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In 2015 Stanford's Cantor Arts Center acquired New York Corner (1913), an early painting by the celebrated American artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967). In honor of the acquisition, this seminar will explore Hopper's paintings in detail but with a twist. In each class meeting we will pair Hopper's paintings with the work of another artist or, in some cases, a filmmaker or novelist. The work of these other figures, all notable in their own right, will be given equal if not greater emphasis in each seminar meeting. In classroom discussion, our goal will be to build a rich description of Hopper's art and to understand something of the times when he painted (especially the late 1920s through the late 1950s). If you have wanted to learn how to look closely at a work of art, and how to interpret film and literature with equal depth doing so in intensive conversation with the professor and your peers this is the class for you. Some of the questions we will address: What is an artist?; What is an artist's career?; What does it mean for an artist (or anyone) to develop a lifelong vision of American culture, of American places, of American life?; What is a place (as opposed to a space)?; Is making a painting (or speaking or writing about a painting) a meaningful act in the world?; What does it mean (for Hopper, for any of us) to emerge out of a coherent tradition?; What is high art?; What is popular art?; What are the strengths and limitations of each?

The world-famous landscapes of East Africa, including Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and the Rift Valley lakes of Tanzania form the backdrop for this special course on protected area conservation and its impacts on local people. The course is designed to explore the pros and cons of parks and protected areas as they affect flora, fauna, and human inhabitants, and to address the dilemma of how to achieve conservation in a manner that creates local community benefits and promotes social justice. We will use a case study approach to ask: (1) What approach to protected area (PA) conservation has been taken in each case? Who are the key proponents and what are their main social and ecological objectives? (2) How successful has the protected area been at achieving its conservation goals? (3) What are the benefits of the PA to people and who receives them? (4) What are the costs of the PA to people and who pays them? (5) Where benefits are not commensurate to costs, what, if anything, is being done to address the imbalance? How well is it working? (6) Are there alternative conservation models that would make the interests of parks and people more compatible, and reduce the tradeoffs between them? What is needed to operationalize these alternative models, and how do they incentivize conservation behavior among local residents?nThis course includes an intensive 12-day expedition to Tanzania to observe firsthand the dilemmas of parks and peoples we have discussed in class. We are scheduled to visit Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Mt. Meru, and Serengeti National Parks, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and nearby Maasai villages. Both on campus and in Tanzania, the course emphasizes student contributions and presentations. Students are required to read one or two books a month over the summer, and to come to campus in the fall well-prepared to discuss each one, including co-leading the discussion of one of the readings. Students are also expected to carry out literature research on a particular conservation dilemma in East Africa that is of interest to them for the final assignment of the seminar, a 6- to 8-page paper, and to present the main findings of that paper during evening seminars as we travel in East AfricanNote: Students will arrive on campus and will be housed at Stanford until we leave for the travel portion of the course. A group of 20-some Stanford alumni will join us for the last 2 days on campus and for the travel portion of the course.

Do you speak Arabic at home? Are you studying Arabic at Stanford? Have you done a year of Arabic study elsewhere? If you answer yes to any one of these questions then "Arabic in America: Culture and People" might be for you. Our intensive course is designed to improve your command of Arabic while living in an active community of Arabic speakers and learners. We will be talking about films, poetry, politics, religion, gender and much more--all the while practicing how to talk to people, read newspapers, recite poetry, write emails, all with the goal of communicating better in Arabic. Our immersive experience will include: mosques and churches in the Bay Area and beyond, cultural festivals, research in the Hoover Archive, film, music, food, culture, and politics. Whether it is a trip to the beach or a classroom session on Arabic gender and sexuality, we will be talking in Arabic. All Arabic is welcome, from Morrocan or Iraqi colloquial (and everywhere in between) to Quranic recitation and Classical poetry.

In 2015 Stanford's Cantor Arts Center acquired New York Corner (1913), an early painting by the celebrated American artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967). In honor of the acquisition, this seminar will explore Hopper's paintings in detail but with a twist. In each class meeting we will pair Hopper's paintings with the work of another artist or, in some cases, a filmmaker or novelist. The work of these other figures, all notable in their own right, will be given equal if not greater emphasis in each seminar meeting. In classroom discussion, our goal will be to build a rich description of Hopper's art and to understand something of the times when he painted (especially the late 1920s through the late 1950s). If you have wanted to learn how to look closely at a work of art, and how to interpret film and literature with equal depth doing so in intensive conversation with the professor and your peers this is the class for you. Some of the questions we will address: What is an artist?; What is an artist's career?; What does it mean for an artist (or anyone) to develop a lifelong vision of American culture, of American places, of American life?; What is a place (as opposed to a space)?; Is making a painting (or speaking or writing about a painting) a meaningful act in the world?; What does it mean (for Hopper, for any of us) to emerge out of a coherent tradition?; What is high art?; What is popular art?; What are the strengths and limitations of each?

