College Core Curriculum (CORE-UA)

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

Today's technology enables us to collect massive amounts of data, such as images of distant planets, the ups and downs of the economy, and the patterns of our tweets and online behavior. How do we use data to discover new insights about our world? This course introduces ideas and techniques in modern data analysis, including statistical inference, machine learning models, and computer programming. The course is hands-on and data-centric; students will analyze a variety of datasets, including those from the internet and New York City. By the end of the course, students will be able to (1) apply quantitative thinking to data sets; (2) critically evaluate the conclusions of data analyses; and (3) use computing tools to explore, analyze, and visualize data. Throughout the course, we will also examine issues such as data privacy and ethics.

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

Our lives are increasingly influenced by the availability of new pharmaceuticals, ranging from drugs that lower cholesterol to those that influence behavior. We examine the chemistry and biology of biomolecules that make up the molecular machinery of the cell. Critical to the function of such biomolecules is their three-dimensional structure that endows them with a specific function. This information provides the scientific basis for understanding drug action and how new drugs are designed. Beginning with the principles of chemical bonding, molecular structure, and acid-base properties that govern the structure and function of biomolecules, we apply these principles to study the varieties of protein architecture and how proteins serve as enzymes to facilitate biochemical reactions. We conclude with a study of molecular genetics and how recent information from the Human Genome Project is stimulating new approaches to diagnosing disease and designing drug treatments.

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

This course examines the principles and practices of genetic engineering—the ability to design genes. Advances in genetic engineering have impacted everyday life, including the production of human insulin from bacteria and the design of vaccines for Influenza and COVID-19. We begin with the central concepts of molecular biology; DNA and RNA structure, gene expression, and genome organization. Building on this foundation, we examine the tools and techniques of genetic engineering such as gene cloning, gene editing, and bioinformatics. The applications of genetic technologies are explored through a variety of case studies, including genetically modified crops that have increased resistance to pests or disease; use of the gene editing tool, CRISPR, to treat sickle cell disease; and modification of plants to make vaccines. We also examine the ethics of manipulating genes and provide a foundation for making informed decisions about biotechnologies.

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the MAP website: http://map.cas.nyu.edu/page/home

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

The history and culture of the ancient Israelite societies of biblical times and the Greco-Roman period seen from the perspective of the process of urbanization and the role of cities in the development of classical Judaism, covering the period from c. 1250 b.c.e. through the third century c.e. Surveys the history and achievements of these cities and their contribution to the development of law and social organization, prophetic movements, history of Israelite religion and early Judaism, and the background of Christianity. The Bible and ancient Jewish texts preserve much evidence for the history of ancient Israel; and archaeological excavations, as well as the discovery of ancient writings in Hebrew and related languages, have added to our knowledge. In addition, new discoveries in the Dead Sea Scrolls contribute greatly to our understanding of the history of Judaism and the emergence of Christianity. Throughout, we remain focused on the growth of cities and their role in the creation and development of ancient Israel’s culture and literature.

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

Who were/are indigenous people? What does/did it mean to be indigenous? What is indigeneity? We examine these questions in the context of the Americas, in an inquiry ranging from the era before European contact to the present. Using poetry, art, film, novels, political cartoons, memoirs, and scholarship written by historians, we explore the diversity and resilience of indigenous civilizations in the Americas.

A general introduction to the history and culture of Latin America, focusing on major themes in the history of the region: colonization and interaction between Europeans, Africans, and indigenous people; the Atlantic slave trade and the creation of slave and plantation societies; race, nationalism, and revolution; and the place of the United States and Africa in the region. Readings include Spanish and indigenous accounts of the Conquest, firsthand accounts of the slave trade, revolutionary manifestos, political cartoons, and a range of other sources.

In your lifetimes, places like Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi have become destinations for job-seekers, investors, and vacationers of all kinds. They have become transit stops for international travelers as well as cargo ships. They have hosted everything from the World Cup to branch campuses of leading universities from North America and Europe. This is a dramatic shift from the perception of the region as empty deserts, sand dunes, or “backward” or isolated tribesmen, that at best viewed the lands surrounding the Persian Gulf and abutting the Arabian Sea as a mere gas station for the world economy. We trace this transformation, but in doing so reflect on how various forms of connectivity have prevailed among an array of places and peoples across the world and the region we typically call “the Persian Gulf” (or “the Gulf” or “Arabia”). We ponder the argument that these exchanges and circulations are not incidental, but constitutive of the making of the world as well as these Gulf societies during modern times. Focusing on developments since the start of the 20th century in what is now Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, and Yemen, we seek a relational understanding of capitalism, the oil economy, migration, developmentalism, war-making, urbanism, and political movements, among other topics.

In medieval Spain we see how members of the three Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—lived in close contact over a sustained period of time (711-1615). Sometimes peaceful and productive, at other times contentious and destructive, in this time of coexistence people of different faiths participated in parallel and overlapping cultural activities, drawing on the same poetic and philosophical traditions, creating similar liturgies, and preferring the same kinds of art and architecture. We examine the role that religion played in the creation of culture and its artifacts through close examination of primary sources, including historical chronicles, treaties, short stories, poetry, liturgy, art, and architecture. Students learn to pose and answer questions about the impact religion, religious expression, and coexistence in a multiconfessional society.

