Results for THINK

How do scientists actually go about answering practical questions? How does science function as a way of understanding our world, and importantly how does it differ from other approaches? As its point of departure, this course will examine and critique selected episodes of the television series, MythBusters (Discovery Channel), which tests the validity of many popular beliefs in a variety of imaginative ways, including myths, rumors, traditions, and stories. We will take the opportunity to delve more deeply into the applicability of the scientific method in understanding a vast range of real-world problems, and into the practical acquisition of fact-based knowledge, which together form the cornerstone of all science. The intellectual framework of this course will be based, first and foremost, on skeptical inquiry, combined with the other key ingredients of good science, which include: framing the question well, careful experimental design, meticulous observation and measurement, quantitative analysis and modeling, the evaluation of statistical significance, recovery from failure, disseminating findings, and the continuous cycle of hypothesis and testing. Note: This course is taught at an introductory level, but it pays serious attention to the quantitative treatment of experimental data and associated tests of statistical significance. All students taking the course will be expected to learn, and to work a series of problems in, basic probability and statistics. There is also a hands-on, "dorm lab" component that involves some fabrication and a significant amount of individual testing and measurement. The final course project will involve developing and writing a scientific grant proposal to test a myth. We hope to inculcate in our students "a taste for questioning, a sense of observation, intellectual rigor, practice with reasoning, modesty in the face of facts, the ability to distinguish between true and false, and an attachment to logical and precise language. " (Yves Quéré, 2010 Science 330:605).

Where do our ideals for living come from, and how should they be structured? How do we justify them in the face of criticism? What role do great works of art play in this creative process?nnnOur lives are not simply given to us, but also something we make: as we examine the circumstances of our existence, recognizing certain facts as immutable and others as subject to our control, each of us faces the challenge of fashioning out of them a way of living that is both meaningful and justifiable. The Art of Living will explore different ways to think about the nature of that challenge ¿ how to accommodate conflicting demands and values, how to make our choices ¿artfully,¿ how we might use works of imaginative literature to inspire us. We will read important works of literature and philosophy, each of which implies a different value by which to live, whether reason, authenticity, community, art, or faith. In each case, you will be presented with different perspectives and asked to work out for yourself what you find most persuasive, thereby fine-tuning skills essential to your own lifelong project of self-construction.

Why are humans drawn to making and breaking codes? To what extent is finding patterns both an art and a science? Cryptography has been used for millennia for secure communications, and its counterpart, cryptanalysis, or code breaking, has been around for just slightly less time. In this course we will explore the history of cryptography and cryptanalysis including the Enigma code, Navajo windtalkers, early computer science and the invention of modern Bayesian inference. We will try our own hand at breaking codes using some basic statistical tools for which no prior experience is necessary. Finally, we will consider the topic of patterns more generally, raising such questions as why we impute meaning to patterns, such as Biblical codes, and why we assume a complexity within a pattern when it's not there, such as the coincidence of birthdays in a group.

How does justice incorporate the ideals of liberty, equality, and security? How are these ideals balanced against each other? How are they made concrete in the US Constitution and law? What is the relationship between justice and the law? In this course we consider three core ideals that animate the idea of liberty: freedom, equality and security. We explore the relationship between these different ideals through an interdisciplinary inquiry that includes political philosophy, history and law. In your reading, writing and thinking, you will move between the realm of abstract ideas and actual legal cases. We begin with the philosophical roots of the ideals of liberty, equality and security and then focus on their articulation in the US Constitution and the overarching US legal framework and public policy. Students will learn to analyze the distinctive challenges posed to the ideals of liberty, equality and security by twenty-first century developments such as the emergence of the internet and the rise of non-state warfare.

To what extent can individuals¿ daily actions influence world events, and to what extent are individuals influenced by world events? nnnThis course investigates the relationship between private lives and public affairs. We will trace how small acts contribute to global change and, in turn, how global change can shape one¿s sense of self. We will explore the shifting mentalities of individuals during the most dramatic transformations in 20th century Europe ¿ World War I, communist revolution, the rise of Nazism, World War II, the Holocaust, and the Cold War. Through analysis of memoirs, diaries, essays, novels, and state documents, you will examine how social and political developments can reveal the very boundaries between self and society. To make this exploration more personal, you will develop a fictional persona that you will keep throughout the quarter through which you explore the everyday workings behind momentous change.

