Courses

In the context of the climate change, this course asks: how do we shape, spark, facilitate, and accelerate social change?

In order to mitigate and/or adapt to climate change, individuals, communities, organizations, and societies around the world – especially in wealthy nations – face the urgent need to implement significant changes, quickly. To avoid the worst climate scenarios, energy systems, patterns of production and consumption, political landscapes, daily habits, and even modes of thinking must evolve at every scale. The risks and impacts of climate change are well known and all too evident; and yet, global emissions continue to rise, natural ecosystems continue to be exploited and degraded, and frontline communities and nations continue to bear the brunt. To date, we have largely failed to implement the necessary changes to our current social and economic systems, by multiple metrics and at multiple scales. This course asks: what skills and practices are needed to more effectively spark, facilitate, accelerate, and manage the personal, social, organizational, and political changes needed at a range of scales to mitigate and adapt to climate change, all in an era of increasing disasters and social upheaval?

Students will explore a range of texts and thinkers that grapple with the subject of change; gain fluency with a range of “change management” tools and frameworks; analyze strategies for facilitating, accelerating, or shaping change process in a range of organizations and systems; learn from a series of guest “change experts;” and build their own theory of change for a specific problem or system.

Authors may include: Adrienne Maree Brown, Kate Crowley, Dennis Dalton, Ruth DeFries, Eknath Easwaran, Mahatma Gandhi, Ezra Klein, Margaret Heffernan, Brian Head, Ian Hodder, Robert Kegan, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Lisa Laskow Lahey, Jonah Lehrer, Andrew Marantz, Donella Meadows, Kendra Pierre-Louis, Horst Rittel, Isabel Romanzcy, Jonathan Safran-Foer, Leith Sharp, Twyla Tharp, Melvin Webber.

In the context of the climate change, this course asks: how do we shape, spark, facilitate, and accelerate social change?

In order to mitigate and/or adapt to climate change, individuals, communities, organizations, and societies around the world – especially in wealthy nations – face the urgent need to implement significant changes, quickly. To avoid the worst climate scenarios, energy systems, patterns of production and consumption, political landscapes, daily habits, and even modes of thinking must evolve at every scale. The risks and impacts of climate change are well known and all too evident; and yet, global emissions continue to rise, natural ecosystems continue to be exploited and degraded, and frontline communities and nations continue to bear the brunt. To date, we have largely failed to implement the necessary changes to our current social and economic systems, by multiple metrics and at multiple scales. This course asks: what skills and practices are needed to more effectively spark, facilitate, accelerate, and manage the personal, social, organizational, and political changes needed at a range of scales to mitigate and adapt to climate change, all in an era of increasing disasters and social upheaval?

Students will explore a range of texts and thinkers that grapple with the subject of change; gain fluency with a range of “change management” tools and frameworks; analyze strategies for facilitating, accelerating, or shaping change process in a range of organizations and systems; learn from a series of guest “change experts;” and build their own theory of change for a specific problem or system.

Authors may include: Adrienne Maree Brown, Kate Crowley, Dennis Dalton, Ruth DeFries, Eknath Easwaran, Mahatma Gandhi, Ezra Klein, Margaret Heffernan, Brian Head, Ian Hodder, Robert Kegan, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Lisa Laskow Lahey, Jonah Lehrer, Andrew Marantz, Donella Meadows, Kendra Pierre-Louis, Horst Rittel, Isabel Romanzcy, Jonathan Safran-Foer, Leith Sharp, Twyla Tharp, Melvin Webber.

The course examines the ocean's response to external climatic forcing such as solar luminosity and changes in the Earth's orbit, and to internal influences including atmospheric composition, the hydrological cycle, the cryosphere, and atmospheric and ocean circulation, using deep-sea sediments, corals, ice cores and other paleoceanographic archives. An analysis of the assumptions underlying the use of climate proxies and their interpretations will be presented. Particular emphasis will be placed on amplifiers of climate change during the alternating ice ages and interglacial intervals of the last few million years, such as natural variations in atmospheric "greenhouse gases" and changes in deep water formation rates, as well as mechanisms of rapid climate change during the late Pleistocene. The influence of changes in the Earth's radiation distribution and boundary conditions on the global ocean circulation, Asian monsoon system and El Nino/Southern Oscillation frequency and intensity, as well as interactions among these systems will be examined using proxy data and models. This course complements GU4937 Cenozoic Paleoceanography and is intended as part of a sequence with GU4330 Terrestrial Paleoclimate for students with interests in Paleoclimate.

 

English communication proficiency is important for academic achievement and career success. Columbia Engineering provides English communication instruction for students who would like to improve their communication skills in English. In a small group setting (15-20 students), enrollees will obtain opportunities to interact with the instructor and fellow classmates to improve communication skills.

