Haverford Moodle

And most of all beware, even in thought, of assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of grief is not a proscenium, a man who wails is not a dancing bear . . .
–Aimé Césaire

How do we turn our collective full-bodied intelligence towards collaboration, if that is the way we will survive?
–adrienne maree brown

The State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behavior; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently toward one another....
–Gustav Landauer


There are no dangerous thoughts–thinking itself is dangerous.
–Hannah Arendt

I do think that if I had to choose one word to which hope can be tied, it is hospitality… practice of hospitality recovering threshold, table, patience, listening, and from there generating seedbeds for virtue and friendship on the one hand. On the other hand, radiating out for possible community, for rebirth of community.
–Ivan Illicch

A problem calls for a solution; the only question is whether one can be found and made to work, and once this is done, the problem is solved. A predicament, by contrast, has no solution. Faced with a predicament, people come up with responses. Those responses may succeed, they may fail, or they may fall somewhere in between, but none of them ‘solves’ the predicament, in the sense that none of them makes it go away.
– John Michael Greer

This course will introduce students to the field of environmental anthropology which focuses on the interrelationship between human cultures and natural environments. In particular we will attend to the challenge of anthropological confrontations with the climate crisis related cascading crises, including inequality and white supremacy. Environmental anthropology studies the various ways in which our biological survival and our social structures are influenced by environmental factors around us, while at the same time analyzing how our actions shape these environmental factors in turn. We will look towards anthropology (and related disciplines) for intellectual, imaginative and action-oriented resources for addressing what may be the most critical issue of our time—climate change–and how it intersects with inequality and intensifying authoritarianism. We will approach these issues through experiential methods and collaborative work.
Broadly there are three segments to this course--the self, ecologies, and collaborations (though not in a linear way). Underlying each of them is a search for ways to live differently with and resist authoritarianism, racial capitalism, and the intensifying climate crisis. While these topics may not always be explicitly present in our readings, they are built into the architecture of the course and should be kept in mind throughout it.

I take seriously the notion that our time together is valuable, that we are in an urgent situation that in many ways the institutions we inhabit (Haverford included) have yet to awaken to our predicament. I also believe that anthropological thinking offers some possibilities for imagining and enacting alternatives. From studies of environmental racism and environmental justice, to indigenous movements and speculative design tools, the anthropological approach is often improvisational, lending itself to experiences that allow for novel juxtapositions, and listening to essential quieter voices that often go unnoticed, viewing the world in imaginative ways, and offering possibilities for new configurations. We engage all of our senses and collaborative capacities in this course. Please come ready to experiment...

This advanced seminar is an anthropological exploration of empire both as an analytic category and a historical phenomenon. In this course, we will first discuss anthropology’s historical entanglements with empire as the discipline that studies the non-European Others. Then we will read from anthropologists who have criticized this epistemological legacy and incorporated the study of imperialism, empire and imperial formations in their research agenda since the second half of the twentieth century. By looking at cases from the Caribbean, Africa, America, and the Middle East, this course explores key concepts and major debates such as race, genocide, settler colonialism, security, militarism, diaspora, material culture and museums. Students will emerge from this course with an in-depth understanding of anthropological approaches to empire, methodologies ranging from archival research to ethnography, and the analytical limits and possibilities of empire in making sense of our contemporary world.

This course of Intensive First Year Arabic is designed for students with no previous knowledge, or very limited knowledge, of the Arabic language. Through the communicative approach and audio/visual materials, students learn the sounds, writing system, and basic grammar of Modern Standard Arabic, the form of literary Arabic shared by all Arab countries. Emphasis is placed on the simultaneous development of all the four skills necessary for acquiring any language (listening, speaking, reading and writing). Various aspects of modern Arabic culture and society will provide contexts for the language learning process.

There are no prerequisites for First Year Arabic, and the course assumes no prior knowledge of Arabic. Students who are native or heritage speakers of Arabic or have studied Arabic prior to enrolling in the course have to take the placement exam to assess if they can test out of this course, and into a higher level.

This course of Intensive First Year Arabic is designed for students who have already completed Intensive first semester First Year Arabic, or its equivalent. We will continue learning, through the communicative method and audio/visual material to listen to, speak, read and write Modern Standard Arabic, the form of Arabic shared by educated people of the Arabic Speaking World. Classroom time is mainly devoted to activating the material students already prepared through conversation, discussions, short writing activities and grammar drills. The class will be regularly introduced to authentic cultural materials derived from a variety of the living contexts of the more than 300 million Arabic-speaking people. The aim is to advance students to a higher level of the language and proficiency.
Our main textbook has audio/video components made available on the publisher’s website: Lingco (Please get access if you have not already done that in the Fall.) There are many activities that will help you continue to develop your listening and pronunciation skills, and will immensely help you in your studies. Closely studying the content of the audio/video material and trying to reproduce them will help you acquire more vocabulary and express yourself more eloquently.
No language can be studied in a vacuum and has to be tied to the culture that utilizes it. Arabic is spoken in over twenty African and Asian countries. The written language is standardized, mainly because of the Qur’ân, the spoken dialects vary from one country to another and even from one region to another within the same country. In addition to MSA, you can become familiar with one or another of two major dialects if you so wish; later, you can select other dialects to suit your needs, especially as you travel overseas.

Placement Exam for Incoming Students who have previously studied Arabic in school or are heritage speakers.

Often considered a gateway for a fine arts education, drawing teaches us not just how to render a likeness in pencil, charcoal or ink, but what it means to see. In this seven-week introductory course for students with little or no previous experience, we will first learn how to see with a painter’s eye. Working from live models, still life, landscape, imagination and masterworks, we’ll study perspective, light, tones, proportion, composition, and other fundamentals.

A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in drawing. Students will first learn how to see with a painter's eye. Composition, perspective, proportion, light, form, picture plane and other fundamentals will be studied. We will work from live models, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork.

A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in painting. Students will be first introduced to the handling of basic tools, materials and techniques. We will study color theory, including interactions of color, value & color, warms & cools, complementary colors and optical mixtures, as well as texture and surface quality. We will work from live model, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork.

An introductory seven-week course covers B/W and color woodcuts using innovative laser cutting and traditional methods including cutting, proofing, rolling-up, color preparation, and registration. Students study techniques and concepts in relief mediums as well as visual expressions through hands-on experiences. Visual problems, composition, color values and separation, and successful solutions of concepts and ideas will be explored. Students are encouraged to express personal visual statements during the course as well as to study professional artists’ works. Individual discussions and group critiques will be held for aesthetic explorations and visually successful solutions. Additional drawings are requested.

An introductory course provides a comprehensive foundation and skills of Monotype Printing through hands-on activities. Exploration in Masks and Stencils method, Subtractive imaging, Direct Painting in Solvents experiments, Embossing, Collage, and painterly methods are addressed. Creative ideas and approaches are highly encouraged. Individual discussions and group critiques regarding visual components, ideas, and concepts are held periodically. Practice is necessary during and outside of class meetings. Additional drawings are requested.

Materials and Techniques: Etching is an intermediate course in which students study intaglio techniques, processes, and concepts, as well as develop personal composition and visual expression through hands-on experiences. This course covers plate preparation, drypoint, line etching, aquatint, soft-ground, surface roll, Chin-collè, color etching techniques, registration, printing, and editioning. It is expected that students will acquire proficiency in technical skills. Creative and experimental approaches are encouraged. A strong body of work following a specific theme is required. Individual discussions and group critiques are held periodically.

