes better in their own lives. 

• Valerie De La Rosa

ECON0102 | Section 001 | Call Number 12085 - CLASS IS FULL!

Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET

What is the impact of the resurgence of populism, nativism, and geopolitical competition on foreign relations and economic growth? Is China’s push to turn the renminbi into a global currency a threat or an opportunity? What are the implications of an unsustainable levels of public debt (U.S., Europe, Latin America, and Asia) on the future of international monetary and financial architecture? Given questions such as these, this course examines the interplay between globalizing pressures and national interests.

Working from a multilateral perspective, students use case studies to examine the nature of relations between nation-states in a period of increased economic and political integration. Topics include theories of international political economy in relation to foreign aid and sovereign debt, international trade and capital flows, security and non-state actors, rights-based approaches to development and humanitarian emergencies, energy sustainability, and the role of international organizations and financial institutions.

For counterpoint, students also examine the political, ideological, and social determinants of domestic political economies, including that of the United States. The political mechanisms of economic policy-making and the relationship between domestic policy and foreign policy are explored using theoretical, historical, and topical cases; examples include the political economy of income distribution and social welfare, national defense and hegemony, the national debt, and globalization.

Students examine these and other topics through lecture, research, academic and policy dialogue, group projects and presentations, peer critiques, and guest speakers. For students enrolled in the in person program, the course typically includes a visit to the United Nations Headquarters.

EGLO0240 | Section 001 | Call Number 12088

• Alexander Gordon

EGLO0240 | Section D01 | Call Number 11797

EGLO0240 | Section 002 | Call Number 12089

EGLO0240 | Section D02 | Call Number 11798

This course focuses on the firm’s financial and economic behavior. The firm needs cash to undertake worthy investments, and the firm needs to identify investments worth undertaking. What models does the firm use to identify such investments? What sources of cash can the firm use? How do the financial markets in which this money is raised function? How does the market value the firm, its securities, and its investments? What financial instruments are available to the firm? What are the microeconomic models that best describe a firm’s behavior in such markets?

In answering these questions, the participants discuss stocks, bonds, stock markets, as well as valuation models of investments, firms, and securities. They also work with concepts like optimal investment strategies, what is revealed and what is hidden in published accounting statements, and what are some of the sources of risk. Students also acquire familiarity with the mechanics and history of the financial markets.

The course includes case studies and some sustained independent work by the participants.

Laptops, while not required, are highly recommended for In-Person participants. 

• Aaishatu Glover

BUFE0220 | Section 003 | Call Number 10362

BUFE0220 | Section 004 | Call Number 11619

BUFE0220 | Section 001 | Call Number 10360 - CLASS IS FULL!

• May Ling Lai

BUFE0220 | Section 002 | Call Number 12057

BUFE0220 | Section D01 | Call Number 12143

• Matt Mazewski

BUFE0220 | Section D02 | Call Number 11838

BUFE0220 | Section 007 | Call Number 10363

• Michael T. Bennett

BUFE0220 | Section 008 | Call Number 10433

BUFE0220 | Section 005 | Call Number 10361 - CLASS IS FULL!

• Mario A. Gonzalez Corzo

BUFE0220 | Section 006 | Call Number 10434

BUFE0220 | Section 009 | Call Number 12355

BUFE0220 | Section D04 | Call Number 12229

BUFE0220 | Section D03 | Call Number 12144

This introductory-level course is intended for students who have an interest in learning more about how corporations make business decisions and fund those decisions. The course provides a brief introduction to the fundamentals of finance, emphasizing their application to a wide variety of real-world situations in corporate decision-making and financial intermediation. Key concepts and applications include the time value of money, risk-return tradeoff, cost of capital, interest rates, discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis, net present value, internal rate of return, hurdle rate, and payback period. Students will leave with an understanding of both sound theoretical principles of finance and practical tools of financial decision-making.

FINC0100 | Section 001 | Call Number 11683

• Chris Droussiotis

FINC0100 | Section D01 | Call Number 12162

Summer: Online | In Person        Fall: Online        Spring: Online

Participants learn the principles of finance and investment management, to include interest rates and compound interest, the time value of money, risk and reward, how stocks and bonds are valued, how the stock market functions, how the international financial market functions, and how to approach stock selection and portfolio management.

We explore the structure of the financial system, to include the role of individual participants, investment banks, asset managers, the Central Bank, and other players in the global economy. The course connects foundations of economics to financial markets. What is the role of risk in investment? How does the environment of the market and the broader world drive return on investments? Why have some investments done well in memorable history? Why have others not done well? How are the winners and losers of past investments explained by financial theory? What is the role of traditional investments, such as mutual funds, and of alternative investments, such as venture capital, private equity and hedge funds?

Students generate their own investment strategies and portfolios. The course includes some asynchronous work, which students are expected to complete between class sessions.

IFIN0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 12165

IFIN0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 12166

IFIN0101 | Section D03 | Call Number 12167

IFIN0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 10399

IFIN0101 | Section 004 | Call Number 12098

IFIN0101 | Section 005 | Call Number 12099

IFIN0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10398

• Matthew Cantwell

IFIN0101 | Section 003 | Call Number 10400

• Nicholas Cavallaro

IFIN0101 | Section D04 | Call Number 11786

Friday, 8:00–10:00 p.m. ET

IFIN0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 11437

There is no denying the significant growth in the focus on Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) Investing that has taken place over the past few years, with trends around climate change leading the charge. What was once deemed a public value focal point has blossomed into a prudent investment strategy as research has indicated that companies demonstrating a commitment to sustainable business practices, in the long-run, outperform those that do not. The result has been a mass migration towards ESG and Impact investing.

This course is an introduction to socially responsible investing and an overview of the differences between ESG and Impact Investing. We investigate the relationships between ESG investing, outperforming market returns, and achieving Sustainable Development Goals.

The materials presented in class as well as class discussions empower students to answer questions such as:

• How can investing be reconciled with sustainability and achieving the sustainable development goals?
• Will ESG investing become the norm rather than the exception?
• What are the links between green finance and ESG investing?

Through a mix of introductory finance and asset management theories, class colloquia, and investment case studies, students gain an understanding of the challenges and opportunities embedded in sustainable investing.

FINC0202 | Section 001 | Call Number 10432

Looking at stocks, bonds, ETFs, cryptocurrency, real estate, futures, and options, this course introduces students to how professional investment managers construct investment portfolios. We look at these different investment opportunities as well as key valuation and risk management techniques. How might investors benefit from diversification? What are the metrics for measuring performance?  What are the common pitfalls made by investors? 

Class time is divided between interactive lecture and guided hands-on work. Participants assume the role of professional money managers as they operate their own diversified investment portfolios in a session-long simulation game. Common theories and practices presented in class, news of current and world events, and discussion around decisions made by the world’s foremost investors are incorporated as students develop a sense of how real-time managers make decisions.

Participants are required to bring laptops for this class and, as this is a quantitative course, should be comfortable with math and prepared for a challenging experience.

INVE0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12101

INVE0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 12102

• Melissa Sexton

INVE0101 | Section 003 | Call Number 11622

INVE0101 | Section 004 | Call Number 12103

While membership in American labor unions has been on the decline for decades, recent years have seen a resurgence of workers organizing across the United States. Almost every week brings new headlines about strikes or campaigns to form new unions in a variety of different industries, from auto manufacturing to healthcare to TV and movie production. This course will examine the subject of labor relations through the lens of economics by introducing some of the key tools that economists use to study interactions between workers and firms in the labor market. A major focus will be the role that collective bargaining can play in shaping the terms and conditions of employment, such as wages, benefits, and workplace health and safety protections.   Students will learn to define fundamental concepts in labor economics and labor-management relations, interpret theoretical models, and identify patterns in real-world data on labor market institutions and outcomes with the help of empirical methods. Class activities and exercises will offer hands-on perspectives on the subject matter, and will include an opportunity for students to practice negotiating their own collective bargaining agreement. Those who complete the course will come away with a greater understanding of how economists use theory and data to gain insight into the workings of the labor market and how unions function in the modern economy.

BUFE0103 | Section D01 | Call Number 11837

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and other leading investment firms have predicted that the space economy will be worth trillions of dollars within the next few decades. In this course we explore a number of key issues having to do with the space industry and the emerging space economy with the intention of preparing participants to be leaders in those fields.

Potential topics to be covered include:

• How private businesses are changing the new space race
• Why space commercialization will lead to a Fifth Industrial Revolution
• What old and new financial models are enabling the growth of space technology
• The role of NASA, the Space Force, NOAA, and other government agencies
• Should we be investing in space when there are so many challenges facing humanity on Earth?
• How do businesses profit from working within the space economy?
• What does the work of SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin tell us about opportunities in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), the moon, and Mars?
• What steps a business must go through to be part of the new space race
• How new private and national programs will add to the complexity and vibrancy of the economy
• What is the role of space in human rights?
• How does the improvement of communities in space lead to social and technology improvements?
• What environmental problems can be solved using space technology?
• What is the role of traditional financial institutions such as banks and mutual funds, and how does that compare to the role of family private offices, VCs, and hedge funds in disruptive industries like the space economy?

The course draws on fundamental concepts in business, economics, and finance and applies new concepts from ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing, risk management, and social impact measurements. Participants gain a foundational understanding of business development, the importance of intellectual property, and the value of community building as part of any business strategy - how solving for space is really about solving for problems on Earth. Guest speakers represent the private sector as well as groups such as NASA, the Space Force, and international space organizations.

Students leave with the tools to place an economic lens on the business, technology, and financing of spaceports, the aerospace industry, space adjacent technology, and the space economy as a whole. From launch, to satellites, to private stations, to manufacturing in LEO, to the permanent human settlement of the moon, via the Artemis program, this course gives students insights into the future they will help build and lead.

As the final project for the course, participants generate their own investment strategies and portfolios.

• Samson Williams
• George Pullen

BUFE0303 | Section D01 | Call Number 12145

Core Skills

This course introduces students to standard practices in research methodologies in academia, geared towards the social sciences. Through a complementary, two-part approach, students will develop the skills and knowledge to execute robust academic research at the collegiate level. 

The course begins with an overview of research principles and fundamental research methods. Students will explore a broad range of research models, including the scientific method, research design, and data collection techniques. Students will learn to identify relevant benchmarks and measurements for conducting quantitative, qualitative, empirical, and hybrid analyses as well as explore their use across various disciplines. 

Utilizing the methodologies outlined in class, students will work in groups to conduct a research project based on their interests. Beginning with a research hypothesis, students will devise a framework of disciplined inquiry, defining its scale and scope. Students will be encouraged to form a supportive cohesive research team, open to peers’ diverse perspectives, building consensus to guide their collaborative research effort to mitigate “group think” dynamics and foster unbiased research.

After completing a preliminary research analysis, students will present a research PowerPoint presentation for peer review, outlining their hypothesis statement, methodology and preliminary findings. Upon reaching the end of the course, each research team will finalize their research report ready for publication, incorporating peer feedback, and substantiating it with accurate data, facts, empirical evidence and demonstrating that their research hypothesis is true, false, or nuanced. Ideally, the report will include actionable recommendations and suggest a way forward to further the research.

Throughout the course, a focus will be placed on mindful research approaches, including the ethical, moral, and philosophical considerations intertwined with academic research.

Saturday, 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET

Spring: Online

The Columbia Writing Academy is designed for high school students who know that writing is the key to college success and want to develop their own personal voice and expand their writing skills before starting college. Through a combination of workshops and tutorials, exercises and assignments, students will practice the fundamental skills for writing successful college essays—developing a position to argue, persuading readers, anticipating counterarguments, and crafting strong sentences. Students will explore each stage in the writing process—brainstorming, drafting, revising—and will receive in-depth feedback at each stage of the process.  By the end of the course, students will have practiced the major skills of successful college writing and have written a college-level essay. The Academy will be a lively two-week online course that requires six to eight hours of work each week, including reading, writing, and participating in three synchronous Zoom sessions each week. 

Course Dates : February 5 - February 15, 2024 Synchronous Sessions : Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, 7:00-8:15 pm ET.

• Sarah Garfinkel

WRIT0103 | Section D01 | Call Number 12010

The Columbia Writing Academy is designed for those who want to use the power of writing to develop their own personal voice and style. Through a combination of workshops and tutorials, students will learn new writing techniques and develop the skills and confidence to write a powerful college admissions essay. As many colleges place less emphasis on standardized test scores, the admissions essay has taken a larger role in the application process. In this course, students will explore each stage in the essay writing process—brainstorming, drafting, revising—and will receive in-depth feedback from the teaching team throughout the process.

The College Admissions Essay, often called a personal statement, is an opportunity for students to stand out and set themselves apart from other applicants by saying “here’s something about me that you might not know from my grades; here’s my story; here’s what matters to me.” By the end of the two-week course, students will have written an essay that personalizes their college application, captivates readers, and shows colleges why they should accept them. The Workshop will be a lively, stimulating two-week online course that requires six to eight hours of work each week, including reading, writing, participating in three weekly synchronous sessions via Zoom.

Please note that this course follows an atypical schedule: Monday, Tuesday & Thursday evenings from 7:00 to 8:15 p.m. ET .

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, 7:00–8:15 p.m. ET

WRIT0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 12238

WRIT0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 12239

WRIT0101 | Section D03 | Call Number 12240

WRIT0101 | Section D04 | Call Number 12241

Throughout our lives, in every role we play, persuasion plays a critical part. In the fields of sales and marketing, the connection is obvious, but when we apply to schools and interview for jobs our ability to frame our capabilities comes into play. The work of trial lawyers may clearly require the ability to influence judges and juries, but teachers, engineers, managers – people in every line of work – at some point need to convince others of a different way of thinking. Even in our personal lives, there are times when we want to change others’ minds.

In this course, students will – through reading, lecture, discussion, exercises, and activities -- learn the art, science and practical techniques used by the most successful marketers and salespeople. Over the course of the term, we will cover broad themes that inform all communication (e.g., motivators, language, storytelling, etc.), as well as best practices specific to each approach (written communication, phone, meetings, speeches, et al).

• Court Stroud

COMM0103 | Section 001 | Call Number 12065

In this course, students learn how to write effectively about complex topics. They learn to use writing not only as a tool for expressing themselves clearly, but also as a way to refine and advance their thinking. They write and revise formal essays in which they analyze college-level texts, and, time permitting, compose personal essays about their own experiences.

Participants identify the strengths and weaknesses in their writing and improve their skills through individual and group work, class discussion, multiple revisions, in-class exercises, and homework. They learn how to formulate a clear and original thesis, identify and explain supporting evidence, organize an essay, and use language that is lucid and precise. We review essential points of grammar and style, paying special attention to common mistakes, and we read and analyze works that exemplify good writing.

By the end of the week, students will have become not only better writers but also more insightful and sophisticated readers and thinkers.

• Brie Bouslaugh

WRTE0101 | Section 003 | Call Number 11605

• Allen Mogol

WRTE0101 | Section 004 | Call Number 11617

• Jennifer Timilty

WRTE0101 | Section 005 | Call Number 11618

• Mark Blacher

WRTE0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10428

• Claire Hodgdon

WRTE0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 11616

• Anne Summers

WRTE0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 11844

While some leaders are born, most are made. Becoming a great leader takes both training and practice, and today’s most effective leaders are forever honing their skills. The Pre-College Leadership Lab is a unique and meaningful experience for any future leader. Students will begin the highly experiential course by immersing themselves in leadership theory, and identifying their own leadership styles. Applied practice of new-found knowledge will include public speaking, role play activities, team building, and conflict resolution. Additionally, the lab will feature guest speakers from various leadership areas, who will discuss both their challenges and successes. By the end of the course, students will be prepared to articulate their leadership goals, and have an actionable plan to grow and develop into future leaders who will positively impact the world.

ORL 0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12063

Why do dystopian stories keep getting told? Why do we love to read and write these stories? What techniques do writers use to create new worlds? How do these texts allow us to reconsider our own realities?

This course investigates how writers use dystopia and science fiction to not only explore possibilities for the future but to comment on our own present society. Assigned texts will include classic dystopian works like "1984" in addition to more recent contributions to the genre from around the globe. We’ll explore how novels, short stories, and even some films and podcasts comment on topics like the ethics of artificial intelligence, the threat of technological advancement, and the relationship between history and science fiction. We’ll consider where this genre will go in the future and investigate why it appeals to such a vast audience.

Participants will develop their writing skills through essay assignments and short responses. Students will analyze complex texts and practice rhetorical analysis through writing and group activities. Class meetings will focus on collaboration between peers through discussion of both our course texts and student writing. By the end of the course, students will have grown as writers, thinkers, and public speakers.

WRIT0105 | Section D01 | Call Number 11845

Creative Writing

What creative possibilities do true stories hold? How can truth-telling and storytelling work together? How can we turn ourselves—and other real people—into compelling characters? This class considers the possibilities of creative nonfiction. We will explore sub-genres ranging from magazine writing to memoir and personal essays; from science writing and profiles to humor, food writing, and lyric essays. 

In this rigorous one-week course, students will learn research and reporting skills essential to all forms of nonfiction writing, as well as how to incorporate techniques traditionally associated with fiction writing into nonfiction. We will engage with a range of nonfiction prose and use workshops to develop skills as editors and writers.

Students will share their writing in a workshop setting and receive thoughtful, in-depth feedback, culminating in a carefully revised portfolio of nonfiction works.

• India Gonzalez

CREA0119 | Section 001 | Call Number 12074

• Laura Palmer

CREA0119 | Section 002 | Call Number 12075

This workshop is geared toward students who have an interest in creative writing and would like to develop their skills and writing practice across genres. Students read and write free verse poetry, short prose, drama, fiction, and creative nonfiction with the goal of developing a final portfolio of revised work.

Students are introduced to a range of technical and imaginative concerns through creative exercises and discussions, and exposed to all aspects of the writing process, including generating ideas, writing and revising drafts, and editing. Participants practice their literary craft with an attentive group of peers, under the guidance of an experienced instructor. They write extensively, read and respond to excerpts from outstanding works of literature, and participate in candid, helpful critiques of their own work and that of peers. Students are expected to come to the class with an openness to various approaches toward literature and writing. Classes are supplemented by conferences with the instructor.

Courses in creative writing are offered in conjunction with the Writing Program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Overseen by Chair of Creative Writing Lis Harris, Professor Alan Ziegler, and Director of Creative Writing for Pre-College Programs Christina Rumpf, the creative writing courses are designed to challenge and engage students interested in literary creation, providing them with a substantial foundation for further exploration of their creative work.

Sunday, 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET

CREA0108 | Section D01 | Call Number 13122

This workshop is geared toward students who have experience in creative writing or who demonstrate unusual talent. Students read and write fiction in all its forms with the goal of developing a final portfolio of work.

Students are introduced to a range of technical and imaginative concerns through creative exercises and discussions, and exposed to all aspects of the writing process, including generating ideas, writing and revising drafts, and editing. Participants practice their literary craft with an attentive group of their peers, under the guidance of an experienced instructor. They write extensively, read and respond to excerpts from outstanding works of literature, and participate in candid, helpful critiques of their own work and that of peers. Students are expected to come to the class with an openness to various approaches toward literature and writing. Classes are supplemented by conferences with the instructor.

Parallel universes and the supernatural have the power to reveal truths often hidden behind the veil of modern life. Situating oneself in realities other than one’s own imparts lessons in empathy, possibility, and advancement in our real world. From  Dune  to  IT  to  The Hunger Games , both beloved and feared characters in such fiction have united legions of readers-turned-writers over many continents and generations through the art of world-building. 

The course’s aim is to explore and create immersive, exciting fiction that incorporates the unreal—from surreal, ghostly short stories to detailed epic fantasy novels. In this three-week dual seminar-workshop, students will think and write about the futuristic, uncanny, magical, and speculative, and how these elements mesh with our individual writing goals. 

Students will analyze published works of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror from a writer’s standpoint, considering: what effect did this have on the reader, and how did the writer create this effect? What draws us to these genres? How can we create work that is compelling, original, artful, and fun? Through discussion and writing exercises, we’ll focus on topics including world-building, hero/villain relationships, plot, magic, and suspense. 

In this course, students will uncover the power of imaginative fiction by reading selections of cornerstone texts in the genre, both past and present, and use the techniques discussed in the pieces to write their own original works.

• Ananda Gonzalez

CREA0112 | Section 001 | Call Number 12068

To study creative writing at Columbia University is to join a distinguished group of writers who arrived in the nation's literary capital to explore the deep artistic power of language. J.D. Salinger enrolled in a short story course here in 1939. Federico Garcia Lorca wrote  Poet in New York while he was a student at Columbia. Carson McCullers worked odd jobs in the city to pay for her Columbia writing courses. 

Eudora Welty, Jack Kerouac, Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg, Ursula K. Le Guin, Louise Glück, Tracy K. Smith: These renowned writers and many others have left a legacy of originality and brilliance that charges the atmosphere at Columbia and lends genuine excitement to the prospect of literary creation on campus.

In this dual seminar-workshop course, students will both study the prize-winning writing produced by authors who, much like themselves, once studied on campus  and write into a new legacy with us—spanning time, space, and genre.

Working with their peers, students will learn to contribute thoughtful, evidence-based feedback conducive to a supportive community of writers, culminating in a carefully revised portfolio of original writing.

What has made Columbia an artistic haven for countless generations? Here in Morningside Heights, we are thrilled at the opportunity to show you.   

• Elias Sorich

WRIT0102 | Section 001 | Call Number 12130

This course is designed for advanced students who seek an intensive experience with the writing of creative nonfiction. Students explore diverse styles of and approaches to nonfiction, and learn essential skills for writing their own short nonfiction, including personal essays, historical accounts, profiles, and pieces that may be developed, following the session, into longer works. The art of telling true stories requires the skills of fact-checking and research, which students can anticipate honing throughout the session. Students participate in rigorous daily discussions on craft and workshops, as well as one-on-one conferences with accomplished teachers.  

The course culminates in a final portfolio composed of carefully revised pieces that implement both instructor and peer feedback.

CREA0111 | Section 001 | Call Number 12067

This course is designed for advanced students who seek an intensive experience in the writing of fiction. Students explore diverse styles of and approaches to fiction, and learn essential skills for writing their own short prose works, including stories, flash fiction, novellas, and pieces that may be developed, following the session, into novels. Students participate in rigorous daily discussions on craft and workshops, as well as one-on-one conferences with their instructor. 

The course culminates in a final portfolio composed of carefully revised pieces that implement instructor and peer feedback.

CREA0115 | Section 001 | Call Number 12070

• Caroline Johnson

CREA0115 | Section 002 | Call Number 12071

CREA0115 | Section 003 | Call Number 12072

This course is designed for advanced students who seek an intensive experience in the writing of poetry. Students explore diverse poetic forms and approaches to poetry and learn essential skills for writing their own verses. Students participate in rigorous daily discussions on craft and workshops, as well as one-on-one conferences with their instructor.

The Master Class in Poetry culminates in a final portfolio composed of carefully revised pieces that implement instructor and peer feedback.

• Peter Patapis

POET0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12123

This rigorous one-week course is designed to teach students the ins and outs of novel writing, from conception to outlining, to the writing itself. Whether interests lie in literary fiction, young adult, fantasy, or any other genre, students will learn we focus on how to structure and plot a successful novel. Areas of exploration include establishing conflict, world-building, character work, pacing, and how to create an effective scene.

Students will share their writing in a workshop setting and receive thoughtful, in-depth feedback from both their peers and their instructor, culminating in a carefully revised selection of their novel-in-progress. 

Not only does this course impart a greater understanding of what it means to craft a long-form work of fiction, but it will also help students become stronger and more confident in their overall writing skills.

• Melissa Larsen

NOVI0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12117

NOVI0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 12118

In this intensive course, students are introduced to the key tenets of writing and performing comedy. With the guidance of professional New York City performers and writers, they learn how to generate writing through improvisational comedy. Budding comedians and comedy writers learn how to make people laugh both on and off the page, a skill that can take practitioners down a variety of career paths on stage and in film and television. 

Participants hone their comedic sensibilities with a wide variety of exercises and readings and build confidence by learning the art of “Yes, and…” Areas of exploration include sketch comedy, improvisational comedy, and stand-up. 

Students will share their writing in a workshop setting and receive thoughtful, in-depth feedback, culminating in a carefully revised portfolio of comedic pieces, showcasing the variety of styles covered in the course. 

• Paulina Pinsky

CREA0114 | Section 001 | Call Number 12069

This class will introduce students to the basic principles of writing for film and television. Students will read screenplays and watch film excerpts to gain an understanding of the possibilities of on-screen storytelling, with the goal of developing a screenplay.

Students are introduced to a range of technical and imaginative concerns through creative exercises and discussions, and exposed to all aspects of the screenwriting process, including generating ideas, developing character arcs and plot structure, and writing and revising drafts. Participants practice their craft with an attentive group of peers, under the guidance of an experienced instructor. They write extensively and participate in candid, helpful critiques of their own work and that of their peers. Students are expected to come to the class with an openness to various approaches toward creative storytelling.

CREA0121 | Section 001 | Call Number 12076

This rigorous one-week course is designed to teach students the essential techniques of short story writing by contextualizing the form throughout history—from Edgar Allan Poe to James Baldwin, to contemporary practitioners, including Joy Williams and Jhumpa Lahiri. 

By encountering the work of renowned authors from a writer’s perspective, students will utilize the 5 key elements of the short story—plot, character, setting, conflict, and theme—to arrive at what is finally a common goal: to make readers feel through original, compelling, and climactic prose. 

Students will share their writing in a workshop setting and receive thoughtful, in-depth feedback from both their peers and the instructor. Not only does this course impart a greater understanding of what it means to write short stories, but it will also help students become stronger writers through the use of economized and well-crafted language. 

CREA0118 | Section 001 | Call Number 12073

This foundational course, adapted from Columbia's MFA in Writing program, serves as a generative exploration of the creative writing process. Students receive instruction in key genres, idea generation, creation and development of drafts, and basic revision and editing skills. 

Through frequent and diverse readings and writing exercises, students hone elements of craft through the development of voice, imagery, characterization, dialogue, rhythm, and narration. Students work in poetry, prose, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Works produced by acclaimed writers, as well as by students in the class, form the basis of discussion in the workshop process.

A range of technical and imaginative concerns will be introduced through exercises and discussions students will produce their own writing for the critical analysis of the class. Students will begin to develop the critical skills that will allow them to read like writers and understand, on a technical level, how accomplished creative writing is produced.

CREA0130 | Section 001 | Call Number 12077

CREA0130 | Section 002 | Call Number 12078

CREA0130 | Section 003 | Call Number 12079

What makes a personal essay feel so much bigger than the individual? What is the difference between writing that is merely confessional and writing that captivates, questions, and transforms? How do we tell compelling true stories about ourselves while probing the limits of our knowledge, the gaps in our memories, the stories that we don’t yet know how to tell? Writing a personal essay is not only a process of self-discovery—it is also the work of becoming the person capable of writing the essay.

In this course, we learn to write true stories about ourselves, the cultural artifacts and places we care about, the identities we hold in relation to power, and the ways our experiences change us forever. With the goal of producing up to three compelling personal essays, we explore the process of personal writing, from generating ideas to revising drafts. To become captivating narrators, we practice drafting skills essential to all nonfiction writing, drawing from reporting, research, and our personal archives—be it text messages, photos, or journals—to enhance the emotional specificity and intellectual rigor of our personal narratives.

Part seminar and part workshop, this course introduces students to the genre of personal nonfiction and the practice of critiquing writing as a group. Through close examination of their own experiences and engagement with model texts, students develop storytelling skills that will transfer to their future writing in any genre.

• Jasmine Vojdani

CREA0202 | Section D01 | Call Number 12152

Engineering

Summer: In Person | Online        Fall: Online        Spring: Online

In this Introduction to Engineering course, you will gain exposure to one of the fastest growing fields today. From areas ranging from Mechanical Engineering to Biomedical Engineering, students will be exposed to the growing number of disciplines within the field of engineering through guest lectures and group activities. The course will also examine the professional ethics of engineering and evaluate accountability that engineers have to society and the environment. At the conclusion of this course, students will have an overall understanding of the engineering field, the different career paths available, and the ethics involved in the profession.

ENGI0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12090 - CLASS IS FULL!

ENGI0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 12091

• Daniel Kadyrov

ENGI0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 12161

• Zahraa Issa

ENGI0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 12159

ENGI0101 | Section 003 | Call Number 12092 - CLASS IS FULL!

ENGI0101 | Section 004 | Call Number 12093

ENGI0101 | Section D03 | Call Number 12160

ENGI0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 11442

Humanities, Literature, and Philosophy

How do we read Emerson as a philosopher of human purpose and action? It all starts and ends with the individual. What ails society and what good we see in it, is a reflection of the ethics and values we live. Together, we will learn about America’s intellectual revolution; the spark that Emerson lit and gave rise to the movement the transcendentalists embodied and that Nietzsche adopted as the core of his existential philosophy.

The Transcendentalists were an intellectual and social movement that shaped American politics, literature, social philosophy and education from the 1800s to the present. Using The American Transcendentalists: Essential Writings, we read, study and critique essays and letters; the speeches and correspondence between influential thinkers and public intellectuals who wanted to practice and live what they believed. From the Concord movement to Walden Pond, abolition and early feminism; transcendentalists brought their philosophy of collective social action to reality in the communities they built and movements they joined. Students will have an opportunity to debate the ideas of thinkers from the early to mid 1800’s; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott et. al. Together, we will wonder if their intellectual revolutions are still relevant. Are there movements and traditions of collective social action that inspire us today?

• Alec Milton

PHIL0103 | Section 001 | Call Number 10407

This course introduces students to fundamental issues in philosophy of religion. We critically address questions such as the following: (a) Given the diverse range of religions in the world, what is it that makes them all religions? (b) Is it possible for miracles to occur? (c) What is the relationship between science and religion? (d) Is it reasonable to believe in an afterlife for beings like us?

We broach such challenging questions by critically reading and writing about them, and in doing so we fine-tune our own views. The broad objective of the course is to develop and refine students' critical reasoning and writing skills.