Is death final or only the beginning of another journey? How do the mysteries of destination give rise to our most basic questions of purpose, meaning, and faith, and challenge us to consider our proper relation to others? Journeys will examine works written across a span of some 2,300 years, from Chinese philosophy to American short stories. Each of these forms and genres presents some essential aspect of the journey we all share, and of the various passages we make within that one great journey that relentlessly challenge and transform us even as we advance toward what the poet Thomas Gray called our "inevitable hour." By reading, discussing, and interpreting these works, we will ask you to consider how each text compels us, by the penetration of its vision and the power of its art, to make part of our own journey in its company.

What does it mean to live sustainably? How do our different definitions of nature ¿ scientific, literary, cultural, and historical ¿ shape the way we answer that question? nnSustainability and Collapse will explore what people in different places and periods of time have envisioned as successful ways of living with nature and how such ways of life have come under pressure. We will focus particularly on the interface between scientific and humanistic approaches to questions of environmental sustainability through a study of novels, historical texts, and works of biogeography. You will learn to ask how textual and visual images inform our ideas about what it means to live sustainably. We will then consider whether those ideas are in accordance with or in conflict with scientific understandings of human uses of nature. This course takes on some of the fundamental problems that presently confront our global community.

How do science and technology shape the frameworks for imagining utopian or dystopian societies? Sir Thomas More gave a name to the philosophical ideal of a good society - a word that is now a part of common language: utopia. In the almost 500 years since More's Utopia appeared, changes in society - including enormous advances in science and technology - have opened up new possibilities for the utopian society that More and his predecessors could not have envisioned. At the same time science and technology also entail risks that suggest more dystopian scenarios - in their most extreme form, threats to humanity's very survival. We will look at several works that consider how literary visions of society have evolved with the progress of science and technology. The readings begin with More and include examples of more technologically determined visions of the late 20th century, as imagined in works of fiction.

How did cross-cultural contact between Europe and Asia in the pre-modern era produce our modern concept of civilization? nnIn this course we examine five moments of intellectual encounter in the pre-modern era among civilizations of the eastern hemisphere, including India and China and what we now call the Middle East. Through the eyes of scholars, pilgrims, and missionaries, you will learn to map the itineraries of early travelers and to analyze their experiences from a comparative perspective. We will focus on reconstructing the worldviews and geographical imaginations that inform each text with reference to historical maps and images.

How might we apply ideas from ethical theory to contemporary issues and debates in biotechnology? This course will provide critical encounters with some of the central topics in the field of bioethics, with an emphasis on new technologies. Controversies over genetic engineering, stem cell research, reproductive technologies, and genetic testing will provide an opportunity for you to critically assess arguments and evidence. We will begin with an overview of the field and the theoretical approaches to bioethics that have been derived from philosophy. You will then have the opportunity to engage in debate and learn how to identify underlying values and how to apply ideas from ethical theory to contemporary problems.

What is modern about modern mass violence? This course explores the evolution, varieties, and logic of mass violence from the early 20th century to the present day. You will engage with and analyze primary accounts of such violence by victims, observers, perpetrators, and courts. We will then consider the effectiveness of various efforts to confront genocides and crimes against humanity in international courts and institutions, past and present. We start with the emergence of genocide as a modern, international issue; proceed with colonial massacres in early 20th century Africa; move to the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire and WWI; Nazi and Nazi-inspired racial murder; communist-induced mass violence in the Soviet Union and Asia; ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia; and end with an examination of the recent genocides in Rwanda, Sudan, and the Middle East.

What makes an epic hero? How does the epic poem externalize our quest for identity and self-definition?nnnnThe human quest for identity and self-knowledge is the oldest story of human culture. It almost always involves a confrontation with death. As the epic hero journeys across the physical world and descends into the underworld to visit the dead and seek counsel from them, he gradually comes to understand himself in a deeper, more meaningful way than before he set out on his journey. In this course, you will learn to engage in depth with some of the great epics of the Western tradition, beginning with The Epic of Gilgamesh and ending with Dante's masterpiece, The Divine Comedy. In each case, we will consider the unique goals of each hero's journey and the obstacles he must confront in order to reach his destination, with particular attention to the themes of violence in self and society, exile and alienation, the encounter with ancestors, the female voice, and divine guidance. We will focus on how the hero's search for a moral identity in relation to his community connects to current definitions of the ethical life in relation to political violence, war, honoring the dead, and confronting our mortality.