Students are encouraged to experiment with various painting techniques and materials in order to develop a personal approach to self-expression. We will emphasize form, color, texture, and the relationship among them; influences of various techniques upon the expression of a work; the characteristics and limitations of different media. Students will work from observation, conceptual ideas and imagination. Course includes drawing projects, individual and group crits, slide lectures, museum and gallery visits.; Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors; Enrollment Limit: 12

Students will build on the work done in 200 level courses to develop further their individual approach to painting. Students are expected to create projects that demonstrate the unique character of their chosen media in making their own art. Completed projects will be exhibited at the end of semester. Class will include weekly crits, museum visits, visiting artists' lecture and crits. Each student will present a 15- minute slide talk and discussion of either their own work or the work of artists who influenced them.; Enrollment Limit: 12

ASTR 204 is the Introduction to Astrophysics class required for both astronomy and astrophysics majors and astronomy minors. This course provides a broad physical foundation to astronomy and astrophysics and serves as a prerequisite for the study of advanced topics. We will cover the physics of stars and stellar remnants, nebulae and star formation, as well as an introduction to Galactic and extragalactic astronomy and the basics of observational and theoretical cosmology.

Astro 341 is a laboratory class for observational astrophysics consisting of observing projects using the CCD camera on the 16" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (in the large dome of the Strawbridge Observatory), and/or using small radio telescope(s) during an (optional) trip to the Green Bank Observatory. Data from your observations will be analyzed with either an image processing software package (AstroImageJ) or Python. A detailed observing log will be kept (and submitted) along with one sets of results written up as formal reports in the style of scientific paper and presented at the end of the semester. Various scaffolding assignments across themes related to observational astrophysics will be done by all students, used to support project work.

In this course, you will learn the fundamentals of star formation, from gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud to formation of a nuclear burning core. You will gain experience solving physical problems and developing physical insights. You will learn about physical processes and order-of-magnitude estimation techniques. This class will fill in the size scales between ISM and stars, and will have some overlap with each.

Astro 352 is a 0.5 credit upper level astronomy/astrophysics elective. We will cover the basics of modern extragalactic science (a review of our knowledge of the Milky Way and external galaxies) alongside hands on projects in python involving data science/statistical techniques used to investigate them. Assessment will be project based, with regular coding assignments (in python) done during class time, and guided reading of both current, and classic astrophysical literature. Students will leave with an understanding of extragalactic astrophysics as a modern data focused science.

Biochemistry is the study of the chemical processes that drive life. In this course, we will delve into the molecular world of cells, exploring the structures and functions of the four major macromolecules: nucleic acids, amino acids, carbohydrates, and lipids. We will investigate how enzymes catalyze reactions, how cells generate and utilize energy, and how some of these processes are regulated. Through lectures, discussions, case studies, and assessments, you will develop a strong foundation in biochemistry, preparing you for advanced studies in biology and related fields.

Introduction: When you look around in your everyday life it is possible to find a vast array of different kinds of animals, from ants to humans to squirrels and everything in between! All the more incredible is the fact that this is just a small subset of the entire variety of animals – there are many more animals no longer alive and many living animals that you can’t even see by just looking around. Despite this impressive diversity we are all related to one another by a shared genetic code. There has been long-standing curiosity about the origins of animal diversity and more recently about how changes to the genetic code may lead to changes in animal form. However, to begin to understand these types of questions we first need to examine another, equally incredible process: how a single fertilized egg transforms into a whole organism. This process is what we term “developmental biology” and at its core again is the genetic code. The genetic code contains information needed to build an organism and during development that genetic information is translated into physical form. But if the cells of an organism all contain basically identical genetic information how is this used to make the many different cells of the body and to direct the assembly of those cells into a functional unit such as ourselves? Once we begin to understand this process of building individual organisms we can then ask how changes in developmental mechanisms lead to differences we see between organisms. In this upper-level biology course we therefore explore some of the basic principles of developmental biology and how they relate to questions of evolution and animal diversity.

Goals:
• In the first half of this course we will review the basic mechanisms and principles of developmental biology with a specific emphasis on the use of “model systems” in modern research.
• Throughout the course we will continue to develop skills of critical thinking in evaluating the techniques and experiments that provide the basis for our knowledge in this field.
• In the second half of the course we will become familiar with some principles of evolutionary biology as they relate to developmental biology.
• The second half of the course will also involve reading and assessing primary literature for specific example case studies.

This course covers an understanding of the biochemical pathways that are essential for metabolic processes, and extending this to appreciate select biochemical pathways responsible for metabolism in the central nervous system. A two-pronged approach will be applied, studying: (1) the creation of biomolecules and their role in metabolism; and (2) structure/function relationships in enzymes. A complementary goal is to appreciate the importance of mutation in metabolic proteins and their impact on human metabolic disease. The central metabolic roles of glycolysis, the citric acid cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation will be reviewed at the start of this course, building on learning goals in Bio201.

Welcome to Immunology! I am excited to meet you all and talk about the beauty macrophages, B-cells, T-cells and more in the coming weeks!

Biological research depends on collecting, analyzing, and presenting data. This course will introduce the art of working with data at all stages of the scientific process, including data organization, analysis, and visualization. By analyzing real datasets, we will discuss the logic behind several foundational statistical tests and consider their strengths and limitations. Along the way, we will learn to detect misleading uses of statistics and graphs, and develop proficiency in Excel and R.

Organisms live in constant interaction with other organisms and with their environments. In ecology, we study these interactions at scales from individuals to the Earth as a whole. This course will introduce foundational topics, concepts, and research techniques in ecology at many scales. Along the way, we will cultivate skills such as field observation and experimentation, and discussion and critique of current ecological research.

This is the Moodle site for Chem H111A in fall 2026, all four sections taught by Casey Londergan and Diana McDonough.

There is a separate Moodle site for all sections of Chem H111L (the lab) taught by Kelly Matz and Diana McDonough. There is also a separate site for Chem H113A taught by Alex Norquist, which will share major assessments with Chem H111A.

Access to the full site is gated by the "Course Expectations" tile where all sections must be completed to open up the rest of the site.

Bioinorganic Chemistry (second half of inorganic chemistry introduction, with a biological focus)
instructor: Casey H. Londergan
meets MWF 10:30-11:30 am EDT, remotely

Welcome to “Process Chemistry vs Discovery Chemistry”. In this quarter-long seminar, we will look at real world examples regarding the synthesis of drugs and agrochemicals. Discovery chemistry refers to the synthetic/biological process of synthesizing and evaluating drug candidates while process chemistry refers to the large-scale manufacturing of a drug candidate for further evaluation or commercial production. The synthetic routes regarding a discovery chemistry route and a process chemistry route are often drastically different—this is because in the discovery phase the goal is simply to make the compound to test (sometimes as little as 1 mg) while in the process route the goal is to design the cleanest, safest, cheapest, and greenest way to make kilograms of a small molecule. We will use the principles of reactivity learned in Chemistry 222/225 to work through the types of reactions used in complex molecule synthesis. While the principles of reactivity and arrow pushing learned in 222/225 are fundamental, realistically the reactions we learn are not the ones used to make small molecules. The goal of this course is to teach you to apply the principles you already know to complex molecule synthesis, specifically in the context of drugs/agrochemicals which is perhaps the largest industry for organic chemists. Many of these reactions will be unfamiliar and intimidating but we will work together as a class to get more familiar and comfortable looking at new reagents, pushing arrows in new mechanisms, and understanding key differences between discovery and process routes.

An introduction to the fundamental data structures of computer science: strings, lists, stacks, queues, trees, BSTs, graphs, sets, and their accompanying algorithms. Principles of algorithmic analysis and object reasoning and design will be introduced using mathematical techniques for both complexity and correctness. The course will also cover more practical issues, such as memory management and hashing. The programming language used to illustrate and implement these concepts will be able to support functional, imperative, and object-oriented approaches.
Prerequisites: ((CS H105 OR BMC equivalent) AND ≥ 2.0) OR (Placement AND instructor consent)

This course introduces you to the turbulant and dynamic past of ancient Athens
In the fifth century BCE, Athens experienced a remarkable period of political, military, and intellectual ascendency. Against the background of establishing a democracy, spearheading Greek resistance against an expansionist Persian Empire, and forging (and losing) an empire of their own, Athenians produced stunning achievements in philosophy, tragedy, comedy, rhetoric, political theory, sculpture, and architecture.