Other learning objectives include:

• To acquire a richer understanding of and facility with the methodology that philosophers use to answer fundamental questions.
• To develop an understanding of the different branches of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, and moral philosophy.
• To accurately interpret a wide range of historically influential philosophers’ works on fundamental issues in philosophy of religion, and in doing so sharpen our exegetical skills.
• To critically assess, in a careful, charitable, and sophisticated manner, a number of challenging positions and arguments in philosophy of religion, and in doing so develop and refine our critical reasoning skills.
• Jared Peterson

PHIL0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 11841

In this course we explore modern literature from early pioneers such as Dostoyevsky, Dickinson, and Rimbaud through to the full-fledged modernism of Kafka, Woolf, and Hemingway, and beyond to the Harlem Renaissance, the Beats, and magical realism. We focus mainly on short fiction and poetry but may also look at excerpts from some longer works.

We consider not only the meanings of the works but also what it is about how they are written and constructed that gives them their power. While our approach is grounded in close reading and formal analysis, we also consider historical context and pay attention to how literature sounds and makes us feel.

Modern literature has had close ties to trends in visual art, music, theater, and film and so we may look at works from these other art forms and how they reflect back on written texts. The course also includes a field trip to the Museum of Modern Art.

Course participants are expected to contribute actively to class discussion, write a number of informal reaction pieces, engage in a few short creative projects, and deliver oral presentations on works of their own choosing.

Students learn how to read actively, think analytically, present their ideas effectively (both orally and in written form), and collaborate with their peers—all skills that will be invaluable to them in college and in their personal and professional lives. They also gain an understanding of and appreciation for modern literature.

No previous knowledge or course work is required.

LITR0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10427

This course is designed for students who want to engage in lively debate on a philosopher's ideas, closely read primary texts, and investigate how philosophical concepts are present in our experiences today. In the process of delving into key philosophical texts about love, human excellence, and existential freedom, course participants are familiarized with the basic methodology of philosophical enquiry.

We begin by reading and discussing Plato's Symposium and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics , their respective treatises on love and moral character (virtue ethics). Students debate questions related to the dialogue on love that Plato develops through the voice and character of Socrates. What is love and what does it mean to be a lover of wisdom—a philosopher? In the Ethics, students discuss the topic of human excellence and seek to answer how humans should best live their lives. In a practical sense, what is the purpose of human life and what is the ultimate goal of human endeavor? Why does Aristotle consider friendship a virtue, an excellence one must pursue if one wants a good life, Eudaemonia?  

Having established the classical foundations, we move into the 20th Century and begin a dialogue and exploration of ideas on existential freedom, choice, and responsibility. We begin with readings to explore the ideas of determinism and indeterminism associated with various philosophies of freedom. Specifically, we focus on the foundational works of Jean-Paul Sartre’s concept of existential freedom found in Being and Nothingness and Soren Kierkegaard’s religious freedom from Fear and Trembling , which Donald Palmer introduces in Does the Center Hold? An Introduction to Western Philosophy . This introduction serves as the foundation students need in order to grasp the idea of existential freedom articulated in the essays that make up Albert Camus' seminal work The Myth of Sisyphus . Through this lens students will debate whether it is practical to attempt to live an existential life and how philosophers as diverse as Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre would define that life.

In addition to the readings, participants will have an opportunity to critique film and other art forms that present interpretations of existential themes. 

PENQ0201 | Section 001 | Call Number 10406

How is the mind related to the brain? Are sensations, beliefs, and desires immaterial or physical states? What are the different types of consciousness and how, if at all, are they related? How do we know that beings besides ourselves possess mentality? Can robots possess minds?

We explore these questions via a philosophical analysis of a number of attempts to explain the nature of the mind and mentality. The course begins with dualist attempts to characterize the mind as a non-physical soul that possesses immaterial mental states such as beliefs and hopes, and proceeds to an investigation of recent efforts to understand the mind and mentality as physical phenomena. Some historically influential answers to the question what is a mind and what is mentality? are critically assessed, including (i) substance dualism, (ii) mind-brain identity theory, and (iii) functionalism. In the latter part of the course, issues such as the nature of consciousness as well as how to make sense of the causal efficacy of mentality are discussed.

Course readings include such influential works as René Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy , J.J.C. Smart's "Sensations and Brain Processes,” Hilary Putnam’s “The Nature of Mental States,” and Thomas Nagel’s “What is it Like to be a Bat?” Course activities include class debates, group presentations, the designing of thought experiments, critical writing exercises, and close textual analysis.

The broad goal of the course is to sharpen students’ analytical reading and writing skills, while the more specific objectives are to give them a solid understanding of issues in the philosophy of mind as well as an understanding of the methods of philosophy.

PHMN0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12212

This course introduces students to fundamental issues in the theory of knowledge. In this course we will critically address questions such as: (a) "What are the unique kinds of knowledge and what is the relationship between these kinds of knowledge?” (b)"Does knowledge require justification and if so, what does such justification consist in?” and (c) “What propositions can we know in light of powerful skeptical arguments?” We will investigate such questions by looking closely at how a number of epistemologists from a wide range of traditions have answered them. As we progress through issues directly related to epistemology, we will also see that these issues connect up with important issues in other areas of philosophy as well (e.g., metaphysics and moral philosophy).

We engage with such challenging questions by critically reading and writing about them, and in doing so we fine-tune our own positions concerning these issues. The broad objective of the course is to develop and refine students' critical reasoning and writing skills.

• To develop an understanding of how issues concerning epistemology are of relevance to not only other areas of philosophy, but disciplines besides philosophy as well.
• To accurately interpret a wide range of historically influential philosophers’ works on fundamental issues in epistemology, and in doing so sharpen our exegetical skills.

PHIL0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 11842

Why do we still read the Odyssey almost three thousand years after it was composed? Why is Shakespeare considered to be so important? What makes great literature great? Is it still being written today? Does literature still matter? Can it be important to our lives?

We explore these questions by looking closely at and thinking deeply about works from a variety of genres and a wide range of historical periods. Some of the authors we may cover include Homer, Sappho, Du Fu, Shakespeare, Kafka, Hemingway, Lorca, Elizabeth Bishop, Ralph Ellison, and Sheila Heti. While our approach is grounded in close reading and formal analysis, we also pay attention to how literature sounds, how it makes us feel, and whether it has personal relevance to us.

Course participants are expected to contribute actively to class discussion, write a number of informal reaction pieces, and deliver oral presentations on works of their own choosing.

Students learn how to read actively, think analytically, present their ideas effectively (both orally and in written form), and collaborate with their peers—all skills that will be invaluable to them in college and in their personal and professional lives.

LITR0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 10429

This course provides a foundational understanding of journalism, covering its history, contemporary practices, and essential skills. Students will learn journalistic writing, interviewing techniques, news gathering, and research. Emphasis is placed on media ethics, responsibility, and critical analysis of news. 

The course will also explore the principal ethics of journalism, using real world examples of sensationalism, diversity, bias, and current and historical events. Students will engage with practical exercises of how to write a feature story, highlighting their knowledge of form, style, and methods acquired over the course of three-weeks. By the end of the course, students will have the skills needed for effective storytelling in today's dynamic media landscape.

• Lisa Belkin

JOUR0106 | Section 001 | Call Number 12106

The exciting field of sports journalism blends a passion for sports with writing, reporting, and broadcasting. Through this survey-style course, students will be introduced to different areas of the profession, and practice the necessary skills to be successful in a sports journalism role. Beginning with the foundations of looking at sports as a business and relaying details of a game/players to different audiences, students will begin analyzing sports through a non-spectator lens. Students will work through different areas of sports journalism, including covering sports “beats”, how to intersect sports with society, broadcasting, and interviewing. Additionally, students will practice their new-found skills through real-world exercises and real-time games. By the end of the course, students will have a better understanding of what this profession entails, and an acumen for the tasks required for a successful career in sports.

• Brian Brown

JOUR0105 | Section 001 | Call Number 12105

Law and Conflict Resolution

Summer: Online | In Person

Conflict is a part of life. Most people do not like conflict because they usually do not resolve their conflicts well and so they develop a distaste for it. There are also ways to constructively engage in conflict that lead to better quality outcomes and relationships. In this course, students learn basic concepts about conflict resolution so that they can develop a deeper and broader understanding of conflict dynamics. There are many types of conflicts and in this course the students focus on learning more about their interpersonal conflicts with others. They learn skills so they will be able to more constructively resolve their interpersonal conflicts toward win-win outcomes.

These goals are achieved by students developing more self-awareness as to the types of conflict styles they tend to use as their “default” approach. They become more aware of their “hot buttons” and the types of behaviors and situations that cause them to become embroiled in a conflict situation. In addition to learning more about their own habits, they apply these concepts and skills to better understand others around them. By developing more empathy and understanding of others, students are able to reduce the number, types, and intensity of their interpersonal conflicts.

The course is primarily experiential and interactive so students learn by doing and reinforce their learning through immediate application. There are role-plays, simulations, discussions, presentations, film analyses, and other activities designed to enhance learning of the identified concepts and skills.

• Katherine Gentile

INCR0150 | Section D01 | Call Number 12168

INCR0150 | Section 001 | Call Number 12100

This is a course designed for students interested in law, government, and politics. It examines a wide range of contemporary issues subject to constitutional interpretation, introducing students to the constitution, the fundamental concepts of constitutional law, the role of the courts, and the legal limitations on governmental policy making.

Students discuss and analyze topics including separation of powers, federalism, freedom of speech, affirmative action, the death penalty, gun control, civil rights, and abortion. They are exposed to current constitutional challenges and are given the opportunity to explore the relationship between law and society.

Students develop skills that enable them to read and interpret Supreme Court decisions, which serve as the basis for class discussion. Debates and Moot Courts call on students to develop persuasive arguments in defense of their positions, thereby sharpening reasoning and analytical skills.

• Jennifer L. Lowry

COLA0204 | Section 001 | Call Number 12060

• Paula Russo

COLA0204 | Section 002 | Call Number 12062

The legal profession is remarkably vast and wide. Within it, prospective law students have a variety of exciting opportunities to explore. Through this course, students will acquire a realistic understanding of a career in law and become well-versed in the academic steps and important skills needed to be successful. This course will begin by examining what it’s like to be a lawyer, including the preparation involved (college pathways, the LSAT, and attorney licensing requirements). Then, students will practice key skills needed in the profession, including legal writing, secondary research, and public speaking through in-class activities and homework assignments. By the end of the course, students will have a better sense of if a career in law is the right fit for their career goals and have a new-found confidence in their ability to navigate this ever-growing field. 

This course is recommended for: Students interested in pursuing a legal studies major in college, attending law school and/or a future career in law. 

• James O'Brien

LELA0212 | Section 002 | Call Number 11631

• Tanya R. Kennedy

LELA0212 | Section 003 | Call Number 12110

LELA0212 | Section 001 | Call Number 12109

• Susan Alevas

LELA0212 | Section D01 | Call Number 11781

Are human rights still relevant in promoting social justice and freedom in the 21st Century? Human rights law and advocacy have been central to international politics since the end of World War II. However, recent rises in authoritarianism and anti-liberal regimes have raised new questions on whether the human rights framework is still capable of addressing injustices in the modern world. This course introduces students to the law and practice of human rights as well as the challenges of enforcing rights in an international environment that has grown increasingly hostile to principles of human dignity and personal freedom.

Students review the philosophical foundations of human rights and then examine human rights from two perspectives. First, the legal perspective introduces them to basic principles and rules of international law and the main international organizations and mechanisms designed for promoting and enforcing human rights. Second, they adopt the role of social scientist. We debate evidence on the effectiveness of human rights law and discuss challenges of enforcing rights in an international system in which states are not accountable to a higher authority.

Students apply their new knowledge to the problems facing human rights today. Topics may include cultural relativist critiques of human rights as a Western, neo-colonialist institution, challenges from new technologies in state surveillance and autonomous weapons, and existential threats to human populations through climate change and environmental damage. The course includes asynchronous work, which students are expected to complete between class sessions.

• Lakshmi Gopal

HUMN0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12096

• Stacy Veeder

HUMN0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 12163

• Stephanie Grepo

HUMN0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 12097

• Michelle Chun

HUMN0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 12164

Is international humanitarian law (IHL) still relevant in regulating warfare in the 21st Century? Trends such as the proliferation of armed conflict between states and transnational insurgent groups and the development of autonomous weapons systems and cyber-warfare capabilities have raised questions about the sufficiency of IHL to regulate warfare today. This course introduces students to the theory and practice of IHL, and central debates about its interpretation and implementation in 21st-Century armed conflict.

In the first part of the course, students are introduced to the moral principles underpinning IHL. They then turn to surveying the texts of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the two Additional Protocols of 1977, and the role played by the International Committee of the Red Cross in developing and ensuring respect for IHL.

In the second part of the course, we examine major debates about IHL and its implementation today. Topics include the questions raised by the proliferation of transnational terrorism, multiparty civil wars, humanitarian intervention, drones, autonomous weapons systems, and cyber warfare.

Course materials draw widely from political science, international law, psychology, philosophy, literature, and film. Class time is divided between lecture and discussion of the reading assignments, and film screenings, debates, group projects, and student presentations.

• Salman Ravala

WARS0100 | Section 001 | Call Number 10413

This course is designed to give students an opportunity to explore substantive criminal law and its attendant legal issues. The course provides students with a foundation to examine the structure, policies, interpretation, and application of criminal law. Students evaluate the fairness and morality of punishments, analyze and apply legal defenses and contemplate basic elements of crimes such as homicide, robbery, and assault, to inchoate crimes like attempt and conspiracy, to crimes against property. Participants also learn to recognize the primary sources of criminal law in the US, and probe the boundaries of statutory law as imposed by state and federal constitutions.

• Cynthia Armijo

LAW 0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 11595

Knowledge of law and legal process can be used as a tool to address issues of social justice. Whether a lawyer or a layperson, there is opportunity for individuals to engage in advocacy, whether on behalf of a single battered woman or in support of displaced refugees. In this course, which focuses primarily on the legal system in the United States, we:

• Survey the fundamentals of substantive law, such as criminal law, constitutional law, property law, contract law, and torts.
• Explore legal procedure as a means to enhance – or frustrate – justice.
• Look closely at successful litigation and political movements as means of bringing about social change.
• Meet legal practitioners in a variety of advocacy areas who share how they use the law to achieve the ends of justice.
• Visit pertinent sites such as the New York County Criminal Court and District Attorney’s Office (inspiration for Law and Order ) and the United Nations Headquarters.

Case studies come from areas such as civil rights, environmental protection, criminal justice, immigration policy, international human rights, family law, and animal rights.

Participants should be willing to dedicate several hours per week on case law readings, drafting of briefs, and related mock trial/moot court preparation.

At the conclusion of the course, students, working in groups, produce a strategic advocacy project for addressing an issue of interest to them from among the subjects addressed in the course.

Familiarity with the fundamentals of American government is recommended. Students should have “business casual” outfits for field trips.

LASJ0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 11686

This class explores the application of legal principles to advancements in technology, including social media, drones, video games, cryptocurrency, and smartphone apps. In learning about these topics, students gain a more general understanding of some of the most important concepts underlying much of U.S. laws.

We analyze the law of nuisance and trespass through the lens of Pokémon Go, and we look at the legal concept of negligence by examining product liability issues arising from injuries related to autonomous vehicles and SnapChat filters. The class then explores how the right to privacy is impacted in the physical world by drone technology, and how privacy interests are impacted in the digital world by data gathering platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat and the new kid on the block “ChatGPT”. We look at legal issues having to do with the future of money, gaining a basic understanding of blockchain and its role in cryptocurrency and fractional asset ownership through tokenization. Finally, through a study of “influencer” marketing, we explore advertising, marketing, and contract law through a case study of the infamous Fyre Festival.

Students learn through a combination of lecture, discussion, debate, and group work. Content and learning examples are presented in various forms, including PowerPoints, short videos, images, in-class demonstrations, mock trial, board-room presentations, and a guest speaker. Students complete a culminating project involving an oral small group presentation.

Through this immersive learning experience, participants gain a broad understanding of the law as well as enhanced analytical and problem-solving skills. They learn how to approach complex, dynamic legal problems and methodically analyze all relevant factors to arrive at logical, evidence-based results. Further, they practice collaborative co-creation and public speaking as they work in small groups on their culminating oral presentations in alignment with the course’s topics.

• Marie-Helen Maras

ENLW0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12094

This course focuses on reading case law and interpreting the underlying laws, the research and reasoning that underlie solid legal arguments, and legal writing, while also giving students an inside look at the practice of law today. The course is structured like a traditional introductory first-year law school class.

Students learn first to use the methods and tools of legal reasoning and research, which they marshal to create effective, persuasive, and sophisticated written legal arguments. Once they have a foundation in legal research, reasoning, and writing, they are given an in-depth look at various types of law through interactive sessions with practicing lawyers, via guest speakers and field trips to law firms. They learn how to problem solve using the lawyer’s toolbox and how to analyze legal sources and develop legal arguments based on and supported by the law and cases we research.

In-class drafting and public speaking exercises strengthen participants’ reasoning, argumentation, and writing skills while introducing them to various types of legal work, including written memoranda and arguments for oral delivery.

LRRW0213 | Section 001 | Call Number 11603

• Jacques Erdos

LRRW0213 | Section D01 | Call Number 12172

LRRW0213 | Section 002 | Call Number 12112

LRRW0213 | Section D02 | Call Number 12173

LRRW0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 11794

Neuroscience and the law are inextricably linked. Every day, new learning behavior and decision-making discoveries are impacting how lawyers do their jobs. Through this highly discussion-based course, students will explore how understanding the science of human mental processing is imperative to being able to prosecute - or defend - a person’s actions. Specifically, students will work through challenging case studies, medical journals, and court decisions that illustrate the challenges and complexities in trying to assign culpability. Additionally, students will practice critical thinking and argumentation skills on a variety of relevant topics through in-class debates and activities. By the end of the course, students will acquire a comprehensive skill set for further inquiry, and a new-found appreciation for how assessing human behavior is imperative to a successful career in law. 

This course is recommended for: Students with a strong interest in the social sciences and/or law. No prior knowledge of psychology, neuroscience, or law is required. 

LAW 0102 | Section 001 | Call Number 12108

This course examines the United States Supreme Court and several of the major social and legal issues over which it has jurisdiction. Beginning with a brief introduction on how cases are heard by the Supreme Court, we proceed to a wide-ranging look inside America's most hotly debated cases and the issues that shape them. Covering both the substantive and the procedural law, students learn how to identify legitimate arguments for and against each topic and gain an understanding of constitutional challenges and limitations.

Topics under consideration may include privacy rights, freedom of speech, LGBTQ rights and the determination of sex and gender, the death penalty, legalization of marijuana, voting rights, gun control, and coronavirus-related issues. The course includes asynchronous work, which students are expected to complete between class sessions.

SUPR0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 11780

• Adam Weisler

SUPR0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10430

• Sharon Yamen

SUPR0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 11846

Preparing for trial is one of the most important jobs of a lawyer. And, it’s not easy: Success in the courtroom requires a deep understanding of the trial process, as well as sophisticated skills in evidence analysis, argumentation, and relationship management with all involved parties (law enforcement, witnesses, experts, the judge, their client, other attorneys, etc.). Performing well in the courtroom takes both study and practice and through this course, students will gain hands-on experience in both preparing for - and simulating - a trial. Students will begin by learning about the particulars of the United States Legal System and trial logistics, including how to navigate different parts of the proceedings. After learning the fundamentals, students will practice analyzing and validating evidence, developing strategy and arguments, and preparing clients and witnesses. The course will conclude with students practicing their new-found skills by preparing for a mock trial. 

This course is recommended for: Students with a high interest in pursuing a major in legal studies and/or going to law school. Please note that this course is highly participatory. By signing up, students should be prepared to engage in regular debates, presentations, and to be called on by the instructor to share thoughts and opinions regularly. Prior coursework in debate, argumentation, or intro to law is helpful, but not required. 

• Anthony Venditto

TRAD0218 | Section 001 | Call Number 11687

The fascinating field of forensic psychology is at the intersection between criminal justice and science. Working as a forensic psychologist takes advanced training in understanding the criminal mind and the motivations behind behavior. Through this introductory course, students will explore the psychological principles, research methods, legal decision making, and behaviorism behind criminal investigations. Throughout the session, students will work through case studies and news stories illuminating key concepts and will become well versed in key vocabulary, theories, and frameworks that practitioners use every day in their roles. With a focus on foundational concepts, this course will be a strong entry point into psychology, legal studies, social work, or criminal justice majors and professions.

• Amy Shlosberg

PSYC0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12125

• Casey Jordan

PSYC0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 11801

Marketing and Communications

Summer: In Person | Online        Fall: Online

Have you ever wondered how companies make commercials, how many thousands of ads you see in a single day, why Procter & Gamble sells 12 brands of detergent, or why you buy what you buy?

This course answers these questions and many more as students explore the various strategies used by companies to communicate with the consumer. Through selected readings including marketing texts, case studies, and current news articles, students acquire a general background in marketing, advertising, and public relations. The course includes asynchronous work, which students are expected to complete between class sessions.

• Juli Falkoff

COMN0240 | Section 001 | Call Number 10390

• Corey Liberman

COMN0240 | Section 002 | Call Number 10392

• Meghan Peters

COMN0240 | Section D01 | Call Number 12150

COMN0240 | Section 003 | Call Number 10391

COMN0240 | Section 004 | Call Number 10393

• Shaunice Hawkins

COMN0240 | Section D02 | Call Number 12151

Digital media has surpassed television to become the most important way for marketers to reach and influence consumers. While television advertising represents just one method of affecting consumer sentiment (video ads), digital is far more complex, offering video, search, social, email, and more.

In this introductory course, students will learn how marketers leverage digital media to promote and sell products. Students will come to understand the inner workings of multiple digital media platforms (e.g., search, video, display, gaming, et al.) and the strategies and tactics marketers employ to influence consumers. In addition, students will explore the ethics of big data and privacy, as well as develop an understanding of how marketers use digital media to influence consumers.

The course culminates with a final project presentation which allow students to put into practice topics and theories about digital media and advertising covered during the course.

This course has no prerequisites and is appropriate for anyone interested in the fields of marketing and media, as well as those interested in the topic of persuasion and how corporations influence consumer behavior.

ADVR0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12043

Behind any successful marketing plan, stand the four pillars of the marketing mix: product, price, placement, and promotion. Looking closely at each element, students will engage in an introductory study of the four Ps, delving into the theory and practice behind its application. 

Through selected readings, including marketing texts, case studies, and current news articles, students will look closely at the marketing mix in action, examining what strategies lead to a lucrative and successful marketing plan. By the end of the course, students will be able to identify the key elements of the marketing mix structure, apply methods for market research, and craft their own introductory marketing plans, utilizing the basic principles of the four Ps.  

MRKT0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12115

• Karishma Kheskwani

MRKT0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 11810

In an era where media plays an increasingly pivotal role in shaping public opinion, and as global issues demand more collective action, this course will examine the dynamic relationship between media, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and the cultivation of global citizenship. Through a multidisciplinary lens, we will explore how these forces intersect, influence, and contribute meaningfully to positive change on a global scale. Together, the course is designed to enhance student competency in three interrelated areas. First, students will learn how NGOs are increasingly indispensable in addressing complex and interconnected global challenges, with a focus on the roles, functions, and strategies NGOs employ as they work collaboratively with communities, governments, and other relevant organizations. Second, students will gain an understanding of how NGOs contribute to the development of global citizenship by promoting civic engagement and thinking beyond national borders. Third, since public support is critical for NGO funding and advocacy, the course will equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to implement an effective NGO media campaign, including how to develop a persuasive message, and how to utilize social media and other web-related tools to reach key constituencies and target audiences.  Over the course of the semester, students will apply their knowledge in real-world scenarios through class discussions, case studies, and hands-on teamwork in crafting effective Mission Statements for hypothetical NGOs. By the end, students will not only acquire a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of media, NGOs, and global citizenship, but also develop enhanced proficiency in navigating the intersection of communication, collaboration, and global awareness.

MECO0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10436

You and other Gen Z “zoomers” stand out for your climate change activism. This course aims to help you take your ideas further, developing new ways of being a force for good in the world.

You’ll gain tools and strategies for making change, starting with an overview of communications campaign planning, from defining objectives and identifying audiences through crafting effective messages to measuring results. You’ll also deepen your knowledge of ideas in the climate-change conversation.

Each student will end the course with a creative brief and strategic outline for a communications initiative. It could be a plan to put to work immediately in your school or town—or featured in a college application portfolio. No special competencies or prerequisite knowledge are required.

Because climate change is vast and our time limited, we focus on one key component of sustainability: the circular economy. In this updated economic model, goods are made with greater attention to what happens when products no longer serve their initial purpose, manufacturers waste less and do more to salvage post-consumer material for re-use, while consumers buy (and throw away) with greater care.

How far can you shift long-held views about consumption? How can you inspire new more environmentally sound habits? This course will start to answer those questions. How far you take it is up to you.

• Edith Updike
• Diane Rubino

COMM0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 12149

The ability to skillfully influence and persuade others is the key to success in business, civic engagement, and politics. The primary goal of the course is to help prepare students to organize and present information in compelling and concise ways. While the art and science of persuasion has a long history, recent breakthroughs in the field of Generative A.I. are poised to completely upend traditional approaches to the creation and targeting of persuasive messages. The effective use of A.I. as a technology of influence, however, requires an understanding of both the social psychological foundations of persuasion, and a basic knowledge of how A.I. systems work. Toward that end, students who successfully complete this course will gain a solid grounding in how Generative A.I. can be deployed to effectively influence people’s attitudes, opinions, and behaviors in ways designed to optimize specified outcomes. Students will have the opportunity to apply this knowledge through “hands-on” participation in a Team Project, where working in small groups students will build their own persuasive messaging campaigns, utilizing “off the shelf” Generative A.I. tools—e.g., ChatGPT, Dall-E, Bard. Together, through the combination of readings, classroom instruction, group work, and in-class learning activities, the overall objective of the course is to improve student’s ability to apply the principles of A.I.-based persuasion to achieve desired business outcomes, galvanize change, and forge greater civic and political engagement.

COMM0102 | Section 001 | Call Number 10435

Mathematics

This course focuses on theoretical mathematics that is  not typically part of a traditional high school curriculum. The course covers a variety of topics including: logic, set theory, number theory and combinatorics. An emphasis is placed on proof throughout the course and different techniques of proof, including mathematical induction, direct proof and proof by contradiction will be discussed. While some applications will be considered, this course will primarily focus on theoretical concepts.

This course is titled  A Bridge to Higher Mathematics because it will help to teach you the reasoning and proof - writing skills that you will need for higher - level university mathematics, and more generally, STEM courses. It will give you a path for learning the skills that you need to succeed in higher - level mathematics.

• Sridhar Nagubandi

MATH0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12113

MATH0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 12114 - CLASS IS FULL!

Is the universe infinite or finite? What is the curvature and overall shape of the space we live in, and how might we detect this? In this course, participants learn how models for topological spaces relate to theories on the shape of the physical universe. Philosophical discussions are informed by pencil and paper computations, experiments with common household materials, and interactive online games and modules.Participants gain, in addition to early exposure to modern content at the intersection of topology and physical cosmology, an appreciation for rigorous mathematical thinking that is motivated not so much by numbers and quantity as by profound questions about the nature of our world.

COMO0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10438

In this course, students will explore the mysteries of a familiar concept: Infinity! Is Infinity even a number? Who thought of it first? What can we do with it, and why is it useful? We will look at Infinity from the perspective of Logic, Set Theory, Algebra, and Geometry, leading us into the study of Limits and basic Calculus. Plus, we answer a truly interesting question: are there different kinds of infinity? If you've ever wondered about the infinite, this is the course for you!

• Patrick Galarza

MATH0104 | Section D02 | Call Number 11791

Fall: Online        Spring: Online

Students learn a great deal of math in high school, but they often don’t learn how the math is used to make decisions in fields like business, social science, and public policy. This course is designed to teach students how professionals in business, government, and social science use math to make decisions. During the first part of this course, students are taught the basics of statistics. This includes mean, variance, standard deviation, Z-scores, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing and p-values. The students are asked to analyze data from different fields and draw a conclusion. Does a government program decrease the poverty rate? Did a business’s ad campaign increase sales? Did a medication work better than a placebo? The second part of this course is math modeling. Students will be able to find the best fit equations that relate two or more quantities to each other. What should the price be of a product based on a multiple set of factors? What is the effect of poverty, and unemployment on the crime rate? A course like this is often taught to people who are getting degrees in business, public policy, economics, and social science. Thanks to online software, students can now quickly do the calculations and spend more time analyzing data, drawing conclusions - and making decisions.

• Frank Ciulla

MATS0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 11446

In this course intended for students who enjoy mathematics and logical reasoning, participants explore innovative ways in which math is used in the real world, in fields such as economics, computer science, media, and the physical sciences. By engaging with challenging practical problems, students hone their independent thinking and problem-solving skills.

Areas covered include the following:

• Graph theory, a topic heavily developed by both mathematicians and computer scientists. We explore algorithmic ways to compute, for example, the optimal path between two points on a map (minimizing cost, time, or another parameter). Another application is minimizing the cost of an electrical network which has to provide power to all residents in a new neighborhood.
• Probability and its numerous applications. We look at how probabilities are applied in economics and in popular media, and examine how they can sometimes be counter-intuitive or even deceptive.
• Various counting methods, combinatorics, and examples of Nash equilibria. We study applications of these techniques in economics (the prisoner's dilemma), computer science (assessing the complexity of an algorithm), finance (loans and investments), and biology (population growth).

Students work individually and in groups to find creative solutions to given problems. Each student also works on a project of his or her own choosing, on a topic about which he or she is passionate.

• Elena Green

MARW0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10403

MARW0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 12174

MARW0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 10404 - CLASS IS FULL!