How do the biology and chemistry of the brain create the mind that lets us talk, walk, laugh, love, learn, remember, and forget? What can neuroscience say about what makes us human? How can we ask questions about the brain that are observable, testable, and answerable? The human brain is the most complex organ we know. To understand the biology of brain function, this course will use highly interactive lectures and discussions to examine the validity of common beliefs about the brain, discuss how the brain and the nervous system are organized, how individual elements of the brain function, and how together these units produce action. The brain, like all other biological structures, has evolved over time in response to natural selection by adapting to diverse behavioral and environmental constraints. We use evolutionary comparisons to illuminate important questions about brain function, including what the origins and consequences of brain damage are, how and where drugs act, and how you collect, interpret, and understand information about the world. You will learn both how the science of the brain has emerged through understanding important experiments and observations and how you can formulate and test your own experimental questions about the brain.

What can the Classics teach us about understanding justice and injustice? nnnDo you ask yourself whether your life is controlled more by your own free choices or by your genetic code? Do you worry whether a superpower can function without hubristic arrogance? Do you ponder what constitutes the Good Life? If these sorts of issues are central to your intellectual and personal growth, this course will demonstrate to you that the ancient Mediterranean world was equally consumed with questions about the nature of human society and human existence. We will explore certain recurring themes within classical text such as the relationship between power and gender; gods and humans; innocence and evil. We will read a wide and deep selection of important and influential literary texts from the Near East, Greece, and Rome, spanning from c.2000 BCE to the first century BCE. The readings will include creation texts, epic, lyric, tragedy, and philosophy.

Can poetry change the world?nnnPoets use form and language to hold up a mirror to the events that change the world and the making of a poem can also be the re-making of a world. We will read and study poetry from different historical, cultural, and poetic traditions, and explore whether something as individual as artistic expression can help us cope with the social and political events that bring suffering and destruction. The course follows the adventures of the individual poet: from a young man caught in the trenches of the First World War, to a Japanese haiku master of the 17th century, to an American Beat, to an English woman trapped in the conventions of her time, to a contemporary U.S. soldier in Iraq. Poets show us the many similarities, as well as rich cultural differences, between us all.

How has the family been broken, preserved, and reinvented in the fast-changing world of revolution and modernization?nnnnRebellious Daughters and Filial Sons of the Chinese Family follows the theme of the Chinese family in fiction and film to investigate the core values that hold it together in the midst of great historical change. You will learn to interpret both fiction and film as visual and textual narratives that illuminate the multiple aspects of family and community. We will explore how modernization, colonialism, revolution, war, and immigration disrupt traditional home and family. Through film and text, we will discover the various poignant attempts to rebuild family relations in the midst of such dislocation. As you embark on your college education and take leave of your own families, you might start to consider how your familial ties shape your concept of self, your emotional attachment to community, social relationships with society, and political consciousness.

When, if ever, is war justified? How are ethical norms translated into rules that govern armed conflict? Are these rules still relevant in light of the changing nature of warfare? We will examine seminal readings on just war theory, investigate the legal rules that govern the resort to and conduct of war, and study whether these rules affect the conduct of states and individuals. We will examine alternative ethical frameworks, competing disciplinary approaches to war, and tensions between the outcomes suggested by ethical norms, on the one hand, and legal rules, on the other. Students will engage actively with these questions by participating in an interactive role-playing simulation, in which they will be assigned roles as government officials, advisors, or other actors. The class will confront various ethical, legal, and strategic problems as they make decisions about military intervention and policies regarding the threat and use of force in an international crisis.