Monterey Bay is home to the nation¿s largest marine sanctuary and also home to Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station. This course, based at Hopkins, explores the spectacular biology of Monterey Bay and the artistic and political history of the region. We will conduct investigations across all of these contexts toward an inclusive understanding of ¿place¿, ultimately to lead us to explore our own lives in relation to the natural world, historical and cultural milieu, and the direction of our individual life path.n The location at the entry point to the Big Sur Coast of California provides a unique outdoor laboratory in which to study the biology of the bay and the adjacent coastal lands. It is also an area with a deep cultural, literary and artistic history. We will meet marine biologists, experts in the literary history of Cannery Row and the writings of John Steinbeck, local artists and photographers, experts in the neuroscience of creativity, as well as people who are very much involved in the forces and fluxes that steer modern culture. This rich and immersive approach provides students a rare opportunity to reflect on their relationships to nature, culture, and their own individual goals.nThe course emphasizes interactions and discussions. We will be together all of the time, either at our base at the Belden House in Pacific Grove, hiking and camping in Big Sur¿s pristine Big Creek Reserve on the rocky coast, and traveling to the Tassajara Mountain Zen Center in the Ventana wilderness for several days. This is not an ordinary academic experience, instead it is an adventure of a personal, intellectual, spiritual and physical kind. We welcome people with wide interests; artists, poets, writers, engineers, scientists and musicians. Mostly we invite people with an open mind and a sense of adventure. nStudents are expected to have read the several books provided as introductory material before the course begins, and each is also expected to become our local expert in an area such as plant identification, bird identification, poetry, weather prediction, photography, history, ethnography, etc. The course requires an individual research project of your choice on a topic related to the general theme. Final reports will be presented at the last meeting of the group and may involve any medium, including written, oral, and performance media.n Note: This course will be held at the Hopkins Marine Station in the Monterey region, and housing will be provided nearby. Transportation from campus to the housing site will be provided once students arrive to campus on Monday, September 4 (Labor Day). Transportation to campus from the Belden House in Pacific Grove will be provided on Saturday, September 23.

This seminar will explore the nature of and coupling between water and energy resources in the Pacific Northwest, using the Columbia River as our case study. We will explore the hydrologic, meteorologic, and geologic basis of water and energy resources, and the practical, social, environmental, economic, and political issues surrounding their development in the West. The Columbia River and its watershed provide a revealing prototype for examining these issues. A transnational, multi-state river with the largest residual populations of anadromous salmonids in the continental US, it provides a substantial fraction of the electrical energy produced in the Northwest (the Grand Coulee dam powerhouse on the Columbia is the largest-capacity hydropower facility in the US), it is a major bulk commodity transportation link to the interior West via its barge navigation system, it provides the water diversions supporting a large area of irrigated agriculture in Washington and Idaho, and its watershed is home to significant sources of solar and wind energy. We will use the Columbia to study water and energy resources, and especially their coupling, in the context of rapid climate change, ecosystem impacts, economics, and public policy. We will begin with a week of classroom study and discussion on campus, preparing for the field portion of the seminar. We will then travel to the Columbia basin, spending approximately 10 days visiting a number of water and energy facilities across the watershed, e.g., solar, wind, and natural gas power plants; dams and reservoirs with their powerhouses, fish passage facilities, navigation locks, and flood-mitigation systems; an irrigation project; operation centers; and offices of regulatory agencies. We will meet with relevant policy experts and public officials, along with some of the stakeholders in the basin. Over the summer students will be responsible for assigned readings from several sources, including monographs, online materials, and recent news articles. During the trip, students will work in small groups to analyze and assess one aspect of the coupling between water and energy resources in the Northwest. The seminar will culminate in presentations on these analyses. Travel expenses during the seminar will be provided (except incidentals) by the Bill Lane Center for the American West and Sophomore College.

There is growing interest in the intersection of art and science, whether from artists adapting technology to suit their visions or from scientists and engineers seeking to explain various visual effects. To take advantage of possible creative sparks at the art/science interface, it is necessary for fuzzies and techies to have some knowledge of the language used by the other side. This interface will be explored through examining approaches used by an artist and an engineer in the context of the materials science of cultural objects. In-class lectures, hands-on studio practice, and field trips will be used to illustrate these different perspectives. At the heart of the scientific approach is the notion that a cultural object, e.g., a painting, is a physical entity comprising materials with different physical properties and different responses to environmental stresses presented by light, heat, and water. In support of this outlook, in-class lectures and discussions will focus on the basic concepts of color, optics, mechanics, composite structures, and response of the object to environmental stress, and we will visit Bay Area museums to see how artists employ such techniques. The hands-on studio experience is designed to increase students' confidence and develop their appreciation of differences in materials. It is not necessary to have any artistic training, only a willingness to experiment. The in-class studio projects will include working with line and shadow; color, binders, and mordants; global sources of pigments; substrates and writing; and material failure. Students will make one technical presentation on a topic in one of the five areas relevant to a painting: color, optics, mechanics, composites, and stress response. In addition, they will prepare one essay on the issues surrounding the intersection of art and science. Finally, they will complete a project related to one of the thematic areas covered in the hands-on studio sessions and make a final oral presentation describing their project.

