2019-2020 2020-2021 2021-2022 2022-2023 2023-2024
Browse
by subject...
    Schedule
view...
 

231 - 240 of 258 results for: all courses

PSYCH 9N: Reading the Brain: the Scientific, Ethical, and Legal Implications of Brain Imaging

It's hard to pick up a newspaper without seeing a story that involves brain imaging, from research on psychological disorders to its use for lie detection or "neuromarketing". The methods are indeed very powerful, but many of the claims seen in the press are results of overly strong interpretations. In this course, you will learn to evaluate claims based on brain imaging research. We will also explore the deeper ethical and philosophical issues that arise from our ability to peer into our own brains in action. The course will start by discussing how to understand and interpret the findings of brain imaging research. We will discuss how new statistical methods provide the ability to accurately predict thoughts and behaviors from brain images. We will explore how this research has the potential to change our concepts of the self, personal responsibility and free will. We will also discuss the ethics of brain imaging, such as how the ability to detect thoughts relates to personal privacy and mental illness. Finally, we will discuss the legal implications of these techniques, such as their use in lie detection or as evidence against legal culpability.
Terms: Win | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-ER, WAY-SMA
Instructors: Poldrack, R. (PI)

PSYCH 12N: Self Theories

Preference to freshmen. The impact of people's belief in a growing versus fixed self on their motivation and performance in school, business, sports, and relationships. How such theories develop and can be changed.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI

PSYCH 16N: Amines and Affect

Preference to freshmen. How serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine influence people's emotional lives. This course is ideal for students that would like to get deeper exposure to cutting edge concepts and methods at the intersection of psychology and biology, and who plan to apply their knowledge to future research.
Terms: Win | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI, WAY-SMA
Instructors: Knutson, B. (PI)

PSYCH 20N: Self-Fulfilling Prophecies, Placebo Effects, and the Social-Psychological Creation of Reality

This seminar will take an interdisciplinary approach to exploring how subjective aspects of the mind (e.g., thoughts, beliefs, and expectations) can fundamentally change objective reality. Over the course of the semester, students will be challenged to think critically about research from psychology, sociology, and medicine, which suggests that what we think, believe and expect plays a significant role in determining our physical health, performance and well-being. Students will explore research on how mindsets about nutrition, exercise, and stress can alter the body¿s response to those phenomena. Students will also uncover how social interactions with friends, family, colleagues and the media influence the perceived quality and impact of cultural products such as art, music, and fashion. And students will learn about the neurological and physiological underpinnings of the placebo effect, a powerful demonstration of expectation that produces real, healing changes in the body. Finally, students will have the opportunity to consider real world applications in disciplines including policy, business, medicine, academics, athletics and public health and consider the ethical implications of those applications. Throughout the class active participation and an open mind will be critical to success. The final weeks of class will be dedicated to student designed studies or interventions aimed to further explore the power of self-fulfilling prophecies, placebo effects, and the social-psychological creation of reality.
Terms: Win | Units: 3
Instructors: Crum, A. (PI)

PUBLPOL 55N: Public Policy and Personal Finance (ECON 25N)

The seminar will provide an introduction and discussion of the impact of public policy on personal finance. Voters regularly rate the economy as one of the most important factors shaping their political views and most of those opinions are focused on their individual bottom lines. In this course we will discuss the rationale for different public policies and how they affect personal financial situations. We will explore personal finance issues such as taxes, loans, charity, insurance, and pensions. Using the context of (hypothetical) personal finance positions, we will discuss the public policy implications of various proposals and how they affect different groups of people, for example: the implications of differential tax rates for different types of income, the promotion of home ownership in the U.S., and policies to care for our aging population. While economic policy will be the focus of much of the course, we will also examine some of the implications of social policies on personal finance as well. There will be weekly readings and several short policy-related writing assignments.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-SI
Instructors: Rosston, G. (PI)

RELIGST 11N: The Meaning of Life: Philosophical, Aesthetic, and Religious Perspectives

Raise ultimate questions about life. Yes, the unexamined life is not worth living, but also the unlived life is not worth examining. Students and professor examine their own lives in the light of questions that the readings and lectures bring up: 1. The big picture: Is there such a thing as "the" meaning of life? 2. What is entailed in making personal-existential sense of one's own life? 3. What constitutes the good life, lived in society? 4. How can a university education bear upon the search for a meaningful life? 5. What "methods" for or approches to life can one learn from studies in the humanities? After introductory lectures, the seminar studies a series of artworks, poems, diverse texts, and a film, all of which bear on the questions mentioned above -- works such: 1. Plato's Allegory of the Cave, from "The Republic" 2. Manet's "A bar at the Folies Bergere" 3. A comparison/contrast of Monet's early (1862) "Still Life" and van Gogh's late (1889) "Irises" 4. Lyric poetry T.S. Eliot: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "The Waste Land," and "East Coker"; Edwin Muir: "The Heart Could Never Speak"; Philip Larkin: "Days" 5. Martin Heidegger's "What Is Metaphysics?" 6. Jean-Paul Sartre's novel "Nausea" 7. Marx's Paris Manuscripts of 1844 8. Bergman's "The Seventh Seal"
Terms: Aut | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
Instructors: Sheehan, T. (PI)