What is 'folklore' and what is its purpose? How do we decide if something is authentically 'folk' and does it matter? Why are Eastern Europe and Russia associated with the idea of folklore? For the past two centuries, writers, composers, and artists have found inspiration in folklore: the stories, songs, and beliefs of their grandparents, their servants (or their slaves), and their neighbors. This class asks what folklore means and what purposes - political and philosophical as well as artistic - it can serve. We begin with examples from around the world: the German Brothers Grimm as well as the Americans John and Alan Lomax. Then we turn to Eastern Europe and the role it has played in the Western European and American imagination as the home of the archaic and the authentic, from the vampires of Transylvania to the oral epics of the Bosnian Serbs to the nostalgic idea of the Jewish shtetl to the fantasy of Soviet communism as a survival of a pre-capitalist order. Students will analyze both folk and elite texts, and will experiment with gathering oral texts and transforming them just like the writers we studied.

Who owns the past? Is cultural heritage a universal right?nnThis course interrogates the relationship between the past and the present through archaeology. Increasingly, heritage sites are flash points in cultural, economic, and religious conflicts around the globe. Clearly history matters ¿ but how do certain histories come to matter in particular ways, and to whom? Through close study of important archaeological sites, you will learn to analyze landscapes, architecture, and objects, as well as reflect on the scholarly and public debates about history and heritage around the world. Far from being a neutral scholarly exercise, archaeology is embedded in the heated debates about heritage and present-day conflicts.

How has our approach to cancer been affected by clinical observations, scientific discoveries, social norms, politics, and economic interests? Approximately one in three Americans will develop invasive cancer during their lifetime; one in five Americans will die as a result of this disease. This course will expose you to multiple ways of approaching the cancer problem, including laboratory research, clinical trials, population studies, public health interventions, and health care economics. We will start with the 18th century discovery of the relationship between coal tar and cancer, and trace the role of scientific research in revealing the genetic basis of cancer. We will then discuss the development of new treatments for cancer as well as measures to screen for and prevent cancer, including the ongoing debate over tobacco control. Using cancer as a case study, you will learn important aspects of the scientific method including experimental design, data analysis, and the difference between correlation and causation. You will learn how science can be used and misused with regard to the public good. You will also learn about ways in which social, political, and economic forces shape our knowledge about and response to disease.

What is evil? Are we naturally good or evil? How should we respond to evil? There are many books and courses that focus on the good life or the virtues. Yet despite their obvious apparent presence in our life and world, evil and the vices are rarely taken as explicit topics. We will read philosophical and literary texts that deal with the question of evil at an abstract level and then use other readings that help us focus on more practical implications of the meaning and consequences of evil. By exploring the issue of evil, we will confront larger questions about the nature of humans, the responsibility to address evil as a society, and the moral and ethical ways we might begin to define what is evil.

Why were minority religious groups excluded from the majority's vision of a Shi'i Iranian nation? How and when were women included as citizens of a new Iran? nnIn this course, specific attention will be paid to key events of the 20th century that shaped modern Iran: the Constitutional Revolution (1905-11), the 1953 coup, the White Revolution (1963), the Islamic Revolution (1978-79), the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), and the post-revolutionary period in general. Through a close reading of key poems, short stories, and films created in this period, this course will identify major inclusionary and exclusionary forces in the process of nation-building in 20th-century Iran. Specific attention will be paid to issues of ethnicity, religion, and gender. In addition to reading texts (poetry and prose) and watching films, students will be called on to present critiques of these literary and cinematic products in the form of brief oral presentations and short writing assignments. The final project will involve interviewing Iranian expatriates on issues covered in the lectures. Students will work in small groups to produce short videos of these interpersonal encounters.

Why do certain governments and citizens feel obliged to ease the suffering of distant people in need? How did the humanitarian sensibilities and human rights discourses that now define global politics come into being?nnnnIn this course, you will consider how contemporary ethical motivations for human rights and humanitarianism have developed. We will investigate the emergence and transformation of these ideas through the study of key historical events in the modern world ¿ slavery and its abolition, colonialism, the World Wars, apartheid, decolonization, and the Cold War. We will then consider how this longer history has influenced the ways activists, NGOs, and governments today draw attention to global crises and abuses. Our ultimate objective is to gain an understanding of how the language and ideals of human rights and humanitarianism emerged from the context of liberalism, capitalism, and imperialism.