The 2006 film Pursuit of Happyness, an unabashed celebration of the American Dream, was enthusiastically embraced by Chinese audiences. It seems that the pursuit of happiness has become truly globalized, even as the American Dream is slipping away for many. Are Americans still convinced that their conception of happiness is a self-evident truth and a universal gospel? Is there anything that Americans might learn about what it means to live a good life from not only the distant past, but also cultures in which happiness is envisioned and sought after very differently? This course takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the question of happiness and invites undergraduate students to reflect on its relationship to virtue, wisdom, health, love, pleasure, prosperity, justice, and solidarity. Giving equal weight to Chinese and Western sources, it seeks to defamiliarize some of the most deeply held ideas and values in American society through the lens of crosscultural inquiry. During the summer, students will read a selection of novels, memoirs, and reflections by philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists. In September, we will review these texts and place them alongside movies, short fiction, news stories, and social commentary while we interrogate the chimera of happiness. In addition, we will experiment with meditation, short-form life writing (including mock-obituaries!), and service-learning.

What makes for a good life in a zoo? For that matter, what makes a good zoo? The psychological and physical wellbeing of the animals? The contribution to research, conservation, and education? The guest experience? Students will learn first-hand how animal welfare science provides an evidence-based approach to optimize and balance each of these demands so that "good welfare is good business." Through a unique experience at San Francisco Zoo students will learn how to apply principles of animal behavior to design environmental enrichments which benefit both the animals and the complex mission of a zoo. Students will be guided through the process of assessing an exhibit from the point of view of the animal's behavior and wellbeing, educational opportunities, and guest experience; developing an enrichment plan; designing and building enrichments for the animals; interacting with the public as docents; and assessing the overall effectiveness of a new enrichment; before finally presenting their work at a "mini-conference." The course will be taught with an emphasis on self-guided learning, student-led class time, hands-on experience, and service-learning. Most days will begin with students presenting what they have learned the previous day to the class, followed by student-led discussion, preparation time for the day's activities, and then time out in the zoo. The course will be taught by Dr. Garner (whose introductory seminar in Animal Behavior is strongly recommended, though not required) and Dr. Watters (Vice President of Animal Wellness and Animal Behavior, San Francisco Zoological Society). [This is a SOPHOMORE COLLEGE course. Visit soco.stanford.edu for full details.]

Social inequality is a feature of all advanced industrial societies. However, some societies have more inequality than others, and some types of inequality are more prominent in some societies than in others. Inequality in the United States is greater than in many other industrialized nations and has increased dramatically in the past forty years. Economic inequality, for example, is greater today than any time since the 1920s. Growing public awareness of this inequality has sparked a vigorous debate among politicians and public protests in city streets; some that have turned violent. The Occupy Movement was driven largely by resentment against the growing concentration of economic privilege within a small segment of society. Inequality was a prominent theme in the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. Despite these debates and protests, there is no consensus about whether anything should be done to stem this trend. This class will focus on three domains of inequality in the United States: social class, gender, and racial inequality. The assigned reading and discussions will examine theories and research about the origins of social inequality; how inequality and poverty is reproduced over time; the consequences of inequality and poverty; and what might be done to reduce inequality and poverty in American society. Students will be expected to help lead and participate in class discussions, and to complete a weekly assignment based on the readings. nnIn addition to the in-class instruction, students will have an opportunity to engage in public service activities directly related to poverty and inequality. Students will work with the Director of Community Engaged Learning (DCEL) from the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity who will assist with their participation in activities connected with social service agencies in the area, including agencies that deal with homelessness, food insecurity, and other needs.

The ecologically and geologically diverse Rocky Mountain area is being strongly impacted by changing land use patterns, global and regional environmental change, and societal demands for energy and natural resources. This field program emphasizes coupled environmental and geological problems in the Rocky Mountains, covering a broad range of topics including the geologic origin of the American West from three billion years ago to the present; paleoclimatology and the glacial history of this mountainous region; the long- and short-term carbon cycle and global climate change; and environmental issues in the American West related to changing land-use patterns and increased demand for its abundant natural resources. In addition to the science aspects of this course we will also investigate the unique western culture of the area particularly in regards to modern ranching and outfitting in the American West. These broad topics are integrated into a coherent field-study as we examine earth/ environmental science-related questions in three different settings: 1) the three-billion-year-old rocks and the modern glaciers of the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming; 2) the sediments in the adjacent Wind River basin that host abundant gas and oil reserves and also contain the long-term climate history of this region; and 3) the volcanic center of Yellowstone National Park and the mountainous region of Teton National Park. Students will complete six assignments based upon field exercises, working in small groups to analyze data and prepare reports and maps. Lectures will be held in the field prior to and after fieldwork. The students will read two required books prior to this course that will be discussed on the trip.nnNote: This course involves one week of backpacking in the Wind Rivers and hiking while staying in cabins near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Students must arrive in Salt Lake City on Monday, September 4. (Hotel lodging will be provided for the night of September 4, and thereafter students will travel as a Sophomore College group.) We will return to campus on Friday, September 22.