The ancient Athenians were a people defined by striking contradictions. They invented one of the most radical forms of democracy the world has ever seen, yet kept a large portion of their population enslaved. They prided themselves on welcoming all refugees, yet took every opportunity to conquer their neighbors and expand their empire. Their city stood at the epicenter of Greek art, thought, and religion under the watchful gaze of an imposing warrior goddess of wisdom, yet the women of the city were among the most oppressed in the Greek world. Cosmopolitan and parochial, pious and brutal, vulgar and elegant, the Athenians suffered and wrought horrors; they reveled in scandal and scatological humor; they forged works of beauty while developing ideas of lasting relevance. In short, they were people: eerily like us; yet also radically alien from our experience.

The works of Athenians and their contemporaries will be the main sources for our inquiry in this course. As we learn about the important events and developments of this time and place, we will examine the workings of Athenian democracy, economy, love, art, science, education, religion, and more always with an eye on the tensions, conflicts, and contrasts inherent in Athenian culture. We will explore categories of Athenian identity, including gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, freedom and enslavement. We will confront Athenian civilization in all its messy reality, and uncover the ways Athenian ideas and ideas about Athens continue to shape our lives today.

Is the reception of what we call “Classical Antiquity” a passive exercise of memory and inheritance? Or can it be a truly creative action, a kind of reclaiming, even subversion of inherently exclusionary ideas and media? What happens when we try to actively take part in this dialogue with a past that was transmitted to us as important, foundational, original, and authoritative? This course attempts to address such questions both in theory and practice. It starts with a seminar, devoted to the analysis and discussion of primary sources from the ancient Mediterranean and their afterlives in modern media. It then turns into a workshop that is both scholarly and creative.

This year, the topic of our seminar will be Pier Paolo Pasolini’s cinematic rewriting of Greek tragedies: Medea, Oedipus Rex, and Oresteia, shot in Morocco, Turkey, Italy, Uganda, Tanzania, and Syria. Pasolini was a queer (but Catholic), communist (but conservative), poet (but mostly famous film maker) who scandalized bourgeois audiences in Postwar Europe. Trained as a philologist, art historian, and linguist, he looked at Greek literature from a (post)colonial, Marxist point of view, and played with its different traditions. We will read the texts that he read, we will watch his films, and we will discuss them as if they were creative essays by an unruly classicist. Then, we will collaborate to make our own visual experiments based on the tragedies and on Pasolini’s cinematic and poetic techniques.

From goddesses who upend cosmic order to queens who reshape empires, “dangerous women” haunt the ancient imagination. Their stories register deep cultural anxieties about power, who may wield it, how it is legitimized, and what happens when women occupy positions of authority that challenge social, political, or cosmic hierarchies. Across the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds, powerful women were alternately revered, instrumentalized, feared, and condemned, especially when their authority intersected with sexuality, foreignness, violence, or religious transgression.
This course analyzes how ancient societies constructed female power as “dangerous,” from mythic figures such as Ishtar and Sekhmet to historical rulers including Queen Puabi, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Cleopatra, and Zenobia, in order to negotiate authority within systems of kinship, kingship, empire, and gender. Through literary, historical, artistic, and archaeological sources, students will analyze how representations of “dangerous women” functioned within social boundaries, justify political control, or articulate alternative models of power. By tracing how these figures were remembered, erased, or transformed over time, the course reveals how gendered narratives of danger illuminate the political and social structures of antiquity, and why they continue to shape modern debates about authority, legitimacy, and power.

THIS COURSE EXPLORES the visual and poetic life of sports, ancient and modern. It brings together literature, art, history, criticism, and lived experience as a way to theorize the beauty of athletics. It is a space and an opportunity for us to think together about what it is that draws us to sports and how we can elevate our language for talking about our love of the game. The complex and productive relationship between sports as/and art is a way for us to do this; to think about what various art forms (painting, sculpture, photography, poetry, music, videography) afford our thinking about sports and vice versa.

Part of our work is historical: the class juxtaposes visual and literary models for thinking about athletics from Ancient Greece and Rome with contemporary art and writing around sports. But our engagement with the past is always in relation to the contemporary moment. Concepts of the body, gender, race and performance will inform our weekly work. We will also engage with tropes such as “for the love of the game,” “feel for the game” and “poetry in motion” to explore the sensory and aesthetic dimensions of sports.

Japanese Civilization
EALC 132, Fall 2026


Prof. Hank Glassman
Office: Founders 125
Office hours: Monday 1-3 and by appointment on Zoom
Email: hglassma@haverford.edu
[see appendix for academic support resources, AI policy]
Class: Chase 104 T and TH 11:30-12:50


(from “Gio monogatari emaki,” based on Tale of Heike, New York Public Library, early 17th c.)

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course will introduce aspects of major historical, social, cultural, and artistic traditions of Japan from circa 1000 BCE (the Jōmon Period 縄文) until present times. We will adopt both chronological and thematic approaches in this inquiry.
Generally, we will consider how Japanese religious, political, and cultural systems developed in and through history. (This is the chronological part!) While this course is a survey and introduces the basic arc of Japanese history, it is not meant to be comprehensive in any way or to tell “the story of Japan” in an unbroken narrative. Instead, we will focus on specific epochs and moments in Japanese history that reflect: the changing status and roles of groups like aristocrats, monastics, warriors, merchants and farmers; the transition from a feudal to a modern society; world war and recovery; natural and manmade disasters; and, the formation of the modern Japanese nation as we know it today.
Additionally, in our study of Japanese civilization we will also engage with six major themes: 1) cultural encounters; 2) national identity; 3) religion; 4) gender; 5) war; and 6) the place of human beings in the natural environment. (This is the thematic part!) Throughout the semester in a variety of contexts, we will examine how these themes express the changing social and political landscape of Japan. We will also use these six themes to engage fundamental questions such as: What is the nation of Japan? Who are the Japanese? For the whole of the twentieth century, intellectuals and cultural leaders in Japan were strongly focused on the idea of “national character” or kokuminsei 国民性. Do you personally think that there such thing as a national character or not? What are the implications if it does exist? Would its origins linguistic or genetic or otherwise?
In addition to offering a chronological/thematic exploration of Japanese history and culture, this course also serves as an introduction to humanistic inquiry more generally and helps students develop basic academic skills that will serve them throughout their college career and beyond. These skills include the ability to identify and use of primary and secondary sources; critical thinking, writing, and looking; and, a facility for expressing ideas orally in front of peers in formal and informal settings. (It is a Domain A course.)

Course Description: This is a course on the sort of Buddhism known as Zen in Japanese. Also known as Chan, Seon, and Thìên respectively in the East Asian cultures of China, Korea, and Vietnam. (Below, we will call it by the familiar name of Zen regardless of context, to simplify matters. This is only a shorthand and is not meant to signal the priority of the Japanese tradition over others, it is merely that the term “Zen” is the one best known in English.)

Zen is famous for promising a special sort of insight that provides sudden and astounding liberation from psychological and spiritual suffering and doubt -- an enlightenment on par with that of a Buddha, unmediated by texts or teachers or images, unencumbered by rules or notions of progress along a path. (In this way, it can be read as a radical critique of the tradition it grows out of.)

The course examines the development of this sect in the context of East Asian Mahāyāna Buddhism, incorporating aspects of the following: legendary histories, debates over mediation styles, monastic lifestyle, musical expression and visual culture.