Why is the word network used to describe the behavior of computers, ants, and people? Do all these networks share certain properties? What might we learn by comparing them?nnWe like to think of social networks as a contemporary phenomenon. But before Facebook, individuals organized themselves in social networks; before Twitter, revolutionaries used media to communicate and coordinate their messages. In fact, even animal societies are networked. Through project-based exercises, you will learn to study, analyze, and write about networks from the perspectives of a biologist, a computer scientist, and a historian. We will retrace social networks in the 18th and 21st centuries, observe the organization of animal networks, and investigate the structure of online networks. Our goal is to use the concept of the network to deepen our understanding of the natural world, historical change, and our own social lives.

What are race and ethnicity? How do they shape society and individual experience? What role do they play in identity formation?nnnGoing to school and work, renting an apartment, going to the doctor, watching television, voting, reading books and newspaper, or attending religious services are all activities that are influenced ¿ consciously and unconsciously ¿ by race and ethnicity. In this course, we will draw on scholarship from psychology, genetics, history, and cultural studies to understand contemporary racial formations and cultural representations. We will look at how recent research on the human genome has reinvigorated biological conceptions of race and ethnicity, engage in activities that highlight the psychological consequences of race and ethnicity, and analyze selected race-relevant memes that appear in popular media.

How have Americans remembered the Civil War - what it meant, what it accomplished, and what it failed to accomplish? How did Americans reimagine the United States as a nation after the war? Who belonged in the national community and who would be excluded? In 1865, the peace treaty was signed at Appomattox and the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery, but the battle over memory and national identity had just begun. The questions that the Civil War addressed - and failed to address - continue to affect our lives today. We will focus on how Americans negotiated issues of cultural memory and national identity through a close analysis of historical texts, novels, poems, films, paintings, cartoons, photographs, and music. Our interpretations will foreground the particular themes of race and nationhood, freedom and citizenship, and changing notions of individual and collective identity. Our assumption in this course is that history is not available to us as a set of events - fixed, past, and unchanging. Rather, history is known through each generation's interpretations of those events, and these interpretations are shaped by each generation's lived experience. What stories get told? Whose stories? And in what ways? The stories we choose to tell about the past can shape not only our understanding of the present, but also the kind of future we imagine and strive to realize.

Can art subvert social practice and politics? nnnIn this course, we will learn how to "read" art and analyze the ways aesthetic objects can raise larger conceptual questions about culture, society, and change. We will do this by investigating the broad range of artistic, social, and political meanings of the term "avant-garde" in the 20th century. The course looks at some of the key moments in avant-garde art in Europe, including Dadaism and Futurism, with a particular emphasis on Russia. Through an examination of various aesthetic case studies, we will be able to ask the larger question of whether art can actually challenge social conventions and established political ideologies.

How can we balance all the competing, and growing, demands for freshwater? When you turn on your tap, where does the water come from?nnnWater is essential for life. But, around the world, governments and citizens are challenged to balance the human demands on our freshwater resources, while protecting the integrity of natural ecosystems. At the core of the challenge is our limited understanding, in many parts of the world, of the watershed-scale hydrologic cycle ¿ the course that the water follows from rainfall, to river, to groundwater, to ocean, to atmosphere, and back again. The Water Course takes students along that course, exploring the role that natural systems and human systems play in impacting both the quantity and quality of our freshwater. We will consider questions surrounding decisions about water allocation, and discuss new scientific methods that provide support for science-based decision making in the management of freshwater resources. You will connect global-scale issues to your personal experiences with water through a quarter-long project investigating both water quantity and water quality for a city or watershed in the western U.S. You will produce a numerical model, and make approximations, to describe a complex natural system. Using online resources you will explore the pathway that water takes from rainfall to your tap.