MARW0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 11790

Neuroscience

Dive into the dynamic world of neuroscience with this course designed to bridge the gap between cutting-edge research methods and rewarding careers in the biomedical field. Students will explore the vast landscape of neuroscience, from the intricacies of neuroimaging and electrophysiological techniques to the frontiers of molecular neuroscience and computational modeling. Each week unveils a new dimension of neuroscience research, paired with experiments and interactive discussions that bring theoretical concepts to life.

Engage in practical activities like designing experiments, analyzing neuroimaging data, and exploring the ethical dimensions of animal models in research. The course incorporates real-time experiments, where you can observe the effects of neuropharmacological agents on neurons, record brain activity, and even delve into neuroprosthetics. This course not only demystifies complex neuroscience methods but also maps out the diverse career paths within the field, from clinical roles to research careers to cross-disciplinary opportunities.

• Timothy Myers

This course is designed for students interested in the science of the brain, including its evolutionary origins, early development, and role in generating behavior. We explore theories of the brain as the seat of the self from ancient Greece to modern times, and investigate systems that make up the brain from the individual neuron to the entire central nervous system. We also look into how sensation, perception, and decision making work at the physiological level. The course blends historical trends in neuroscience with modern experiments and findings, and touches on major areas of research including animal studies, recording and imaging techniques, computational neuroscience, and neuropharmacology.

In-class small-group exercises, in addition to lectures, allow students to tangibly explore the ideas presented in class. Participants construct various models of the brain, critique professional neuroscientific papers as “peer-reviewers,” and visualize actual neural data with instructor guidance. The course includes asynchronous work, which students are expected to complete between class sessions.

• Cecilia Toro

NURO0101 | Section 003 | Call Number 11692

NURO0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12119

NURO0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 11620

• Dena Goldblatt

NURO0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 12182

NURO0101 | Section 006 | Call Number 11691

NURO0101 | Section 004 | Call Number 12120

NURO0101 | Section 005 | Call Number 11621

NURO0101 | Section D03 | Call Number 11789

• Nicholas Santiago

NURO0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 11439

Saturday, 8:00–10:00 p.m. ET

NURO0104 | Section D02 | Call Number 11440

Learning and memory are the processes by which we store information about our experiences, which is crucial for our survival. Without learning and memory, we would be unable to acquire basic motor or communication skills, the ability to perform complex reasoning, or social dynamics. Modern neuroscience has made great strides toward understanding how our experiences shape our brains, and how changes in our brains impact behavior.

In this course we explore how our experiences shape who we are, what kinds of changes in the brain are thought to underlie learning and memory, and how learning and memory can contribute to the development of mental health problems such as addiction, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Topics to be covered include types of learning and memory, disorders such as amnesias and dementias, an introduction to the cellular and molecular basis of memory formation, and an in-depth examination about how these processes can contribute to mental health problems. We conclude the course with an overview of innovative treatments under development for various disorders, and how learning and memory might play a role in their therapeutic effects. Topics are approached through lecture, group discussion, short videos, interactive web-based activities, and readings.

Students exit the course with a basic understanding of how modern neuroscientists conceptualize and study the processes of learning and memory, and how this research impacts modern mental healthcare.

NBIO0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 12175

• Anamaria Alexandrescu

NBIO0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 12176

NBIO0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 11689

• Elisa Chinigo

NBIO0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 11611

Neuroscience is the study of the neural processes and mechanisms underlying human function and behavior. It is an interdisciplinary field that combines the ideas explored in the field of psychology with the science that governs the brain and body. In order to understand the etiology of disorders such as addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, and schizophrenia, it is crucial to understand how molecular, cellular, and endocrine changes contribute to disease progression.

In this course, students learn about how the laws of neurons and neurotransmitters direct brain processes. Classes include interactive lectures, discussions, and assignments designed to help students understand the neuroscience of addiction, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and schizophrenia. Outside of class, students explore case studies of neuropsychiatric disorders so as to fully understand the extent of debilitation and possibilities for recovery. 

NESC0100 | Section D01 | Call Number 12177

• Georgina Moreno

NESC0100 | Section D02 | Call Number 11840

• Rhonda Kolaric

NESC0100 | Section 001 | Call Number 12116

• Hameda Khandaker

NESC0100 | Section 002 | Call Number 11624

NESC0100 | Section D04 | Call Number 12179

NESC0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 11447

Physical Sciences

This course traces knowledge of the universe from astronomy’s ancient roots to the modern study of extrasolar planetary systems, cosmology, and black holes. Topics include Newton’s laws of motion and universal gravitation, Kepler’s laws, orbital dynamics, and space travel. Additionally, students will contemplate the nature of light, the nature of matter, and nuclear physics. This knowledge to will be used to explore the properties of our sun, solar system, further galaxies, the creation of chemical elements, and the expansion of the universe. By the end of the course, students will be prepared to explore dark energy and the fate of the universe as we know it.

• Jim Applegate

ASTO0102 | Section 001 | Call Number 10389 - CLASS IS FULL!

• Bruce Greenspan

ASTO0102 | Section 002 | Call Number 11615

This course offers an intensive exploration of one of the fundamental principle of physics –relativity. Both Galilean and special relativity will inform the class's practical application of algebra and space-time diagrams to work through examples, exercises, and problems. Participants will discover how special relativity changes our conceptions of time and length measurements. Students will examine general relativity as a lens to understand concepts such as black holes, gravitational waves, and the evolution of the universe. In the process of exploring these challenging topics, course participants expand their capacity for creative problem solving and their ability to think critically and independently.

• Aaron Goldin

SREL0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12127

This course covers the fundamentals of Quantum Physics, from experimental basics to the introduction to the theoretical framework. The course focuses on developing students’ knowledge and skills in modern quantum science with its numerous applications. The course will include lectures with an emphasis on derivation and problem sets, essays, and group projects.

Topics include:

• Quantum mechanics (ideas of quantum state, its evolution, and application to simple quantum systems, such as atoms)
• Quantum optics (quantum theory of light and its interaction with other quantum systems, such as atoms)
• Quantum computing (qubits, and their state manipulation).

This course is designed for motivated high school students who want to expand their knowledge of modern physics. 

Prerequisites : Students are expected to have a strong background in algebra and classical mechanics. The knowledge of other physics fields (e.g., optics, electricity, and magnetism) is beneficial, but not essential.

• Yury Deshko

PHYS0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12121 - CLASS IS FULL!

Chemistry, the central science, is the science of molecules and bonds. Its signature is change in all its manifestations, from events that happen on a geological time scale to those that happen instantaneously, from the cosmological to the subatomic scale. Chemistry provides powerful scientific tools that extend our ability to sense the magnitudes of change by stretching the limits of what we know of our universe.

Intensive Seminars in Modern Chemistry is designed for highly motivated students who want to strengthen their understanding of chemistry and current research methods. The daily program follows a seminar format, beginning with a presentation by senior faculty members and researchers that is expanded upon through small group discussions and laboratory experiences.

Topics have been selected because they stand out as essential themes of current research, illustrate the methods of science, lend themselves to historical development, and highlight the role of chemistry as the central science. Through integrative experiments and collaborative projects, students discover the synthetic and analytic dimensions of chemistry in forensic, environmental, and materials problems. Experiments emphasize the development of problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Formal training includes instrumental methods in spectroscopy, chromatography, magnetic resonance, and computer simulations with state-of-the-art equipment in the department’s modern laboratories. Guest lecturers and field trips to area research facilities round out the program. Students are expected to complete a small research project, prepare a scientific paper, and participate regularly in class discussions.

MOCH0208 | Section 001 | Call Number 10405

This curricular option familiarizes students with the foundations of physics and chemistry from a modern perspective.

Lectures, discussions, and simulations focus on topics such as electromagnetic radiation, spectroscopy, elementary particles, the quantum mechanics of atoms, special relativity, and gravitation.

Simulations and virtual experiments concentrate primarily on the interference of electromagnetic waves, the orbital motion of planets, and conservation laws.

• Bradford Melius

INPS0115 | Section D01 | Call Number 11839

Designed for aspiring physicists and mathematicians, students will delve into the powerful mathematical tools essential for understanding and solving complex physical problems.

Students will develop an understanding of these methods by learning to model, analyze, conduct theoretical investigations and interpret physical phenomena. Through engaging lectures, hands-on problem-solving, and interactive projects, participants will gain proficiency in applying concepts to real-world scenarios. Emphasis will be placed on developing critical thinking skills and intuition to tackle challenges encountered in theoretical and experimental physics.

This course provides a valuable head start for those planning to pursue studies in physics, engineering, mathematics, or related fields at the collegiate level. 

APAM0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12045

Organic Chemistry is one of the foundational subjects for students who want to be biology, chemistry, or pre-medical majors in college. This course will introduce students to many of the very interesting and useful concepts found in a typical college organic chemistry curriculum but at a level that is accessible to most high school students. The course covers the properties, reactions, structural shape, and synthesis of various “classic” organic compounds like alcohols. The course also includes the basic organic reaction types and mechanisms like elimination, substitution, and addition. Students will learn how to use data to determine the reaction mechanism for a synthesis and the structural formula of an organic compound. There is an emphasis on three types of spectroscopies: infrared, nuclear magnetic resonance, and mass spectroscopy and on the three- dimensional aspect (isomers) of organic molecules. Biochemical pathways like the Kreb’s Cycle and the synthesis of a nucleotide are analyzed in detail to show students that all life - including their own - is a series of organic chemistry reactions.

ORGN0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 11445

The origin and evolution of the Universe is one of the greatest (and oldest) questions ever asked. In a little over a century, cosmology has matured as a discipline due to improvements in our understanding of fundamental physics and technological advances allowing us to map the Universe in unprecedented detail and perform complex calculations. This course is an introductory review of the field of cosmology for students with a background in physics and math, but not necessarily astronomy.  The course focuses on the field of cosmology, its early history, and its relationships to observational astronomy and particle physics.  We will discuss the observations that led scientists to believe that the Universe is expanding, explanations for the expansion, the origin of the Universe and the evolution of its constituent materials, including dark matter and dark energy.  We will also discuss general relativity and its implications for the structure of the Universe, its history, and predictions regarding astrophysical phenomena such as black holes.  In-class discussions and activities based on primary source research papers will complement in-class problem solving and supplemental readings.

ASTO0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 12135

Quantum mechanics is the science of the “small”; understanding how matter and light behave. An exciting application of modern physics, the field focuses on computing objects such as expectation values, vector evolution, and decoherence times through linear algebraic frameworks. The result of this work includes advancements in cybersecurity, electronics, aviation, communications, and engineering (to name a few). Through this course, students will explore the basics of theoretical foundations, equations, computations, and principles that impact the way we live today, and our future. Beginning with an exploration of topical ideas from  popular physicists, students will work through probability theory that will lead to sophisticated explanations of the world, as well as computations that will provide an elevated level of awareness for how humans work and play. By the end of the course, students will look at the world differently, and be prepared for more sophisticated study in this area.

PHYS0102 | Section 001 | Call Number 12122

Politics and International Affairs

Each year cybercriminals steal hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of information from major companies and vital national security secrets from governments, while terrorist organizations leverage cyber-networks for distributing their media and recruiting. It is imperative to nurture the next generation of intelligence professionals to understand the cyber-threat landscape given its ubiquitous impact on our daily lives.

In this course participants are exposed to cyber-threat intelligence as a discipline and its function in providing decision-makers with the support they need to stay abreast of evolving security challenges. Case studies on advanced persistent threat (APT) groups and large cybercrime networks are examined so as to better understand their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs); their successes; and their shortcomings. Further, we look at technology’s evolution and how it is integrated into our lives along with the likely future threat landscape that accompanies these technologies.

Threat intelligence encompasses more than the government, considering all private companies are reliant on technology and have their own threat intelligence teams, so this course focuses on both the public and private sectors.

Course readings cover the topics of intelligence, analysis, advanced persistent threat groups, cybercriminals, terrorist organizations, and the different methods these actors use to conduct their attacks and operations. We discuss these topics in greater depth in class lectures and with guest speakers. Students produce short white papers and work on group presentations in which they represent threat intel teams focusing on particular entities.

Please note, this is not a computer science class and no technical expertise is required.

CINT0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12059

The course begins by introducing international relations theory and practice, evolves into the evolution of the international order and concludes by discussing great power competition and economic statecraft.

The first half of the course presents theoretical and practical frameworks for understanding international politics and the policy decisions that shape global outcomes. It considers major international trends, such as the rise and fall of great powers, cooperation and conflict between states, and the influence of non-state actors on security, economics, and politics. With an emphasis on contemporary world affairs, it also explores the institutions, interests, ideas, and personalities behind international events. Foundational knowledge will be conveyed by looking at key historical events and the evolution of theoretical concepts that frame our understanding of international relations and informs policy. Each class meeting will use illustrative historical/contemporary cases to link theory to real world policy formation and execution.

The second half of the course, which builds on the material covered in part I, examines challenges to the current global order in a world of growing political, economic and military competition. We will examine the rise of great power competition among the United States, China and Russia and use of economic statecraft as a principle tool to advance each country’s interest. This part of the course examines each of these actors from an economic viewpoint, proceeding from the premise that a national economic base provides the resources from which these nations provide for domestic living standards while at the same time resourcing their national security objectives. The course provides an overview of each nation in context to its regional and the world economy. The course will examine contemporary and projected trends for each nation and relate these to security and strategy.

This is designed as an economics course for those who are interested in international relations but who do not have a deep knowledge of macro-economics. The instructor will familiarize students with basic macroeconomic concepts and provide a framework for inquiry which the course will apply to each of the actors. The course will then draw conclusions for strategy and decision makers.

GOPO0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12095

This course explores the central political, economic, and social ideologies of the modern world, including capitalism, socialism, communism, liberalism, populism, and nationalism. We ask what principles define these ideologies, how these ideologies intersect with democracy, and how they produce and require different meanings and understandings of key concepts such as freedom, equality, justice, and citizenship.

Starting with an extended focus on capitalism and liberal democracy, students investigate the origins and key beliefs of each ideology and think about the pros and cons of various systems of governance and social control. Our goal is not to proclaim any one ideology as superior, but to more deeply understand different ways of thinking about politics and society that have shaped the past and present, and that offer us possibilities for the future. In the process, class participants become more reflective about and aware of their own convictions, and better able to articulate and defend such convictions in speech and writing with thoughtfulness, precision, insight, and persuasive force.

Course materials include excerpts from classic and contemporary political theory texts, as well as newspaper and magazine articles and film clips. Students draft and revise personal ideology statements and participate in debates in which they marshal ideas from the sources studied to justify and defend their positions.

The course also includes guest speakers representing various ideological positions. Students are encouraged to engage in serious dialogue with and pose difficult questions of these guests, probing what they believe and why.

The morning sessions are generally devoted to helping students achieve a firm grasp of the theoretical and factual arguments found in the readings, through a combination of presentations by the instructor and class discussion. The afternoon sessions allow students to put these theories and facts to work in written and oral form, working both individually and in small groups to develop arguments and debate controversial political questions.

By the end of the three weeks, students are equipped with not only a deeper understanding of the competing political and economic ideologies that shape the modern world, but also with the tools to make, understand, and critically evaluate claims of all kinds—tools which should serve them well both in their future studies and as future citizens and leaders.

• Andrew Ruoss

PPEC0100 | Section 001 | Call Number 12124

PPEC0100 | Section 002 | Call Number 11647

This course considers the relationship between wealth and democracy, in theory, in history, and in practice today. Topics investigated include the following: political and legal debates about campaign finance reform from the late 20th century to the present, including whether money is speech and whether campaigns should be publicly financed; the role of the wealthy in American politics as candidates and as donors/funders; and the nature and problem of political corruption.

Readings are drawn from philosophers and political theorists, contemporary studies of the impact of wealth on American democracy, and key Supreme Court decisions including Citizens United. Other sources include film excerpts and press accounts. Students also benefit from several guest speakers working on issues pertaining to campaign finance and related issues of money and politics on the local, state, and/or national level.

Morning sessions are generally devoted to helping students achieve a firm grasp of the theoretical and factual arguments found in the readings, through a combination of presentations by the instructor and class discussion. Afternoon sessions allow students to put these theories and facts to work in written and oral form, working both individually and in small groups.

In addition to completing and discussing reading assignments, students write position papers and participate in debates in which they marshal ideas from the sources studied to justify and defend their positions.

Our ultimate goal is not to establish the proper role of money in politics, but to more deeply understand different ways of thinking about wealth and democracy that have shaped the past and present, and that offer us possibilities for the future.

• Geoffrey Upton

AMPO0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 11693

Science and Medicine

At the core of most modern medical treatments is an understanding of how cells and biological molecules work. In this course we examine the functioning of medications such as antibiotics, antiviral drugs, chemotherapy, and psychiatric drugs. We also look at the molecular biology and treatment of conditions such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and auto-immune disorders such as lupus.

Classes include interactive lectures and in-class assignments designed to help students understand the connections between science and medical treatments. Outside of class, participants are expected to write a number of short essays exploring how various modern medical treatments work on a cellular and molecular level. The course includes asynchronous work, which students are expected to complete between class sessions.

• Katherine Kartheiser

CELL0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 11802

• Ugoo Anieto

CELL0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 12146

CELL0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 11694

• Lashon Pringle

CELL0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 12058

CELL0101 | Section 003 | Call Number 11610

CELL0101 | Section D03 | Call Number 12147

CELL0101 | Section D04 | Call Number 12148

BIOS0301 | Section D01 | Call Number 11435

BIOS0301 | Section D02 | Call Number 11436

Becoming a physician—mastering the intricacies of the human body and working to heal when illness occurs—has long been considered a noble pursuit, but it’s not all guts and glory. It takes a particular kind of mind; one that can focus on the smallest details while keeping the big picture in sight. A doctor must see the forest and the trees.

This course is an investigation into how different types of physicians think within their discipline and what it means to be a doctor in today’s society. The course includes asynchronous work, which students are expected to complete between class sessions.

Potential topics to be discussed include the following:

• Logic and reasoning
• Evidence-based medicine
• Human psychology and its influence
• The crossroads of media, myth, and medicine
• Malpractice
• Medicine's history and future
• Medical School and Residency

Participants gain a deeper knowledge of the medical world as well as what it takes to think like a doctor—and acquire mental tools that can be utilized in any aspect of life. Please note that the field of medicine is far reaching and each class will vary depending on the instructor and their scope of knowledge and work within this vast field.

• Marjorie Seidenfeld

DOCT0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 11843

DOCT0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 12153

DOCT0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12082

DOCT0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 12083

• Magy Dawoud

DOCT0101 | Section 003 | Call Number 12084

DOCT0101 | Section D03 | Call Number 12154

DOCT0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 11448

The field of biology has expanded rapidly over the past fifty years. New discoveries are happening almost every day. In this course we explore the basic elements of molecular biology, genetics, and evolution and how these sciences affect modern medicine, agriculture, and ecology.

The course begins with a full description of the structure, function, and synthesis of DNA, RNA, and proteins. Students then apply this information to a wide range of topics such as modern biological research techniques, data interpretation, genetic engineering, immunology, cancer, and virology. The course also includes mini-units on bioethics and the biology of global warming, and we connect modern biology to fields such as anthropology, history, and economics. A variety of group activities, online labs, and videos supplement the student experience.

Please note: Approximately a third of the material covered in this course will already be familiar to students who have taken AP Biology.

BIOL0102 | Section 001 | Call Number 12055 - CLASS IS FULL!

BIOL0102 | Section 002 | Call Number 11612

BIOL0102 | Section 003 | Call Number 12056

BIOL0102 | Section 004 | Call Number 11613 - CLASS IS FULL!

Social Impact and Sustainability

Designed for students with a background in biology, this program investigates some of the exciting recent developments in conservation biology. Topics include: what is biodiversity, why is it threatened, and why is it important?; habitat alteration and species loss; captive breeding as a conservation tool; conservation genetics; protected areas; the effects of exotic species in local ecosystems; conservation medicine; and the impact of global warming on ecosystems and wildlife. The course uses real case studies from conservation research to take an in-depth look at the challenges in conserving life on earth, and the unique ways scientists and ordinary citizens can make a difference.

Class lectures and activities are supplemented with several field trips to sites in the New York area. Students will visit area institutions that address conservation—the American Museum of Natural History, the Bronx Zoo, and the Hudson River Trust—to see behind-the-scenes research and talk with professionals in the field of conservation biology.

The course culminates with a 4-day (3-night) trip to Black Rock Forest, where students will participate in hands-on conservation and restoration projects in the reserve.

Please note: Though this course is intended primarily for older students, it is also open to highly qualified rising freshmen and sophomores.

• Lauren Esposito
• Eric Stiner

BICO0211 | Section 001 | Call Number 12052 - CLASS IS FULL!

Climate change is one of the world’s most critical challenges, and though quite prominent in today’s news it remains a complex and multifaceted issue. What is the current understanding of the anthropogenic impacts on global climate, ecosystems, and biodiversity? How are different economic sectors, geographic regions, and countries contributing to this? How are these impacts predicted to affect future global economic growth prospects, agricultural productivity, poverty, and society at large? Who bears the potential costs and benefits? What can be done?

Using climate change as a unifying focus, this course examines the role of public policy in managing human impacts on the environment. Students are introduced to the theories and concepts of environmental economics, and using these they explore, discuss, and analyze current national and global environmental challenges. They learn the public policy approaches being used to address these challenges, and how these policies influence and interact with the role of the private sector and international frameworks such as the Paris Agreement.

Through coursework and case studies from both the developing and developed world, students gain an understanding of the complex nature of global environmental change and the importance of human-based activities in driving it. Case studies lead to the introduction of sector-based issues (e.g. promoting renewable energy and organic agriculture), innovative policy approaches (e.g. environmental trading schemes, mitigation banking, carbon taxes), and key terms used by the global conservation community to frame and promote discussion of these issues (e.g. ecosystem services, natural capital, water-energy-food nexus).

Coursework includes lectures, required reading, multimedia presentations, online research, and guest speakers. Students are expected and encouraged to participate in class discussions, raise questions, and contribute to small group exercises and presentations.

CLMS0100 | Section 001 | Call Number 10431

How has the US–China trade war affected the growth of world economies? Why has Latin America, a region rich in natural resources, not been able to attain economic growth levels similar to those in Asia? What implications does a potential global water crisis pose to how nations interact with one another? How has the mix of traditional and renewable energy sources made an impact on the United States? Is it unethical to apply economic principles to natural resources?

This course examines these type of questions as it dives into the fundamentals of natural resources, their pivotal role in the development of OECD (Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development) and non-OECD economies, and the monetization impact from Wall Street to the end consumer on Main Street.

Through case study analyses of current events, students develop an understanding of global reserves and yields of natural resources, identify world consumers and producers – i.e. export (supply/origin) and import (demand/destination) hubs – along with transportation channels, and conduct deep dive analyses in group settings on the financial life of these resources and their contribution to the pace of global growth.

Complementary to these topics, participants debate the basis for responsible business procurement of natural resources – including those that are sustainable – and their effect in the global landscape.

Students gain an understanding of – and think critically about – various natural resources (agricultural, energy, mineral, and livestock) and the key challenges of international trade in an interconnected world. They also learn about the social impact of exploration and production of these raw materials. Topics explored include the relevance of geopolitical analysis, how shipping markets and freight rates/chartering are crucial to world trade, and the growing presence of private capital in shoring up global imbalances.

• Sue A. Aguilar

NATU0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 12041

Social Sciences and Psychology

Socializing is a key part of being human. And, while being social may sound simple, the complexities behind interaction directly impact the world in which we live. Sociology, by definition, is the study of social change, life, and causes of human behavior, and a career in this field can be both challenging and fulfilling. Through this introductory course, students explore foundational concepts in sociology, including literature on socialization, cultural phenomena, urbanization, and inequity. Specifically, students will explore sociological institutions (family, government, etc.), growing concerns of social inequality, and popular theories that impact the world in which we live. By the end of the course, students will be able to appreciate human interaction in a new way, and become empowered to be agents of change themselves. 

• Marilyn Preston

SOCI0102 | Section 001 | Call Number 11695

• Dr. Karie Peralta

SOCI0102 | Section D01 | Call Number 12185

SOCI0102 | Section 002 | Call Number 12126

This course offers an overview of the field of linguistics, the scientific study of human communication. It will cover the major components of language, including phonology (sound patterns), morphology (word formation), semantics (meaning), and syntax (sentence formation).

Students will examine the essential role communication plays in daily life, and the ways languages can vary by culture and evolve over time. They will explore topics such as dialects, slang, stereotypes associated with different accents, MRI research on language processing in the brain, differences between human and animal communication, taboo words, figurative statements, and the Internet’s impact on “proper” English. The course will also include talks by guest speakers, professionals in their fields who will share their valuable expertise.

Students will act as language scientists for the week, analyzing linguistic phenomena and working with texts, lectures, fieldwork, and videos that demonstrate how language permeates life. Participants in this course gain a deeper understanding of the relevance of linguistics to all career and academic paths, as well as the fascinating insights it can offer into the human experience.

• Jonathan Mangar

LING0100 | Section 001 | Call Number 12111

Do rats laugh? Do dogs pretend? Can birds use tools? While it has traditionally been assumed that animals are not capable of thoughts, emotions, or anything comparable to human intelligence, researchers working with animals from rats and bats to wolves and whales now have an impressive and growing body of evidence, both scientific and anecdotal, that strongly challenges those earlier suppositions.

This course surveys the fascinating field of cognitive ethology—the study of animal minds—and explores questions of what animals think and feel, the complexity of their thought, and the depth of their emotions. Students examine cutting-edge research from fields such as cognitive neuroscience, psychology, endocrinology, and ethology that support the theoretical ideas first proposed by Darwin, who is often credited as the first scientist to seriously study the emotional lives of animals. Darwin’s ideas were later advanced by Donald Griffen, the “father of cognitive ethology,” whose big questions about animal consciousness laid the groundwork for the explosion of research we see today. What we are learning about animal sentience is transforming our understanding of non-human animals, creating impetus for new research into how they experience the world, each other, and possibly themselves.

In this seminar-style class, students read and discuss the research of ethologists such as Marc Bekoff, Konrad Lorenz, James Gould, Jane Goodall, Franz De Waal, and E.O Wilson. These pioneering researchers fundamentally changed our understanding of the animal mind, shedding new light on the extraordinary and diverse abilities of our fellow species to learn, problem-solve, use tools, express emotions, and even mourn their dead. What’s more, we are learning that animals communicate complex information in ways we could never have imagined.

A field excursion to the Wolf Conservation Center offer participants an opportunity to observe animal behaviors up close, emulate observation techniques used by scientists in the field, and speak to experts about their research. This first-hand experience provides context for the material covered in class, and gives rise to important questions and rich, stimulating discussions. Students also have an opportunity to explore the broad array of academic and career paths that relate to cognitive ethology, including evolutionary biology, animal behavior, conservation biology, psychology, philosophy and ethics, cognitive neuroscience, science writing, and animal law.

Course requirement include assigned readings of scientific literature and excerpts from books on animal cognition, daily participation in class and small-group discussions, and a final project that demonstrates students’ understanding of the course concepts and content.

Laptops are required for this course.

• Michelle Ashkin

ZOO0100 | Section 001 | Call Number 10368

ZOO0100 | Section 002 | Call Number 10369

In this course students examine language as a vital part of culture and social structure while discovering how it reflects and shapes our lives. We first tackle assumptions and myths we hold about language. For example, can animals learn to use language? Do Eskimo languages really have 17 separate words for snow? Is English the hardest language to learn? Then we explore the components of language (phonemes, morphemes, words, and sentences) and how each plays a role in what we hear as an “accent” or dialect. Thus, students investigate both the structural and cultural functions of human language.

The course employs a multi-disciplinary approach to investigating language behavior and variation in different cultures. This occurs mainly through the term project, which provides each student with the opportunity to conduct fieldwork as a means to research a culture and its use of language. Participants come to better understand themselves as members of their own cultures and language as a shaper of our self-identities in human society.

In the morning sessions we examine material in a seminar format. Afternoons are devoted to research, analysis of case studies, and other hands-on applications including probing popular culture, literature, and film for evidence of language used as a way to define cultural and social identities.

Students develop the skills of data collection and cross-linguistic and cross-cultural analysis and come away with a perspective of multiple viewpoints related to language correctness and relativity.

Though this course is intended primarily for older students, it is open to highly qualified rising freshmen and sophomores.

LANI0213 | Section 001 | Call Number 12107

This course is an introduction to psycholinguistics -- the study of how humans learn, represent, comprehend, and produce language. The course aims to provide students with a solid understanding of both the research methodologies used in psycholinguistic research and many of the well-established findings in the field. Through weekly reading and discussion, students will also look at the flexibility of language and language use, the influence of psycholinguistic processes on reading and writing, and the social use of language. This course will be a strong entry point into psycholinguistics, speech-language therapy, and computer language learning majors.

• Hong B Nguyen

PSYC0102 | Section 001 | Call Number 10437

This course introduces students to major psychological theories and research on human social behavior. We look at why humans often help each other but also why they hurt each other. Topics covered include empathy, prejudice, helping, compliance, bullying, conformity, and the development of personality. A variety of psychological methods for predicting and preventing anti-social behavior are discussed.

The course establishes a strong grounding in scientific principles and methodology. Students are encouraged to think about how empirical methods can be used to measure complex social phenomena, to recognize and appreciate experimental rigor, and ultimately to question common assumptions about human behavior found in ordinary discourse and the popular press. The course includes asynchronous work, which students are expected to complete between class sessions.

• Alison Jane Martingano

PSYC0100 | Section D01 | Call Number 11825

PSYC0100 | Section D02 | Call Number 11829

• Nadia Rahman

PSYC0100 | Section 004 | Call Number 10420

• Starlett Hartley

PSYC0100 | Section 001 | Call Number 10410

• Kate Jassin

PSYC0100 | Section 002 | Call Number 10418

PSYC0100 | Section 003 | Call Number 10419

• Kathryn Hauschild

PSYC0100 | Section D03 | Call Number 11800

PSYC0100 | Section D04 | Call Number 11833

PSYC0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 11441

This course introduces students to the fundamental concepts and theories of psychology, the science of the mind and behavior. The course provides an in-depth excursion into psychological research, including biological bases of behavior, learning and memory, sensation and perception, cognitive development, language acquisition, personality, and social influences on behavior.