In the main, this is a course on some primary texts and philosophical tenets of the Zen tradition. Some of our focus will be placed on primary sources, written (mostly) in classical Chinese and translated into English. Also, we will read in scholarly secondary sources that assume a fairly extensive background in the topic. You are not expected to come into this class with this background knowledge! Please be patient with yourself and read carefully to glean what you can from these. We will drive straight into the works themselves, and strive to pick up the background in Buddhism we need “along the way” as we progress. That is, we will confront the texts in a fairly “raw” manner, with regard to both primary and secondary sources, and will do our best to make sense of these with the knowledge we possess and the resources at hand. Questions are always welcome and we can certainly take the time to go deeper into the material at any point. We will take time in class to discuss the readings at length; considerable class time can be devoted clearing up murky passages. This is time well spent.

The course is divided into four sections: 1) studying the founding myth of Zen enlightenment, its transmission to China by the legendary figure Bodhidharma, and the establishment of “sudden doctrine” of the Southern School; 2) exploring classical modes of Zen practice, daily rules and modes of discipline, as developed during the Song period (c. 10th-11th C.) based on Tang period (8th-9th C.) models and continuing up to the present; 3) engaging in a critical examination of the rhetorical claims of Zen to gain a contextual view of the creation and popularization of the Zen school; 4) a study and investigation of the one-page sacred text known as the Heart Sutra (摩訶般若波羅蜜多心経 Jpn. Maka hannya haramitsu shingyō, Ch. Mohe bore boluomida xin jing) a condensation of the literature known as prajñāpāramita or “perfection of wisdom” on the philosophy of Emptiness with a wonder-working magical spell at the end. Throughout the course, we will make reference to visual sources and films. Short documentaries and one feature-length film are woven into our journey through the semester. Not a class will go by where we do not examine and discuss some sort of image. Sonic and visual sources will be a key to the world of Zen along with the written works we encounter.

Course Learning Goals
To become familiar with the Zen Buddhist tradition and examine aspects of its history, practice, theory, and soteriology. To gain a sense of religious ideas and practices as they developed in historical and intellectual context. To learn about working with sources, incorporating them into arguments, and citing them accurately. To practice expressing your ideas and your understanding of the material in front of other people succinctly and clearly.

THIS IS THE LAB COMPONENT OF ECON 203.
Beginning Tuesday, September 1, we will meet for a computer lab every Tuesday from 7:30 to 9:55 PM. The lab is an integral part of the course and attendance is required.
During the lab you will learn to use scriptable software to manage and analyze statistical data. The application we use will be Stata (version 19), but the principles and methods you learn with Stata apply to other programs as well, including MATLAB, Python, R, SAS, and SPSS.
Over the course of the semester you will complete a weekly data exercise. In parts of these exercises you will apply concepts developed in class to real data; in other parts you will explore the theoretical foundations of some fundamental methods of statistical analysis. In all of the exercises there will be an emphasis on organizing and documenting your work in ways that ensure everything you do with your data is transparent and reproducible.

“Yes—oh dear yes—the novel tells a story.” Such was E. M. Forster’s definition, or his best guess. But there are other and more daring explanations for the elasticity and staying power of what is arguably the most dominant cultural form of modernity. In this class, we will be studying a wide range of theories of the novel. To test out those theories, we will also be reading an eclectic cluster of novels from the classic to the contemporary to ask some fundamental questions about the form: What distinguishes novels from other artistic forms? What kinds of thinking can the novel perform? How does it imagine the relation between the individual and society? In what ways might novels challenge and critique the worlds they are so invested in describing? Why are certain plots, or recognizable types of imaginary person, more lasting than others? To answer these questions, we will work to estrange ourselves a little from key features of novelistic writing, things we may well take for granted—plot, character, point of view, style, genre, mimesis—so that we can consider their distinctiveness afresh. By reading across a long literary historical timeline we will trace continuities, divergences, and innovations in the history and theory of the novel.

This course examines what it means to be Caribbean, or of Caribbean descent, in the diaspora – either the United States, England, and France due to their stake in colonizing the Caribbean in the quest for imperial power and modernity. Within this historical and contemporary context, Caribbean literature offers a lens to learn about how this has affected and defined Caribbean culture. In this course, students will learn how legacies of colonialism and modernity affect Caribbean populations through the inevitable formations of diasporas and migrations. Students will also learn how to differentiate between migration and diaspora while recognizing how Caribbean literature is a meditation of home, culture, belonging, community, identity, and displacement. In this special-topics literary course, students will study and compare varied texts in mixed genres, including poetry, memoir, essay, and academic texts, in addition to the course novels, A Small Place, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and Black Skin, White Masks. Students will examine how various writers from the Caribbean negotiate empire, identity, language, culture, and notions of home as they make critical observations in their works. “Topics in Caribbean Literature” offers an interdisciplinary understanding of Caribbean culture, society, and identity in a trans-hemispheric and transnational context that explores (pop) culture, memory, literature, revisionism, and media to understand Caribbean diasporic cultural formations.

A man takes the form of a hawk and then that of a woman to seduce his imprisoned lover. A knight exchanges kisses with the lady and the lord who host him in the wilderness. A sex worker is accused of shedding her male name and calling herself Eleanor. A martyr disguises herself as a eunuch and adopts masculine pronouns. A lump of flesh is baptized and becomes a white boy.

This course travels across the queer and trans Middle Ages. We will consider how medieval texts––from Arthurian romances to Ovidian myths––both theorize and animate gender, desire, and racial difference. Our shared purpose in this class is to understand how sex and sexuality sustain power, flesh, and faith in Middle English and Old French writing. As we read alliterative verse and mystical prose, we will attend to the strenuous work that literature performs to sanction certain bodies and desires while casting others aside. We will encounter, for instance, monsters at the edges of the world in Mandeville’s Travels and the erotic musings of a woman’s diary in The Book of Margery Kempe. Throughout the semester, we will also engage with scholarship in medieval studies, queer and trans theory, and critical race studies, and we will then practice applying these frameworks to interpret literature. And we will observe how race, class, and ability are tightly bound to the assignment of sex, then and now. Crucially, we will discuss the present-day uses of the straight and cis Middle Ages, which drive dangerous forms of nostalgia. Other possible course topics include angels, daemons, dream visions, werewolves, and witches.

No previous experience with medieval literature is required. We will read all of our texts with facing-page translations or glossaries. Course assignments include a weekly reading journal, an oral research presentation, in-class writing exercises, a close-reading paper, and a final research project.

Unearth the power of real-life stories in this immersive creative nonfiction workshop. Focusing on student writing, this course encourages writers to push boundaries and explore the impacts of real-life narratives. Students will expand their repertoire and gain a deeper understanding of creative nonfiction craft related to memoir, the essay, and documentary projects, with storytelling as the through-line. We'll explore stories where lives and issues are at stake and those that reverberate in larger, unexpected ways beyond the single story. The goal is to traverse the often vexed and uncharted ground of untold stories and lives. You'll develop the skills to craft compelling narratives that resonate beyond the page.

Students will engage in workshops, both in small groups and as a whole class. By the end of the course, you'll have developed a portfolio that includes several shorter pieces, such as a revised character sketch and two creative nonfiction projects.

Creative nonfiction is a genre that blends the storytelling techniques of fiction with the factual accuracy of journalism. It crafts true stories using narrative structure, vivid descriptions, dialogue, and character development to bring real events and people to life. This genre allows writers to explore personal experiences, various histories, and idiosyncratic subjects through a creative lens, drawing readers in with a strong voice and clear perspective. The course offers a chance to combine research skills with creative expression, enabling the crafting of compelling narratives while reporting facts and events.

Course Description: In this course students will be reading works from the Latinx literary canon as a survey of Latinidad written by and framed by Latina women writers. Through the course theme, students will study and examine how Latina women write resistance, Latinidad, gender, race, sexuality, language and home as they navigate their lives ‘here’ and ‘there’ via notions of diaspora, migration, and belonging. This course analyzes contemporary literary works in the Latinx literary canon, including the course books, Of Women and Salt, Sabrina and Corina, and Family Lore, while weaving complimentary works in various genres. Students will form written arguments juxtaposing and analyzing the texts in the course considering how authors and poets write about home, racialized experiences as Afro-Latinas and Indigenous Latinas, girlhood and womanhood and resistance. In doing so, students will seek to answer, “why do gender and race matter,” “what is home,” “who belongs,” and “what forms of power affect my humanity?” while also synthesizing canonical and non-canonical novels, short stories, and poems. The course is framed with feminist theory produced by Latina women that demonstrates how theoretical frameworks are informed by lived experience and also become practice.