How much energy do we need to run the world and what energy resources can we use? How do we convert those resources into energy services? What are the economic, environmental, and security costs of energy services? How will energy markets address the challenges of reducing greenhouse gas emission? Energy is the lifeblood of human societies. Energy use is intricately woven through the fabric of the productive (and comfortable) lives we live in the developed world. We use energy to move and sometimes make fresh water, grow food, transport it to markets, heat, cool, and light our dwellings and workplaces, communicate and compute, and travel the world. We worry about energy security and fret about the cost of gasoline. And as world population continues to grow and the developing world seeks to use energy for the services we enjoy, the challenge of supplying the energy the world needs will grow commensurately. Energy is also a primary way human activities interact with global air, water, and biological systems that provide essential services to us and the planet. Balancing our interactions with those systems will require dramatic changes to the world¿s energy systems in the decades to come. This course examines the energy challenges, opportunities, and choices that lie ahead.

What are the most critical sustainability challenges facing us in this century? How can natural and social sciences, humanities, and technology fields interact to contribute to their solution? How do we balance the needs and desires of current generations with the needs of future generations? The term sustainability seems to be everywhere. Businesses, cities, non-governmental organizations, individuals, and universities such as Stanford use the term to characterize decisions that make sense for the well-being of people as well as the environment. Beyond the popular use of the term is an emerging field of study that focuses on the goals of sustainable development - improving human well-being while preserving Earth's life support systems (air, water, climate, ecosystems) over the long run - and explores how science and technology can contribute to the solution of some of the most critical problems of the 21st Century. The goal of this course is to engage you in critical thinking and analysis about complex sustainability challenges and to encourage you to consider the need for integrative solutions that draw on different disciplines. We will examine some of the major problems of sustainable development (including issues related to food, water, and energy resources, climate change, and protection of ecosystem services), grapple with the complexities of problem solving in complex human-environment systems, and participate in the design of effective strategies and policies for meeting sustainability goals. You will learn to develop policy briefs addressing sustainability issues in the university, local communities, state and the nation as well as work on team projects with decision makers that address real-life challenges in your local area.

How do our common-sense conceptions of the mind and of ourselves hold up against the growing body of psychological and neurobiological knowledge of the brain? How is your mental life anchored to your physical self?nYou wake up from a dreamless sleep and suddenly everything's buzzing with color and sound. Somehow your brain sustains this rich landscape of experience, integrating it with a repertoire of memories to constitute yourself. This course probes the neurobiological bases of these familiar yet miraculous facets of the mind. You'll learn to analyze primary philosophical and scientific texts, using basic knowledge of the brain to assess and even innovate experiments that could shed light on the nature of consciousness and personal identity.

What is human well-being? How do we define it? How do we measure it? What do we mean when we talk about certain parts of the world as "developed" and others as "underdeveloped" or "developing"? How do improvements in human well-being come about? What happens when some people become much better off and others do not? In this course, we will use African experiences, past and present, to think critically and reflectively about concepts whose meaning we all too often take for granted: not only well-being and development, but also wealth and health, equality and inequality. Using the tools and techniques of four different disciplines -- history, anthropology, public health, and engineering -- we will tackle essential questions about the meaning of well-being and the indices by which we measure it, the role of politics in the development process, the importance of historical and cultural contexts, and the sometimes unanticipated challenges that individuals, institutions, and societies face when they seek to promote development and improve human well-being.

Is love a spiritual or a bodily phenomenon? Is the concept of love timeless or ever changing? How does thinking about love lead us to ask other important philosophical and social questions? In this course we will examine the classical roots, medieval developments, and contemporary permutations of Western ideas of romantic love. With an eye to thinking about representations of love in our own culture, we consider some of the foundational love books of the Western tradition. From Plato's Symposium to Chester Brown's graphic novel Paying For It, we ask the fundamental question of whether and how we might distinguish between spiritual and physical desire. We consider how medieval and contemporary writers dealt with the relation of love to sex, power, money, marriage, and gender. We discuss these works of the past, for example the illicit love in the courtly romance Tristan, in tandem with representations of clandestine love from the present day, such as the portrayal of same-sex love in Brokeback Mountain.

Why do people believe in God? What does it mean for people to experience the supernatural? How do we understand belief in God? How do people convey experiences that are by definition extra-ordinary to others? In this course we ask the big (and unanswerable) question why people believe in God. Some scholars argue that belief results from direct experience, such as visions or moments of transcendence, that testify to God's existence. Others suggest that belief in the supernatural is better explained by the way the human mind has evolved or people's experience of the social world. In this class, we will pair medieval literature on Christian mysticism and magic with readings from modern psychology and anthropology. We will look at the dominant answers provided by each discipline. For example, belief might result from our sensory experience of the world, or it might have developed as part of our cognitive apparatus in response to fear. Our aim is to show how different disciplines can work together to cast light on a basic question of human existence.

