Courses

This course focuses on belief systems of the world from a comparative, anthropological perspective. We will explore theoretical approaches to such phenomena as possession, witchcraft and ritual, and examine the integration of religious belief systems into traditional social structures and the role of non-mainstream religious beliefs and practices in complex societies.

A survey of modern astronomy, emphasizing the interrelationships among phenomena. The subject matter includes the solar systems, stars and stellar systems, galaxies, and cosmology.
Laboratory fee $30.
Fulfills Pitzer Natural Science Requirement

The course provides a basic introduction to the biological bases of human and animal behavior. Topics include: the structure and function of the nervous system, drugs, motivation, emotion, learning and memory, sensation, consciousness and psychopathology.
Fulfills Pitzer Natural Science Requirement

Introduction to the basic concepts of the calculus, including slopes, rates of change, limits, the derivative and the integral, and the relationships between these concepts, especially the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, with applications to the natural and social sciences. Each concept will be treated from numerical, analytic, and geometric perspectives.
Fulfills Pitzer Mathematics/Formal Reasoning Requirement

Transcendental functions, techniques of integration, infinite series, related topics, and applications. Again, each concept will be treated from numerical, analytic, and geometric perspectives.
Fulfills Pitzer Mathematics/Formal Reasoning Requirement.

This course looks at a variety of incidents that have created public debate around censorship, free speech, and academic and artistic freedom. We will read academic and popular texts, view films and television shows, look at artwork, and hold our own debates in order to develop solid arguments for where you draw the line in determining and enforcing community standards.

This course focuses on contemporary Chicana and Chicano literature. Students will read, critically engage, and comprehend social, intellectual, and artistic discourse in the writing of present-day authors of Mexican descent.
Cross-Listed: Chicana/o Studies

For nearly 50 years, the Cold War influenced nearly all aspects of American political and cultural life. This course examines Cold War genre films in an effort to understand how Americans perceived the Soviet threat and how these popular perceptions influenced international and domestic politics.
Cross-Listed: Media Studies, American Studies

This course will introduce students to the diversity of practices, positions, and current issues dealt with by contemporary artists living in Southern California . A major component of the class will involve visiting artists in their studios, critiquing major museum exhibitions and viewing public art works in Los Angeles .

This course focuses on key aspects of international trade and investment policies in the industrial and less developed countries and their implications for national economic development and the operation of the international economic system.

What's so great about thinking and knowledge? In the course of the semester, we will investigate that value of a philosophical life by taking a journey through the history of Western philosophy, from Socrates & Plato to Sartre. Along the way, we will consider perennial philosophical questions about the nature of justice, the relationship between mind & body, free will, the problem of evil, and arguments for the existence of God.

This course is an introduction to all aspects of video production – camera, lights, tripods, sound and non-linear editing. Hands-on assignments will be organized around the formal properties and power of video.

As a result of slavery, different ‘black national cultures' came into being in the New World . These national cultures were made possible by several historical events which forged ‘black modernity' in the New World : the Haitian Revolution (1793-1865), the Jamaican Slave Revolt (1863-1865), the American Civil War (1860-1865), the Haitian Renaissance of the 1920s and the Harlem Renaissance (1919-1935). In articulation of their modernity, black people in the African diaspora invented and appropriated literary forms of expression: slave narratives, autobiographies, essays, modern novels, etc. The course will concern itself with these creations.

An introduction to probability and game theory. Topics will include combinations, permutations, probability, expected value, Markov chains, graph theory, and game theory. Specific games such as keno, roulette, craps, bridge, and backgammon will be analyzed. The course will provide excellent preparation for statistics courses as well as for uses of game theory in the social sciences.
Fulfills Pitzer Mathematics/Formal Reasoning Requirement

We will mathematically analyze the game of poker. Topics covered include probability, expected value, and game theory.
Fulfills Pitzer Mathematics/Formal Reasoning Requirement

A studio course in the use of mixed media techniques and materials including but not limited to assemblage, scuplture, photography and 3-D structures. Emphasis on exploring the unique properties of materials and incorporating diverse mediums to express personal and innovative developments.
Lab Fee: $40

The course will attempt to trace the development of the Cuban literary imagination from Jose Marti, in the context of the national liberation struggle for independence, to Roberto Fernandez Ratamar, in the context of the construction of socialism. The literary works (fiction and poetry) of Alejo Carpentier, Jose Lezema Lima, Severo Sarduy and Infant will form the centerpiece of the course. The films of Humberto Solas, Sara Gomez, Sergio Giral, and Guttierez Alea will be part of this exploratory process.

Sex and religion are two centrally important elements of human existence. How are they related? How does human sexuality shape religion? How does religion shape human sexuality?

An introductory course in sociology concerned with what the discipline of sociology does, how it views the world, its differences from and similarities to other social sciences, and the various sub-fields of sociology. The main themes pursued will be the comparison of social structures, social change, power and authority, social organization, and the individual and society.

Nonconformity & norm-violation can be dangerous, noble, or bizarre. Either way, deviance poses serious challenges to sociological analysis. How do we explain why some go against the grain? Who decides when behavior is good/bad? Wrong/right? Moral/evil? Theories of deviance and contemporary issues will be explored.

Travelers make fascinating historical guides. Using a selection of travel narratives, we will sample the history of travel from 1800 to the present. The course focuses not only on the motivations and experiences of travelers, but also examines their impact on the people and places encountered. Topics include colonialism, arctic exploration, and road trips.

This course will focus on women novelists of the 20th- and turn-of the-20th Century. Gender, creativity, and narrative process and techniques will be highlighted. Students will have creative writing options.
Cross-listed: GFS

This course will introduce the basic language of watercolor painting. An understanding of painting realistically will be developed through work on accurate color matching and attention to common drawing problems. The class will develop students' understanding of constructing a painting and how to utilize various techniques. Attention will be given to safe studio practice. Students will be expected to address and embrace the realistic approach to painting as it supports an overall understanding of perception.
Laboratory fee $40.

An interdisciplinary course interrogating linguistic, conceptual and practical solipsisms that contribute to the construction and normalization of whiteness in aesthetics, art, visual, culture, film, mass media, and daily life encounters. Assignments and activities develop critical visual literacy by focusing on the coding and decoding of whiteness and it's binary blackness.
Cross-Listed: American Studies, Black Studies, Media Studies, Women/Gender-Feminist Studies

Students will read a variety of essays and use them as models for their own creative pieces in the following areas: Autobiography, Observation, Reflection, Cause/Effect, and Position. Seminar-based discussions, descriptive exercises, and the opportunity to workshop and revise one's own writing will be the focus of each class.