RELIGST 13Q: Mystical Journeys: Beyond Knowing and Reason

What makes a mystic a mystic? This question has many sides. Why do we call someone a mystic? Is there such a thing as mystical experience? Do experiences make a mystic? Do beliefs? Practices? Many religious traditions have records of visionaries whose lives and writings open windows on the more hidden and aspirational aspects of belief and practice. These writings also take many forms: poems, letters, teachings, and accounts of visions, which we will encounter in the course of the quarter. Readings for the course will cover a cross-section of texts taken from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Native American sources.
Terms: Win | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
Instructors: Gelber, H. (PI)

RELIGST 17N: Love, Power, and Justice: Ethics in Christian Perspective

From its inception, the Christian faith has, like all religions, implied an ethos as well as a worldview, a morality and way of life as well as a system of beliefs, an ethics as well as a metaphysics. Throughout history, Christian thinkers have offered reasoned accounts of the moral values, principles, and virtues that ought to animate the adherents of what eventually became the world's largest religion. We will explore a variety of controversial issues, theological orientations, and types of ethical reasoning in the Christian tradition, treating the latter as one 'comprehensive doctrine' (John Rawls) among many; a normative framework (actually a variety of contested religious premises, moral teachings, and philosophical arguments) formally on par with the religious ethics of other major faiths as well as with the various secular moral theories typically discussed in the modern university. We will learn to interpret, reconstruct, criticize, and think intelligently about the coherence and persuasiveness of moral arguments offered by a diverse handful of this religious tradition's best thinkers and critics, past and present.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
Instructors: Sockness, B. (PI)

RELIGST 19N: "Land of Milk and Honey": Food, Justice, and Ethnic Identity in Jewish Culture (CSRE 19N, JEWISHST 19N)

Food is an essential aspect of the human experience. The decisions and choices we make about food define who we have been, who we are now, and who we want to become. nnThis seminar examines Jewish culture and the food practices and traditions that have shaped and continue to shape it. Why has Jewish culture been centered around food practices? How have religious laws and rituals about food and food production shaped Jewish culture and vice versa? Dietary laws prescribe which animals are and are not "kosher" and what can be eaten with them, holidays are celebrated with traditional foods, and regional foods contribute to the formation of distinct Jewish ethnic identities. More recently, American Jews have begun to organize around issues of food justice, and joined the sustainability movement, adapting Jewish traditions about food production into their cause. What is the significance of animal welfare, environmental issues, and labor practices in Jewish culture?nnThis multi-disciplinary seminar explores the connection between food practices and ethnic and religious identity(ies), the history of the dietary laws and their multiple interpretations, the cultural significance of the phenomenal success of kosher certification in the U.S. food market, and the rise of the Jewish food justice movement. These issues raise a multitude of comparative questions, and you are encouraged to engage in research into other religious and ethnic food cultures. Course materials include: biblical and later religious, legal, and philosophical texts; cook-books (as cultural and historical sources); literature (both fiction and academic); films; news media, and food experts. We will visit an urban farming community (Urban Adamah) to learn from those involved in the Jewish sustainability movement.
Terms: Win | Units: 3

SLAVIC 77Q: Russia's Weird Classic: Nikolai Gogol

This seminar investigates the work and life of Nikolai Gogol, the most eccentric of Russian authors, the founder of what was dubbed Fantastic (or Magic) Realism. Our investigation will be based on close reading of the works written in various genres and created in various stages of Gogol's literary career. This study provides a perspective on the relationship between Romanticism and Realism in Russian literature (the so-called "Natural School" of the 1830-1840s), and between the popular Ukrainian culture and "high" Russian and West European traditions in Gogol's oeuvre. The seminar traces Gogol's influences on subsequent Russian literature (Dostoevsky in particular) and investigates the impact of his work on XX century modernist literature, theatre, music, and painting (Vladimir Nabokov, literature of the absurd, Dmitry Shostakovich, Marc Chagall). The seminar is intended for students interested in literature and literary studies.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3-4 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Filter Results:
term offered
updating results...
teaching presence
updating results...
number of units
updating results...
time offered
updating results...
days
updating results...
UG Requirements (GERs)
updating results...
component
updating results...
career
updating results...
© Stanford University | Terms of Use | Copyright Complaints