PSYH0102 | Section 001 | Call Number 10411

• Olivia G. Cadwell

PSYH0102 | Section 002 | Call Number 10422

• Katrina Monton

PSYH0102 | Section 003 | Call Number 10423

PSYH0102 | Section D01 | Call Number 12183

PSYH0102 | Section 004 | Call Number 10412

PSYH0102 | Section 005 | Call Number 10424

PSYH0102 | Section 006 | Call Number 10425

PSYH0102 | Section D02 | Call Number 12184

The exponential advance of data, cloud computing, and machine learning have transformed every industry from retail and banking to healthcare and education. This introductory-level course enables participants to navigate the new reality of the “data economy,” in which data is the “the new oil”—a ubiquitous and invaluable asset. Students will focus on the strategic use of data and innovative technologies to derive actionable business insights. Participants develop a strong foundation in data-driven thinking for solving real-world problems. They are introduced to a variety of popular technologies for data analytics and gain a familiarity with programming technology. Students will learn how to import, export, manipulate, transform, and visualize data; use statistical summaries; and run and evaluate machine learning models. Participants will learn and implement common machine-learning techniques and develop and evaluate analytical solutions.

The course includes asynchronous work, which students are expected to complete between class sessions.

• Liz McQuillan

BIGD0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 11450

This course is designed for students who have an interest in the future of finance, technology, blockchain, cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and work. Beginning with an exploration of Fintech (financial technology), we explore technology’s impact on everything from banking to real estate to Wall Street. Additionally, we look at how artificial intelligence (AI) will automate and reduce the need for human workers, as AI, Fintech, and other technologies are combined to automate many tasks.

After gaining a solid understanding of the real-world use cases of Fintech and the everyday ways it impacts the economy, social justice, and our lives, students take a journey of discovery into the world of AI, the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, Bitcoin, and cryptocurrency. Since Bitcoin’s launch in 2009, cryptocurrency and decentralized ledger technology, aka blockchain, have emerged as an economic force majeure, disrupting the fundamentals of how people interact and how they perceive money. In addition to pushing the evolution of money, blockchain technology is now poised to disrupt how we organize businesses and the future of work. Course participants explore the organizational impacts and transformations caused by blockchain and cryptocurrencies and examine what this will mean to them as future CEOs and global business and thought leaders.

The course concludes by exploring the perspective of entrepreneurs and innovators, further examining how technologies come together to form the businesses, disruptions, and methodologies of the 21st Century. Participants walk away with a fundamental understanding of what tokens and cryptocurrencies are; how businesses leverage blockchain technology, AI, and other Fintech applications; and how digital transformation impacts social interactions and the future of work.

Please note: This course is not a computer programming course and requires no prior knowledge or experience, but rather looks at these emerging technologies more broadly from business, social, political, and cultural perspectives.

• Lindsley Medlin

BCAB0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10371

BCAB0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 10372

Data science and machine learning are exciting and popular disciplines. While different fields, they work best in sync to help change the way humans think, behave, and interact. In fact, some of the most popular data science methods stem from machine learning. Through this course, students will be introduced to the foundations of both science areas and explore available career opportunities. Beginning with an overview of the landscape and real-world applications, students will learn how data science and machine learning impact the world in which we live, every day. Further, students will gain hands-on experience with introductory coding using Python and become versed in popular machine learning algorithms. By the end of the course, students will use their benchmark knowledge to analyze and present data ethically and effectively. Finally, students will leave the course prepared for more advanced practice in data science and machine learning. 

Note: This course is for students with little-to-no previous experience with coding/programming. Students with more advanced knowledge should consider Data Science and Machine Learning II. 

BIGD0103 | Section 001 | Call Number 12053

BIGD0103 | Section D02 | Call Number 11847

• Amanda Yang

BIGD0103 | Section D01 | Call Number 12136

BIGD0103 | Section 002 | Call Number 12054 - CLASS IS FULL!

BIGD0103 | Section 003 | Call Number 12343

BIGD0103 | Section D04 | Call Number 12138

BIGD0103 | Section D03 | Call Number 12137

The power of data science and machine learning can change the world. From voice activation to video game programming to advancements in medical science - the possibilities for activation are endless. Through this advanced course, students will leverage their foundational knowledge of Python to develop a more sophisticated programming skill set. Further, students will use a variety of mathematical techniques (statistics, linear algebra, and probability) to analyze data and create impactful visualizations. By course completion, students will become well-versed in a range of strategies and techniques in both data science and machine learning and become data-driven decision makers. Further, students will be able to apply communication skills and fairness frameworks to identified solutions, making them invaluable assets to any future data science/machine learning classroom, or future employer. 

Note: This course is for students with prior programming experience (in particular, Python) and/or previous coursework in Data Science and Machine Learning. Further, some background in statistics and linear algebra is helpful. Students with little-to-no prior experience in these areas should explore our Data Science and Machine Learning I course. 

• Marcela Mendoza

BIGD0105 | Section 001 | Call Number 11625

BIGD0105 | Section 002 | Call Number 10408

BIGD0105 | Section D01 | Call Number 12139

BIGD0105 | Section 003 | Call Number 11627

BIGD0105 | Section 004 | Call Number 10409

• Urvi Awasthi

BIGD0105 | Section D03 | Call Number 12141

This course is intended for students with a strong programming background, including comfort in applying object-oriented programming and recursion to solve problems. Students will start with the history of artificial intelligence and progress to focus on more powerful, classical techniques. Optimization and probabilistic strategies are explored so as to demonstrate tradeoffs between different types of search strategies. Several well-known problems—such as N-Queens, Knapsack, Post correspondence, and Chess—may be considered. Participants are expected to complete challenging and thought-provoking assignments using the techniques taught in class as well as their prerequisite knowledge. The end goal of the course is for each student to be able to build functioning programs in Python and Java.

Student computers can be either Mac or PC, but should have at least 10GB of free space.

COMS0202 | Section 001 | Call Number 12066

An introductory course designed to develop logical reasoning and computer programming skills through immersion in the fundamentals of Java. Programming projects will challenge students to develop their logical reasoning, systematic thinking, and problem-solving skills. Students become familiar with fundamental object-oriented programming concepts, algorithms, and techniques. This course covers an overview of introductory material through hands-on labs and individual and collaborative projects. Labs are carried out in the cross-platform Java environment, which will be set up on students' personal computers.

Student computers can either be a PC or a Mac, but should have 8GB – 10GB of free space. Students enrolled in the on-campus program should bring their laptop to class. 

• Matthew Cheng

COMS0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 11787

COMS0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 12193

COMS0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 11788

This course provides an intensive introduction to coding with the language of Python, one of the most widely used and intuitive programming languages. Python is an interpreted language that, while syntactically simple, is equipped with a powerful set of libraries. Data analysis, machine learning, AI, data visualization, and web development can all be done quickly and efficiently with Python, making it the ideal language for beginners. 

Participants learn the fundamentals of programming with Python; they are introduced to best programming practices, data representation and storage, data structures, functions and scripts, and more. By the end of the course, students will have an understanding of the programming fundamentals required to approach novel and interesting problems with Python.

The course alternates between classic instruction, group work, and individual programming challenges. While learning to code in Python, students also develop logical thinking and problem solving skills that will be helpful to them in learning other programming languages as well as in college and beyond.

• Eiman Ahmed

IPTH0101 | Section 001 | Call Number 10401

• Jeremy Wang

IPTH0101 | Section D01 | Call Number 12169

IPTH0101 | Section 002 | Call Number 10402

IPTH0101 | Section D02 | Call Number 12170

This course, intended for students have completed the Introduction to Programming with Python course or have the prerequisite knowledge of the course topics discussed in that class. Entry level programming experience is required. The course provides a further look at the Python programming, Participants become familiar with intermediate and advanced programming concepts and are challenged through the use of logic games, programming problems, and hands-on assignments to develop logical reasoning and problem-solving skills. The course includes asynchronous work, which students are expected to complete between class sessions.

By the end of this course, students should have a solid understanding of program classes, objects, iterators, inheritance, lambda functions, try/except, regex, file handling, database modules, graphical modules, numerical analysis modules. This knowledge will support them in future ventures in computer science programming.

IPTH0114 | Section 001 | Call Number 12104

IPTH0114 | Section D01 | Call Number 12171

IPTH0114 | Section D01 | Call Number 11443

This course serves as an overview of the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency. Students take a deeper look into what blockchain is, how it has evolved, and where it is headed, including Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, NFTs, and Decentralized Finance (DeFi). We examine how these technologies will impact the future of work. Students are encouraged to think about the impact of these technologies on society and how they might become leaders and shapers in these fields.

Please note: This course is not a computer programming course and requires no prior knowledge or experience, but rather looks at these emerging technologies more broadly from business, social, political, and cultural perspectives. There is no coding in this class.

BCAB0103 | Section 001 | Call Number 10373

• Natasha Barrientos

BCAB0104 | Section D01 | Call Number 11782

Specific course details such as topics, activities, hours, and instructors are subject to change at the discretion of the University. 

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English and Comparative Literature

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http://english.columbia.edu/

Departmental Office: 602 Philosophy; 212-854-3215 http://www.english.columbia.edu

Director of Undergraduate Studies: Prof. Molly Murray, 406 Philosophy; 212-854-4016; [email protected]

Departmental Adviser: Prof. Molly Murray, 406 Philosophy; [email protected]

The program in English fosters the ability to read critically and imaginatively, to appreciate the power of language to shape thought and represent the world, and to be sensitive to the ways in which literature is created and achieves its effects. It has several points of departure, grounding the teaching of critical reading in focused attention to the most significant works of English literature, in the study of the historical and social conditions surrounding literary production and reception, and in theoretical reflection on the process of writing and reading and the nature of the literary work./p>

The courses the department offers draw on a broad range of methodologies and theoretical approaches, from the formalist to the political to the psychoanalytical (to mention just a few). Ranging from the medieval period to the 21st century, the department teaches major authors alongside popular culture, traditional literary genres alongside verbal forms that cut across media, and canonical British literature alongside postcolonial, global, and trans-Atlantic literatures.

At once recognizing traditional values in the discipline and reflecting its changing shape, the major points to three organizing principles for the study of literature—history, genre, and geography. Requiring students not only to take a wide variety of courses but also to arrange their thinking about literature on these very different grids, the major gives them broad exposure to the study of the past, an understanding of the range of forms that can shape literary meaning, and an encounter with the various geographical landscapes against which literature in English has been produced.

Students are not assigned specific advisers, but rather each year the faculty members serving on the department’s Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) are designated undergraduate advisers (see above). Upon declaring a major or concentration in English, students should meet with the director of undergraduate studies or a delegated faculty adviser to discuss the program, especially to ensure that students understand the requirements.

Students must fill out a Major Requirements Worksheet early in the semester preceding graduation. The worksheet must be reviewed by an adviser and submitted to 602 Philosophy before the registration period for the final semester. The worksheet is available in the English Department or on-line at http://english.columbia.edu/undergraduate/major-requirements . It is this worksheet— not the Degree Audit Report (DAR)—that determines eligibility for graduation as an English major or concentrator.

Course Information

Generally, lectures are addressed to a broad audience and do not assume previous course work in the area, unless prerequisites are noted in the description. The size of some lectures is limited. Senior majors have preference unless otherwise noted, followed by junior majors, followed by senior and junior non-majors. Students are responsible for checking for any special registration procedures on-line at https://english.columbia.edu/content/course-listings .

The department regards seminars as opportunities for students to do advanced undergraduate work in fields in which they have already had some related course experience. With the exception of some CLEN classes (in which, as comparative courses, much material is read in translation), students’ admission to a seminar presupposes their having taken ENGL UN3001 LITERARY TEXTS ＆ CRIT METHODS . During the three weeks preceding the registration period, students should check https://english.columbia.edu/content/course-listings for application instructions for individual seminars. Applications to seminars are usually due by the end of the week preceding registration. Students should always assume that the instructor’s permission is necessary; those who register without having secured the instructor’s permission are not guaranteed admission.

Departmental Honors

Writing a senior essay is a precondition, though not a guarantee, for the possible granting of departmental honors. After essays are submitted, faculty sponsors deliver a written report on the essay to the department’s Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE), with a grade for the independent study and, if merited, a recommendation for honors. CUE considers all the essays, including sponsor recommendations, reviews students’ fall semester grades, and determines which students are to receive departmental honors. Normally no more than 10% of graduating majors receive departmental honors in a given academic year.

The Degree Audit Reporting System (DARS)

The DAR is a useful tool for students to monitor their progress toward degree requirements, but it is not an official document for the major or concentration, nor should it replace consultation with departmental advisers. The department’s director of undergraduate studies is the final authority on whether requirements for the major have been met. Furthermore, the DAR may be inaccurate or incomplete for any number of reasons—for example, courses taken elsewhere and approved for credit do not show up on the DAR report as fulfilling a specific requirement.

Online Information

Other departmental information—faculty office hours, registration instructions, late changes, etc.—is available on the departmental website .

• James Eli Adams
• Rachel Adams
• Branka Arsić
• Christopher Baswell (Barnard)
• Julie Crawford
• Denise Cruz
• Nicholas Dames
• Jenny Davidson
• Andrew Delbanco
• Brent Edwards
• Stathis Gourgouris
• Farah Jasmine Griffin
• Jack Halberstam
• Saidiya Hartman (University Professor)
• Sharon Marcus
• Edward Mendelson
• Frances Negrón-Muntaner
• Robert O’Meally
• Julie Peters
• Ross Posnock
• Austin E. Quigley
• Bruce Robbins
• James Shapiro
• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (University Professor)
• Alan Stewart
• Colm Tóibín
• Gauri Viswanathan
• William Worthen (Barnard)
• David M. Yerkes

Associate Professors

• Patricia Dailey
• T. Austin Graham
• Eleanor Johnson
• Molly Murray
• Joseph Slaughter
• Dennis Tenen
• Jennifer Wenzel

Assistant Professors

• Joseph Albernaz
• Carlos Alonso Nugent
• Lauren Robertson
• Dustin Stewart
• Hannah Weaver
• Paul Grimstad
• Sue Mendelsohn
• Aaron Ritzenberg
• Maura Speigel
• Nicole B. Wallack

Guidelines for all English and Comparative Literature Majors and Concentrators

Declaring a major in english.

Upon declaring a major in English, students should meet with either the director of undergraduate studies or a departmental adviser to discuss the program. Students declaring a major should obtain a Major Requirements Worksheet from 602 Philosophy or on-line , which outlines the requirements.

Additional information, including events and deadlines of particular relevance to undergraduates, is provided at http://english.columbia.edu/undergraduate , the department’s undergraduate homepage. The sidebar on this page provides links to pages with details about undergraduate advising, major and concentration requirements, course options and restrictions, registration procedures, the senior essay, and writing prizes, as well as links to downloadable worksheets for the major and concentration and to course distribution requirement lists, past and present. For detailed information about registration procedures, students should consult https://english.columbia.edu/content/course-listings , which explains the requirements and enables students to monitor their own progress.

Newly declared majors should contact the undergraduate coordinator in 602 Philosophy Hall and request that their names be added to the department’s electronic mailing list for English majors and concentrators. Because important information now routinely is disseminated through e-mail, it is crucial that students be on this list.

Literary Texts, Critical Methods

The introductory course ENGL UN3001 LITERARY TEXTS ＆ CRIT METHODS , together with its companion seminar, ENGL UN3011 LITERARY TEXTS＆CRIT MTHDS(SEM) , is required for the English major and concentration. It should be taken by the end of the sophomore year. Fulfillment of this requirement is a factor in admission to seminars and to some lectures. This once-a-week faculty lecture, accompanied by a seminar led by an advanced graduate student in the department, is intended to introduce students to the study of literature. Students read works from the three major literary modes (lyric, drama, and narrative), drawn from premodern to contemporary literature, and learn interpretative techniques required by these various modes or genres. This course does not fulfill any distribution requirements.

Senior Essay

The senior essay program is an opportunity for students to explore in depth some literary topic of special interest to them, involving extensive background reading and resulting in an essay (8,000–15,000 words) that constitutes a substantial and original critical or scholarly argument. Students submit proposals in September of their senior year, with acceptance contingent upon the quality of the proposal and the student’s record in the major. Students who are accepted are assigned a faculty sponsor to supervise the project, from its development during the fall semester to its completion in the spring. It is for the spring semester, not the fall, that students officially register for the course, designated as ENGL UN3999 THE SENIOR ESSAY . Senior essays are due in early April.

Course Options and Restrictions

No course at the 1000- level may be counted toward the major.

Speech courses may not be counted toward the major.

Two writing courses or two upper-level literature courses taught in a foreign language, or one of each, may count toward the major, though neither type of course fulfills any distribution requirement. Writing courses that may be applied toward the major include those offered through Columbia’s undergraduate Creative Writing Program and through Barnard College.

Comparative literature courses sponsored by the department (designated as CLEN ) may count toward the major. Those sponsored by other departments (e.g. CLFR -  Comp Lit French, CPLS -  Comp Lit and Society) are not counted toward the major without permission of the director of undergraduate studies . Literature courses taught in English in language departments do not count toward the major.

No more than two courses taken during the summer session may be counted toward the major.

Courses offered through the Barnard English Department may count toward the major or concentration. Before taking Barnard courses, students should verify with the director of undergraduate studies whether and how such courses may count toward the major.

For courses taken abroad or at other American institutions to count toward the major, students must obtain approval of the director of undergraduate studies.

To register for more than 42 points (including advanced standing credit) in English and comparative literature, a student majoring in English must obtain permission of the director of undergraduate studies.

No more than five courses taken elsewhere may be applied to the major, four to the concentration.

One independent study (for at least 3 points) may count toward the major but cannot satisfy any distribution requirements; likewise, the Senior Essay may count toward the major but fulfills no requirements. Students may not count both an Independent Study and the Senior Essay toward the major.

Courses assigned a grade of D may not be counted toward the major.

Only the first course taken to count toward the major can be taken Pass/D/Fail.

Major in English

Please read Guidelines for all English and Comparative Literature Majors and Concentrators above.

Ten departmental courses (for a minimum of 30 points) and, in the process, fulfillment of the following requirements. See course information above for details on fulfilling the distribution requirements.

• ENGL UN3001 LITERARY TEXTS ＆ CRIT METHODS and ENGL UN3011 LITERARY TEXTS＆CRIT MTHDS(SEM)
• Period distribution: Three courses primarily dealing with periods before 1800, only one of which may be a course in Shakespeare
• Prose fiction/narrative
• Drama/film/new media
• Comparative/global (comparative literature, postcolonial, global English, trans-Atlantic, diaspora)

Course Distribution Lists are available in the department and on-line at  https://english.columbia.edu/content/course-listings to help students determine which courses fulfill which requirements. A single course can satisfy more than one distribution requirement. For example, a Shakespeare lecture satisfies three requirements at once: not only does it count as one of the three required pre-1800 courses it also, at the same time, fulfills both a genre and a geography distribution requirement (drama and British, respectively). Courses not on the distribution list may count toward the major requirements only with the permission of the director of undergraduate studies. Two writing courses or upper-level literature courses taught in a foreign language, or one of each, may count toward the ten required courses.

Concentration in English

Please read  Guidelines for all English and Comparative Literature Majors and Concentrators  above.

Eight departmental courses and, in the process, fulfillment of the following requirements. See course information above for details on fulfilling the distribution requirements.

• Period distribution: Two courses dealing with periods before 1800, only one of which may be a course in Shakespeare
• Genre distribution: Two courses, each chosen from a different genre category (see above)
• Geography distribution: Two courses, each chosen from a different geography category (see above)

See the Course Distribution Lists, available in the department or on-line at https://english.columbia.edu/content/course-listings , to determine which courses fulfill which requirements. All of the restrictions outlined for the English major also apply for the concentration in English.

Comparative Literature Program

Students who wish to major in comparative literature should consult the Comparative Literature and Society section of this Bulletin.

Introduction to the Major

ENGL UN3001 LITERARY TEXTS ＆ CRIT METHODS. 4.00 points .

Prerequisites: Students who register for ENGL UN3001 must also register for one of the sections of ENGL UN3011 Literary Texts, Critical Methods. Prerequisites: Students who register for ENGL UN3001 must also register for one of the sections of ENGL UN3011 Literary Texts, Critical Methods. This course is intended to introduce students to the advanced study of literature. Students will read works from different genres (poetry, drama, and prose fiction), drawn from the medieval period to the present day, learning the different interpretative techniques required by each. The course also introduces students to a variety of critical schools and approaches, with the aim both of familiarizing them with these methodologies in the work of other critics and of encouraging them to make use of different methods in their own critical writing. This course (together with the companion seminar ENGL UN3011 ) is a requirement for the English Major and Concentration. It should be taken as early as possible in a students career. Fulfillment of this requirement will be a factor in admission to seminars and to some lectures

ENGL UN3011 LITERARY TEXTS＆CRIT MTHDS(SEM). 0.00 points .

Prerequisites: Students who register for ENGL UN3011 must also register for ENGL UN3001 Literary Texts, Critical Methods lecture. Prerequisites: Students who register for ENGL UN3011 must also register for ENGL UN3001 Literary Texts, Critical Methods lecture. This seminar, led by an advanced graduate student in the English doctoral program, accompanies the faculty lecture ENGL UN3001 . The seminar both elaborates upon the topics taken up in the lecture and introduces other theories and methodologies. It also focuses on training students to integrate the terms, techniques, and critical approaches covered in both parts of the course into their own critical writing, building up from brief close readings to longer research papers

ENGL UN3794 Trees. 4.00 points .

Trees shadow the human in faceless fashion. They mark of a form of deep-time AN record and respond to ecological devastation and abundance. Symbolic of the strange proximity of the divine in numerous different religious and literary traditions, trees figure as alter-egos or doubles for human lives and after-lives (in figures like the trees of life and salvation, trees of wisdom and knowledge, genealogical trees). As prostheses of thought and knowledge, they become synonymous with structure and form, supports for linguistic and other genres of mapping, and markers of organization and reading. As key sources of energy, trees –as we know them today -- are direct correlates with the rise of the Anthropocene. Trees are thus both shadows and shade: that is, they are coerced doubles of the human and as entry ways to an other-world that figure at the limits of our ways of defining thought and language. By foregrounding how deeply embedded trees are in world-wide forms of self-definition and cultural expression, this course proposes a deeper understanding of the way in which the environment is a limit-figure in the humanities’ relation to its “natural” others. This course assumes that the “real” and the “literary” are not opposed to one another, but are intimately co-substantial. To think “climate” or “environment” is not merely a matter of the sciences, rather, it is through looking at how the humanities situates “the tree” as a means of self-definition that we can have a more thorough understanding of our current ecological, political, and social climate. Foregrounding an interdisciplinary approach to literary studies, this course includes material from eco-criticism, philosophy, religion, art history, indigenous and cultural and post-colonial studies. It will begin by coupling medieval literary texts with theoretical works, but will expand (and contract) to other time periods and geographic locales

ENGL UN2091 Introduction to Old English. 3.00 points .

ENGL GU4091 Introduction to Old English will be renumbered to ENGL UN2091 with a graduate section added to ENGL GR6998

ENGL UN2791 Mysticism and Medieval Drama. 3.00 points .

ENGL GU4791 Mysticism and Medieval Drama will be renumbered to ENGL UN2791 with a graduate section added to ENGL GR6998

ENGL UN3873 Troilus and Criseyde. 4.00 points .

The intellectual goals of the course are to understand the manuscript evidence for the text and to be able to read Chaucer with precision: precision as to the grammatical structure, vocabulary, rhymes, and meter of the text. Being such an enlightened, close reader will help students in many, if not all, of their other courses, and will be invaluable to them in most any job they will ever have thereafter

ENGL UN3920 MEDIEVAL ENGLISH TEXTS. 4.00 points .

Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. The class will read the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the original Middle English language of its unique surviving copy of circa 1400, and will discuss both the poem's language and the poem's literary meritThe class will read the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the original Middle English language of its unique surviving copy of circa 1400, and will discuss both the poem's language and the poem's literary merit

Renaissance

ENGL UN3335 SHAKESPEARE I. 3.00 points .

Enrollment is limited to 60.

(Lecture). This course will cover the histories, comedies, tragedies, and poetry of Shakespeare’s early career. We will examine the cultural and historical conditions that informed Shakespeare’s drama and poetry; in the case of drama, we will also consider the formal constraints and opportunities of the early modern English commercial theater. We will attend to Shakespeare’s biography while considering his work in relation to that of his contemporaries. Ultimately, we will aim to situate the production of Shakespeare’s early career within the highly collaborative, competitive, and experimental theatrical and literary cultures of late sixteenth-century England

ENGL GU4462 Gender and Resistance in Early Modern Literature. 4.00 points .

This class will focus on early modern literature’s fascination with the relationship between women, gender, and political resistance in the early modern period. The works we will read together engage many of the key political analogies of the period, including those between the household and the state, the marital and the social contract, and rape and tyranny. These texts also present multiple forms of resistance to gendered repression and subordination, and reimagine sexual, social, and political relationships in new and creative ways. Readings will include key classical and biblical intertexts, witchcraft and murder pamphlets, domestic conduct books, defenses of women, poetry (by William Shakespeare, Aemilia Lanyer and Lucy Hutchinson), drama (Othello, The Winter’s Tale, and Gallathea), and fiction (by Margaret Cavendish). The class will also include visits to The Morgan Library, Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art

18th and 19th Century

ENGL UN2802 History of English Novel II. 3.00 points .

ENGL GU4802 History of English Novel II will be renumbered to ENGL UN2802 with a graduate section added to ENGL GR6998

ENGL UN2402 Romantic Poetry. 3.00 points .

ENGL GU4402 Romantic Poetry will be renumbered to ENGL UN2402 with a graduate section added to ENGL GR6998

ENGL UN2236 Eco-Poetry from the Romantics to the Present. 3.00 points .

Wordsworth famously wrote that “Nature never did betray / the heart that loved her,” but is the reverse true? This course will explore the entanglement of literature and the environment from two vantage points: the first is Romantic-era England, which coincided with the onset of the industrial revolution that put the earth on a course of mass extinction and climate change. The second is the period from around 1980 to the present, after the birth of the modern environmental movement, when the devastating effects of human activity on the earth became an unavoidable subject for many poets. After spending time with both canonical and overlooked Romantic nature poetry (including Wordsworth, Charlotte Smith, Shelley, John Clare), we will turn in the second half of the semester to a global group of contemporary eco-poets variously taking up, transforming, deflecting, or unraveling Romantic-era ideas of “Nature” in light of contemporary environmental crises and the age of the Anthropocene. The course will focus on close reading and discussion of poems, but will also introduce some elementary concepts, concerns, and practices of what is called “eco-criticism,” a relatively recent mode of reading literature first developed by scholars of Romanticism. Some questions we may consider include: How might poetic language be particularly attuned to intimations of ecological change and collapse? How do and how should poetic forms and traditions shift in the wake of environmental crisis? How might poems help us cultivate arts of noticing, forms of resistance, and modes of dwelling in common with non-human life? Reading contemporary poets like Will Alexander and Etel Adnan, we will also explore how literature can connect with various scales and dimensions of existence, including the seasonal, the elemental, the planetary, and even the cosmic. Along the way, we will critically explore how both ecology and poetic practice are inflected by issues of race, gender, sexuality, and capitalism

ENGL UN3994 Romanticism and the Experience of Freedom. 4 points .

“Freedom” was perhaps the central watchword of Romantic-era Britain, yet this concept remains exceedingly, notoriously difficult to pin down. Taking a cue from the sociologist and historian Orlando Patterson, who writes that “freedom is one those of values better experienced than defined,” this seminar will explore the variegated experiences of freedom (and its opposites) in the literature of British Romanticism. Romanticism unfolds alongside major revolutions in America, France, and Haiti, and we will begin by examining how the differing conceptions of freedom offered in the wake of these revolutions and their receptions galvanized writers and thinkers in Britain. From here, we will probe the expressions, possibilities, implications, and limits of freedom as outlined in various domains: political, individual, aesthetic, economic, philosophical, religious, and beyond. What does, say, Wordsworth’s claim to freedom to experiment in poetic form have to do with political and social freedom? In situating Romanticism alongside developments like revolution, the rise of globalization, and the Atlantic slave trade, we will be particularly interested in confronting how the explosion of claims to freedom in this period emerges together with and in response to the proliferation of enslaved, colonized, and otherwise constrained or hindered bodies.

As we read poems, novels, slave narratives, philosophical essays, political tracts, and more, a fundamental question for the course will concern the relation between seemingly oppositional terms: to what extent, and how, do notions of freedom in Romanticism depend on the necessary exclusion of the unfree? Since the Romantic age sees the birth of concepts of freedom still prevalent in our own day, this course will offer an opportunity to reflect critically on the present. To that end, we will take up some contemporary theoretical analyses and critiques of freedom, both directly in relation to Romanticism and reaching beyond.

20th and 21st Century

ENGL UN3241 African American Literature: The Essay. 4 points .

According to literary critic Cheryl A. Wall, African American writers have done their most influential work in the essay form. Using Wall’s scholarship as a starting point, this course explores essays by a distinguished group of writers from Frederick Douglass to Toni Morrison to consider the centrality of this understudied form to African American writing.

ENGL UN2826 American Modernism. 3.00 points .

This course approaches modernism as the varied literary responses to the cultural, technological, and political conditions of modernity in the United States. The historical period from the turn of the century to the onset of World War II forms a backdrop for consideration of such authors as Getrude Stein, Willa Cather, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Djuna Barnes. Assigned readings will cover a range of genres, including novels, poetry, short stories, and contemporary essays

CLEN UN2742 World Fiction Since 1965. 3.00 points .