This seminar will explore the nature of and coupling between water and energy resources in the Pacific Northwest, using the Columbia River as our case study. We will explore the hydrologic, meteorologic, and geologic basis of water and energy resources, and the practical, social, environmental, economic, and political issues surrounding their development in the West. The Columbia River and its watershed provide a revealing prototype for examining these issues. A transnational, multi-state river with the largest residual populations of anadromous salmonids in the continental US, it provides a substantial fraction of the electrical energy produced in the Northwest (the Grand Coulee dam powerhouse on the Columbia is the largest-capacity hydropower facility in the US), it is a major bulk commodity transportation link to the interior West via its barge navigation system, it provides the water diversions supporting a large area of irrigated agriculture in Washington and Idaho, and its watershed is home to significant sources of solar and wind energy. We will use the Columbia to study water and energy resources, and especially their coupling, in the context of rapid climate change, ecosystem impacts, economics, and public policy. We will begin with a week of classroom study and discussion on campus, preparing for the field portion of the seminar. We will then travel to the Columbia basin, spending approximately 10 days visiting a number of water and energy facilities across the watershed, e.g., solar, wind, and natural gas power plants; dams and reservoirs with their powerhouses, fish passage facilities, navigation locks, and flood-mitigation systems; an irrigation project; operation centers; and offices of regulatory agencies. We will meet with relevant policy experts and public officials, along with some of the stakeholders in the basin. Over the summer students will be responsible for assigned readings from several sources, including monographs, online materials, and recent news articles. During the trip, students will work in small groups to analyze and assess one aspect of the coupling between water and energy resources in the Northwest. The seminar will culminate in presentations on these analyses. Travel expenses during the seminar will be provided (except incidentals) by the Bill Lane Center for the American West and Sophomore College.

This seminar will explore the nature of and coupling between water and energy resources in the Pacific Northwest, using the Columbia River as our case study. We will explore the hydrologic, meteorologic, and geologic basis of water and energy resources, and the practical, social, environmental, economic, and political issues surrounding their development in the West. The Columbia River and its watershed provide a revealing prototype for examining these issues. A transnational, multi-state river with the largest residual populations of anadromous salmonids in the continental US, it provides a substantial fraction of the electrical energy produced in the Northwest (the Grand Coulee dam powerhouse on the Columbia is the largest-capacity hydropower facility in the US), it is a major bulk commodity transportation link to the interior West via its barge navigation system, it provides the water diversions supporting a large area of irrigated agriculture in Washington and Idaho, and its watershed is home to significant sources of solar and wind energy. We will use the Columbia to study water and energy resources, and especially their coupling, in the context of rapid climate change, ecosystem impacts, economics, and public policy. We will begin with a week of classroom study and discussion on campus, preparing for the field portion of the seminar. We will then travel to the Columbia basin, spending approximately 10 days visiting a number of water and energy facilities across the watershed, e.g., solar, wind, and natural gas power plants; dams and reservoirs with their powerhouses, fish passage facilities, navigation locks, and flood-mitigation systems; an irrigation project; operation centers; and offices of regulatory agencies. We will meet with relevant policy experts and public officials, along with some of the stakeholders in the basin. Over the summer students will be responsible for assigned readings from several sources, including monographs, online materials, and recent news articles. During the trip, students will work in small groups to analyze and assess one aspect of the coupling between water and energy resources in the Northwest. The seminar will culminate in presentations on these analyses. Travel expenses during the seminar will be provided (except incidentals) by the Bill Lane Center for the American West and Sophomore College.

Shakespeare's Hamlet exists in three early editions published in 1603, 1604-05, and 1623. Nearly all modern editions conflate the three into a single text that includes famous or important speeches into a fourth version that would have been unrecognizable to Shakespeare's audience. For instance, the to be or not to be speech is utterly different across the three versions. This course asks what we learn about Shakespeare's play and the culture in which it was written and performed by treating the three versions as distinct texts with their own histories, purposes, and perhaps even world-views. The procedure of the course will be to read the three versions closely and, more often as we move through them, to note their variants and speculate about how these differences might inform a wide-ranging interpretation of Shakespeare's world. A few ancillary readings in textual studies, theater history, and Renaissance culture will cast light on the central questions.

