This class is intended to introduce students to understandings of the city generated from both social science literature and the field of urban design. The first part of the course examines literature on the history and theory of the city. Among other factors, it pays special attention to the larger territorial settings in which cities emerged and developed (ranging from the global to the national to the regional context) and how these affected the nature, character, and functioning of cities and the lives of their inhabitants. The remaining weeks focus more explicitly on the theory and practice of design visions for the city, the latter in both utopian and realized form. One of our aims will be to assess the conditions under which a variety of design visions were conceived, and to assess them in terms of the varying patterns of territorial "nestedness" (local, regional, national, imperial, and global) examined in the first part of the course. Another will be to encourage students to think about the future prospects of cities (in terms of territorial context or other political functions and social aims) and to offer design visions that might reflect these new dynamics.

This course examines the interconnections of international politics and climate change. Beginning with an analysis of the strategic and environmental legacies of the 20th Century, it explores the politicization of the natural environment, the role of science in this process, and the gradual shifts in political concerns to incorporate "nature". Two general thrusts of climate-politics connections are pursued, namely those related to (a) conflict - focusing on threats to security due to environmental dislocations and (b) cooperation - focusing on the politics of international treaties that have contributed to emergent processes for global accord in response to evidence of climate change. The course concludes by addressing the question of: "What Next?

Infectious diseases have a specific, ethiological cause, e.g. a microbe such as tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. However, most people exposed to TB does not develop the disease. What determines this may be poverty, weakening of the person by other diseases or smoking and alcohol. So-called life-style diseases are (also) determined by the way you live, and include prevalent non-communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardio-vascular diseases, but besides of risk factors such as smoking and drinking or over-eating, the living conditions matter equally and sometimes more. The environment, climate changes, urbanization, socio-economic factors all impact health and disease. When an individual grows older, patterns of his/her diseases changes: the same applies when a society grows ‘older’.

Previously infectious diseases previously caused the majority of ill-health and premature death globally, but in high- and middle-income countries during the 20.th century infectious diseases – with the exception of HIV – declined. Introduction of hygiene and discovery of microbes and later vaccines an antibiotics contributed to the decline, but changing living conditions with better housing, nutrition, water and sanitation were the main drivers of infectious diseases’ decline.

Provides an understanding of the distribution of organic carbon (OC) in marine sediments from a global and molecular-level perspective. Surveys the mineralization and preservation of OC in the water column and within anoxic and oxic marine sediments. Topics include: OC composition, reactivity and budgets within, and fluxes through, major reservoirs; microbial recycling pathways for OC; models for OC degradation and preservation; role of anoxia in OC burial; relationships between dissolved and particulate (sinking and suspended) OC; methods for characterization of sedimentary organic matter; application of biological markers as tools in oceanography. Both structural and isotopic aspects are covered.

An exploration of colonial and postcolonial clashes between theories of healing and embodiment in the African world and those of western bio-medicine. Examines how Afro-Atlantic religious traditions have challenged western conceptions of illness, healing, and the body, and have offered alternative notions of morality, rationality, kinship, gender and sexuality. Analyzes whether contemporary western bio-medical interventions reinforce colonial or imperial power in the effort to promote global health in Africa and the African diaspora.

This workshop is designed to introduce students to different perspectives on international politics in the 21st century. Students will explore how advances in information technology are changing international relations and global governance through opening new channels of communication, creating new methods of education, and new potentials for democratization. We will consider the positive and negative externalities associated with applications of such technologies. Students will be encouraged to look at alternative futures, and/or to frame solutions to problems that they define. The class will include guest lectures, discussions, and a final project and presentation.

Using examples from anthropology and sociology alongside classical and contemporary social theory, this course explores the nature of dominant and subordinate relationships, types of legitimate authority, and practices of resistance. The course also examines how we are influenced in subtle ways by the people around us, who makes controlling decisions in the family, how people get ahead at work, and whether democracies, in fact, reflect the "will of the people..