In the period since 1965, fiction has become global in a new sense and with a new intensity. Writers from different national traditions have been avidly reading each other, wherever they happen to come from, and they often resist national and regional labels altogether. If you ask the Somali writer Nuruddin Farah whether the precocious child of Maps was inspired by Salman Rushdie´s Midnight´s Children, he will answer (at least he did when I asked him) that he and Rushdie both were inspired by Sterne´s Tristram Shandy and Grass´s The Tin Drum. At the same time, the human experiences around which novelists organize their fiction are often themselves global, explicitly and powerfully but also mysteriously. Our critical language is in some ways just trying to catch up with innovative modes of storytelling that attempt to be responsible to the global scale of interconnectedness on which, as we only rarely manage to realize, we all live. Authors will include some of the following: Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Jamaica Kincaid, W.G. Sebald, Elena Ferrante, and Zadie Smith

CLEN GU4199 LITERATURE AND OIL. 3.00 points .

This course will investigate the connections between literary/cultural production and petroleum as the substance that makes possible the world as we know it, both as an energy source and a component in the manufacture of everything from food to plastic. Our current awareness of oil's scarcity and its myriad costs (whether environmental, political, or social) provides a lens to read for the presence (or absence) of oil in texts in a variety of genres and national traditions. As we begin to imagine a world "beyond petroleum," this course will confront the ways in which oil shapes both the world we know and how we know and imagine the world. Oil will feature in this course in questions of theme (texts "about" oil), of literary form (are there common formal conventions of an "oil novel"?), of interpretive method (how to read for oil), of transnational circulation (how does "foreign oil" link US citizens to other spaces?), and of the materiality (or "oiliness") of literary culture (how does the production and circulation of texts, whether print or digital, rely on oil?). 

ENGL UN3712 HENRY JAMES AND EDITH WHARTON. 4.00 points .

James & Wharton, America's two greatest novelists in the half century after the civil war and the eve of the first world war, were friends and fellow cosmopolitans, at home in the US  & Europe, chroniclers of an emerging transatlantic urban modernity traversing New York, London, Paris, Rome, Geneva. Their fiction often portrays glamorous surfaces and intricate social texts that their brilliant heroines --Isabel Archer  of  The Portrait of a Lady  & Lily Bart of  The House of Mirth ,  for example--negotiate with wit and subtlety, confusion and daring,  amidst fear and fascination. They find themselves immersed in bruising plots--crafted by society's disciplinary imperatives and by their creators, the latter standing in uneasy complicity with the social order even as they seek its transformation.  Giving female protagonists unprecedented boldness and ambition, Wharton & James chart how intense exertion of will and desire collides with "the customs of the country," to cite the title of a great Wharton novel. We will read the three novels mentioned above as well as Wharton's  Summer  &  Ethan Frome  and James's "Daisy Miller,"  Washington Square  &  The Ambassadors .

ENGL UN3628 FAULKNER. 4.00 points .

In this course, we’ll be studying novels, stories, and screenplays from the major phase of William Faulkner’s career, from 1929 to 1946. Our primary topic will be Faulkner’s vision of American history, and especially of American racial history: we’ll be asking what his fictions have to say about the antebellum/“New” South; the Civil War and Reconstruction; the issues of slavery, emancipation, and civil rights; and the many ways in which the conflicts and traumas of the American past continue to shape and burden the American present. But we’ll consider other aspects of Faulkner’s work, too: his contributions to modernist aesthetics, his investigations of psychology and subjectivity, his exploration of class and gender dynamics, his depiction of the natural world, and his understanding of the relationship between literature and the popular arts

ENGL UN3726 Virginia Woolf. 4 points .

Six novels and some non-fictional prose:  Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, The Waves, Between the Acts; A Room of One's Own, Three Guineas.   Applications on paper only (not e-mail) in Professor Mendelson's mailbox in 602 Philosophy, with your name, e-mail address, class (2017, 2018, etc.), a brief list of relevant courses that you've taken, and one sentence suggesting why you want to take the course.  Attendance at the first class is absolutely required; no one will be admitted who does not attend the first class.

ENGL UN3351 FAMILY FICTIONS: MEMOIR, FILM AND THE NOVEL. 4.00 points .

This course will explore cinematic, novelistic and memoirist renderings of “family cultures,” family feeling, the family as narrative configuration, and home as a utopian/dystopian and oneiric space. Explorations of memory, imagination and childhood make-believe will interface with readings in psychoanalysis and in the social history of this polymorphous institution. A central goal of the course is to help each of you toward written work that is distinguished, vital and has urgency for you. Authors will include Gaston Bachelard, Alison Bechdel, Jessica Benjamin, Sarah M. Broom, Lucille Clifton, Vivian Gornick, Lorraine Hansberry, Maggie Nelson and D.W. Winnicott; and films by Sean Baker, Ingmar Bergman, Alfonso Cuaron, Greta Gerwig, Lance Hammer, Barry Jenkins, Elia Kazan, Lucretia Martel, Andrei Zvyagintsev and others

ENGL UN3734 American Literature and Corporate Culture. 4 points .

Prerequisites: the instructor's permission.

(Seminar). "It is not expected of critics as it is of poets that they should help us to make sense of our lives; they are bound only to attempt the lesser feat of making sense of the ways we try to make sense of our lives." - Frank Kermode This seminar will focus on American literature during the rise of U.S. corporate power in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The legal and economic entity of the corporation established new social hierarchies and systems of power, changed the roles of government and families, and wrought new forms of relationships between individuals. American culture demonstrated both an enchantment with the possibilities of a growing economy and a looming anxiety about the systematization of personal relationships. Authors and critics grappled with an American society that seemed to offer unprecedented opportunity for social rise but only within a deeply threatening and impersonal structure. We'll examine the ways that literary and popular culture depicted corporations and the ways that corporate structure influenced literary aesthetics and form. Application instructions: E-mail Professor Aaron Ritzenberg ([email protected]) with the subject heading "American Literature and Corporate Culture seminar". In your message, include basic information: name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. Admitted students should register for the course; they'll automatically be placed on a wait list, from which the instructor will in due course admit them as spaces become available.

ENGL UN3805 The Political Novel. 4.00 points .

Is the political novel a genre? It depends on your understanding both of politics and of the novel. If politics means parties, elections, and governing, then few novels of high quality would qualify. If on the other hand “the personal is the political,” as the slogan of the women’s movement has it, then almost everything the novel deals with is politics, and few novels would not qualify. This seminar will try to navigate between these extremes, focusing on novels that center on the question of how society is and ought to be constituted. Since this question is often posed ambitiously in so-called “genre fiction” like thrillers and sci-fi, which is not always honored as “literature,” it will include some examples of those genres as well as uncontroversial works of the highest literary value like Melville’s “Benito Cereno,” Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” and Camus’s “The Plague.”

CLEN GU4899 Resistance Literature. 4.00 points .

This course will explore the historical category of Resistance Literature, its theory and practice, its transnational expansion, and its ongoing relevance today. Originally proposed by Palestinian author and political activist Ghassan Kanafani in 1967, “Resistance Literature” named an activist practice of writing that sought to challenge discriminatory state practices, social policies, power structures and lived injustices, as well as to reshape the ideological frameworks that enabled official political structures of oppression in the institutional forms of colonialism (settler and otherwise), neocolonialism, authoritarianism, apartheid, systemic racisms, ethnonationalisms, gendered exclusions, and religious discrimination. Examining diverse genres such as novels, poetry, plays, memoirs, films, we will analyze the literary and political strategies, motifs, and modes by which authors around the world over the past century have attempted to use their art to resist oppression, to mobilize public opinion, and to advocate for social change. Collectively, we will attempt to identify literary and formal commonalities across these literatures to identify generic characteristics of Resistance Literature that might distinguish it from Literature in general

ENGL GU4932 ESSAYISM. 4.00 points .

In the second decade of the 21 st century there is more critical attention than ever before on the essay as a literary genre and a cultural practice that crosses media, registers, disciplines, and contexts. The concept of “essayism” was redefined by the Robert Musil in his unfinished modernist novel, The Man Without Qualities (1930) from a style of literature to a form of thinking in writing: “For an essay is not the provisional or incidental expression of a conviction that might on a more favourable occasion be elevated to the status of truth or that might just as easily be recognized as error … ; an essay is the unique and unalterable form that a man’s inner life takes in a decisive thought.” In this course will explore how essays can increase readers’ andwriters’ tolerance for the existential tension and uncertainty we experience both within ourselves as well as in the worlds we inhabit. As Cheryl Wall argues, essays also give their practitioners meaningful work to do with their private musings and public concerns in a form that thrives on intellectual as well as formal experimentation. The course is organized to examine how practitioners across media have enacted essayism in their own work and how theorists have continued to explore its aesthetic effects and ethical power

ENGL GU4559 August Wilson. 4.00 points .

In this seminar we will read the complete published plays of August Wilson along with significant unpublished and obscurely published plays, prose, and poetry. The centerpieces of this course will be what Wilson termed his “century cycle” of plays: each work focusing on the circumstances of Black Americans during a decade of the twentieth century. As we consider these historical framings, we also will explore closely on what Wilson identified as the “four B’s” that influenced his art most emphatically: Bessie Smith (sometimes he called this first B the Blues), Amiri Baraka, Romare Bearden, and Jorge Luis Borges. Accordingly, as we consider theoretical questions of cross-disciplinary conversations in art, we will study songs by Bessie Smith (and broad questions of the music and literary form), plays, prose, and poetry of Baraka (particularly in the context of Wilson’s early Black Arts Movement works), the paintings of Bearden, and the poetry and prose (along with a few lectures and transcribed interviews) of Borges. We will use archival resources (online as well as “hard copy” material, some of it at Columbia) to explore Wilson’s pathways as a writer, particularly as they crisscrossed the tracks of his “four B’s.” Along the way we will examine several drawings and paintings (from his University of Pittsburgh archives) as we delve into the rhythmical shapes, textures, and colors he used on paper and canvas as well as in his plays. Visitors to the class will include Wilson’s musical director Dwight Andrews and at least one of his regular actors

Special Topics

ENGL UN3795 SENIOR ESSAY RESEARCH METHODS. 3.00 points .

The senior essay research methods seminar, offered in several sections in the fall semester, lays out the basic building blocks of literary and cultural studies. What kinds of questions do literary and cultural critics ask, and what kinds of evidence do they invoke to support their arguments? What formal properties characterize pieces of criticism that we find especially interesting and/or successful? How do critics balance the desire to say something fresh vis-a-vis the desire to say something sensible and true? What mix of traditional and innovative tools will best serve you as a critical writer? Voice, narrative, form, language, history, theory and the practice known as “close reading” will be considered in a selection of exemplary critical readings. Readings will also include “how-to” selections from recent guides including Amitava Kumar’s Every Day I Write the Book, Eric Hayot’s The Elements of Academic Style and Aaron Ritzenberg and Sue Mendelsohn’s How Scholars Write. The methods seminar is designed to prepare those students who choose to write a senior essay to complete a substantial independent project in the subsequent semester. Individual assignments will help you discover, define and refine a topic; design and pursue a realistic yet thrilling research program or set of protocols; practice “close reading” an object (not necessarily verbal or textual) of interest; work with critical sources to develop your skills of description and argument; outline your project; build out several sections of the project in more detail; and come up with a timeline for your spring semester work. In keeping with the iterative nature of scholarly research and writing, the emphasis is more on process than on product, but you will end the semester with a clear plan for your essay itself as well as for the tasks you will execute to achieve that vision the following semester. The methods seminar is required of all students who wish to write a senior essay in their final semester. Students who enroll in the methods seminar and decide not to pursue a senior essay in the spring will still receive credit for the fall course

ENTA UN3701 DRAMA, THEATRE AND THEORY. 4.00 points .

Prerequisites: Instructor's permission. (Seminar). Theatre typically exceeds the claims of theory. What does this tell us about both theatre and theory? We will consider why theatre practitioners often provide the most influential theoretical perspectives, how the drama inquires into (among other things) the possibilities of theatre, and the various ways in which the social, spiritual, performative, political, and aesthetic elements of drama and theatre interact. Two papers, weekly responses, and a class presentation are required. Readings include Aristotle, Artaud, Bharata, Boal, Brecht, Brook, Castelvetro, Craig, Genet, Grotowski, Ibsen, Littlewood, Marlowe, Parks, Schechner, Shakespeare, Sowerby, Weiss, and Zeami. Application Instructions: E-mail Professor Austin Quigley ([email protected]) with the subject heading Drama, Theatre, Theory seminar. In your message, include basic information: your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. Admitted students should register for the course; they will automatically be placed on a wait list, from which the instructor will in due course admit them as spaces become available

AMST UN3930 Topics in American Studies. 4 points .

Please refer to the Center for American Studies website for course descriptions for each section. americanstudies.columbia.edu

CSER UN3523 INTRODUCTION TO LATINX STUDIES. 4.00 points .

In the US, Latinxs are often treated in quantitative terms—as checkmarks on census forms, or as data points in demographic surveys. However, Latinxs have always been more than mere numbers: while some have stayed rooted in traditional homelands, and while others have migrated through far-flung diasporas, all have drawn on and developed distinctive ways of imagining and inhabiting the Americas. In this course, we will explore a wide range of these Latinx lifeways. Through readings in the humanities and social sciences, we will learn how Latinxs have survived amidst and against settler colonialism and racial capitalism. Meanwhile, through the study of literature and art, we will see how Latinxs have resisted and/or reinforced these social systems. With our interdisciplinary and intersectional approach, we will determine why Latinidad has manifested differently in colonial territories (especially Puerto Rico), regional communities (especially the US–Mexico borderlands), and transnational diasporas (of Cubans, of Dominicans, and of a variety of Central Americans). At the same time, we will understand how Latinxs have struggled with shared issues, such as (anti-) Blackness and (anti-)Indigeneity, gender and sexuality, citizenship and (il)legality, and economic and environmental (in)justice. During the semester, we will practice Latinx studies both collectively and individually: to enrich our in-class discussions, each student will complete a reading journal, a five- page paper, a creative project, and a digital timeline

ENGL UN3891 INTRO TO CLASSICAL RHETORIC. 4.00 points .

Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. (Seminar). This course examines rhetorical theory from its roots in ancient Greece and Rome and reanimates the great debates about language that emerged in times of national expansion and cultural upheaval. We will situate the texts of Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and others in their historical contexts to illuminate ongoing conversations about the role of words and images in the negotiation of persuasion, meaning making, and the formation of the public. In the process, we will discover that the arguments of classical rhetoric play out all around us today. Readings from thinkers like Judith Butler, Richard McKeon, Robert Pirsig, and Bruno Latour echo the ancients in their debates about hate speech regulation, the purpose of higher education, and the ability of the sciences to arrive at truth. We will discover that rhetoricians who are writing during eras of unprecedented expansion of democracies, colonization, and empire have a great deal to say about the workings of language in our globalizing, digitizing age. Application instructions: E-mail Professor Sue Mendelsohn ([email protected]) by April 11 with the subject heading Rhetoric seminar. In your message, include basic information: your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. Admitted students should register for the course; they will automatically be placed on a wait list, from which the instructor will in due course admit them as spaces become available

CLEN UN3725 Literary Guides to Living and Dying Well from Plato to Montaigne. 4.00 points .

Surrounded by friends on the morning of his state-mandated suicide, Socrates invites them to join him in considering the proposition that philosophizing is learning how to die. In dialogues, essays, and letters from antiquity to early modernity, writers have returned to this proposition from Plato’s Phaedo to consider, in turn, what it means for living and dying well. This course will explore some of the most widely read of these works, including by Cicero, Seneca, Jerome, Augustine, Boethius, Petrarch, and Montaigne, with an eye to the continuities and changes in these meanings and their impact on the literary forms that express them. Application instructions: E-mail Prof. Eden ([email protected]) with your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. Admitted students should register for the course; they will automatically be placed on a wait list from which the instructor will in due course admit them as spaces become available

CLEN UN3790 Caribbean Radicalisms in New York, 1890-1990. 4.00 points .

New York City has been closely linked to the Caribbean from at least the seventeenth century. Presently, nearly 25％ of its inhabitants are of Caribbean descent. In addition, according to a 2021 New York City Office of Immigrants report, five of the top countries of origin of the city's new immigrants were born in a Caribbean country: Dominican Republic (421,920, number 1), Jamaica (165,260, number 3), Guyana (136,180, number 4); Trinidad and Tobago (85,680, number 8), and Haiti (78,250, number 9). In addition, Puerto Ricans, who are colonial migrants, number 1.2 million or 9％ of the city’s population. During the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, New York City was a pivotal space for Caribbean radical praxis understood here as political action and thought shaped by the Caribbean experiences of enslavement, coloniality, and diaspora. These interventions deeply transformed not only New York but multiple other contexts in Latin America, Africa, and Europe, and a broad range of movements including anti-colonial, anti-racist, feminist, and queer. To better understand the impact of Caribbean radical figures and thought in New York and beyond, we will examine texts from a broad range of writers and thinkers, including Jesús Colón, Julia de Burgos, Hubert Harrison, Alexis June Jordan, Audre Lorde, José Martí, Malcolm X, Manuel Ramos Otero, Clemente Soto Vélez, and Arthur Schomburg

ENTA UN3708 Reenactment and Performance in 20th ＆ 21st Centuries. 4.00 points .

Has reenactment, or the practice of “restaging a historical or biographical event” reached an end? While the idea of historically replicating a past event is quite passé, reenactment is everywhere from verbatim theatrical tribunals to biopics. This class will ask critical questions regarding reenactment as a performance act that crosses temporal, cultural, and discipline-specific boundaries and polarities. Investigating reenactment’s dynamics, potentials, and failures, we will examine battle reenactments, international theatrical tribunals, Indigenous performance, visits to nuclear disaster sites, autobiographical performance, and method actors. The final project will give the option of developing a research essay or crafting a creative portfolio. No prerequisites

CLEN GU4575 Source Texts of Postcolonial Vision. 4.00 points .

We will read texts by Memmi, Du Bois, and Leila Ahmed to create a gendered sense of the origins of postcolonial thinking. We will draw a definition of postcolonial hope before the actual emergence of postcolonial nation-states. A 1-page response to the text to be read will be required the previous day. No midterm paper. The final paper will be an oral presentation in a colloquium. ICLS students will be expected to read Memmi in French. No incompletes. Admission by interview. 20％ participation, 20％ papers, 60％ presentation. Seminar Instructions: Interviews will be in August. Email Timothy Henderson ([email protected]) with the subject heading "Source Texts of Postcolonial Vision." In your message, include basic information: your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course

ENGL CC1010 UNIVERSITY WRITING. 3.00 points .

ENGL CC/GS1010: University Writing, is a one-semester seminar designed to facilitate students’ entry into the intellectual life of the university by teaching them to become more capable and independent academic readers and writers. The course emphasizes habits of mind and skills that foster students’ capacities for critical analysis, argument, revision, collaboration, meta-cognition, and research. Students read and discuss essays from a number of fields, complete regular informal reading and writing exercises, compose several longer essays, and devise a research-based project of their own design. Courses of Instruction ENGL CC1010 University Writing. 3 points. ENGL CC/GS1010: University Writing (3 points) focuses on developing students’ reading, writing, and thinking, drawing from readings on a designated course theme that carry a broad appeal to people with diverse interests. No University Writing class presumes that students arrive with prior knowledge in the theme of the course. We are offering the following themes this year: UW: Contemporary Essays, CC/GS1010.001-.099 UW: Readings in American Studies, CC/GS1010.1xx UW: Readings in Gender and Sexuality, CC/GS1010.2xx UW: Readings in Film and Performing Arts, CC/GS1010.3xx UW: Readings in Urban Studies, CC/GS1010.4xx (will be sharing 400s with Human Rights) UW: Readings in Climate Humanities, CC/GS1010.5xx (will be sharing 500s with Data ＆ Society) UW: Readings in Medical Humanities, CC/GS1010.6xx UW: Readings in Law ＆ Justice, CC/GS1010.7xx UW: Readings in Race and Ethnicity, CC/GS1010.8xx University Writing for International Students, CC/GS1010.9xx For further details about these classes, please visit: http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/uwp

Senior Essay Methods Seminar

Spring 2024.

ENGL UN3336 SHAKESPEARE II. 3.00 points .

(Lecture). Shakespeare II examines plays from the second half of Shakespeare’s dramatic career, primarily a selection of his major tragedies and his later comedies (or “romances”)

ENGL GU4263 Literature of the 17th C. 3 points .

This lecture course surveys the non-dramatic literature of seventeenth-century England, with particular attention to its prose writings.   The course will focus on topics including the new politics of the Jacobean court; the tensions leading to the civil wars; the so-called “scientific revolution” and its discontents; and the challenges of the Restoration, including plague and fire.    Authors studied will include Ben Jonson, Francis Bacon, John Donne, Aemelia Lanyer, George Herbert, Thomas Browne, Robert Burton, John Milton, Andrew Marvell, Margaret Cavendish. Abraham Cowley, and Katherine Philips.

ENGL UN3262 English Literature 1500-1600. 3 points .

(Lecture). This course aims to introduce you to a selection of sixteenth-century English verse and prose, from major works such as More's Utopia , Spenser's Faerie Queene and Sidney 's Defense of Poesie , to more occasional but illuminating excerpts. Although the classes will range widely across social, political and historical concerns, the focus will be on close reading of the texts. [NB This course fulfills the poetry requirement]

ENGL UN3343 WOMEN IN RENAISSANCE DRAMA CULTRE. 4.00 points .

Concentrating on the drama of early modern England, this course will investigate a culture of surveillance regarding women’s bodies in the period. We will give special focus to the fear of female infidelity, the theatrical fascination with the woman’s pregnant body, and the cultural desire to confirm and expose women’s chastity. We will read plays in which women are falsely accused of adultery, in various generic contexts (such as William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and Much Ado About Nothing), along with plays in which women actually commit infidelity (such as the anonymous Arden of Faversham and Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside). Focusing on a different play each week, we will ask: what does it take, ultimately, to believe women about their fidelity? At the same time, what is the effect of being doubted on women themselves? We will also give consideration to the particular resources of dramatic form, paying attention to moments in plays that coerce spectators themselves into mistaken judgments about women. We will supplement our reading of drama with pamphlets, advice literature, poems, church court cases, and ballads, in order to place these plays within a broader and more varied culture of female surveillance in early modern England. Finally, we will work to recover past strategies of liberation from this surveillance in the plays we read, in women’s writing that warns against male betrayal, and in dramatic and historical instances of female cross-dressing

ENGL UN3728 American Transcendentalism. 4.00 points .

The class is an intensive reading of the prose and poetry of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman and Emily Dickinson. Through detailed analysis of Emerson’s Essays we will try to understand his philosophy as an effort to radically reformulate traditional concepts of identity, thinking, and everyday living, and investigate the politics that guided his philosophical efforts, especially his stance on slavery and his activism against the Cherokee removals. But we will also be interested in his thinking on dreams, visions and mental transports and in order to ask how those experiences come to model his understanding of personal identity and bodily integrity. In Thoreau, we will look closely into ideas about the art of living and his theory of architecture, as well as quotidian practices of dwelling, eating or cooking, as ways to come to terms with one’s own life. We will pay special attention to Thoreau’s understanding of thinking as walking, as well as the question of space vs. time and we will spend a lot of time figuring his theory of living as mourning. With Whitman we will attend to his new poetics and investigate its relation to forms of American Democracy. We will also want to know how the Civil War affected Whitman’s poetics both in terms of its formal strategies and its content. Finally, we will try to understand how ideas and values of transcendentalist philosophy fashion poetry of Emily Dickinson both in its form and its content. We will thus be looking at Dickinson’s famous fascicles but also into such questions as loss, avian and vegetal life and the experience of the embodied more generally

ENGL UN3933 Jane Austen. 4.00 points .

Prerequisites: Permission of instructor. This seminar offers intensive study of the career of Jane Austen, including important recent criticism. We’ll be especially interested in the relations between narrative form and the social dynamics represented in her fiction. We’ll try to cover all six of the (completed) novels, but we can adjust our pace in response to the interests of seminar members

ENGL GU4400 Romanticism. 3.00 points .

This course is designed as an overview of major texts (in poetry and prose), contexts, and themes in British Romanticism. The movement of Romanticism was born in the ferment of revolution, and developed alongside so many of the familiar features of the modern world—features for which Romanticism provides a vantage point for insight and critique. As we read authors including William Blake, Jane Austen, John Keats, Mary Shelley, and many others, we will situate our discussions around the following key issues: the development of individualism and new formations of community; industrialization and ecology (changes in nature and in the very conception of “nature”); and slavery and abolition

CLEN GU4822 19th Century European Novel. 3 points .

The European novel in the era of its cultural dominance.  Key concerns: the modern metropolis (London, Paris, St. Petersburg); the figures of bourgeois narrative ( parvenus , adulterers, adolescents, consumers) and bourgeois consciousness (nostalgia,  ressentiment , sentimentalism, ennui); the impact of journalism, science, economics. Authors to be drawn from: Goethe, Stendhal, Balzac, Dickens, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Turgenev, Zola.

ENGL GU4622 AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE II. 3.00 points .

(Lecture). This survey of African American literature focuses on language, history, and culture. What are the contours of African American literary history? How do race, gender, class, and sexuality intersect within the politics of African American culture? What can we expect to learn from these literary works? Why does our literature matter to student of social change? This lecture course will attempt to provide answers to these questions, as we begin with Zora Neale Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and Richard Wrights Native Son (1940) and end with Melvin Dixons Loves Instruments (1995) with many stops along the way. We will discuss poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fictional prose. Ohter authors include Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Malcom X, Ntzozake Shange, Audre Lorde, and Toni Morrison. There are no prerequisites for this course. The formal assignments are two five-page essays and a final examination. Class participation will be graded

ENGL UN3042 Ulysses. 4.00 points .

The seminar will look at the structure of the novel, its plan, with special attention paid to ‘The Odyssey’, but also to the variations in tone in the book, the parodies and elaborate games becoming more complex as the book proceeds. We will examine a number of Irish texts that are relevant to the making of ‘Ulysses’, including Robert Emmett’s speech from the dock, Yeats’s ‘The Countess Cathleen’ and Lady Gregory translations from Irish folk-tales

ENTA UN3970 MAJOR 20TH CENTURY PLAYWRIGHTS. 4.00 points .

Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. The course will trace the pattern of the evolving theatrical careers of Henrik Ibsen and Harold Pinter, exploring the nature of and relationships among key features of their emerging aesthetics. Thematic and theatrical exploration involve positioning the plays in the context of the trajectories of modernism and postmodernism and examining, in that context, the emblematic use of stage sets and tableaux; the intense scrutiny of families, friendships, and disruptive intruders; the experiments with temporality, multi-linearity, and split staging; the issues raised by performance and the implied playhouse; and the plays' potential as instruments of cultural intervention. Two papers are required, 5-7 pages and 10-12 pages, with weekly brief responses, and a class presentation. Readings include major plays of both writers and key statements on modernism and postmodernism. Application Instructions: E-mail Professor Austin Quigley ([email protected]) with the subject heading "Ibsen and Pinter seminar." In your message, include basic information: your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. Admitted students should register for the course; they will automatically be placed on a wait list from which the instructor will in due course admit them as spaces become available

CLEN GU4771 The Literary History of Atrocity. 3.00 points .

Sometime around the publication of Garcia Marquez’s classic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude in 1967, novelists who wanted to make a claim to ethical and historical seriousness began to include a scene of extreme violence that, like the banana worker massacre in Garcia Marquez, seemed to offer a definitive guide to the moral landscape of the modern world. This course will explore both the modern literature that was inspired by Garcia Marquez’s example and the literature that led up to this extraordinary moment—for example, the literature dealing with the Holocaust, with the dropping of the atomic bomb, with the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s, and with the Allied bombing of the German cities. It will also ask how extraordinary this moment in fact was, looked at from the perspective of literature as a whole, by inspecting earlier examples of atrocities committed in classical antiquity, in the Crusades, against Native Americans and (in Tolstoy) against the indigenous inhabitants of the Caucasus. Before the concept of the non-combatant had been defined, could there be a concept of the atrocity? Could a culture accuse itself of misconduct toward the members of some other culture? In posing these and related questions, the course offers itself as a major but untold chapter both in world literature and in the moral history of humankind

CLEN GU4201 POETRY OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA. 3.00 points .

This course will focus on twentieth century poetry written by authors of African descent in Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. The readings will allow us to cover some of the most significant poetry written during the major black literary movements of the century, including the Harlem Renaissance, Negritude, and the Black Arts movement. In particular, the course will be designed around a selection of books of poetry by black writers. We will thus spend a substantial amount of time reading each poet in depth, as well as discussing various strategies for constructing a volume of poetry: thematic or chronological arrangements, extended formal structures (suites, series, or montages), historical poetry, attempts to imitate another medium (particularly black music) in writing, etc. We will use the readings to consider approaches to the theorization of a diasporic poetics, as well as to discuss the key issues at stake in the tradition including innovation, the vernacular, and political critique

ENGL UN3757 The Lost Generation. 4.00 points .

In this course we’ll study literature by “The Lost Generation,” the celebrated cohort of U.S. writers who came of age during the First World War and went on to publish their major works during the heady days of The Jazz Age and the doldrums of The Great Depression. The authors we’ll read will include Barnes, Dos Passos, Eliot, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Hughes, Hurston, Larsen, Loos, McKay, and Toomer, and we’ll talk about their relations to the major aesthetic movements of the 1920s and 1930s: Modernism, The Harlem Renaissance, and The Literary Left. Our primary focus, however, will be on how these writers depicted and expressed the alienation of the young during this period. We’ll be learning about a rising generation of Americans who felt out of step with their times and ill-suited to their places, and we’ll be reading books about rootlessness and expatriation, masking and passing, apathy and radicalism, loneliness and misanthropy, repression and derangement, and several other preoccupations of these drifting, wandering, “lost” artists

ENGL GU4316 WORLD'S END: 20th/21st CENTURY DYSTOPIAN FICTION AND FILM. 3.00 points .