Recently, The New York Times and the National Geographic have hailed the "new face of America" as young, global, and hybrid. The NY Times gave this demographic a name: Generation E.A. (Ethnically Ambiguous). Our course examines the political and aesthetic implications of Generation E.A., and the hot new vogue for all things mixed. Galvanized by the 2000 census with its "mark one or more" (MOOM) racial option, dozens of organizations, websites, affinity and advocacy groups, modeling and casting agencies, television pilots, magazines, and journals--all focused on multi-racial/multi-cultural experiences--have emerged in the last few years. We will analyze representations of mixed race and multiculturalism in law, literature, history, art, performance, film, comedy, and popular culture. These cultural and legal events are changing the way we talk and think about race. Importantly, our seminar also broadens this discussion beyond race, exploring how crossings of the color-line so often intersect with other aspects of experience related to gender, religion, culture, or class. Field trips, films, communal lunches, and interactive assignments help us explore the current controversies over mixed-race identification and, more generally, the expressive and political possibilities for representing complex identities. Requirements include three two- to three-page analytical writing assignments, a presentation that can include an optional artistic or media component, and a final group-designed project. If you are a citizen of the 21st century, this class is for and about you.

Who doesn't love going to a play: sitting in the darkened theater, an anonymous member of the audience waiting to be entertained, charmed, and challenged? But how many of us know enough about the details of the plays, their interpretation, their production, and acting itself, to allow us to appreciate fully the theatrical experience? In this seminar, we will spend 13 days in Ashland, Oregon, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), where we will attend these plays: Shakespeare's Henry IV1, Henry IV2, Julius Caesar, and The Merry Wives of Windsor; the world premiere of Jiehae Park's Hannah and the Dread Gazebo; Universes' August Wilson's Poetry in UniSon; Mary Zimmerman's adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey; the world premiere of Randy Reinholz's Off the Rails; Disney's Beauty and the Beast, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice; and Shakespeare in Love, based on the screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard. (To read more about these productions, go to www.osfashland.org). We will also spend time backstage, meeting with actors, designers, and artistic and administrative directors of OSF. Students will read the plays before the seminar begins. In Ashland, they will produce staged readings and design a final paper based on one of the productions. These reviews will be delivered to the group and turned in on Thursday, September 21.nnNote: This seminar will convene in Ashland on Monday, September 4, and will adjourn to Stanford on Sunday, September 17. Students must arrive in Ashland by 4:00 p.m. on September 4. Room and board in Ashland and transportation to Stanford will be provided and paid for by the program.

Southeast Alaska is often described as America's "last frontier," embodying a physical reality of the "pristine" that was once revered by the early romantics and founders of the modern conservation movement throughout Western North America. Although endowed with more designated Wilderness land than any other state, Alaska remains a working landscape: a mixed cash-subsistence economy where communities rely upon the harvest and export of natural resources. Here, ecosystem services remain tangible, and people living in communities that are unconnected by roads confront questions of sustainability on a daily basis. This field-based course introduces students to the global questions of land use change and sustainable resource management in the American West through the place-based exploration of Southeast Alaska. Focused on four key social-ecological challenges -- fisheries, forestry, tourism, and energy -- the coupled human-natural systems of Southeast Alaska provide a unique lens for students to interpret broader resource management and conservation issues. The curriculum balances field explorations and classroom lectures with community exploration in which students will engage with fishermen, hatchery workers, forest managers, loggers, mill owners, tour operators, tourists, city officials, citizens, and Native residents. Students will catch their own salmon, walk through old-growth and logged forests, kayak next to glacial moraines, and witness the impacts of human activities, both local and global, on the social-ecological systems around them. In the context of rapidly changing ecosystems, students will confront the historical, ecological, and economic complexities of environmental stewardship in this region. By embedding their experiences within frameworks of land change science, land-ocean interactions, ecosystem ecology, and natural resource management and economics, students will leave this course ready to apply what they have learned to the global challenges of sustainability and conservation that pervade systems far beyond Alaska. This course is co-sponsored by the School of Earth Sciences and takes place in Sitka, Alaska. Students arrange for their arrival at the seminar's point of origin; all subsequent travel is made possible by Sophomore College and the School of Earth Sciences.

The ecologically and geologically diverse Rocky Mountain area is being strongly impacted by changing land use patterns, global and regional environmental change, and societal demands for energy and natural resources. This field program emphasizes coupled environmental and geological problems in the Rocky Mountains, covering a broad range of topics including the geologic origin of the American West from three billion years ago to the present; paleoclimatology and the glacial history of this mountainous region; the long- and short-term carbon cycle and global climate change; and environmental issues in the American West related to changing land-use patterns and increased demand for its abundant natural resources. In addition to the science aspects of this course we will also investigate the unique western culture of the area particularly in regards to modern ranching and outfitting in the American West. These broad topics are integrated into a coherent field-study as we examine earth/ environmental science-related questions in three different settings: 1) the three-billion-year-old rocks and the modern glaciers of the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming; 2) the sediments in the adjacent Wind River basin that host abundant gas and oil reserves and also contain the long-term climate history of this region; and 3) the volcanic center of Yellowstone National Park and the mountainous region of Teton National Park. Students will complete six assignments based upon field exercises, working in small groups to analyze data and prepare reports and maps. Lectures will be held in the field prior to and after fieldwork. The students will read two required books prior to this course that will be discussed on the trip.nnNote: This course involves one week of backpacking in the Wind Rivers and hiking while staying in cabins near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Students must arrive in Salt Lake City on Monday, September 4. (Hotel lodging will be provided for the night of September 4, and thereafter students will travel as a Sophomore College group.) We will return to campus on Friday, September 22.