This course is a survey of Puerto Rican literature that examines how various writers negotiate empire, the Puerto Rican nation, identity, culture, and coloniality through a study of fiction. The selected course novels, The House on the Lagoon, The Taste of Sugar, and Velorio, are literary narratives situated in different historical contexts that speak to experiences of the Spanish and American empires in Puerto Rico, and their afterlives in the present. The course is centered around three novels and also includes short story, poetry, and short film and music as contemporary responses to modernity projects. Students will learn how writers from the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century, Rosario Ferre, Marisel Vera, Xavier Aquino Navarro, Rene Marques, and Jose Luis Gonzalez etc., and contemporary artists like Bad Bunny and Chuwi take on questions of empire, (neo)colonialism, displacement, and migration in their respective genres. This ongoing dialogue about the American influence and dominance in Puerto Rico since 1898 has preoccupied many artists and writers alike, and it has motivated various fictive projects in different mediums. As the world’s oldest colony, how has Puerto Rico been impacted by empire in the past and present? How does Puerto Rico’s colonial status affect Puerto Ricans and their constructions of identity, culture, and the nation? How does the Puerto Rican diaspora shape the archipelago? These are some of the notions and questions leading the study of this semester. While this course is focused on Puerto Rican literature, students will understand how representations and criticisms of Puerto Rico in fiction can be useful in studying other Caribbean diasporic populations, nations, and modern colonies with histories related to Spanish and American empires through an exploration of diaspora theory and archipelagic relations.

Reading and writing speculative fiction to learn about character, conflict, place, voice, and what makes a story effective.

This course aims to offer an introduction to the craft and culture of playwriting as an art-form and space of social justice activation. Students will familiarize themselves with the structure of dramatic narratives through an interdisciplinary exploration of performance, design, and theatre for social change practices that center social justice in the generating of new work for the theatre. Coursework will include weekly writing assignments towards the completion of a new play draft, periodic assignments introducing the principles of collaboration essential to the theatre making process and the reading of playscripts. Class sessions will be centered on the workshopping of written text both for short-term and committed play idea assignments, the discussion and dissection of noteworthy contemporary plays, and an active engagement in current conversations that are shaping the future of the artform.

In 2000, atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen identified the late-18th century as the start of the Anthropocene, the epoch marking humans as the dominant geologic force on earth. While we may think of environmental crisis as a relatively new problem in our present age of global climate change, this course asks how those who ushered us into the Anthropocene viewed their shifting relationship to nature. Can we trace the origins of the environmental crisis in 19th-century literature and culture? How do Romantic and Victorian writers grapple with the environmental challenges that confront us now as we teeter on the edge of human-induced apocalypse? What new perspectives do these texts offer on sustainability, environmental justice, and climate futures? We will explore topics such as industrial changes to the rural landscape, the growth of the carbon economy and pollution, ecologies of empire and resource extraction, and visions of climate apocalypse and utopia.

This course explores the intersections of death, politics, and the environment across literature, philosophy, political theory, and cultural studies. Students will examine how societies reckon with mortality, how death shapes political life, and how ecological crises reframe our relationship with extinction and regeneration. The course also engages with the paradoxical possibilities of death, both as loss and as a condition of renewal, especially in the face of climate change and environmental degradation. Combining seminar-style discussion with occasional short lectures to situate texts historically and theoretically, students will be encouraged to make connections between classical traditions, modern political theory, and contemporary ecological challenges. Special emphasis will be placed on interdisciplinary dialogue across literature, philosophy, and environmental humanities.

This course is an investigation of the function, origin, and evolutionary history of photosynthesis, from the biochemistry of marine microbes to the diversity of present-day land plants.

Emphasis will be placed on plant structure, physiology, and adaptation.

Senior thesis research in the Wilson Lab.

Sex, gender, and sexuality affect just about every aspect of our lives. From the moment a doctor announces “girl” or “boy,” the sexes we’re assigned and the genders we perform influence everything from the clothes we are expected to wear to the relationships we pursue to the spaces we’re allowed to enter. Of course, in practice everyone deviants in some way from the demands built into binary categories like male/female, cis/trans, or straight/queer, and the failure to conform to these ideal types can carry heavy penalties, leading many people to resist, refuse, or attempt to redefine them. Moreover, gender and sexuality always intersect with other social power systems – including but not limited to race, religion, class, ability, ethnicity, nationality, and so on – so that nobody experiences sex, gender, or sexuality in precisely the same way as anyone else.

This course explores the historical constitution of modern categories of gender and sexuality and the ways that these unbalanced social power systems shape everything from global geopolitics to the intimate spaces of our households. You do not need to have a background in Gender and Sexuality Studies to succeed in this class. We will be learning about core concepts, such as power and difference, alongside different theoretical approaches to gender and sexuality. The approach we take in the course will be a ‘history of the present,’ meaning that, in order to contextualize our contemporary categories, concepts, and debates, much of the material we engage will comprise historically or genealogically significant (that is, old) texts associated with the fields of feminist and gender studies. But, understanding that the meaning of ideas is not static, we will make every effort not only to understand the historical circumstances that produced these ideas, but also their relevance to our lives today.

By the end of this course, you should be able to mobilize multiple conceptual tools to discuss how gendered power systems shape historical narratives, cultural representations, and our everyday lives in generally unequal but context-dependent ways.

This course satisfies Humanities, A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts) and B: Analysis of the Social World.

This advanced seminar examines feminist theory as a dynamic and contested field of inquiry. Feminist theory does not comprise a settled canon; rather it represents an ongoing dialectic about power, embodiment, knowledge, and liberation. Rather than surveying schools or “kinds” of feminism in sequence, the course is organized around the central questions feminist theory takes up—about its own subject, about work, race, colonialism, normativity, the state, and technology. Each week stages several thinkers in relation to one another so that we can learn how to map debates and conversations, trace where arguments emerge and diverge, and locate our own positions within the conversations. The course should help us move beyond “wave” narratives and instead trace how feminist theory has been shaped, challenged, and reconsidered by Black feminist, queer of color, trans, and decolonial interventions. These perspectives recur across the term rather than as separate units so that we can explore how feminist theories challenge racism, capitalism, colonialism, cisnormativity, state violence, and technology.

This course analyzes the complex histories, shifting geographies, and unequal relationships of power denoted by the term “Global South,” a designation that maps unevenly onto the formerly colonized regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America. As we shall see, the term is also used to describe marginalized populations and places within the “Global North,” a convenient though not entirely accurate label for today’s relatively rich and developed world regions. A basic concern of the course will be to analyze the origins, relevance, and strengths and limitations of the concept of the “Global South.” To do so we must assess how centuries of colonialism and its legacies have influenced our contemporary world. Our collective goal will be to develop new ways of thinking about our pasts, presents and futures, while respectfully engaging, discussing and debating a range of at times controversial topics.

History 114 will be taught in a seminar style emphasizing discussion and participatory “co-learning” through dialogue, analysis and writing. The instructor firmly believes that sharing our various perspectives, thoughts and insights is a responsibility that comes with the privilege of a Haverford College education. We shall take a broadly “historiographical” approach, asking big questions and critiquing the different methodologies historians have employed to answer them. Reading materials will range chronologically from antiquity into the present, focusing on topics such as the emergence of states and the formation of empires; trade and technology transfers; many types of cultural exchanges, including the emergence, spread and redefinition of world religious traditions; ethnic “othering” and racism as defined and redefined over time and in different contexts; and enduring realities of violence, militarism, war, and struggles for peace. In the instructor’s view, history is best understood as a discipline of rigorous contextualization, a practice that can lead to better dialogues, more informed arguments, and new understandings. If we work hard enough, we might even find solutions for enduring problems!