English communication proficiency is important for academic achievement and career success. Columbia Engineering provides English communication instruction for students who would like to improve their communication skills in English. In a small group setting (15-20 students), enrollees will obtain opportunities to interact with the instructor and fellow classmates to improve communication skills.

Over the centuries, readers have been drawn to accounts of “true” crime—violent narratives involving real people and real events. And yet, as with any literary object, the notion of “truth” is always unstable—stories and their tellings are always shaped by the motivations, values, and choices of those who tell them, often with an eye toward the audience that will consume them. Whether constructed in order to moralize, to enforce or critique social or political ideologies, or purely to sell copies, “true
crime” is a literary genre that reveals attitudes about gender, race, and class; that illustrates—and sometimes calls into question—cultural norms and mores; that calls on readers to reflect on their own morbid curiosity and assumptions and fears. In this class we will engage with a diverse selection of literary texts—spanning from the Middle Ages to the present day and from a range of genres, including pamphlets, plays, novels, and more—as well as contemporary films, a tv series, and a
podcast. Through close reading and critical analysis, we will examine the evolution of the “true crime” genre and the cultural and societal contexts that shape the portrayal of crime for popular consumption. We will explore the ways in which texts and authors sensationalize, moralize, and convey the complexities of crime. We will analyze point of view: who’s telling the story, whom we sympathize with, and what insights we get into the minds of those committing crimes as well as those who fall prey to them. We will consider justice and policing— the role played by the law and its enforcers in shaping narratives about crime and punishment, right and wrong. Finally, we will reflect on the ethical implications of representing real-life crimes in literature, and how “true crime” narratives shape social perceptions, fears, prejudices, and notions of justice and morality.

Over the centuries, readers have been drawn to accounts of “true” crime—violent narratives involving real people and real events. And yet, as with any literary object, the notion of “truth” is always unstable—stories and their tellings are always shaped by the motivations, values, and choices of those who tell them, often with an eye toward the audience that will consume them. Whether constructed in order to moralize, to enforce or critique social or political ideologies, or purely to sell copies, “true
crime” is a literary genre that reveals attitudes about gender, race, and class; that illustrates—and sometimes calls into question—cultural norms and mores; that calls on readers to reflect on their own morbid curiosity and assumptions and fears. In this class we will engage with a diverse selection of literary texts—spanning from the Middle Ages to the present day and from a range of genres, including pamphlets, plays, novels, and more—as well as contemporary films, a tv series, and a
podcast. Through close reading and critical analysis, we will examine the evolution of the “true crime” genre and the cultural and societal contexts that shape the portrayal of crime for popular consumption. We will explore the ways in which texts and authors sensationalize, moralize, and convey the complexities of crime. We will analyze point of view: who’s telling the story, whom we sympathize with, and what insights we get into the minds of those committing crimes as well as those who fall prey to them. We will consider justice and policing— the role played by the law and its enforcers in shaping narratives about crime and punishment, right and wrong. Finally, we will reflect on the ethical implications of representing real-life crimes in literature, and how “true crime” narratives shape social perceptions, fears, prejudices, and notions of justice and morality.

In 2013, Alice Munro was honored with the Nobel Prize in literature. Munro’s award was seen as a literary landmark: the first time that the prize was awarded to a writer whose exclusive form was the short story. The award was seen as fitting recognition, not only for this writer in particular, but also more broadly as moment of recognition for the short story’s importance as a genre, especially in a publishing industry that has long been dominated by the novel.

In this course, we will focus on the contemporary North American short story authors featured on our syllabus: Chimamanda Adichie, George Saunders, Lydia Davis, Carmen Machado, Leanne Simpson, Anthony Veasna So. Some of the writers on this list are veterans of the short story form. Others are authors who recently published debut collections. As we work through our reading list, we will attempt to analyze not only individual short stories, but also what marks these books as collections. What might hold these texts together? What disrupts the unifying principles of a collection? And most importantly, what do short stories offer—in terms of representations of American life and culture and itscomplexity—that other forms do not?

Greater New York—the municipality that consolidated the five boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island—was officially established on New Year’s day in 1898.  While the change had been supported by a large majority of the boroughs’ residents in an 1894 referendum, there remained considerable controversy about the enterprise, even by its sponsors.  The city has managed to stave off succession movements since then; however, the boroughs remain resistant to economic, legislative, and cultural consolidation. In this course we will study depictions New York life, from the middle of the 20th century--a time of significant social and political turmoil in many boroughs, particularly around issues of race and religion--and into the 21st.  How do New York’s boroughs themselves become tropes in the fiction and film and television about them?  What characterizes the nostalgia and anxiety about city life in these representations?  Finally, what can an examination of these questions tell us about the ways New York has changed as a locus for imaginative work in the 21st century?

Projects for this course will include short critical responses to course materials, a guided walking tour of a micro-neighborhood in NY (5 blocks or less), and a research essay on a film, play, or TV show made and set New York.

PLEASE NOTE: All digital materials will be available through Courseworks.