Are you interested in all things French? Do you want to learn about the issues that the Francophone world is facing today? Then the course French Immersion: Contemporary Issues in the French-speaking world offered next September is perfect for you! Immerse yourself in the French language and culture through an intense but rewarding program. You will read contemporary authors, work with films, news videos and songs, and learn about French and Francophone societies while improving your linguistic proficiency. The course will examine social and political topics such as national identity, immigration and post-colonial literatures. It will also include several organized student outings, an on-campus crêpe night, and many other French themed activities outside of the classroom.

We designed this course for students who have some German, but who want to jumpstart their language acquisition through an intense and immersive experience. If you have taken two or three quarters of German, or if you took German in high school, this course will allow you to dramatically improve your proficiency, all while you and classmates immerse yourselves in German-speaking cultures from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and beyond. We will actively engage our German through exploration of contemporary, socio-political issues in the German-speaking world, including, but not limited to, the current refugee crisis, issues of identity and language, the environment, pop cultural trends and more. Working with various forms of media (film, music, texts), guest lectures, as well as class excursions to a local German immersion school, the Goethe Institute San Francisco, and other local cultural events, you will progress more quickly towards gaining Advanced proficiency in German. Students will develop their ability to more actively start and participate in culturally nuanced discussions and gain greater confidence and linguistic and cultural dexterity in giving presentations. Students from all disciplines with interest in this type of linguistic immersion and intellectual engagement are encouraged to apply!

The ecologically and geologically diverse Rocky Mountain area is being strongly impacted by changing land use patterns, global and regional environmental change, and societal demands for energy and natural resources. This field program emphasizes coupled environmental and geological problems in the Rocky Mountains, covering a broad range of topics including the geologic origin of the American West from three billion years ago to the present; paleoclimatology and the glacial history of this mountainous region; the long- and short-term carbon cycle and global climate change; and environmental issues in the American West related to changing land-use patterns and increased demand for its abundant natural resources. In addition to the science aspects of this course we will also investigate the unique western culture of the area particularly in regards to modern ranching and outfitting in the American West. These broad topics are integrated into a coherent field-study as we examine earth/ environmental science-related questions in three different settings: 1) the three-billion-year-old rocks and the modern glaciers of the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming; 2) the sediments in the adjacent Wind River basin that host abundant gas and oil reserves and also contain the long-term climate history of this region; and 3) the volcanic center of Yellowstone National Park and the mountainous region of Teton National Park. Students will complete six assignments based upon field exercises, working in small groups to analyze data and prepare reports and maps. Lectures will be held in the field prior to and after fieldwork. The students will read two required books prior to this course that will be discussed on the trip.nnNote: This course involves one week of backpacking in the Wind Rivers and hiking while staying in cabins near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Students must arrive in Salt Lake City on Monday, September 4. (Hotel lodging will be provided for the night of September 4, and thereafter students will travel as a Sophomore College group.) We will return to campus on Friday, September 22.