This seminar will be a “hands on” experience introducing you to the study of history at the college level. In addition to reading innovative historical scholarship produced by specialists, we will work with primary sources that ask you to be the historian. These include written documents (in translation) from the eras under consideration as well as visual sources including art, architecture, photography and film. The instructor believes that history is most interesting when taught as a craft involving original research, innovative analysis and creative writing. Assignments for History 114 have been designed to develop these skills, which are especially necessary for those thinking about becoming History Majors at Haverford College!

This course introduces students to the history of Quakerism and its influences at Haverford College, from its origins in the early 19th century through the present. Haverford College’s official motto is “Non doctior, sed meliore doctrina imbutus.” This translates as “Not more learned, but imbued with better learning.” What on earth does this actually mean? History 252 attempts to answer this question. It emphasizes moments of debate, conflict and even crisis, as successive generations of Haverfordians have defined and redefined the College’s identity, goals and purpose. An underlying premise of the course is that this is an ongoing process you will contribute to during your years at Haverford College and afterwards, when you will take what you have learned as a student into the world beyond the campus gates.

Welcome! My name is Marlen Rosas. I'm looking forward to working with you this semester!

This research-oriented seminar provides an introduction to Mexican cultural history from antiquity through the present. It is designed to assist you in developing your research, writing and oral communication skills while participating in a supportive but challenging scholarly environment. As we shall see, authentic intellectual labor is hard and at times lonely work, though it can also be collaborative, stimulating, and fulfilling. The instructor spent over three decades thinking, researching, writing and teaching about sixteenth, eighteenth and twentieth century Mexican history. In this class, I hope to share what I learned through this experience about Mexico, the United States, and perhaps even life itself. The ultimate goal of the seminar is to encourage students to develop new understandings of the past while thinking about a better future. We shall also learn about historical research and have some fun.

This course approaches contacts, conflicts, and exchanges between East Asia and Russia/the Soviet Union as a mutually constitutive history and reconsiders Europe and the West’s influence on Asia. The course is not a survey of East Asian or Russian history, but each session will contextualize a particular East Asia-Russia encounter. We will analyze key processes and events: colonialism, orientalism, reform movements, the rise of communism, the Cold War, and others. No prior knowledge is required.

This course is not a survey of diseases or the distribution of health and illness around the world. Rather, this course critically interrogates “global health” as a set of historically contingent ideas, systems, and activities carried out across geographic, cultural, and economic difference. We will ask: where, how, and why did paradigmatic global health interventions emerge? What activities have been carried out in the name of health promotion and with what consequences? How have global health actors imagined the people and communities whose health they seek to improve? How do health interventions cultivate subjects and subjectivities, both normative and revolutionary? To answer these questions, we look to histories of empire, colonialism, and globalization; to interactions between citizens, states, civil society, multilateral organizations, and private capital; and to the development ideologies and practices that have shaped global health over the past century. Topics include tropical and missionary medicine; eradication campaigns; sanitation and hygiene; reproduction; family planning; maternal health; infant nutrition; health systems and finance; hospitals and health infrastructures; racialized hierarchies of expertise and labor; primary health care and community-based programs; health education and behavior change communication; international cooperation and bilateral aid; neoliberalism; access to medicine; global health technologies; and partnerships. Readings are drawn from anthropology, social history, sociology, medicine, public health, medical humanities, and science studies.

This course investigates the history, methodology, and ethical implications of Human- Centered Design (HCD). A cross-disciplinary methodology HCD grounded in fine arts, cognitive psychology, and systems engineering. It provides a creative, structured framework for solving complex problems by centering the lived experiences of people.

This course envisions design as an engine for social and systemic change. Situated within Visual Studies, we treat the "user experience" as a site of visual and sensory analysis. We create a structure for understanding usability design and research, while critically exploring Design Justice.

We will ask: Who is included in our "human-centered" focus? Who is marginalized by our "solutions"? Students will develop professional skills in visual research, synthesis, rapid prototyping, and strategic roadmapping. The semester culminates in capstone projects and presentations that address a real-world social, environmental, or economic challenge within the Haverford/Bi-Co community or the greater Philadelphia area.

This course is designed to improve your ability to autonomously speak and write in Italian at an elementary level on various topics, from basic routine tasks to popular, historical, and practical aspects of Italy’s culture. It builds on what you have learned in Beginning Italian I and completes the range of grammar and cultural topics that an independent speaker should know. It is based on four weekly 50-minute sessions (3 with me and one with my TA), and you are strongly encouraged to spend a minimum of one hour of study outside of class each day on the material presented in class.

Postclassical Latin is both an advanced investigation of the Latin language and a literature seminar. You will improve your ability to understand Latin naturally, as a varied, organic language, by reading, analyzing, and discussing a variety of texts from the postclassical period, the more than seventeen hundred years (c. 300 ce to the present) when Latin evolved from a living into an immortal language.
Since there are nearly 1 trillion words of extant postclassical Latin (compared to a “mere” 100 million words of Classical Latin), this course will feature four topically and temporally distinct vignettes from the postclassical tradition: (a) late antique centonic and allegorical literature that recombines the lines and half-lines of Vergil into poems sacred (Proba’s Cento) and profane (Ausonius’ Cento Nuptialis), followed by selections of Prudentius’ Psychomachia, a graphic meditation on the war between virtue and vice; (b) vibrant, diverse sacred and secular Medieval works, with special focus on those by the visionary saint, Hildegard of Bingen; (c) a brief stop-over in the European Renaissance (Italian, Dutch, and/or English); and (d) the Latin of “New Spain”, including poems about Mexico and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Along the way, we will drop in on a range of postclassical “best sellers,” readable and popular texts from these periods.

This course is intended to help students gain a beginning-level competency of communicating in Valley Zapotec, specifically Dizhsa (San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec), an Indigenous language spoken in what is now Oaxaca, Mexico. The course will include instruction on grammar, conversational practice, as well as historical and modern cultural context of Zapotec language and life in Oaxaca and the diaspora. [Note this class does not satisfy the language requirement as it is only 0.5 units.]

Thank you for visiting this site! The Chorale uses a Google website for all of its business.

Please visit us here for more info or contact Dr. Nate Zullinger (nzullinger@haverford.edu).

The term “girl power” first appeared in 1991 when the girl punk group Bikini Kill created the phrase, mashing together two words and concepts that were seemingly incongruous: “girl” and “power” of any kind. As cultural critic Sophie Gilbert notes, by the year 1997, the Spice Girls, the massively popular girl group, had coopted the phrase, vacating it of any transgressive, activist meaning. Instead, the term was a vacuous, empty container, a sign of the postfeminist wave sweeping workplaces, homes, and culture. This example begs the question: why is music (especially popular music) the venue of choice for so many different iterations of feminist expression? What makes music feminist? How does one musical context for the term “girl power” lead to such vastly different applications and understandings of the term? This course interrogates such questions and the broader discourse surrounding feminist musicology. By taking an approach that is intentionally non-chronological and inclusive of all musical genres, this course places in conversation a variety of repertoires, scholars, and practitioners to better understand how questions of music, femininity, and feminism are imbricated in larger matrices of racial, socioeconomic, and gender identity; political economies; and other forms of power.

PRIVATE VOCAL STUDY requires a preliminary meeting with Dr. Nate Zullinger. Please visit our website for more info and email Dr. Zulling with any questions.