No future, there’s no future, no future for you…or me…What happens after the end of the future? If England’s dreaming in 1977 looked like a dead-end, how do we dream of futures in a moment so much closer to the reality of worlds’ end? In this class, we will read a range of ambiguous utopias and dystopias (to use a term from Ursula LeGuin) and explore various models of temporality, a range of fantasies of apocalypse and a few visions of futurity. While some critics, like Frederick Jameson, propose that utopia is a “meditation on the impossible,” others like José Muñoz insist that “we must dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds.” Utopian and dystopian fictions tend to lead us back to the present and force confrontations with the horrors of war, the ravages of capitalist exploitation, the violence of social hierarchies and the ruinous peril of environmental decline. In the films and novels and essays we engage here, we will not be looking for answers to questions about what to do and nor should we expect to find maps to better futures. We will no doubt be confronted with dead ends, blasted landscapes and empty gestures. But we will also find elegant aesthetic expressions of ruination, inspirational confrontations with obliteration, brilliant visions of endings, breaches, bureaucratic domination, human limitation and necro-political chaos. We will search in the narratives of uprisings, zombification, cloning, nuclear disaster, refusal, solidarity, for opportunities to reimagine world, ends, futures, time, place, person, possibility, art, desire, bodies, life and death

CLEN GU4550 NARRATIVE AND HUMAN RIGHTS. 3.00 points .

(Lecture). We cant talk about human rights without talking about the forms in which we talk about human rights. This course will study the convergences of the thematics, philosophies, politics, practices, and formal properties of literature and human rights. In particular, it will examine how literary questions of narrative shape (and are shaped by) human rights concerns; how do the forms of stories enable and respond to forms of thought, forms of commitment, forms of being, forms of justice, and forms of violation? How does narrative help us to imagine an international order based on human dignity, rights, and equality? We will read classic literary texts and contemporary writing (both literary and non-literary) and view a number of films and other multimedia projects to think about the relationships between story forms and human rights problematics and practices. Likely literary authors: Roberto Bolaño, Miguel de Cervantes, Assia Djebar, Ariel Dorfman, Slavenka Drakulic, Nuruddin Farah, Janette Turner Hospital, Franz Kafka, Sahar Kalifeh, Sindiwe Magona, Maniza Naqvi, Michael Ondaatje, Alicia Partnoy, Ousmane Sembène, Mark Twain . . . . We will also read theoretical and historical pieces by authors such as Agamben, An-Naim, Appiah, Arendt, Balibar, Bloch, Chakrabarty, Derrida, Douzinas, Habermas, Harlow, Ignatieff, Laclau and Mouffe, Levinas, Lyotard, Marx, Mutua, Nussbaum, Rorty, Said, Scarry, Soyinka, Spivak, Williams

ENGL UN3269 BRITISH LITERATURE 1900-1950. 3.00 points .

This is a survey course on great works of British literature from around 1900 through around 1950, starting with the late-Victorian world of Thomas Hardy, extending through the fin-de-siècle worlds of Oscar Wilde and W. B. Yeats, then into the modernist landscape of Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, and T. S. Eliot, and ending with the late-modernist vision of Virginia Woolf and W. H. Auden. The course includes a wide range of social, political, psychological, and literary concerns, and delves deeply into political and moral questions that are always urgent but which took specific forms during this period

ENGL GU4605 AMERICAN LITERATURE-POST 1945. 3.00 points .

AMST UN3931 Topics in American Studies. 4 points .

Please refer to the Center for American Studies for section descriptions

ENGL UN3851 INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH. 4.00 points .

Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. (Seminar). As the great imperial powers of Britain, France, and Belgium, among others, ceded self-rule to the colonies they once controlled, formerly colonized subjects engaged in passionate discussion about the shape of their new nations not only in essays and pamphlets but also in fiction, poetry, and theatre. Despite the common goal of independence, the heated debates showed that the postcolonial future was still up for grabs, as the boundary lines between and within nations were once again redrawn. Even such cherished notions as nationalism were disputed, and thinkers like the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore sounded the alarm about the pitfalls of narrow ethnocentric thinking. Their call for a philosophy of internationalism went against the grain of ethnic and racial particularism, which had begun to take on the character of national myth. The conflict of perspectives showed how deep were the divisions among the various groups vying to define the goals of the postcolonial nation, even as they all sought common cause in liberation from colonial rule. Nowhere was this truer than in India. The land that the British rulers viewed as a test case for the implementation of new social philosophies took it upon itself to probe their implications for the future citizenry of a free, democratic republic. We will read works by Indian writers responding to decolonization and, later, globalization as an invitation to rethink the shape of their societies. Beginning as a movement against imperial control, anti-colonialism also generated new discussions about gender relations, secularism and religious difference, the place of minorities in the nation, the effects of partition on national identity, among other issues. With the help of literary works and historical accounts, this course will explore the challenges of imagining a post-imperial society in a globalized era without reproducing the structures and subjectivities of the colonial state. Writers on the syllabus include Rabindranath Tagore, M.K. Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar, Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, Mahasweta Devi, Bapsi Sidwa, Rohinton Mistry, Amitav Ghosh, and Arundhati Roy. Application Instructions: E-mail Professor Viswanathan ([email protected] ) with the subject heading Indian Writing in English seminar. In your message, include basic information: your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course

ENGL UN3710 The Beat Generation. 4 points .

Limited to seniors. Priority given to those who have taken at least one course in 20th-century American culture, especially history, jazz, film, and literature.

Prerequisites: Permission of instructor.

(Seminar). Surveys the work of the Beats and other artists connected to the Beat movement. Readings include works by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Amiri Baraka, and Joyce Johnson, as well as background material in the post-World War II era, films with James Dean and Marlon Brando, and the music of Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk. Application instructions: E-mail Professor Ann Douglas ( [email protected] ) with the subject heading "The Beat Generation". In your message, include basic information: your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. Admitted students should register for the course; they will automatically be placed on a wait list, from which the instructor will in due course admit them as spaces become available.

ENGL UN3394 HOW WRITERS THINK. 4.00 points .

Prerequisites: Permission of instructor. The spell cast by a captivating novel or elegant research can lead us to imagine that great writing is a product of the author's innate genius. In reality, the best writing is a product of certain not-very-intuitive practices. This course lifts the veil that obscures what happens in the minds of the best writers. We will examine models of writing development from research in composition studies, cognitive psychology, genre studies, linguistics, ESL studies, and educational psychology. Our classroom will operate as a laboratory for experimenting with the practices that the research identifies. Students will test out strategies that prepare them for advanced undergraduate research, graduate school writing, teaching, editing, and collaborative writing in professional settings. The course is one way to prepare for applying for a job as a peer writing fellow in Columbia’s Writing Center

ENGL UN3756 LITERARY NONFICTION. 4.00 points .

This course is about “creative” or “literary nonfiction”: writing that deploys techniques usually associated with literature to tell stories about actual events, people, or things. Over the course of the seminar, we will investigate the nature of the genre, looking closely at the work of some of its greatest practitioners to analyze how they convey their meaning and achieve their effects. We will ask why writers might choose to use literary techniques to write nonfiction, and discuss the ethical issues the genre raises. At the same time, the seminar is a place for you to develop your work in a supportive and thoughtful community of readers and writers. Application instructions: to apply, please email Professor Peters ([email protected]) the following: name, year, school, major, a few sentences on why you want to take the course, and a short piece representing your writing at its best. (It may be fiction or nonfiction, and there is no minimum or maximum length, but choose a piece whose first few sentences show the quality of your writing!)

CLEN UN3776 A Pre-History of Science Fiction. 4.00 points .

This undergraduate seminar course traces a possible pre-history of the genre we now know as science fiction. While science fiction is routinely tracked back to the nineteenth century, often to Frankenstein or The Last Man by Mary Shelley, this course looks at some earlier literary writings that share certain features of modern science fiction: utopian and dystopian societies, space travel, lunar travel, time travel, the mad experimental scientist, and unknown peoples or creatures. While the center of this course features texts associated with the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century (by Bacon, Kepler, Godwin, and Cavendish), it ranges back to the second century Lucian of Sarosota, and forward to the early nineteenth century with novels by Shelley

ENGL GU4938 HISTORY OF HORROR. 3.00 points .

This course will take a longue durée approach to one of the most widely-attested, and least studied, genres in the western canon: horror. We will take as an orienting assumption the idea that horror is a serious genre, capable of deep and sustained cultural, political, and historical critique, despite its contemporary status as “pulpy” or “pop culture.” We will ask what horror is as an affective and cognitive state, and we will also ask what horror means as a genre. We will ask how horror gets registered in narrative, drama, and in poetic form, and we will address how horror evolves over the centuries. Indeed, the course will range widely, beginning in the early 14th century, and ending in the second decade of the 21st. We will explore multiple different sub-genres of horror, ranging from lyric poetry to film, to explore how horror afforded authors with a highly flexible and experimental means of thinking through enduring questions about human life, linguistic meaning, social connectedness, connectedness with The Beyond, scientific inquiry, and violence. We will explore a series of through-lines: most notably that of cultural otherness, with Jewishness as a particularly archetypal other, thus the pronounced treatment of Jewish literature throughout the course. Other through-lines will include the ideas of placelessness, violence toward women, perverse Christian ritual, and the uncanny valley that separates humans from non-humans. Ultimately, we will try to map out the kinds of social, political, and historical work that horror can do

ENGL UN3879 Global Adaptations of Shakespeare. 4.00 points .

Shakespeare is often considered a touchstone of “universal” values and ideas, and yet his work has been robustly adapted/rewritten/blown apart/creatively appropriated by people across the world who remake his plays to serve their own visions. This course will introduce some of the debates about adaptation and appropriation in modern Shakespeare studies by looking at three plays—Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and Twelfth Night—and some of the many adaptations springing from those works. Who owns Shakespeare? How radically can a play be refashioned and still be considered in conversation with his work? Is it useful to divide adaptations into those that resist or write back against Shakespeare and those that display a less conflicted relationship to his authority? What political work do adaptations do in the contexts in which they were written? What happens to those local roots and contexts when productions and films enter global networks of distribution and interpretation? How does a change in medium, say from theater to film to comic book, affect the appropriation process? We will take up these questions in regard to adaptations created in regions as different as India, Iraq, Mali, and Canada. No prior Shakespeare coursework is required, though some knowledge of his plays is preferable. Assignments include two short papers, an oral presentation, and brief weekly responses to each adaptation

CLEN UN3720 Plato the Rhetorician. 4 points .

Prerequisites: Instructor's permission

(Seminar). Although Socrates takes a notoriously dim view of persuasion and the art that produces it, the Platonic dialogues featuring him both theorize and practice a range of rhetorical strategies that become the nuts and bolts of persuasive argumentation. This seminar will read a number of these dialogues, including Apology , Protagoras , Ion , Gorgias , Phaedrus , Menexenus and Republic , followed by Aristole's Rhetoric , the rhetorical manual of Plato's student that provides our earliest full treatment of the art. Application instructions: E-mail Prof. Eden ([email protected]) with your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. Admitted students should register for the course; they will automatically be placed on a wait list from which the instructor will in due course admit them as spaces become available.

CLEN UN3455 Pacifism and the Apocalyptic Imagination. 4.00 points .

This course examines the evolution of pacifist thought in literature from the interwar years to the dawn of the atomic age. It seeks to study the literature of twentieth-century pacifism as a response to expanding technologies of modern warfare. The course asks the following questions, among others: What shape does pacifist thought take in the atomic age, and how does it compare with interwar pacifism? What similarities or differences are discernible? What role do literary representations of modern warfare play in the evolution of pacifist thought? Does pacifism gain persuasive power through these representations, or do they lay bare its limits? How might one understand pacifism’s conceptual relation to nonviolence, anti-war resistance, and anti-militarism? The course begins with works by pacifist writers in the interwar years: Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight (1917); the correspondence between Einstein and Freud in 1932; Aldous Huxley, “What Are You Going to Do About It?” (1936) and Eyeless in Gaza (1936); Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (1938) and “Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid” (1940); Vera Brittain, “Women and Peace” (1940). The course then considers the evolution of pacifism in the shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, focusing on novels, memoirs, essays, short stories, and films, including the following works: Aldous Huxley, Ape and Essence (1948); M. K. Gandhi, For Pacifists (1949); Pearl Buck, Command the Morning (1959); Alfred Coppel, Dark December (1960); Masuji Ibuse, Black Rain (1965); Kenzaburo Oe, Hiroshima Notes (1965) and Fire from the Ashes, ed. (1985); Anand Patwardhan, War and Peace (2002, documentary); Howard Zinn (ed.), The Power of Nonviolence (2002). The course encourages students to view selected films probing pacifist and anti-war themes alongside literary and philosophical texts, with a view to grasping the themes’ adaptability across various genres. Students must apply to enrol in the seminar, providing information about year, school, relevant prior coursework, and reasons for wanting to take the course. Students from all disciplines are welcome to apply; prior coursework in literature is strongly recommended

CLEN GU4728 Literature in the Age of AI. 3.00 points .

In this course we will consider the long history of literature composed with, for, and by machines. Our reading list will start with Ramon Llull, the thirteenth-century combinatorial mystic, and continue with readings from Gottfried Leibniz, Francis Bacon, Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Butler. We will read "Plot Robots" instrumental to the writing of Hollywood scripts and pulp fiction of the 1920s, the avant-garde poetry of Dada and OULIPO, computer-generated love letters written by Alan Turing, and novels created by the first generation of artificial intelligence researchers in the 1950s and 60s. The course will conclude at the present moment, with an exploration of machine learning techniques of the sort used by Siri, Alexa, and other contemporary chat bots

ENGL UN3486 Out of Her Mind: American Women Writing, 1630-1930. 4.00 points .

This course explores how American women writers who suffered from depression, disability, bodily pain, or social marginalization, used the environment and its literary representations to redefine the categories of gender, ability, and personhood. Prior to their inclusion into the public sphere through the US Constitution’s 19th Amendment which in 1920 granted women the right to vote, American artists had to be particularly resourceful in devising apt strategies to counter the political and aesthetic demands that had historically dispossessed them of the voice, power, and body. This course focuses on the women writers who conceptualized their own surroundings (home, house, marriage, country, land, island and the natural world) as an agent that actively and decisively participates in the construction and dissolution of personal identity. In doing so, they attempted to annul the separation of the public (politics) and the private (home) as respective male and female spheres, and in this way they contributed, ahead of their own time, to the suffragist debates. Our task in this course will be to go beyond the traditional critical dismissal of these emancipatory strategies as eccentric or “merely aesthetic” and therefore inconsequential. Instead, we will take seriously Rowlandson’s frontier diet, Fuller’s peculiar cure for her migraines, Wheatley’s oblique references to the Middle Passage, Jewett’s islands, Ša’s time-travel, Thaxter’s oceans, Hurston’s hurricanes, and Sansay’s scathing portrayal of political revolutions. We will read these portrayals as aesthetic decisions that had—and continue to have—profound political consequences: by externalizing and depersonalizing what is commonly understood to be internal and intimate, the authors we read collapse the distinction between inside and outside, between the private and public—the distinction that traditionally excluded women from participation in the public life, in policy- and decision-making

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Creative Writing

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Creative Writing (BA)

You’re a writer, and you want to write. In the Creative Writing bachelor’s degree program at Columbia College Chicago, you’ll write from day one, immediately discovering your creative process as you craft stories, poems, essays, and hybrid texts.

Diversity: it’s the name of the game in creative writing at Columbia, where we push boundaries and redefine borders. During your time here, you’ll study works by writers from many different cultures, and you’ll develop your own writing alongside a diverse group of students and faculty members. You’ll choose a concentration in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry to focus on your favorite literary form. But you’ll work within all genres, developing transferrable skills that will help you become a more effective writer. And through our Writer’s Portfolio class and a thesis project, you’ll begin to identify career opportunities as you create a substantial manuscript.

Concentrations

As a Creative Writing major at Columbia College Chicago, you’ll choose from one of three concentrations:

Flex your storytelling muscles as you build a wide-ranging creative practice in writing. You’ll study classic and contemporary novels and short stories as well as experimental texts. By studying a diverse range of authors, you’ll develop critical reading and writing skills.

Learn the history, forms, genres, and techniques of nonfiction writing. As you create your own body of work, you will study the evolving role of nonfiction writing in literature.

Discover your poetic voice and develop your craft as you write the poems that are meaningful to you. By the time you graduate, you’ll be grounded in the history of poetry and poetics and will have mastered a variety of writing techniques.

In the Classroom

Your First Year

Your introduction to the Creative Writing bachelor’s degree program at Columbia College Chicago starts with two courses: Foundations in Creative Writing and Beginning Workshop. Here, you’ll lay the groundwork for successful writing by experimenting with a number of different writing styles and forms. And it’s not just about writing. Critical reading in literature courses informs your creative work and helps you become a more effective writer. 

Other Courses You’ll Take

As a Creative Writing major, you’ll take 18 hours of core workshop courses and at least 12 of those will be in your chosen concentration. In the Writer’s Portfolio, a required junior-year course, you’ll reflect on the body of work you’ve created at Columbia. 

In your capstone courses, you’ll learn what to do with the body of work you’ve made so far. You’ll complete a substantial manuscript in your Thesis Workshop class and use what you have learned in professional development courses to prepare for careers that interest you.

Along the way, you’ll have opportunities to take elective classes in the visual and performing arts, in new media, and in other areas. Combined with your writing workshops, these electives will open your eyes to the many ways writing enables you to participate in contemporary conversations on social and cultural change. 

Program Snapshot

Creative Writing Program from Columbia College Chicago on Vimeo .

Like our students, our faculty members are diverse in every sense of the word. They are practicing, publishing writers; they are artists who teach.

Combining different literary backgrounds and experiences with a willingness to experiment, faculty members encourage you to produce your best work, no matter where you fit into the literary scene.

View Department Faculty

Publications

You can work on Columbia’s literary journal, Allium , A Journal of Poetry & Prose. Not only can you submit your own work, you can take classes that provide hands-on experience with editing and producing this nationally distributed professional publication.

You’ll also gain the skills needed to create reading series, journals, or presses of your own.

Outside the Classroom

As a student, you’ll have a front-row seat for the prestigious The Efroymson Creative Writing Reading Series , which gives students the chance to interact with award-winning writers of different genres.

You can also participate in the Writers at Lunch program, which strengthens Columbia’s writing community by bringing together undergraduate students from all disciplines for readings, panel discussions, and meetings with professionals in the field.

Internships

Employers in many fields look for strong communicators. The Creative Writing bachelor’s degree program at Columbia College Chicago can help you land internships at newspapers, marketing agencies, trade magazines, publishing houses, personnel firms, legal firms, education providers, television companies, advertising agencies, nonprofit organizations, and more. Companies and organizations get your strong writing skills, and you make professional contacts and create a portfolio of real-world work at places like The Daily Show, Disney, Pitchfork, and Time Out Chicago .

Learn more about how Columbia’s Career Center can help you find the right internship.

Our Creative Writing alumni know that they write the story of their own success, taking what they’ve learned and creating a place for themselves in the real writing world. Here are just a few of our successful alumni:

• Christine Mangan ’04 published a book, Tangerine , which, according to Entertainment Weekly , sold to HarperCollins for more than $1 million and was optioned for a film by George Clooney. 
• Jacob Saenz ’05 has been awarded the 2018 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize for his manuscript Throwing the Crown . This year’s guest judge, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gregory Pardlo, selected Saenz’s manuscript from more than 800 submissions.
• Bailey Heille ’17 was accepted to Columbia University’s prestigious MFA program.

Chicago: A Thriving Live Lit Scene

Living and studying in Chicago means you’ll have many opportunities to participate in the literary community here. The city has one of the country’s best live literary scenes, with a diverse range of styles and genres and a welcoming environment for new writers.

Related Programs

Creative writing minor.

With a Creative Writing minor , you can combine your major field of study with workshop classes and writing courses that will improve your reading, writing, listening, speaking, and problem-solving skills—a natural boost for any creative professional. You’ll enjoy all the benefits available to Creative Writing majors: experienced resident and visiting instructors, the ability to work on student-produced literary magazines, and other special programs. 

Professional Writing Minor

The Profesional Writing minor offers a wide range of literature courses. You will gain valuable career skills in research, critical thinking, idea development, and analytical writing. You will also study the relationships between literature and the diverse aesthetic, historical, and cultural contexts in which it is written and read. The flexible curriculum allows you to tailor the minor to your interests.

Complementary Minors for the Creative Writing, BA Program

• Creative Advertising
• Interactive Media Development and Entrepreneurship
• Live and Performing Arts Management
• Theatre Directing
• Writing for Performance

• Creative Writing Programs
• Opportunities
• Prospective Students
• MFA Program Options
• Optional Summer Residency
• How to Write a Novel
• Writing for Video Games
• Communications Support
• Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
• Indigenous Engagement
• Prize for Best New Fiction
• Job Opportunities

CREATIVE WRITING

Introduction to Creative Writing

CRWR 200 2023 S Credits: 3

Techniques of and practice in multiple genres of writing, including fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, screenplay, stageplay, graphic forms, lyric forms, children's literature, and writing for new media. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

BROWN-EVANS, TAYLOR

CRWR 200 2023 W Credits: 3

BROWN-EVANS, TAYLOR | HUSSAIN, TARIQ | TATER, MALLORY

This course is designed for students looking to develop their writing skills through an exploration of a variety of creative genres. Using a combination of lectures, active writing exercises, and in-depth assignments, students will be given the chance to explore a variety of topics and concepts designed to elevate their craft including constructing story arcs, handling structure, character development, image-building, point of view and creating effective dialogue. Genres to be explored include fiction, creative nonfiction (including memoir, personal essay, profile), poetry, songwriting, screenwriting, and playwriting. This course is an inspiring and fun introduction to the world of creative writing and is sure to get your creative juices flowing. This class is an in-person class, although classes are recorded and may be attended asynchronously.

This course is designed for students looking to develop their creative writing skills through an exploration of a variety of creative writing genres including fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, songwriting, screenwriting and more. Students will have the chance to explore a variety of topics and concepts designed to elevate their craft such as constructing story arcs, character development, image building, managing dialogue. This course will consist of video lectures and online modules with weekly writing exercises. Students will also engage in readings and some longer length writing assignments (in genres of their choosing) all of which will contribute to a regular writing practice and an end-of-term portfolio of work they can be proud of. Students will be able to complete the requirements for this course asynchronously. There will also be some synchronous activities such as peer-to-peer sharing “draft days,” discussion groups, etc. and though attendance is encouraged for these sessions, students will not be graded on their participation in these events. Note that students are required to submit new work only for this course. CRWR 200 is an inspiring and fun introduction to the world of creative writing and is sure to get your creative juices flowing.

This course is designed for students looking to develop their creative writing skills through an exploration of a variety of creative writing genres including fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, songwriting, screenwriting and more. Students will have the chance to explore a variety of topics and concepts designed to elevate their craft such as constructing story arcs, character development, image building, managing dialogue. Students will engage in readings, weekly writing exercises, and some longer length writing assignments (in genres of their choosing) in order to maintain a regular writing practice. By the end of the course, students will have amassed a solid body of creative work—a portfolio!—that they can be proud of with work they can continue to revise and draw inspiration from after the term ends. This course will take place in real time and consist of weekly face-to-face lectures, which students are required to attend. Note that students are also required to submit new work only for this course. CRWR 200 is an inspiring and fun introduction to the world of creative writing and is sure to get your creative juices flowing.

This course is designed for students looking to develop their creative writing skills through an exploration of a variety of creative writing genres including fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, songwriting, screenwriting and more. Students will have the chance to explore a variety of topics and concepts designed to elevate their craft such as constructing story arcs, character development, image building, managing dialogue. This course will consist of video lectures and online modules with weekly writing exercises. Students will also engage in readings and some longer length writing assignments (in genres of their choosing) all of which will contribute to a regular writing practice and an end of term portfolio of work they can be proud of. Students will be able to complete the requirements for this course asynchronously. There will also be some synchronous activities such as peer-to-peer sharing “draft days,” discussion groups, etc. and though attendance is encouraged for these sessions, students will not be graded on their participation in these events. Note that students are required to submit new work only for this course. CRWR 200 is an inspiring and fun introduction to the world of creative writing and is sure to get your creative juices flowing.

This course is composed to help students hone in on a variety of techniques and practices as we explore multiple genres of writing, including fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, screenplay, stageplay, graphic forms, lyric forms, children's literature, and writing for new media. Come and find your voice by playing with various craft elements and to experience instrumental published work in contemporary forms and genres through lectures, readings, writing assignments and guided discussions.

Introduction to Writing Poetry

CRWR 201 2023 W Credits: 3

An exploration of and practice in the writing of poetry, focusing on how a writer employs the technical elements of the craft of poetry. Manuscript submission not required for admission.

TATE, BRONWEN | WARRENER, SHERYDA

In poetry, the chaos and disorder of living are made meaningful by the shaping powers of language and the imagination. Drawing inspiration from a diverse array of contemporary poets including Ocean Vuong, Ada Limón, and Jericho Brown, you will write many poems and explore the capacity of language to name the world, sing us back to our senses, say what matters, and imagine other possibilities. Together, we’ll discover how to invite wildness and surprise onto the page. We’ll also investigate the radical possibilities of revision, give and receive written feedback on work-in-progress, and cultivate a shared craft vocabulary of diction, syntax, image, line, metaphor, echo, pivot, and rhythm to help you make more conscious choices in your writing. To support flexible learning, this is a blended course with asynchronous videos, readings, and exercises supported by weekly synchronous lectures and collaborations.

This course offers an accessible introduction to the process of poem-making. You will practice forms of poetic attention, experiment with craft skills and techniques foundational to the genre, and explore the sensory details of everyday life: memory, experience, feeling, and imagination. In order to write about the world, you will engage with it through intentional and focused exploration. This process will require both self-discovery and discovery of subject matter outside the self. This course blends synchronous and asynchronous content. Weekly modules of pre-recorded videos and readings allow you to move through key concepts at your own pace. In addition to reviewing online materials, you will be required to attend class, engage with assigned readings, and participate in discussions and workshops. You will utilize in-class writing exercises and prompts to spark ideas for content. For your final assignment, you will revise and assemble a collection of five poems demonstrating your technical skills and singular sensibility. Together, we will strive toward artistry, and come to a richer understanding of the possibilities of poetry.

Introduction to Writing for Children and Young Adults

CRWR 203 2023 W Credits: 3

Techniques of and practice in creating, developing and writing for children and young adults. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

We’ll delve into the breadth of forms encompassed by children’s literature, as well as a diversity of genres and topics. We’ll examine the unique pace and structure of books for different age and reading levels. We’ll learn to build memorable characters, then send those characters on fast-paced quests and adventures. Coursework includes three major writing assignments, a mock Instagram novel review, and frequent short writing exercises. Regular attendance is required. Our goals in this class are to learn about the growth of contemporary children’s writing, to become better writers ourselves, and to embrace a spirit of childlike wonder, exploration, and fun.

Introduction to Writing Creative Nonfiction

CRWR 205 2023 W Credits: 3

An exploration of and practice in the writing of creative nonfiction, focusing on how a writer employs the technical elements of the craft of creative nonfiction. Manuscript submission not required for admission.

CATRON, MANDY

Welcome to Introduction to Creative Nonfiction!

This term we will focus on both the craft and the ethics of creative nonfiction writing and consider some of the big questions that continue to shape the genre:

• What exactly is creative nonfiction and what distinguishes it from other genres?
• How does an obligation to the truth shape the ways we tell stories and write sentences?
• Why might a reader care about an individual writer’s experiences and ideas?
• Where does the personal intersect with the political, the ideological, or the profound?
• How can we find authority and curiosity in our own knowledge and experiences?

We will spend our semester taking risks, trying out new skills, and sharing your work and ideas in a warm and welcoming environment. This is a hybrid course and students are expected to participate both online and in person.

Introduction to Writing for the Screen

CRWR 206 2023 W Credits: 3

Techniques of and practice in creating, developing, and writing a screenplay. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

MCGOWAN, SHARON | GRAEFE, SARA

It all starts with the script. Every screenwriter has a unique creative process, but shares tools from a common toolbox.

In this course we will screen and discuss excerpts from a variety of films, analyzing the essentials that make a great screen story. You will explore these fundamentals in weekly writing exercises and script assignments, applying techniques of visual storytelling and screenplay formatting, as well as the key elements of dramatic film structure, character development and dialogue. You will also learn how to pitch a script idea, a skill that is essential to succeed in the highly collaborative practice of filmmaking.

The structure of this course is online and asynchronous, with modules and exercises posted on Canvas for completion each week.  There is also an optional one-hour Zoom drop-in session each week with bonus materials and a chance to ask questions and discuss the weekly assignments.

Your coursework will include completing weekly writing assignments (worth 15% of your final grade), writing a 4-page silent screenplay (25%), writing a 10-page screenplay with dialogue (35%), creating a written pitch for your dialogue screenplay (15%), and completing an open-book quiz on screenplay formatting (10%).

Please note that while we will discuss and screen a few feature-length films and excerpts of television series in this course, the majority of the coursework and course content will focus on short films. This is because short films are an excellent form in which to learn and apply fundamentals quickly. Short films are also one of the main starting points for building a career in screenwriting.

In this hyper-connected digital age, we consume stories at an unprecedented rate, on screens large and small.  A great film or TV show or Netflix series will make us laugh or cry and stay with us for forever. In this hands-on class, we’ll take a look behind the scenes to uncover where the magic of film begins – with the art and craft of narrative screenwriting. As the saying goes in Hollywood, “it all starts with the script.” We will screen and discuss excerpts from a variety of films, analyzing the essentials that make a great screen story. You’ll explore these fundamentals through class writing exercises and script assignments, applying techniques of visual storytelling and screenplay formatting, as well as the key elements of dramatic film structure, character development and dialogue. You will also learn and practice how to pitch a script idea, a vital skill for surviving and thriving in the collaborative film industry. You will write two original scripts – a 3-4 page silent screenplay and an 8-10 page screenplay with dialogue.

This is a blended course, meaning half your learning will take place face-to-face in the classroom, and the other half online in a text- and video-based, modular format on Canvas.