The course explores the most important trends in Russian creative arts from the early period through the nineteenth century, exploring the ideas that were behind the production and reception of various types of Russian art. It tracks the major cultural changes in Russian history, primarily the transformation from a world shaped by Orthodox religious art (icons, frescos) to a world shaped by West European canons. Peter I (ruled 1682-1725) forcibly imposed cultural Westernization on his elites (not the peasant or merchant classes). Noblemen were forced to dress in European clothes, adopt European etiquette and pastimes (dancing), design their homes in European architectural styles and fill them with art painted (by Europeans and Russians) to European tastes, including portraits. By the nineteenth century, artists were using art as a political statement, allegorically criticizing autocratic reality in their choice of topics, particularly historical paintings. Throughout we explore art in the context of ideas -- why were various kinds of art produced? what were their intended purposes? who were their intended audiences? How can we appreciate creative works as art when they weren't intended to be art, such as icons? They were considered holy objects, actors in liturgical worship. Similarly, realist paintings of the nineteenth century were intended as critique more than art, as were penny broadsheets that circulated. Other works, such as portraits of noblemen and decorative elements on maps, were intended to assert social status or political authority. So the course is an opportunity to join appreciation of creative works with a more historical and cultural assessment of their production and reception. Students will be asked to write a paper on one particular work of art an icon, a portrait, an oil painting. This course should be interesting to students interested in the broad sweep of Russian history as well as in medieval religious art (especially Orthodox) and modern European art. Class sessions will discuss assigned readings and images posted to class art gallery from Professor Kollmann's extensive collection of images of Russian icons and art. Students will report on their research paper along the way, culminating in formal presentations. Field trips and events are planned to various works of Russian art in the area, including: Cantor Art Museum (small collection of icons, including a 17th c icon; De Basily Room, Hoover Institution (18th-c Russian portraits; Art Collection, Hoover Institution Library (rare editions of Russian art publications, late 19th c.); Green Library Special Collections (facsimile edition of 16th-c illustrated historical chronicle); Rumsey Map Center, Green Library (18th-c Russian maps and their decorative cartouches); Legion of Honor, San Francisco (Makovskii's great canvas in his Boyar's Wedding series); Christ the Savior Church (Orthodox Church of America), 12th and Anza, San Francisco. Discussion with parish priest Rev. Philip Halliwell. To see icons in situ in small neighborhood parish and discuss the role and theory of icons in Orthodox liturgy with Fr Halliwell; The Joy of All who Sorrow Cathedral, Geary St., San Francisco (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia). To see icons in situ in large, imposing cathedral; Katia's Restaurant, San Francisco (authentic Russian cuisine); Fort Ross, northern California (restored Russian fortress and chapel; art in situ;Viewing of movie Andrei Rublev, about an icon painter in 15th-c Russia.

"Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road." --Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957. From Jack Kerouac's On the Road to Cheryl Strayed's Wild, this Sophomore College explores epic road trips of the twentieth century. Travel is a fundamental social and cultural practice through which Americans have constructed ideas about the self, society, the nation, the past, and the future. The open road, as it is often called, offered excitement, great adventure, and the space for family bonding and memory making. But the footloose and fancy-free nature of travel that the Beat Generation novelist Jack Kerouac waxed lyrical about in the 1957 classic On the Road were available to some travelers but not to others. Engaging historical and literary texts, as well as imaginative modes including film, autobiography, memoir, photography, and music, we will consider the ways that travel and road trips have been represented in American society. This course explores the following questions: How did men and women experience travel differently? How did the motivations for travel change over time? What role did race, ethnicity, class, relationships, and sexuality play in these trips? This Sophomore College examines how writers have explored the theme of travel, American writing, American history and culture, and American life. Students will work together to plan a road trip of their own which the class will take during the period of the Sophomore College.

The world-famous landscapes of East Africa, including Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and the Rift Valley lakes of Tanzania form the backdrop for this special course on protected area conservation and its impacts on local people. The course is designed to explore the pros and cons of parks and protected areas as they affect flora, fauna, and human inhabitants, and to address the dilemma of how to achieve conservation in a manner that creates local community benefits and promotes social justice. We will use a case study approach to ask: (1) What approach to protected area (PA) conservation has been taken in each case? Who are the key proponents and what are their main social and ecological objectives? (2) How successful has the protected area been at achieving its conservation goals? (3) What are the benefits of the PA to people and who receives them? (4) What are the costs of the PA to people and who pays them? (5) Where benefits are not commensurate to costs, what, if anything, is being done to address the imbalance? How well is it working? (6) Are there alternative conservation models that would make the interests of parks and people more compatible, and reduce the tradeoffs between them? What is needed to operationalize these alternative models, and how do they incentivize conservation behavior among local residents?nThis course includes an intensive 12-day expedition to Tanzania to observe firsthand the dilemmas of parks and peoples we have discussed in class. We are scheduled to visit Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Mt. Meru, and Serengeti National Parks, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and nearby Maasai villages. Both on campus and in Tanzania, the course emphasizes student contributions and presentations. Students are required to read one or two books a month over the summer, and to come to campus in the fall well-prepared to discuss each one, including co-leading the discussion of one of the readings. Students are also expected to carry out literature research on a particular conservation dilemma in East Africa that is of interest to them for the final assignment of the seminar, a 6- to 8-page paper, and to present the main findings of that paper during evening seminars as we travel in East AfricanNote: Students will arrive on campus and will be housed at Stanford until we leave for the travel portion of the course. A group of 20-some Stanford alumni will join us for the last 2 days on campus and for the travel portion of the course.