Thank you!

https://www.haverford.edu/music/applied-music-study-and-ensembles/choral-and-vocal-study

To learn more about Chamber Singers, visit our website:
https://www.haverford.edu/music/applied-music-study-and-ensembles/choral-and-vocal-study

To sign up for an audition time (now through September 4), visit here:
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0F4BADAA28A4F4C70-50704278-choralvocal

Core concepts and perspectives for the serious study of music. Students will explore music, meaning, and musicological methods in a variety of contexts through a set of foundational themes and questions, including:

• Music and the Idea of Genius
• Who Owns Music?
• Music and Totalitarianism
• Music and Difference

Each unit will use a small number of musical works, performances, or documents as focal points. In each unit we will also read current musicological work in an attempt to understand the methods, arguments, and perspectives through which scholars interpret music and its many meanings. We will encounter a wide range of music from different times and places, from Mozart to Maoist opera, and from minstrel songs to Shostakovich.

Music and Social Justice is an ethnomusicological exploration of the relationship between music and the various efforts of music makers toward social equity. The course introduces themes, concepts, tools, and methodologies of applied ethnomusicology, and discusses the role of the ethnomusicologist on a wide set of issues, including advocacy, indigenous people, education, agencies, and conflict. It considers various forms of musical expression around the world and their significance to the social movements for justice. The course is open to students from all disciplines; there are no pre-requisites and knowledge of music performance and theory is helpful but not necessary

This course offers an introduction to the study of peace, justice, and human rights, surveying philosophies of rights in relation to justice; historic and contemporary approaches to (and reasons for) peace, war, and nonviolence; clashes between human rights and conflict resolution approaches; the role of human rights prior to, during, and after violent conflict; rights in relation to race, gender, sexuality, and class; whether rights are only for human beings; domestic and international conflicts, social problems, and challenges to peace, justice, and human rights; and why the study of human rights is necessarily interdisciplinary.

This course offers an introduction to the study of peace, justice, and human rights, surveying philosophies of rights in relation to justice; historic and contemporary approaches to (and reasons for) peace, war, and nonviolence; clashes between human rights and conflict resolution approaches; the role of human rights prior to, during, and after violent conflict; rights in relation to race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, health and the environment; African, Asian, and Indigenous approaches to rights or justice; whether rights are only for human beings or might also apply to non-human animals and/or the natural world; some limitations imposed by an exclusive focus on rights and/or law as avenues for social change; traditional conflict resolution; restorative and transformative approaches to conflict; and why the study of human rights is necessarily interdisciplinary.

This course aims to help you to develop:
•Knowledge of the various schools of thought and modes of practice of peace, justice, and human rights.
•Ability to read and evaluate arguments about peace, justice, and human rights, and to discuss ideas—your own and those of others—critically.
•Critical thinking about and analysis of approaches to peace, justice, and conflict.
•Confidence in your ability to understand philosophical and practical problems, and come up with creative solutions to these problems.
•Good writing and communication skills, through discussion of ideas, the practice of writing, and the practices of speaking and teaching.
•A basic understanding of the difference between written and oral presentation of ideas.
•A basic understanding of what interdisciplinary study entails.

This course will explore legal theories that underpin various legal systems in settler colonial states. We will study settler legal forms and Indigenous legal forms alongside each other, and think about what gives law power, how that power stays in place, and what law is supposed to be and do for those who are guided by it. By putting Indigenous and settler legal ways on equal footing, we may open up our thinking to new ways of envisioning a way forward, out of and beyond the history of colonial domination. Readings will include classics of settler/western legal theory and of various Indigenous traditions. Assignments will include papers, presentations, research, and moot courts where we make legal arguments in more than one tradition, to get a sense of what is at stake in different approaches to adjudicating conflict and harm. The aim is to undergo what happens when we study and learn these different approaches of law together rather than isolating them from each other. What does it become possible to think, to imagine, to do, that was not thinkable or do-able before?

Learning objectives
Students completing this course will:
• have a broad grasp of the basics of western/settler legal theory and the legal traditions of some North American Indigenous groups;
• develop capacity to make written and oral legal-style arguments in multiple traditions;
• understand some basics about legal procedures in multiple traditions;
• think carefully about what law is, what power is, and why power differences exist;
• learn about histories of colonial dispossession and domination as well as Indigenous refusal and resistance;
• build aptitude for communicating and collaborating with peers—and audiences in the wider world—whose disciplinary language, values and methodological concerns differ;
• develop sensitivity to the different factors affecting reception of arguments about divisive or emergent issues.

This is an interdisciplinary capstone course meant to consolidate student experience of a program that integrates scholarship, theory, policy and practice perspectives, library, field, and lab research. In addition to devoting close attention to reading and research on course themes, we will attend to the details and difficulties of writing and presenting one’s own work to diverse audiences. The course will provide opportunities for students working on theses or other projects within their majors to present work to an interdisciplinary audience of peers. Students will take part in teaching the course, and will also plan a conference-style event together, present work there in collaborative panels, and comment on peers’ work both formally and informally. Tools and knowledge gathered beginning with PEAC 101 and 201 and continuing through focused study will be revisited and recombined in search of innovative solutions to problems. Students will be encouraged to look critically at their own social justice philosophies and disciplinary methods, and reflect on how practice and theory are, at the same time, challenges to each other and yet not strictly separable. This is also a site at which collaborative work may help students begin to envision innovative new solutions to entrenched problems.

bell hooks’ theory of the "oppositional gaze" attempts to wrestle with the connection between aesthetics and epistemology: how does what and how we know shape how we evaluate and relate to art? Through a survey of visual, literary, and performance arts primarily by Black and Latina women (e.g., Lorraine O’Grady, Mickalene Thomas, Christina Sharpe, Ana Victoria Jiménez) this course seeks to theorize the many dimensions of the oppositional gaze, with a focus on the ways these thinker-artists challenge, critique and disrupt various binaries that they identify with the history of western philosophy. In our exploration, we will consider feminist standpoint epistemologies, Black feminist poethics, and decolonial theory, amongst other frames.

The term intersectionality originated in Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work in the legal field. Since that time, many disciplines have recognized the importance of the concept and sought to make use of the concept in their own fields. This course will attempt to determine how and to what extent intersectionality may fit into the discipline of philosophy. With a particular focus on the ethical dimensions of the concept, we will seek to determine the conceptual difficulties intersectionality brings to bear on philosophy. Likewise, we will ask the larger question: what does intersectionality bring to bear on the discipline of philosophy? And how are the answers to these questions linked to the fraught inclusion of Black feminisms, histories, and concepts into the discipline? As such, the course will focus on close readings of major treatments of what might generally be referred to as “intersectionality.” We will look at the theoretical foundations for intersectionality found in the history of Black feminist writing. After a deep reading of Kimberlé Crenshaw’s two foundational texts on intersectionality, we will then move on to reading and discussing takings-up and criticisms that highlight the tensions inherent in intersectional theorizing: Anna Carastathis’ Intersectionality: Origins, Contestations, Horizons, Vivian May’s Pursuing Intersectionality: Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries, Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge’s Intersectionality, and Jennifer Nash’s Black Feminism Reiminaged. In sum, the course hopes to answer the question: given intersectionality’s concerns with race, gender, class, sexuality, social location and ability, why is it important that philosophy respond to the challenges intersectionality has offered? In an attempt to address these questions, students in the course will conduct a project in conjunction with Haverford's archives of Africana philosophy that seeks to consider ways that the archives might become a site of intersectional praxis.

Physics 105 is the first part of the two semester calculus-based introductory Physics series for students interested in Physical Sciences.

This course will cover topics in Newtonian mechanics (equations of motion, rotation and angular momentum, work-energy relations, gravity and orbits, static equilibrium). It will also discuss oscillations, waves and thermodynamics. As a calculus based course, concepts taught in MATH 101 will often be used and referenced.

By then end of the first year sequence (PHYS 105 and 106), we do hope and expect that you will possess enough tools, both theoretical and experimental to approach numerous everyday physics questions. From understanding the behaviors of atoms, molecules and materials to the design of an experimental apparatus, we believe that for those involved in research projects in physics, chemistry and related areas, many concepts that will be taught in this class will be useful in their respective projects.