Introduction to Writing for Graphic Forms

CRWR 208 2023 W Credits: 3

Techniques of and practice in creating, developing, and writing the graphic novel, manga, and other forms of illustrated writing. The ability to draw is not required. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

In this course, we will explore writing for comics and graphic novels through a combination of discussions, lectures, guest speakers, online content, low-stakes exercises and creative writing assignments. This course is a blended learning course, which means it is conducted partially through self-directed engagement with online content, and partially through lectures and discussion. You'll find a variety of readings and videos and exercises online each week to prepare for a weekly lecture and hands-on creation and discussion. By the end of the course, you will hopefully have gained a broad understanding of the form as well as the skills to create your own well-crafted comics, from inception to publication.

Introduction to Writing Fiction

CRWR 209 2023 W Credits: 3

An exploration of the writing of fiction, focusing on how a writer employs the technical elements of the craft of fiction. Manuscript submission not required for admission.

This introductory undergraduate course is held 100% online and is designed for those interested in the art and craft of fiction writing. We’ll focus on the creative impulse and generative process while exploring and practicing the foundational elements of fiction writing, including, character development, scene design, dialogue and subtext, prose style, the fundamentals of story structure, and the importance of emotional and psychological authenticity. We’ll experiment, take risks, and expand our creative practice each week through a variety of online activities, including pre-recorded video lectures, writing exercises, assigned readings, and discussion. Through an examination of craft, writing practice, creative inquiry, and close reading, we will bridge the gap between creative intention and execution on the page and do our best to create something meaningful and beautiful. We’ll be rigorous in our study and analysis of our efforts and invest ourselves in the efforts of our peers. The course is offered online asynchronously with a weekly synchronous Zoom session focused on generative exercises, advanced craft exploration, and discussion of course concepts with the Instructor, Teaching Assistants and fellow students.

Introduction to Writing for the New Media

CRWR 213 2023 S Credits: 3

An exploration of and practice in writing for new media, including podcasting, blogging, and writing for websites, games, and online environments. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

CHAN, CRYSTAL

CRWR 213 2023 W Credits: 3

OSWORTH, AUSTEN | MOSS, JENNIFER

What makes media “new?” How have older media come to influence the bleeding edge? This course focuses on memes, pitching publications (and making your own), Twine games, artificial intelligence and, most importantly, how to explore and learn with confidence and conscientiousness when the media landscape is constantly evolving.

This section will be taught by A.E. Osworth .

Introduction to Creative Writing with an Indigenous Focus

CRWR 220 2023 W Credits: 3

Covers three genres from fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, radio drama, radio feature, or stageplay.

BELCOURT, BILLY-RAY

In this course, students will engage with a range of literary works by contemporary Indigenous writers as well as with supplementary critical/theoretical texts. The goal is to introduce students to the aesthetic, political, and social concerns operative in the Indigenous literary landscape. We will acquire the language to ethically and rigorously engage with the material and the larger context of colonialism in which we in North America live and study. To be clear, the aim is not to produce “Indigenous writing” (unless, of course, a student is Indigenous), but rather to write from the social locations in which students exist about topics such as race, history, identity, geography, power, and structural oppression.

Introduction to Writing for Comedic Forms

CRWR 230 2023 W Credits: 3

An examination of and practice in creative writing in comedic forms, including stand-up, sketch, film, new media, and text. Manuscript submission not required for admission.

DEL BUCCHIA, DINA

This course will be taught both synchronously and asynchronously. Video lectures and slides (with relevant questions and writing prompts) will be recorded and posted to Canvas in the Modules. Students will not be penalized for their inability to attend synchronous sessions. The course materials in Canvas will need to be completed by the due dates indicated and before the start of the weekly synchronous session.

Comedy has the ability to bring levity to the difficult things in life. In this course we will study humour writing across various forms, styles and genres, including: joke-writing; stand-up and sketch comedy; comic prose and verse; television; film; stage; and new media. Lectures and discussions will be complemented by writing prompts, group work, readings, and engaging with media relevant to all areas of comedic forms covered. A major learning objective for this course is to develop a greater understanding of comic structures and style, as well as exploring issues of comedy and free speech, and comedy as social commentary. Students will have the opportunity to not only write their own comedic pieces, but to consider the power of jokes and how humour can affect an audience.

Intermediate Writing Poetry

CRWR 301 2023 W Credits: 3

The writing of poetry in various forms using a combination of workshopping and online modules. Manuscript submission not required for admission.

WARRENER, SHERYDA

This course is part workshop, part exploration of writing in established, evolving, and invented poetic forms. You will direct language through the apertures and frames of the sonnet, prose poems, ghazal, haibun, ode, elegy, villanelle, zuihitsu, and more. You’ll explore the variations and innovations formal constraints make possible, and then return to free verse with newly-acquired technical chops and a dynamic, renewed energy. This course blends synchronous and asynchronous content. A weekly compilation of videos and craft essays feature insights from contemporary poets as they take you through advanced modes and techniques. You’ll be required to attend in-person classes, engage with assigned readings, and participate in discussions, presentations, and workshops. For your final assignment, you will revise and assemble poems into a collection that demonstrates your technical skill and formal imagination. We will strive toward artistry, and come to a richer understanding of what poetic form makes possible.

Writing for Podcast

CRWR 302 2023 W Credits: 3

Exploration of and practice in writing for podcast.

SAMMARCO, PIETRO

Intermediate Writing for Children and Young Adults

CRWR 303 2023 W Credits: 3

The writing of work for children and young adults in various forms using a combination of workshopping and online modules. Manuscript submission not required for admission.

In this class, students briefly explore a variety of forms in children’s literature before delving more deeply into the creativity and adventure of middle-grade and young-adult novels. By refining an idea, developing that idea into an outline, and writing several major scenes, students will experience some of the thought processes involved in creating a novel. Along the way, they’ll practice two major components of the writing life: individual creative work and collaborative critique. This is a hybrid class, involving weekly online lectures as well as in-person seminars. Attendance at the seminars is required. Throughout the course, students will explore the ways children’s literature can spark young readers’ imaginations and change the ways they see the world.

Intermediate Writing of Creative Nonfiction

CRWR 305 2023 W Credits: 3

An exploration of and practice in the writing of creative non-fiction, covering four of the more basic forms of this genre: memoir, profile, commentary, and exposition. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

In its pursuit of truth, Creative Nonfiction has the capacity to help us connect with our wisest, most honest, most humane selves. In trying to say what is true, we are forced to become curious and attentive, to question our own assumptions and biases, and to create space to locate our own beliefs and sense of wonder.

Welcome to Intermediate Writing of Creative Nonfiction! This course builds on the concepts covered in Introduction to Creative Nonfiction (CRWR 205) with more emphasis on writing as a practice and process. We’ll talk about how to create a sustainable writing practice and how to think about ourselves as writers. We’ll confront some of the myths around the writing life and we’ll consider how, when approached with sincerity and rigor, one might discover something fundamentally redemptive in writing creative nonfiction. My hope is that you’ll come to think of writing as a practice, as a way of thinking, and as a powerful tool for making meaning of your experiences and the world around you.

Intermediate Writing for the Screen

CRWR 306 2023 W Credits: 3

An exploration of and practice in writing for the screen, focusing on how a writer employs the technical elements of the craft of screenwriting. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

KINCH, MARTIN

CRWR 306 (Intermediate Writing for the Screen) is a blended course combining online teaching and in-class workshop/seminars. Each week consists of online instruction, screenings and assignments, and seminar/workshops led by our Teaching Assistants. Our primary objective is to explore the processes, craft, and techniques of screenwriting and create original work for the screen. Online, students will find a variety of videos addressing specific writing challenges, (What makes a great film idea? …How do you create memorable characters?”) short lectures on aspects of technique, illustrative and inspiring film clips from the history of the movies, and other resources addressing theoretical and practical aspects of screenwriting

The workshop/seminar sessions are focused on the wider discussion of weekly online material, writing exercises, and the creation of original work. Film being a collaborative art, attention will also be given to ways in which we analyze and critique our peers’ work and creatively participate in workshop script development.

Intermediate Writing for the Stage

CRWR 307 2023 W Credits: 3

An exploration of practice in the writing of the one-act stage play, focusing on how a writer employs the technical elements of the craft of this genre. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

IRANI, ANOSH

This intermediate course focuses on the techniques of crafting stage plays and fiction podcasts.

You will engage in dramatic writing assignments focusing on, but not limited to, character, scene development, dialogue, and theatricality. You will also look specifically at techniques that will help you create a dramatic fiction podcast.

Instruction will be provided in person.  We will combine interactive lectures with in-class writing exercises and readings/viewings.

You will write a one-act play for the stage and a short dramatic fiction podcast.

Intermediate Writing for Graphic Forms

CRWR 308 2023 W Credits: 3

The writing of graphica (comics, manga and graphic novels), using a combination of workshopping and online modules. Manuscript submission not required for admission.

Picking up where 208 leaves off, students will be guided through the production process of creating comics, with the goal of creating a finished self-published graphic work by the end of the term. Through a combination of workshop, discussion, lecture and online content, we look at graphic storytelling, character design, world-building, panel composition, page layout, thumbnails, pencils, inking and digital design with a focus on refining student work and creating polished and professional finished products. The class meets weekly for in-person sessions with a focus on creating and building student work.

Intermediate Writing Fiction

CRWR 309 2023 W Credits: 3

TATER, MALLORY | OSWORTH, AUSTEN

In CRWR 309, students will work to sharpen their already unique writing voices and further develop a sustainable writing practice. This course will help students more consciously understand their creative choices and narrative approaches through engaging in fiction readings, writing exercises, collaborative learning and discussion.

Students in this class will focus on scaffolded assignments to deepen understanding of craft fundamentals such as characters, scenes, settings and voice. A variety of feedback modalities will be covered with an emphasis on giving and receiving feedback gracefully, and choosing what to focus on in revision.

This course will be taught by A.E. Osworth .

Video Game Writing and Narrative

CRWR 310 2023 W Credits: 3

Narrative design and writing for video games.

CLARK, RAYMOND

An exploration of narrative design and writing for video games. Manuscript submission not required for admission.

Intermediate Writing for Lyric Forms

CRWR 311 2023 W Credits: 3

Techniques of and practice in writing for lyric forms, including song lyrics, lyrical narratives, and libretti. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

HUSSAIN, TARIQ

In this course, students will examine aspects of lyrical craft such as the use of rhyme, repetition, point of view, structure, balance and other elements. We will explore personal songwriting, writing in a non-autobiographical style, protest songs, the comic lyric and more. Students will engage in readings and listenings (song samples, podcasts, etc.) and will have ample opportunities to flex their creative muscles through weekly writing exercises and longer songwriting assignments. Students should be prepared to submit audio recordings with their assignments which can be created using phones and/or recording programs like Audacity or GarageBand. Further guidance on recording software will be offered in class and proficiency on an instrument is not a prerequisite. This course will take place in real time and will consist of weekly face-to-face lectures which students are required to attend. Note that students are expected to submit new work only for this class. Once completed, students of all levels will have participated in a rigorous and regular writing practice and will have amassed a solid body of creative work—a portfolio!—that they can be proud of with work they can continue to revise and draw inspiration from well after the term ends.

Interactive Storytelling

CRWR 312 2023 W Credits: 3

Origin, theory and practice of interactive story forms. Exploring structural links between interactive theatre, gaming, and extended (virtual, mixed, and augmented) reality.

OSWORTH, AUSTEN

Colloquially called “Infinite Fiction,” this course engages with fiction as a verb rather than a noun or adjective. We will explore controversial or commonly held beliefs using radical collaborative storytelling to examine massive concepts from varying vantage points in worlds where the consequences are imaginary: by using tabletop role-playing games “read” against academic theory. Students will also create one piece of interactive fiction using Twine over the course of the semester.

Intermediate Writing for Television

CRWR 316 2023 W Credits: 3

Elements of episodic and serialized comedic and dramatic television writing with writing practice applied to primary formats and genres.

MCMAHON, MICHELE

This course is designed for students who are interested in exploring the art and craft of screenwriting for television.  Over the course of the term you will learn how to transform your half-hour television idea (comedy or drama) into a series pitch document, then a pilot script outline, and finally the first act of a pilot script.

We are experiencing a new Golden Age of television with hundreds of shows to watch across multiple platforms.  There are more diverse stories being created than ever before and it’s an exciting time to tell your story.  A television show is the culmination of a writer’s unique vision and it all begins with their script.  While we will cover a variety of formats and genres showcased in today’s exciting television landscape we will focus on the fundamentals of television writing: structure, plot, character development, dialogue and narrative arcs for an episode and an entire season.

We will explore comedic and dramatic television in a variety of ways.  We will screen and discuss television shows, read television scripts, and analyse the essentials in what makes a script great.  We will also read current online articles, specific readings from texts, listen to podcasts and experiment with in-class writing assignments.  As television is a collaborative business, students will engage with the instructor, teaching assistants and other students as much as possible.

Please note that while we will discuss and screen the first act of a few hour-long dramatic television series, the majority of the coursework and course content will focus on half-hour television. Half-hours are an excellent form in which to learn and apply fundamentals quickly and are a growing trend on cable and streaming platforms.

Writing Genre Fiction

CRWR 319 2023 W Credits: 3

Exploration and practice in writing major genres of genre fiction, including fantasy, science fiction, romance, crime, horror, and historical fiction.

HOPKINSON, NALO

The vast majority of fiction written and read in North America falls into the broad categories of popular or commercial fiction. This course will focus on introducing students to four major genres: fantasy; science fiction; historical fiction; and young adult (that last being more of an age category than a genre). To write successfully in any of these genres requires an understanding of the development and conventions of each of them, as well as an understanding of the implicit agreement between writer and reader that exists in genre fiction writing. Genre conventions serve, like the many forms of poetry, as both limitations to and spurs to creativity, as well as wayposts to the reader that signify (usually) what to expect. Students will read texts and related materials in each genre, and practice writing in at least two of the four.

Intermediate Comedic Forms

CRWR 330 2023 W Credits: 3

Contemporary and historical comedic writing in a variety of forms. Emphasis on critical analysis and creative writing of comedic works, and changes in the comedic landscape. Recommended: CRWR 200

In this course, we take the craft of comedy seriously through experimentation, discussion and the analysis of comedic media. We play with comedic writing to develop comedic voice, and explore storytelling through a variety of forms, from comedic fiction to non-fiction, to sketches and stand up. Students will work to use comedic tools, like escalation, repetition and tone, and play with comedic elements, like irony, incongruity and surprise, to create new works that spark laughter while they tell a story. As well, through comedic collaboration, and workshops that focus on constructive and informed feedback and discussion, students will be able to work on a variety of projects that will challenge their concept of comedic writing as an art form.

This course will be taught by Dina Del Bucchia .

Intermediate Poetry Workshop - INTRMD POETRY

CRWR 351P 2023 W Credits: 3

An intermediate level workshop class in writing poetry. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

In this class, I invite you to explore content that is meaningful to you in the form of a poetic cycle, series, suite, or sequence. Designed to foreground practices of attention and inquiry-based research, this class provides the time, encouragement, compassion, rigour, and flexibility necessary in order for you to feel both well supported and challenged in the process of poem-making. You’ll be required to attend class, engage with assigned readings, and participate in discussions, presentations, field trips, and workshops. Pre-writing and generative writing activities, as well as a self-directed research assignment, will lead to the composition of a unified collection of poems. My hope is that you will leave this class with a renewed sense of your own creative process, and a community of writerly support.

Intermediate Children and Young Adult Writing Workshop - INTRMD CHLDRN

CRWR 353Q 2023 W Credits: 3

An intermediate level workshop class in writing for children and young adults. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

POHL-WEARY, EMILY

This section of 353 focuses on middle-grade (MG) and young adult (YA) fiction, age categories that tend to be adventurous, playful, unpretentious, and reflect the critical issues of our time. We’ll explore the weird and wonderful world of writing for young readers, the changing industry, how the age of your readers impacts your writing style, and developing our writerly voices. We will put into practice the tools learned in CRWR 203 and 303, but focus more on workshopping and incorporating feedback. Major assignments include weekly feedback on other people’s writing, two pieces of new fiction (10 pages each, double-spaced, 12pt font), a short piece of experimental writing (5 pages, double-spaced, 12pt font), and a brief presentation on a contemporary MG or YA novel.

Intermediate Screenplay Workshop - INTRMD SCRNPLAY

CRWR 356Q 2023 W Credits: 3

An intermediate level workshop class in writing for the screen. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

Screenwriting is a craft. Creative Writing 356A (Intermediate Screenwriting) is a workshop on mastering the techniques of the craft and writing original short film scripts that you can produce. Our emphasis will be on the creation of character-driven stories that can be imaginatively told with an economy of production demands. We will also focus on visual storytelling, flexible structure, and effective dialogue. Over the course of the term, you will develop a short film screenplay, proceeding through the logline/pitch, to the outline, the first and revised drafts. At each stage, you will read and provide feedback to your fellow students’ work and participate in an in-class and online workshop discussion.

There will also be writing exercises accompanied by short talks exploring various aspects of craft.

Intermediate Fiction Workshop - INTRMD FICTION

CRWR 359P 2023 W Credits: 3

An intermediate level workshop class in writing of fiction. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.

TATER, MALLORY

The goal of CRWR 359 is to put into practice, through considered creative choices, the craft-based skills students learned in CRWR 209 and CRWR 309 (prerequisites). The discussions, exercises, collaborative learning activities and individual writing assignments in this course will help you bring greater intention to your writing process and to artfully engage in the act of revision.

CRWR 359Q 2023 W Credits: 3

Writing Poetry I - WRITING POETRY I

CRWR 401P 2023 W Credits: 3

A workshop class in the writing of poetry.

NICHOLSON, CECILY

Intimations of Place

This course will provide a hands-on approach to the study and practice of poetry as we explore ways to engage the individual poem as well as the collection of poetry in book form. Intervals of the course will be devoted to experiencing and discussing selected works related to intimations of place. Through works by Jordan Abel, Gwendolyn Brooks, Renee Gladman, Lee Maracle, Fred Wah, Rita Wong and more, we will consider site specificity, scenic narrative and setting, interrelations in ecology, geological time, and the construct of landscape, as well as the poem itself as a place that can enact geography, nation, refuge, and belonging. Students will develop a shared vocabulary as we deepen our understanding of poetic technique and expression and expand our awareness of imagery, figurative language, perspective, and positionality in poetry. Through regular prompt and exercise our reading practice will align with written assignments as we learn to experiment within a range of formal strategies.

CRWR 401Q 2023 W Credits: 3

Words Sound

This course will provide a hands-on approach to the study and practice of poetry as we explore ways to engage the individual poem as well as the collection of poetry in book form. In a discussion on the “poetics of renewal” Lillian Allen notes that “the poetic line glides, skips, is stubborn sometimes, it shouts, dances, whispers, and asserts itself as beings do in the world. We know that words are not just words as our voice is not just lines on paper.” Taking up the active and variable presence of words, we will consider elements of voice, cadence, metre, and a range of sound devices in poetry. Our readings will include works from Lillian Allen, Christie Lee Charles, e.e. cummings, Cathy Park Hong, Kaie Kellough and more. Students will develop a shared vocabulary as we deepen our understanding of poetic technique and expression and expand our awareness of diction, structure, and tone as it relates to poetry. Through regular prompt and exercise our reading practice will align with written assignments as we learn to experiment within a range of formal strategies.

Writing for New Media I - WRT NEW MEDIA 1

CRWR 402Q 2023 W Credits: 3

An advanced workshop class in writing for new media. Restricted to Majors in Creative Writing.

MOSS, JENNIFER

Take your podcasting dreams to the next level with this hands-on and applied course focussing on the finer points of audio storytelling. Encompassing aspects of scripted, and non-scripted podcasting, narrative, fiction, documentary, and more, this course will help you lean into the audio medium to deliver work that is compelling and engaging. At the same time, you’ll get practical ideas for how to identify and grow your audience and promote your show.

Writing for Children and Young Adults I - CHILD & YOUNG I

CRWR 403P 2023 W Credits: 3

A workshop class in writing for Children and Young Adults.

During this course, we’ll explore picture books, middle-grade novels, young-adult novels, and more. Students will participate in lively discussions about the craft and techniques of writing for children and young adults, with a particular emphasis on character and voice — elements necessary to catch the attention of the world’s most fickle reading audience. Workshop participants will give thoughtful feedback on work by fellow students, and will submit two original stories or novel excerpts as well as a final revision. Throughout, we’ll examine ways we can imbue our writing with fun, humour, and hope.

Writing Creative Nonfiction I - CREATIV NONFIC I

CRWR 405P 2023 W Credits: 3

A workshop class in writing creative nonfiction, focused on some of the more popular forms of creative nonfiction: autobiography, rhetoric (commentary), literary journalism, and the personal essay.

This semester we’ll immerse ourselves in the many techniques of Creative Nonfiction: everything from research and reporting to structure and style. In the first half of the term we will develop our craft through reading, discussion and frequent writing exercises. Then we’ll spend the second half of term sharing and polishing work in writer-centered workshops.

You can expect to finish the semester with a deeper understanding of the craft of creative nonfiction, a body of new work, a sharper skill set for revising your own writing, and a polished piece of short-form creative nonfiction.

CRWR 405Q 2023 W Credits: 3

MARZANO-LESNEVICH, ALEX

To Essay is to Try

This course provides an overview of one of the most elastic and exciting literary forms, the essay, often colloquially thought of as the working-through or trying out of an idea. We will read a wide range of both traditional and experimental essays, including those that are narrative, lyric, personal, fractured, and persuasive, and that use an array of subjects as their starting point. Together we will arrive at understandings of voice, tone, characterization, structure, and pacing. Students will have weekly ungraded writing assignments that will build to the workshopping of one short essay and one long.

Writing for the Screen I - WRT FOR SCREEN I

CRWR 406P 2023 W Credits: 3

A workshop class in writing for the screen.

This advanced screenwriting workshop will support students as they transform their initial story idea into a pitch, then an outline and finally 25-30 pages of a feature-length screenplay (with the option of submitting two short films with the equivalent number of pages).

While this course will focus on workshopping your writing assignments, your creative process will be supported by in-class presentations on the craft of screenwriting including: structure, plot, character development, dialogue, scenes and visual language.  There will also be substantial resources online including: current industry articles, specific readings from texts, podcasts, video clips, as well as sample screenplays from many genres.

Grades will primarily be based on your written work (70%) comprised of your revised screenplay which will be submitted in a final student portfolio at the end of the term.  You will be expected to have made substantial rewrites to the creative submitted in earlier workshops. You will also be graded on your attendance and participation (30%). Your participation includes your verbal contribution in-class and written feedback after each workshop.  As you write your screenplay your thoughtful reflections on the scripts of other students will build your own screenwriting and story editing skills.  The goal of this workshop is to creatively engage with others and to ask questions with a compassionate inquiry that supports each writer’s vision.

CRWR 406Q 2023 W Credits: 3

MEDVED, MAUREEN | MCGOWAN, SHARON

Students in this advanced screenwriting workshop will write one or two short screenplays (depending on length and number of rewrites) or an outline for a feature-length film and a draft of the first act of that film. The goal is to help each student reach their full potential in their work.

We loosely follow an industry model, so all projects, whatever length, begin with a short pitch.  The class then workshops an outline for all scripts before moving to a draft, or more detailed outline in the case of a feature length screenplay.

In class we will review and discuss aspects of story, plot, dialogue, character, theme and many more elements of the screenplay form.  We will also discuss the process of connecting with the film industry and getting a screenplay produced.

We will workshop two pieces a week, sometimes three, if they are short.  There is a minimum page count of 30 pages for workshopping in the course that must be submitted by set deadlines. Rewrites will be counted as 1 page for 2 pages of re-written material but rewrites must be substantial to be counted (at least 50% of the material on the page must be reworked).

Students will be required to review and submit written notes by set deadlines on all pieces being workshopped as well as participate in discussions of the work during class time.

Grading will be based 70% on the screenwriting work students submit and 30% on their written notes and participation in discussions of other students’ work.

Writing of Drama for the Stage I - STAGE DRAMA I

CRWR 407P 2023 W Credits: 3

A workshop class in writing of drama for the stage. Studio work is required, and some plays may be given a live stage production in Brave New Play Rites (adjudication process involved).

KONCAN, FRANCES

CRWR 407Q 2023 W Credits: 3

Writing for Graphic Forms I - GRAPHIC FORMS 1

CRWR 408P 2023 W Credits: 3

A workshop class in the writing of graphic novel, manga, and other forms of illustrated writing. The ability to draw is not required.

LEAVITT, SARAH

What are comics and how do they work? How do you make a good comic? In this class we’ll examine the building blocks of comics (text and image combinations, panel and page composition, and more) and practice the skills needed to create clear, compelling, memorable comics. By the end of the term, you’ll be a more insightful comics reader and a more skillful comics maker. No drawing skills or experience required, but we will be drawing in this class, for both exercises and assignments. Please note: this course emphasizes readings, assignments and in-class exercises; there are only a few workshops.

Students at all levels of skill and experience have produced excellent comics in this class, and many have continued to make comics after completing the course. Others find that the skills learned in comics class help them with their work in other forms. Students who plan to write comics scripts for others to draw will gain insights into the writing process from the experience of drawing.

Writing Fiction I - WRITING FIC I

CRWR 409P 2023 W Credits: 3

A workshop class in the writing of fiction.

MAILLARD, KEITH | OSWORTH, AUSTEN | IRANI, ANOSH

The purpose of this workshop is to help students write excellent fiction. Many workshops move toward final draft too quickly and encourage feedback that is largely editorial. We, however, will explore the writing of fiction anywhere on a spectrum from the earliest exploratory stages to polished final drafts. Editorial feedback is not appropriate for story ideas in their earliest stages when they are often incoherent, vague, and fragile; students will be encouraged to resubmit these early drafts until they begin to cohere. As stories move closer to completion, higher degrees of editorial feedback become appropriate. Students should expect to submit written material at least three times during the term, and they will be required to bring one of their stories to polished final draft or close to it. The social environment in this workshop should be warm, friendly, supportive, and cooperative. Students who like courses with fixed and unvarying syllabi so that they will know exactly what they will be doing in any class throughout the term should seriously consider not taking this course. The syllabus is variable and will change in response to student needs and interests.

This class, colloquially called “The Airing of Grievances,” explores writing from a place of righteous anger and using fiction to explore, expand and resist everything from the minor inconvenience to the systemic injustice. Students will depart from standard ways of discussing craft to create their own craft rubric for the semester. Workshop components will all use a Radical Praise method.

This is a workshop in the writing of short fiction designed to help students develop as both writers and critical thinkers. Each week we will discuss students’ written work as well as the craft and techniques of literary fiction. In addition, assigned readings will be posted on Canvas.  This is required reading for class discussion. During the term, students will be expected to turn in a short story for workshop, plus a rewrite of the story.  Over the duration of the course, we will examine a wide range of story elements, including—but not limited to— character, dialogue, structure, plotting and so on.  The course will also guide students through the process of rewriting their work.  Overall, this workshop aims to give students the opportunity to express themselves creatively, hone their voice, and gain a deeper understanding of their own work.

CRWR 409Q 2023 W Credits: 3

MAILLARD, KEITH

Video Game Writing - VDEO GM WRT

CRWR 410Q 2023 W Credits: 3

A workshop class on writing for video games. Restricted to Creative Writing majors.

A workshop class in writing for video games and interactive fiction. Students will create short games using Twine or similar software; the ability to program is not required. In addition to the workshop, this course includes a reading list of indie games and a small in-class presentation.

Writing for Lyric Forms I - LYRIC FORMS 1

CRWR 411P 2023 W Credits: 3

A workshop class exploring the words that accompany music in varied forms including pop, art, musical theatre, and opera.

In this class students will explore the craft of songwriting through a variety of methods from participating in creative exercises to personal practice. Students will be challenged to look deeply at the work of professionals through readings, close listenings, podcasts, and to go deep within their own work as well. Students will create, share and discuss their songs with the goal of helping each other create more effective writing through the workshopping process and will be encouraged to take risks while still holding true to their artistic vision. Audio recordings are expected for submissions along with lyric sheets however technical knowledge of recording software or proficiency on an instrument—though an asset—are not required. This course will take place in real time, face-to-face in a weekly two-hour session which students are required to attend. Participation and discussion as well as maintaining an environment of support and mutual respect is key to the success of this course as students will be participating in a genre that is more performative in nature than some others, and perhaps extra challenging if students haven’t tried it before. This should not be seen as a deterrent for anyone who’s new to songwriting, however, but rather as an invitation to try something fun, exciting, and challenging.

Workshop in Literary Translation I - WK LIT TRANS I

CRWR 415Q 2023 W Credits: 3

A workshop class in literary translation. Restricted to Majors in Creative Writing.

TATE, BRONWEN

In this workshop course, we’ll explore the many artistic choices involved in literary translation—involving sound, syntax, temporality, idiom, metaphor, literary context, social register, and so on—and consider what’s at stake in each. Guided by student interest and experience, we’ll explore translation challenges presented by particular linguistic and cultural contexts and specific genres. We’ll also discuss ethical questions raised by English as a language of empire that has become a global language, examine literary forms and movements that have traveled through translation, investigate the capacity and limits of machine translation, and consider our relationships to languages we use, languages we’ve learned, and heritage languages we may have lost. Students will translate and co-translate, experiment and play, research translation networks, and identify their principles and values as translators.

Prerequisite: Proficiency in a language other than English. (Proficiency here is understood as the ability to engage with the specific texture and structure of a language, not “mastery” or “fluency.”)

Note for MFA Students: While this course is taught at the undergraduate level, graduate students are reminded that they may enroll in six credits of undergraduate coursework with permission from the instructor and the graduate chair.

Writing for Television I - WRT TELEVISION 1

CRWR 416P 2023 W Credits: 3

A workshop class in writing for television.

SVENDSEN, LINDA

The purpose of the workshop is to create your own original half-hour TV series concept and pilot script, via three modules with peer and instructor reviewed assignments: TV series concept, pilot beat sheet (brief outline), and draft pilot script.  Concurrently, your peer review reflections and contributions in the writers’ room group/s build your TV writing and editing prowess. Essentially, while you create and write a brand-new TV series, you also act and serve as story editor on other series. While the class is not prescriptive, per se, the mission of a writer’s room is to creatively and speculatively engage, to bring your years of TV-series chops to the table, to brainstorm, to ask “what if?” while always supporting the creator/writer’s vision.