This seminar will explore the nature of and coupling between water and energy resources in the Pacific Northwest, using the Columbia River as our case study. We will explore the hydrologic, meteorologic, and geologic basis of water and energy resources, and the practical, social, environmental, economic, and political issues surrounding their development in the West. The Columbia River and its watershed provide a revealing prototype for examining these issues. A transnational, multi-state river with the largest residual populations of anadromous salmonids in the continental US, it provides a substantial fraction of the electrical energy produced in the Northwest (the Grand Coulee dam powerhouse on the Columbia is the largest-capacity hydropower facility in the US), it is a major bulk commodity transportation link to the interior West via its barge navigation system, it provides the water diversions supporting a large area of irrigated agriculture in Washington and Idaho, and its watershed is home to significant sources of solar and wind energy. We will use the Columbia to study water and energy resources, and especially their coupling, in the context of rapid climate change, ecosystem impacts, economics, and public policy. We will begin with a week of classroom study and discussion on campus, preparing for the field portion of the seminar. We will then travel to the Columbia basin, spending approximately 10 days visiting a number of water and energy facilities across the watershed, e.g., solar, wind, and natural gas power plants; dams and reservoirs with their powerhouses, fish passage facilities, navigation locks, and flood-mitigation systems; an irrigation project; operation centers; and offices of regulatory agencies. We will meet with relevant policy experts and public officials, along with some of the stakeholders in the basin. Over the summer students will be responsible for assigned readings from several sources, including monographs, online materials, and recent news articles. During the trip, students will work in small groups to analyze and assess one aspect of the coupling between water and energy resources in the Northwest. The seminar will culminate in presentations on these analyses. Travel expenses during the seminar will be provided (except incidentals) by the Bill Lane Center for the American West and Sophomore College.

Our understanding of warfare often derives from the lofty perspective of political leaders and generals: what were their objectives and what strategies were developed to meet them? This top-down perspective slights the experience of the actual combatants and non-combatants caught in the crossfire. This course focuses on the complexity of the process by which strategy is translated into tactical decisions by the officers and foot soldiers and on what actually occurs on the field of battle. We will visit Washington, DC, and meet with national security officials and members of non-government organizations there. In addition, we will spend a day visiting the battlefields of Gettysburg (July 1863) in Pennsylvania, and the Little Bighorn (June 1876) in Montana. The course's battlefield tours are based on the "staff rides" developed by the Prussian Army in the mid-1800s and employed by the U.S. Army since the early 1900s. While at Stanford, students will conduct extensive research on individual participants at Gettysburg and Little Bighorn. Then, as we walk through the battlefield sites, students will brief the group on their subjects' experience of battle and on why they made the decisions they did. Why did Lt. General Longstreet oppose the Confederate attack on the Union Army at Gettysburg? What was the experience of a military surgeon on a Civil War battlefield? What role did just war principles or law play in the treatment of enemy fighters and civilians? Why did Custer divide his 7th Cavalry troops as they approached the Little Bighorn River? What was the role of Lakota Sioux women after a battle? The final part of the class covers contemporary military conflicts discussing what the US public, political leaders, and military commanders have learned (and not learned) from the past. The course is open to students from a range of disciplines; an interest in the topic is the only prerequisite.

Social inequality is a feature of all advanced industrial societies. However, some societies have more inequality than others, and some types of inequality are more prominent in some societies than in others. Inequality in the United States is greater than in many other industrialized nations and has increased dramatically in the past forty years. Economic inequality, for example, is greater today than any time since the 1920s. Growing public awareness of this inequality has sparked a vigorous debate among politicians and public protests in city streets; some that have turned violent. The Occupy Movement was driven largely by resentment against the growing concentration of economic privilege within a small segment of society. Inequality was a prominent theme in the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. Despite these debates and protests, there is no consensus about whether anything should be done to stem this trend. This class will focus on three domains of inequality in the United States: social class, gender, and racial inequality. The assigned reading and discussions will examine theories and research about the origins of social inequality; how inequality and poverty is reproduced over time; the consequences of inequality and poverty; and what might be done to reduce inequality and poverty in American society. Students will be expected to help lead and participate in class discussions, and to complete a weekly assignment based on the readings. nnIn addition to the in-class instruction, students will have an opportunity to engage in public service activities directly related to poverty and inequality. Students will work with the Director of Community Engaged Learning (DCEL) from the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity who will assist with their participation in activities connected with social service agencies in the area, including agencies that deal with homelessness, food insecurity, and other needs.

Wouldn't it be great if you could quickly increase your Spanish proficiency through an intensive immersion experience right here at Stanford? Wouldn't you love to gain the cultural and historical knowledge necessary to begin taking film, literature, and culture courses generally reserved for advanced students? This intensive Spanish immersion course is designed to help students who have completed a year of Spanish to move forward quickly toward greater linguistic and cultural competence. After a year of Spanish, students tend to be able to handle straightforward interactions related to basic needs and personal information, but they generally lack the ability to handle more abstract discussions or to combine short utterances into longer presentations of their ideas. Most students likewise have little knowledge of the rich and complex history that surrounds the Spanish language or the central role that Spanish has played in the cultural, artistic, and political life of California. In this course, a team of experienced instructors will help students improve their Spanish through intensive lessons that incorporate film, literature, and social issues. Through a focused discussion of the themes of immigration and democracy in Spain, Latin America, and the United States, as well as excursions and guest lectures by Stanford faculty and community leaders, this course will immerse students in Spanish and help them to gain advanced proficiency much more quickly.