To succeed in this course, anticipate dedicating a minimum of 6-10 hours per week of work outside of class, excluding lab sessions. Reading the textbook is crucial, but the key to mastering the material lies in actively solving physics problems, including the homework assignments.

Introductory course on Quantum mechanics with some concepts of modern physics.

Classical mechanics of systems of particles, conservation laws, Lagrangian mechanics, motion in central potentials, and core elements of chaos/non-linear dynamics. Fluid mechanics, covering the assumptions of the fluid approximation, key conservation laws, laminar, creeping, turbulent flow, and special topics like convection, waves, vortices, rotating flows, instabilities, flight, and biological flows as time and interest permit.

Why do some states punch above their weight in international politics while others struggle to be heard? Who really shapes foreign policy? And why do states facing similar international pressures pursue such different strategies? In an uncertain world characterized by intensifying U.S.-China competition, rising levels of conflict, and the climate crisis, making sense of how foreign policy is made has never been more important. This course introduces students to key approaches to foreign policy analysis and compares how states define and pursue their national interests across a range of issue areas, such as national security policy and climate policy. Students engage with a diverse range of case studies across regions, including East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. These cases highlight different foreign policy logics, strategies, and constraints, and allow for systematic comparison across countries and contexts.

This course examines the political economies of the largest number of countries in the world. They are often collectively referred to as the ‘Global South’, the ‘developing world’, or even ‘The Third World’. Located in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, these countries are generally considered as distinct from the wealthier and democratic countries that have historically dominated the global economy and politics. Although developing countries are playing an increasingly important role on the global stage, they are far from a uniform group of countries with shared interests and ideals. This group of countries contains a wide variety of demographic backgrounds and political systems – ranging from authoritarian to democratic in nature – and vast differences in wealth and human welfare. As a result, global agendas such as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are aimed at addressing the inequalities of development around the world.

We will take a global approach and discuss the diverse political and socio-economic trajectories of developing countries in recent decades. Why is development a political term? What are the similarities and differences between the countries labeled as ‘developing’? What role does the state play in fostering or hindering development? What are the benefits and drawbacks of foreign aid for developing countries? How do developing countries relate to each other and to the developed world? These are some of the major questions we will interrogate throughout the semester. Overall, this course combines foundational theories with empirical case studies. Students have the opportunity to delve more deeply into a country and topic of their interest and to hone their writing and presentation skills through a semester-long research project related to the SDGs.

Are small and middle powers simply pawns in great power games? Southeast Asia represents the central stage of U.S.-China competition amid growing uncertainty over the future of multilateralism and the durability of regional peace. Tensions are escalating in the South China Sea and along the Thai-Cambodian border, with over half a million Cambodians displaced from the violence. How can Southeast Asian states ensure regional security and stability despite their material and strategic limitations?

This course provides an overview of the international relations of Southeast Asia, a highly diverse and fast-growing region. It examines the foreign policies and strategic orientations of Southeast Asian states and their efforts to assure an autonomous future and to shape the rules of the game in the region. Case studies include Indonesia’s leadership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional organization of increasingly divided between the mainland and maritime states. An overarching theme is understanding how smaller states exert agency and manage relationships with power asymmetries, such as in the case of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The topics to be discussed include Southeast Asia’s sources of insecurity, the politics of regionalism, economic integration in border regions, conflict management and diplomacy, and the geopolitics of infrastructure competition in the Mekong region. Students have the opportunity to explore the Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index to make sense of the capabilities of the region’s small and middle powers in class and to conduct a semester-long research project on a topic of their choosing.

Introduction to Islam is a general survey of the religion of Islam, encompassing history, beliefs, sacred texts (Qur'ān and Ḥadīth) and their interpretation, religious law, Sufism, philosophy, art, and science. Particular attention is given to Muslim practice and to Islam as a total way of life. Salient topics include modernity and modernism; statism, nationalism and imperialism; as well as gender, sexuality, marriage, and the family.

Welcome to the Moodle site for Religion 122b, Introduction to the New Testament.

This course offers critical study of women, gender, and sexuality in the literature of the New Testament and early Christianity. We’ll employ a variety of methods (literary, historical, feminist, socio-cultural, theological) to investigate the representations of women and gender in a broad range of texts dating from the first through the fourth centuries CE. We’ll focus on the roles of women, their relation to notions of gender and sexuality, and the uses of gendered imagery in representations of divine and human characters.  Among the female characters we’ll consider: Sophia, divine Wisdom; Eve the “mother of the living”; Mary the mother of Jesus; Mary Magdalene, Prisca, Junia, Phoebe and other disciples, apostles, prophets; Thecla, Perpetua, Felicitas, Macrina, Syncletica, Mary of Egypt, and other female holy women or saints.

What is religious freedom? How have debates about the role of religion in public life shaped U.S. politics? And how have anxieties about race, gender, and sexuality determined the limits and possibilities of religious freedom? Grounding contemporary political debates in their historical context, we will analyze speeches, court cases, visual and popular culture, and political theory and philosophy to explore the complex relationship between religion and politics in the United States.

Course Description: This seminar focuses on close study of the parables attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels (Mk, Mt, Lk) and the Gospel of Thomas. The goals of the course are to understand the adaptations, interpretations, and transformations of the parables from the oral tradition to the written gospels, to engage in close reading of the parables in their distinct literary contexts, and to become informed and critical readers of contemporary scholarship on the parables.

This seminar will guide senior religion majors through the early stages of the thesis project, from generating ideas, to crafting a well-developed proposal, conducting research, and beginning the writing process. We will meet weekly to practice research and writing skills and to participate in writing workshops and peer review. Students are expected to work diligently on their thesis projects outside of class, at least 10 hours per week.

By the end of the semester, students will:
• Articulate a sharply defined thesis topic and a clear argument about that topic;
• Develop their independent research skills;
• Conduct focused research and begin analyzing and critically evaluating that research;
• Understand and practice the writing process as one of drafting, revising, and revising again.

The goal of this course is to provide you with a foundation in classical social theory. (Next semester’s course, 155B, covers more contemporary theory.) We focus on theorists who were largely writing in the period between the revolts of 1848 and the beginning of the Cold War. This is a period that corresponds with the birth of sociology as a discipline, and so we will encounter writers who are attempting to formulate some of the key concepts that subsequent sociologists would take for granted. For example, before Marx, no one had used the words “capitalism” or “alienation” before, at least not in their modern sense. Likewise, before Weber, few had tried to conceptualize the nature of bureaucracies, and before Du Bois and de Beauvoir, few had attempted to reconcile race and gender with capitalism, respectively. Thus, this course will focus on five classical theorists whose ideas have greatly influenced how we study and understand society: Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, W.E.B. Du Bois and Simone de Beauvoir. The course is devoted to understanding how each theorist understood the origin, structure and historical dynamics of modern societies. In addition to comparing their theories, we will apply them to current social issues.

This course is for students who have achieved a basic knowledge of Spanish but need to gain experience and confidence communicating in the language. Students will learn the basic intermediate level of the language that will permit them to communicate (with some difficulty) about topics related to their personal sphere and beyond. They will gain an insight into Hispanic cultures and come closer to a more critical and informed view of issues related to the Spanish-speaking countries. Ultimately, the course is an extended learning opportunity that seeks to enable cross-cultural understanding starting, but not stopping, beyond the classroom. Pre-requisites: Placement test, professor’s recommendation.
By the end of the year students will:
- Acquire vocabulary beyond the basics, and be able to successfully manage a number of
- communicative tasks, such as describing yourself and others, narrating the past,
-expressing likes, dislikes, reactions and influence.
- Be able to understand and produce a variety of text types (oral and written).
- Have a grasp of contemporary issues of the Spanish-speaking world.
- Be able to follow the Intermediate courses SPAN101 and SPAN102.