The course is front-loaded with dramaturgical grids and rubrics for each assignment, readings on structure and the industry, as well as sample pilot scripts as available. The course concludes with excerpted pilot table reads with a peer cast.

Participation:  critically thoughtful and constructive written feedback prior to the workshop discussion, collaboration with an in-class TV partner or group, as well as attendance contribute considerably to the grading component.

CRWR 416Q 2023 W Credits: 3

The course is front-loaded with dramaturgical grids and rubrics for each assignment, readings on structure and the industry, as well as sample pilot scripts as available. The course concludes with excerpted pilot table reads by a peer cast.

Participation:  thoughtful written feedback prior to the workshop discussion, collaboration with an in-class TV partner or group, as well as attendance contribute considerably to the grading component.

Writing Speculative Fiction - WRT SPEC FIC

CRWR 419Q 2023 W Credits: 3

Workshop-based class focused on writing speculative fiction, including fantasy, science fiction, and horror; emphasis on reading various genres and peer feedback. Restricted to Creative Writing majors.

Indigenous Writing - INDIGENOUS WRTNG

CRWR 420P 2023 W Credits: 3

Advanced study of contemporary Indigenous writing in North America across genres focusing on the production of critical and creative writing about coloniality, race, history, and identity.

This course is an investigation of trends and debates in contemporary Indigenous writing in Canada and the United States. We will study the ways Indigenous writers approach subjects such as history, colonialism, trauma, politics, identity, ethics, representation, and power; students will explore these subjects and reflect on how they relate to their own writing practices through a range of critical and creative modes and across genres.

Climate Writing - CLIMATE WRITING

CRWR 425Q 2023 W Credits: 3

Workshop-based class focused on writing related to climate change and environmental issues; emphasis on reading various genres and peer feedback. Restricted to Creative Writing majors. A maximum of 6 credits is permitted between CRWR 425 and 525.

OHLIN, ALIX

Stories about climate surround us, personal and global, near and far. From wildfires and mudslides in BC to climate-based migration and displacement, the reality of anthropogenic climate change is everywhere. This is a workshop class focused on creative writing about this encompassing reality. As we engage in our creative practice, we will ask: what stories do people tell about climate, and what are the stakes of those stories? What does it mean to write about, from, and of the places we live? How can artistic expression, narrative, and language itself render the complex realities of climate change—and explore the possibilities for justice, resilience, and alternative futures?

Throughout the course, we will develop our understanding of climate through reading, discussion and writing exercises. We’ll also spend a significant amount of class time sharing, discussing, and revising our own creative work. Students will be expected to read, respond, and engage in examples of writing in a range of genres (poetry, nonfiction, fiction), culminating in a final portfolio and reflective essay, and to provide thoughtful, constructive responses to the work of their peers in the class.

Preparation for a Career in Writing

CRWR 430 2023 W Credits: 3

Credit will be granted for only one of CRWR 430 or CRWR 530.

Writing is a career as well as a calling, and this course bridges the gap between the two. We’ll delve into traditional and self-publishing models, pitches and queries, collaboration with editors and agents, contracts, grants, marketing, interview techniques, and more. Throughout, we’ll hear from guests who are working in the industry, we’ll prepare our own professional materials, and we’ll build a supportive community of collaborators and mentors. This course offers practical know-how for entrepreneurship, and you’ll leave understanding more about how to sustain your own unique creative practice… while still paying your rent.

Advanced Comedic Forms

CRWR 431 2023 W Credits: 3

A workshop class exploring comedic writing in varied forms including film and television, prose and poetry, non-fiction, and new media. This course is restricted to students in the CRWR BFA program.

In this course students will learn the fundamentals of comedic forms as well as comedic tools that can be used by writers to make their work, regardless of genre, engaging, clear and hilarious. Through lectures on craft, discussions and close readings and viewings of comedic works students will be able to experiment and explore what comedy is, and the serious mechanics of humour writing at work. By the end of this course students will be able to analyze, using the language of comedy, why a work is funny, and identify the tools successfully used to create compelling comedy. The focus will be on generating comedic work, thinking deeply about comedy as an art form and practice, and creative inquiry through analysis and discussion. There will be an emphasis on asking questions about our own work, why comedy is the right choice for a piece of writing, and how to delve deep into a project designed to produce laughter.

Interdisciplinary Projects - INTRDIS PROJECTS

CRWR 440O 2023 S Credits: 3

Group projects and workshops with students majoring in other creative arts.

Writing Poetry II - WRITING POETRY 2

CRWR 451P 2023 W Credits: 3

An advanced workshop class in writing poetry. Restricted to Majors in Creative Writing.

This course focuses on modes of poetic inquiry: ways of sustaining poetic work across projects and a life in the context of a broader socio-political world. We will study how poets (1) carry out process-based, situational, and durational works and (2) account for their poetic labor through both poems and other forms of writing. By the term’s end, students will have produced a substantial amount of poems toward a larger project.

Writing for Children and Young Adults II - CHILD & YOUNG 2

CRWR 453P 2023 W Credits: 3

An advanced workshop class in writing for children and young adults. Restricted to Majors in Creative Writing.

Writing the Young Adult (YA) Novel is a new course that builds on skills learned in 403 (Writing for Children and YA) and 409 (Fiction). We will develop the tools essential for completing longer manuscripts while foregrounding the teen audience’s reading levels and life experiences. The class will involve workshops, reading discussions, and hands-on exercises aimed at outlining, plotting, pacing, character development, setting realization, deeper themes, and dramatic tension. Major assignments include preparing regular feedback on other people’s writing, discussing readings and craft topics, a midterm portfolio and a final portfolio.

CRWR 453Q 2023 W Credits: 3

SCOTT, JORDAN

A workshop class that discusses theoretical underpinnings of picture books and early chapter books and incorporates generative exercises based on elements of craft. Emphasis is placed on editing, critical reading, manuscript development, and tons of fun. Students will workshop two picture book and / or early chapter book manuscripts and are expected to provide rigorous and supportive feedback.

Writing of Drama for the Stage II - DRAM FOR STAGE 2

CRWR 457P 2023 W Credits: 3

An advanced workshop class in writing drama for the stage. Studio work is required. Assumes a greater level of experience in writing drama for the stage than CRWR 407.

CRWR 457Q 2023 W Credits: 3

Writing for Graphic Forms II - WRIT GRAPHIC 2

CRWR 458Q 2023 W Credits: 3

An advanced workshop class in writing for graphic forms. The ability to draw is not required. Restricted to Majors in Creative Writing.

Students in CRWR 458 will use their strong foundational skills in comics as a launch pad for a glorious flight into experimentation. Exercises and assignments will offer opportunities to explore a wide range of approaches to comics-making, including poetic, abstract and wordless comics. Students will also dive deep into their creative process, discovering and developing their own taste and style, as well as a way of working that’s productive and sustainable. This course will require consistent independent work in between classes, with weekly homework including readings and exercises. Please note: the emphasis is on readings, assignments and in-class exercises; there are only a few workshops.

Writing Fiction II - WRIT FICTION 2

CRWR 459Q 2023 W Credits: 3

An advanced workshop class in writing fiction. Restricted to Majors in Creative Writing.

ARMSTRONG, THEODORA

This advanced 3-credit fiction class will meet in person once a week to explore the novel/novella form. Expanding on the fundamental story-telling skills developed in 409, this class will give students the opportunity to work for an entire term on their own large-scale fiction project. Students will learn how to create solid groundwork for a book-length work by developing their skills in outlining, research, and worldbuilding. Through craft discussions and exercises, we will examine key elements of the novel, such as writing a captivating first chapter, establishing and escalating conflict, and layering image patterns and motifs, as well as deepening skills in crafting a narrative voice and creating compelling characters. Students will share several chapters from their book-in-progress with the opportunity to workshop in full class or small group sessions, as well as one-on-one with the instructor. Students taking this course should be motivated, self-directed writers with some vision of their project in mind before they begin the term. Bring your big story ideas and come to this class ready to explore, create, and collaborate with generosity.

Advanced Writing of Poetry I - ADV POETRY I

CRWR 501O 2023 S Credits: 3

MUSGRAVE, SUSAN | TATER, MALLORY

CRWR 501P 2023 W Credits: 3

TATE, BRONWEN | MUSGRAVE, SUSAN | WARRENER, SHERYDA

Don’t Write Alone: Crafting Poetry in Conversation

This course offers a deep exploration of what it means to approach writing as always after, in conversation, in relation. We’ll begin by reflecting on the many sources of influence and inspiration—chosen and imposed, joyful and fraught—that we bring to the shared space of the class. Each student will then choose a poet and a poetic element for a sustained apprenticeship experience. Over the weeks of the term, students will invite others into their process by designing an introduction, writing prompt, and questions for conversation emerging out of their apprenticeship. We will write a lot, read new work out loud, discuss process and practice, and occasionally pause for group critique. Throughout the course, we’ll explore the possibilities of new technologies (like the wiki) and old technologies (like the commonplace book) for organizing information, distilling insight, and sparking inspiration as we read and write together.

My aim is to help those who have grown up in fear and/or love of poetry attain a new perspective: "What they say "there are no words for" — that's what poetry is for.” Through a combination of workshopping, online craft lectures, writing exercises, and essays for discussion we will examine techniques and approaches to some central elements of the poet’s craft—the music of the line; rhyme and repetition; abstractions (for and against); voice or presence; imagery, metaphor and simile, the stanza, the title, revision, and, of course, getting published.

“Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.” - William Hazlitt

In this course, you will experiment with assembling longer poems from a series or sequence of smaller parts. Together, we’ll ask: How do individual poems speak to one another across a collection? Where might longer poems come from, and what capacities and resources make them possible? This inquiry will begin as an exploration of your own collections (facts, objects, memories), accompanied by close readings of contemporary poets working in sequential modes. We will re-imagine the workshop as an atelier, where writing emerges from rigorous experimentation and through the process of artistic inquiry. You’ll be required to attend class, engage with assigned readings, and participate in discussions, self-directed field trips, presentations, and workshops. The pre-writing and generative writing activities, as well as your individual creative research, will lead naturally to a cycle, series, suite, or sequence of poems unified by subject, mode, and form.

CRWR 501Q 2023 W Credits: 3

NICHOLSON, CECILY | MUSGRAVE, SUSAN

This course centres on revision as an integral aspect of the writing process. Students engaged in a poetry practice are invited to advance current work in the company of other poets, coalescing existing poems and opening the work to further contemplation. What constitutes a body of work? What elements or methods generate cohesion in your poems? What do you look for when editing poetry? And, how do you know a work-in-progress is complete? Students can expect to collaborate and dialogue as we explore multiple writing and revision techniques, drawing on new possibilities and forming fresh iterations of previous work. Alongside our written practice we will read and compare successive poetry projects from writers such as Larissa Lai, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Chris Nealon, and M. NourbeSe Philip. Following a process of revision, research, and rewriting, our final project will be a chapbook-length collection formed from a suite, series, or lengthening of previously written poems.

POETIC FORMS for the innocent, the eager, and the reluctant.

There is so much more to form than the traditional rhyming couplet, which seems to be heavily featured by budding poets who haven’t read contemporary poetry. In this course, we will look at diverse poetic forms from around the world, from the Abecedarian and ae freislighe (Irish form) to the Zejel, a form invented by a ninth century Hispano-Muslim poet, as well as the more established poetic forms (like sestinas and ghazals) and newer invented forms such as the Duplex, Golden Shovels and Blitz and Fibs.

A confession: poetic forms have long intimidated me. But learning about them, as I have allowed myself to do over the years, has, I admit, opened my   mind to the infinite possibilities. By the end of this course I hope you will feel more confident of your craft, more flexible and alert to formal choices and (among other things) to the powers of repetition and variation, to the frictions and complicities of sentence and line.

Advanced Writing for Children I - ADV WRIT CHILD I

CRWR 503P 2023 W Credits: 3

Advanced writing for Children and Young Adults, with an emphasis on picture books and early chapter books. The course focuses on genre-specific and critical readings as well as weekly writing exercises. Students are expected to complete two picture book manuscripts and one early chapter book. Peer feedback and revision are core principles of this course. Emphasis on narrative, poetry, sound, visual language, and the thrill of being a kid again.  

Advanced Writing for Children and Young Adults, with an emphasis on picture books and early chapter books. The course focuses on genre-specific and critical readings as well as weekly writing exercises. Students are expected to complete two picture book manuscripts and one early chapter book. Peer feedback and revision are core principles of this course. Emphasis on narrative, poetry, sound, visual language, and the thrill of being a kid again.  

CRWR 503Q 2023 W Credits: 3

KYI, TANYA | SCOTT, JORDAN

Prepare to embrace curiosity and wonder. This course is an interactive journey through the world of children’s literature, from picture books to young adult novels. We’ll explore narrative devices, character development, and wordplay through weekly activities and in-depth assignments. Workshop participants will give thoughtful feedback on writing by fellow students, and will submit a work or excerpt for young children as well as one for tweens or teens, along with a final revision. Students will leave the class with a broad understanding of the purpose and possibilities of contemporary writing for children.

An advanced workshop class in writing for children. This course relies on multiple manuscript submissions with a focus on editing and revision. As our schedule will focus on group critique, this course will be most useful for students who already have a general understanding of the genre conventions and craft vocabulary of picture books and early chapter books. Students are permitted to bring in material they have already started.

Advanced Writing of Creative Non-Fiction I - ADV CRTV N-FIC I

CRWR 505O 2023 S Credits: 3

TAYLOR, TIMOTHY

CRWR 505P 2023 W Credits: 3

MARZANO-LESNEVICH, ALEX | CATRON, MANDY

The Fractured, the Lyric, the Imaginary

This course examines the relationship between form and content in contemporary creative nonfiction. What possibilities might transcending genre conventions via formal experimentation, rupture, or imagined scenes offer for creating work that is, counterintuitively, more deeply true or nonfictional? We’ll consider a wide range of essays and excerpts from longer work and together derive principles of productive rupture. Students will have weekly ungraded writing assignments that will build to the workshopping of one short work and one long. These may be stand-alone pieces or excerpts from an ongoing larger project.

In this course, we will focus on Creative Nonfiction as a practice for looking more deeply at ourselves and more widely at the world around us. In our pursuit of the truth, we get to ask big questions. And, in attempting to answer them, we are forced to become more curious and attentive, to examine our own assumptions and biases, and to create space to imagine new ways of being in the world.

This semester, we'll spend the first half of the term on a series of CNF writing experiments--in memory, research, immersion, and reflection--imagining each as a mode of inquiry into self and the world. In the second half of the term, we'll turn our experiments into essays, sharing our work in structured peer workshops.

This course will be offered on Canvas in a fully asynchronous format. It welcomes those who are new to creative nonfiction as well as experienced CNF writers.

CRWR 505Q 2023 W Credits: 3

CATRON, MANDY | MARZANO-LESNEVICH, ALEX

Memoir Beyond the ‘Me’

This course considers the contemporary memoir and personal essay as sites of storytelling. How is the story of a person always also the story of a place, a time, and sociopolitical forces beyond the individual? We will read a wide variety of published work, with an eye to examining how writers evoked effects simultaneously intimate and large. Students should expect to turn in ungraded assignments weekly and to write one shorter work and one long. These may be stand-alone pieces or excerpts from an ongoing larger project.

Advanced Writing of Drama for Screen I - ADV DRAM SCRN I

CRWR 506O 2023 S Credits: 3

GRAEFE, SARA

CRWR 506P 2023 W Credits: 3

HOPKINS, ALLAN

Instructor: Zac Hug

Every movie you have ever loved started as a feeling inside someone’s heart, and the expression of that feeling involves a good deal of emotional work. Movies also involve a good deal of what’s called “story math.” In this online graduate workshop, we blend the former with the latter. With a focus on beginning, middle, and end, we’ll take a look at finding an idea that can sustain a feature length story, and break down the mechanics of three act, five act, and nine act structure ( psst , they’re all similar). We’ll talk about how early humans used story to create fire, we’ll watch a few movies, and we’ll write an entire film treatment. We’ll then move on to the key scenes of a feature-length film project (90-120 minutes) and prepare each other to finish the script. More importantly, we’ll ask some questions about your voice as a writer and use it to how to create a visual story on the page. We’ll figure out how to do all of that without relying on flashbacks. Original stories, please. (No adaptations, as that goes beyond the scope of the course.)

CRWR 506Q 2023 W Credits: 3

MEDVED, MAUREEN | GRAEFE, SARA

In this advanced, online screenwriting workshop, we focus specifically on writing for film. We will explore techniques for creating, developing and writing a long-form screenplay (a.k.a. feature film, 90-120 minutes), from initial pitch to treatment to early pages of script. Original stories only please; no adaptations, as this goes beyond the scope of the course. We will also screen movies and examine screenwriting structure, formatting, craft and business skills.

Filmmaking is a collaborative art involving other creatives, where the script serves as the blueprint for the finished film. In this course, you will be exploring and uncovering your own unique voice and sensibility as a screenwriter while also learning about North American film industry rules and conventions. You will complete this course with a sense of where your work fits in the marketplace, and with a set of professional skills to help you survive and thrive as a writer in this collaborative industry.

Advanced Writing of Drama for the Stage I - ADV DRMA STG I

CRWR 507P 2023 W Credits: 3

CRWR 507Q 2023 W Credits: 3

KONCAN, FRANCES | ROY, ANUSREE

Advanced Writing for Graphic Forms I - ADV GRAPHC FRM I

CRWR 508P 2023 W Credits: 3

Note : This is an Opt Res course, but it is open to on-campus students as well, as it is the only offering of 508. All Opt Res courses run online asynchronously over a 27-hour period.

Advanced Writing of Fiction I - ADV WRT FICTN I

CRWR 509N 2023 S Credits: 3

LYON, ANNABEL

CRWR 509O 2023 S Credits: 3

CRWR 509P 2023 W Credits: 3

MAILLARD, KEITH | RAMADAN, AHMAD | MEDVED, MAUREEN | OHLIN, ALIX

For each class I will send students a Zoom link.

The purpose of this workshop is to help students write excellent fiction. Many workshops move toward final draft too quickly and encourage feedback that is largely editorial. We, however, will explore the writing of fiction anywhere on a spectrum from the earliest exploratory stages to polished final drafts. Editorial feedback is not appropriate for story ideas in their earliest stages when they are often incoherent, vague, and fragile; students will be encouraged to resubmit these early drafts until they begin to cohere. As stories move closer to completion, higher degrees of editorial feedback become appropriate. Students should expect to submit written material at least three times during the term, and they will be required to bring one of their stories to polished final draft or close to it. The social environment in this workshop should be warm, friendly, supportive, and cooperative. Students who like courses with fixed and unvarying syllabi so that they will know exactly what they will be doing in any class throughout the term should seriously consider not taking this course. The syllabus is variable and will change in response to students needs and interests.

Times Before / Times to Come

This course will examine fiction set in times other than our own. For the first half of the semester, we’ll focus on historical fiction; for the second half of the semester, we’ll focus on writing the future. This will not be a traditional workshop. Instead, we’ll focus on close reading, craft analysis, generative prompts, and in-class assignments. By the end of term, you will have written first drafts of two short stories, one in each of these two modes (past and future), and you’ll also provide a substantive revision of one of these two drafts.

Some of the craft topics we’ll address include approaches to incorporating research, ethical considerations, voice, and how fictions from both times before and times to come essentially speak to our present.

Readings will include short stories by Andrea Barrett, P. Djèlí Clark, Ted Chiang, and jaye simpson.

Dream, make, destroy, discuss, and learn the magic of fiction writing.

This is a workshop for graduate writers of any combination of short and long fiction - short stories, micro or flash fiction, poetry/fiction/other hybrid, or chapters from a novel or novella.

The course will be mainly asynchronous with a weekly 27-hour workshop on Canvas. The rest of the week, you will produce your own fiction, read the scheduled writing of your cohort, and actively work through the weekly craft threads. We will explore fiction techniques as well as approaches to narrative and the process of writing (including revision) and examine subjects such as appropriation and literary citizenship. Excellent works of fiction and craft essays will be our texts, and we will discuss these in the context of our work in class. You will be asked to write your own tiny craft essay during this course and share it with your cohort. Students may be invited to attend Zoom sessions both in a group and one-on-one.

You are welcome to explore any form of fiction with the exception of formula or genre writing – romance, science fiction, crime, mystery – unless you spin the genre and make it new. The goal is to understand how to identify the strengths and challenges of your own work, so that you can return to your writing again and again with skill and confidence.

Repeat customers are welcome.

In this class, we’ll come together as a community to read, write, explore, dream, and play with short stories. The class will include substantial conversations about craft and assigned readings—both fiction and essays about writing. Among the many things we’re likely to discuss are: structure, point of view, techniques to develop and deepen characterization; the establishment and maintenance of narrative and stylistic urgency; the engines of form and language; and how meaning can be made from images and other tools. The first half of the semester will be focused on generating new work, experimenting, establishing a shared craft vocabulary, and building trust. The second half of the semester will move into workshop discussions of a complete short story draft. The semester’s work will culminate in a final portfolio and reflective essay. Overall, this workshop aims to push students to take risks with their work, to hone their ambitions, and to develop a sophisticated understanding of the myriad possibilities of fiction.

CRWR 509Q 2023 W Credits: 3

OSWORTH, AUSTEN | MAILLARD, KEITH | OHLIN, ALIX

This graduate-level class will focus on weekly writing that adds up to a larger work and is perfect for those writing in longer forms (novellas or novels). This process-oriented course emphasizes self-analysis, experiments in both form and generation techniques, and integration of feedback into revision. All workshop components will use a Radical Praise model.

Note: this course will be taught ONLINE by Keith Maillard.

Advanced Writing for Lyric Forms I - ADV LYRIC FORM I

CRWR 511Q 2023 W Credits: 3

Advanced Writing for Television I - ADV WRIT TV I

CRWR 514P 2023 W Credits: 3

The purpose of the workshop is to create your own original one-hour TV series concept and pilot script, via three modules with peer and instructor reviewed assignments: series concept, pilot beat sheet (brief outline), and draft pilot script. Concurrently, your peer review reflections and contributions in the writers’ room group/s will build your TV writing and story editing skills. Essentially, while you create and write a brand-new TV series, you also act and serve as story editor on other series. While the class is not prescriptive, per se, the mission of a writer’s room is to creatively and speculatively engage, to bring your years of TV-series chops to the table, to brainstorm, to ask “what if?” while always supporting the creator/writer’s vision.

The course is front-loaded with dramaturgical grids, rubrics for each assignment, readings on structure and the industry, as well as sample pilot scripts. The course concludes with excerpted pilot table reads by a peer cast.

Participation: critically thoughtful and constructive written feedback prior to the workshop discussion, collaboration with an in-class TV partner and/or small group, as well as your attendance contribute considerably to the grading component.

This advanced workshop takes a strong look at creating serialized television: from idea to development to outline to draft. Using a combination of lecture, workshop, television writer’s room methodology, and quite a bit of writing time - students will create the world of their TV shows on three levels: series, season, and finally, a pilot that students will generate over the fall and winter terms. Term One will focus on the development and outline stage of television writing, while Term Two will focus on a first draft of a pilot episode and a hybrid pitch/bible document. Students will also screen various television shows and scenes that illustrate character development, projecting future story, tying theme to a plot, and the ins and outs of a solid act out.   Please note that this course will be taught in Canvas.

This course will be taught by Zac Hug .

CRWR 514Q 2023 W Credits: 3

The purpose of the workshop is to create your own original half-hour TV series concept and pilot script, via three modules with peer and instructor reviewed assignments: series concept, pilot beat sheet (brief outline), and draft pilot script. Concurrently, your peer review reflections and contributions in the writers’ room group/s will build your TV writing and story editing skills. Essentially, while you create and write a brand-new TV series, you also act and serve as story editor on other series. While the class is not prescriptive, per se, the mission of a writer’s room is to creatively and speculatively engage, to bring your years of TV-series chops to the table, to brainstorm, to ask “what if?” while always supporting the creator/writer’s vision.

The course is front-loaded with dramaturgical grids, rubrics for each assignment, readings on structure and the industry, as well as sample half-hour pilot scripts. The course concludes with excerpted pilot table reads by a peer cast.

CRWR 519Q 2023 W Credits: 3

Advanced writing of speculative fiction, including fantasy, science fiction, magical realism, horror, folk tales, and weird stories. Emphasis on reading examples from the subgenres and peer feedback.

CRWR 521P 2023 W Credits: 3

Advanced study of contemporary Indigenous writing in North America across genres focusing on the production of critical and creative writing about coloniality, race, history, and identity. A maximum of 6 credits is permitted from CRWR 420, CRWR 521.

This course is an investigation of trends and debates in contemporary Indigenous writing in Canada and the United States. We will study the ways Indigenous writers approach subjects such as history, colonialism, trauma, politics, identity, ethics, representation, and power; students will explore these subjects and reflect on how they relate to their own writing practices through a range of critical and creative modes and across genres.

CRWR 525P 2023 W Credits: 3

Advanced workshop-based class focused on writing related to climate change and environmental issues; emphasis on reading various genres and peer feedback. Restricted to graduate students in the MFA Program in Creative Writing. A maximum of 6 credits is permitted between CRWR 425 and 525.

We’ll consider these questions through reading, discussion, and creative work. Students will produce climate-focused writing in several genres (poetry, nonfiction, fiction), culminating in a final portfolio and reflective essay. Students will be expected to read and write widely; to conduct research into climate issues and create artistic work related to that research; and to provide thoughtful, constructive responses to the work of their peers in the class.

CRWR 530 2023 W Credits: 3

KYI, TANYA | TATER, MALLORY

As writers, our creativity isn’t limited to the page. It takes that same creativity and resilience to grow a sustainable writing career. CRWR 530 will teach students the basics of book publishing, marketing, and promotion and prepare students. Students will learn how to pitch their work to literary publications as well as to develop a professional writing practice outside of class deadlines. The course will contain lectures and support on grant applications, publications and will feature online discussions through Canvas with an emphasis on the importance of community and self-care. As students complete each assignment, they will hone the skills necessary to handle the business side of their writing career.

Teaching Creative Writing - TEACH CR WRIT

CRWR 550Q 2023 W Credits: 3

In this hands-on course, students will design, try out, and reflect on assignments and lesson plans for a prospective creative writing class. Drawing on perspectives from writers, teachers, and education scholars including Mathew Salesses, Liz Lerman, Paisley Rekdal, Carol Dweck, Felicia Rose Chavez, and James Lang, we’ll think together about how to teach each part of the writing process. We will explore strategies for inclusive teaching and weigh the benefits of various workshop structures, and as well digging into thorny issues like how to handle challenging classroom dynamics and how to grade creative work.

Throughout the course, we’ll keep the student experience at the heart of our inquiry, and consider how our teaching goals and methods might vary depending on different formats (small workshop or large lecture, in-person or online) and contexts (university, public library, private workshop, prison, or community center). Students will support one another in developing a teaching persona and practice informed by scholarship on teaching and learning and enriched by individual experiences, strengths, and commitments. The course will be held asynchronously via Canvas with a few optional synchronous small-group sessions and will be assessed on a Credit/No Credit basis.

This course is open to on-campus and optional-residency students; 6 spaces have been reserved for each program for the initial enrolment window, after which slots can be allocated to students in either stream upon request. This course is not open to first-year MFA students in order to prioritize those closer to the end of their degree.

Advanced Writing for Graphic Forms II - ADV GRAPHC FRMII

CRWR 558Q 2023 W Credits: 3

Over the course of the term, students will develop a solid foundation for a book-length project, including a proposal, outline, script, thumbnail sketches and finished chapters. In addition to creating these items, students will develop collaborative and supportive working relationships within the class, meet and interview professional cartoonists, and closely study and analyze book-length comics. Students will also build skills for sustaining, developing and refining their creative practice in the long term. Please note: While this course offers many opportunities to connect and engage with fellow students, the emphasis is on readings, exercises, and assignments that support your independent progress on your project. There are only a few workshops.

Notes : This is an on-campus course, but is open to opt-res students as well, as it is the only offering of 558. The class will be delivered synchronously online for two hours each week.

Prerequisite: CRWR 508 or permission of instructor

Advanced Special Projects in Creative Writing - ADV PROJCTS CRWR

CRWR 570N 2023 S Credits: 3

CRWR 570Q 2023 W Credits: 3

This is a grad level CNF workshop with a twist: it’s for CRWR MFA’s as well as physics students from UBC’s Quantum Matter Institute. We’re going to be working on the skills to produce popular, persuasive science writing, such as might appear in Scientific American, National Geographic, Discovery, Nature, or any one of many similar publications. There is a big market for this kind of writing. And as with students in my regular 505 CNF course, I would anticipate publication opportunities for many of you.

What will these articles be about?

Quantum stuff! It’s a wild and crazy field, let me tell you. And one of the most exciting aspects of this course is that YOU will have access to researchers at QMI. I’ve been working with QMI for about a year on another project. And I’ve spoken with researchers doing a range of mind boggling things, like developing quantum computers that use photons as bits, manufacturing super-strong materials only a single atom thick, and working with some of the most out-of-this-world equipment you can imagine, like microscopes that map the surface of individual atoms, and refrigerators that can cool things down to less than 10 microKelvin. That’s a few hundredths of a degree above Absolute Zero folks. And that is, well, VERY COOL. Pick an area of research that fascinates you. Interview some people and think about why this research might just possibly change the entire WORLD. There’s your article.

Why should I consider this course?

 In addition to the cool factor, consider that we’ve never needed persuasive and truthful writing about science more than we do today. There’s a lot of skepticism out there, much of it the product of ignorance, prejudice, and political manipulation. Writers can contribute to positive change by writing persuasively about science. Researchers can contribute similarly by being able to talk persuasively about their work.

Directed Reading - DIRECTED READING

CRWR 590A 2023 W Credits: 3

CRWR 599 2023 W Credits: 6