What is the origin and ultimate fate of the universe? Can we know what came before the universe? Are there ultimate limits to human knowledge about the universe and are we reaching them? Cosmology (the study of the universe) raises profound questions about us, our place in the universe, and about the limits of our knowledge. It was only in the 20th century that cosmology developed from metaphysical and theological speculation to become an observational science and a recognized part of physics. In this course, students will explore questions about the Universe, its beginnings, its structure, its extent, its fate, from several perspectives - philosophical, experimental, and theoretical. We will discuss current research and the ongoing debates about the laws of nature on subatomic scales and the perplexing questions they raise regarding the universe and the limits of scientific inquiry.

Why there are so few women leaders and what is the cost to society for women's underrepresentation in positions of power? How can organizations and individuals increase women's leadership and be more inclusive of the diverse people that make up our society? Women make up half the population and have earned more than half of all the undergraduate degrees in the U.S. since the early 1980s; yet women comprise only 17% of US Congress, 4% of Fortune 500 CEOs, 16% of the board of directors of major corporations, 22% of tenured faculty at Stanford, and less than a fifth of law firm partners. For women of color, these numbers are considerably lower. Yet, research shows that gender diversity increases the creativity and innovation of groups. In this course, we will directly address the questions of why there are so few women leaders and what can be done, at an organizational and individual level, to increase their representation. Using the lens of sociology, we will think critically about leadership, influence, power, status, gender stereotypes, mentorship, and negotiation. Once we understand the mechanisms underpinning the lack of women leaders, we will discuss and critique potential interventions. A unique aspect of this course will be to apply some of the scholarly research on gender and leadership to our lives outside the classroom. We will be using modules based on those used in businesses schools and corporate executive training. Students will develop practical, real-world skills to increase their own leadership capacities by working on projects and taking part in interactive sessions on negotiation and team dynamics.

How might the study of the successes and failures of democratic and republican government in ancient Greece and Rome help us to fix what is broken in our own political systems? Democracy and republic are ancient names for revolutionary approaches to government of, by, and for citizens. Today, almost every state proclaims itself to be a democracy, a republic -- or both. Democratic and republican revolutions transformed ancient Greece and Rome - and later transformed the modern world. We explore how political thinkers, from Machiavelli to Madison and Mill, used the lessons of ancient politics to design bold new systems of government. Ancient politics may still hold lessons for us. We analyze what is broken in modern government (corruption, polarization, gridlock), how it broke, and how the tool kit of ancient political history might help us to analyze and repair the damage.

How have our perceptions of what is considered normal/abnormal; beautiful/ugly; infected/uninfected changed over time? How do these changing medical and cultural representations of the body reflect larger societal shifts? How does illness change our perceptions of our bodies and our identities? Viewed through the lens of medicine, the body is a text that offers clues to health and illness, yet clinical readings are never entirely objective. Culture informs and distorts how we discern, accept, reject, and analyze our bodies. Looking at literary, medical, ethical, and anthropological texts, we ask how representations of the body affects the way we experience illness, embody gender and racial identities, and understand our rights (or lack of rights) to control our own bodies. We will critically examine our perceptions about the body and debate some of the most complex and sensitive issues surrounding the body, from the ethics of medical research trials to end of life decisions.

Do we perceive the world through stories? Are we made of stories? Can we make sense of the world without narrative? The telling of stories is not just a form of entertainment but an essential human activity that moves and persuades us, compelling us to action and reflection. In this course, we will probe how moral, cognitive and historical forces give stories their power. You will be introduced to the basic theory and art of storytelling, enabling you to understand and master the fundamentals of narrative structure, plot, and character. This will allow you to practice producing your own stories through both interpretative and creative writing assignments. The class will also give students the chance to participate in various story-making activities and work with the Stanford Storytelling Project, San Francisco StoryCorps, School of the Arts and the Stanford Innocence Project to create assignments that would be useful to both private and nonprofit organizations.