Major periods, developments, and interpretative issues in Russian politics, history, and society, from the 1917 revolution to the present. The emphasis is on the Soviet experience, though the Tsarist past and post-Soviet developments are also considered. Special attention is given to the role of historical traditions, leadership, ideology, ramifying events, and socioeconomic factors.

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the MAP website: http://map.cas.nyu.edu/page/home

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

An introduction to the achievements and paradoxes of modern German history and culture. Crucial historical background is the invention of the printing press by Johann Gutenberg in the 1450s, the Protestant Reformation catalyzed by Martin Luther in 1517, and the Thirty Years’ War of the seventeenth century, but the emphasis is on the shaping role that German art and thought have played within European modernity from the late eighteenth century to the present, culminating in the regeneration of German literature and art since the 1960s, involving such figures as Heinrich Böll, Christa Wolf, Alexander Kluge, Ingeborg Bachmann, W.G. Sebald, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Josef Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, and Martin Kippenberger. Sources include literary, philosophical, and other texts, and works of art, architecture, music, and film.

What is literature or the literary? Is there a literary language that works differently from ordinary language? What is literary style and form? What is the position of the writer or artist in relation to society, and what is the function of the reader? Is literature a mirror of the world that it describes, an attempt to influence a reader?s ideas or opinions, an expression of the identity of the writer, or none of these?

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

What is a photograph? How do we read photographs? How has photography shaped history and fiction, our ideas of the self and of others? The purpose of this course is to analyze the history of photography in its relation with textual productions in XX and XXI century Latin American writers. We will begin by studying how the technology of photography (which arrived in Latin America almost simultaneously with its creation in Europe) contributed to a particular visual construction of Latin America and was incorporated into literary writings from the Caribbean, Central America, and the Southern Cone. The main objective of the course will be to analyze the use of photography in literary and extra-literary texts, from texts that use photography as its discursive axis (but without containing real photographs) to texts that play on the page with photographic reproductions. Topics include: photography and history, photography and archive, photography and madness, photography and the city, photography and memory, and photography and eroticism. We will consider texts and photographs by Roberto Arlt, Leopoldo Lugones, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Elena Poniatowska, Mario Bellatin, Juan Villoro, Graciela Iturbide, Sara Facio, Ximena Berecochea, and Paz Errázuriz, among others. This course will count toward any of the majors and minors offered in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

Please check the departmental website for description

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

The terms “fascism” and “culture” frequently resonate as opposites. We think immediately of sterile, bunker-like architecture, book burnings, and reactionary archaisms. Much fascist culture certainly entailed these. Yet we ignore the centrality of advanced culture to fascist ideas—both in the early twentieth century and beyond—at our own peril. We begin by addressing the history and theory of fascism, then examine specific case studies: Italian Futurist art and literature and its relationship to the founding of Fascism; the 1932 Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution in Rome; National Socialist (Nazi) aesthetic policy, Nuremberg rallies, and Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935); John Heartfield’s anti-fascist photomontages; Picasso’s Guernica at the 1937 Exposition Internationale; the 1937 Degenerate ‘Art’ Exhibition in Germany; and revivals of anti-fascist rhetoric and protest in the events of 1968 in the US and abroad. In the context of neo-fascist resurgence, we also consider more recent manifestations of fascism in cultural discourse, from Timus Vermes’ compelling book Look Who’s Back (2012), to the nationalist populism of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

For course description, please consult the College Core Curriculum website: http://core.cas.nyu.edu

Today's technology enables us to collect massive amounts of data, such as images of distant planets, the ups and downs of the economy, and the patterns of our tweets and online behavior. How do we use data to discover new insights about our world? This course introduces ideas and techniques in modern data analysis, including statistical inference, machine learning models, and computer programming. The course is hands-on and data-centric; students will analyze a variety of datasets, including those from the internet and New York City. By the end of the course, students will be able to (1) apply quantitative thinking to data sets; (2) critically evaluate the conclusions of data analyses; and (3) use computing tools to explore, analyze, and visualize data. Throughout the course, we will also examine issues such as data privacy and ethics

This course explores the scientific foundations of current environmental issues and the impact of this knowledge on public policy. One goal of the course is to examine several topics of pressing importance and lively debate in our society – e.g., global warming, the quest for clean air and water, atmospheric ozone depletion, and the continuing search for viable sources of energy. A parallel goal is to develop the chemical, physical, and quantitative principles that are necessary for a deeper understanding of these environmental issues. The relevant topics include the structure of atoms and molecules, the interaction of light with matter, energy relationships in chemical reactions, and the properties of acids and bases. Throughout the course we also examine how scientific studies of the environment are connected to political, economic and policy concerns. The laboratory experiments are closely integrated with the lecture topics and provide hands-on explorations of central course themes. Overall, this course will provide you with the foundation to carefully evaluate environmental issues and make informed decisions about them.

The relationship of the brain to behavior, beginning with the basic elements that make up the nervous system and how electrical and chemical signals in the brain work to effect behavior. Using this foundation, we examine how the brain learns and how it creates new behaviors, together with the brain mechanisms that are involved in sensory experience, movement, hunger and thirst, sexual behaviors, the experience of emotions, perception and cognition, memory and the brain's plasticity. Other key topics include whether certain behavioral disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can be accounted for by changes in the function of the brain, and how drugs can alter behavior and brain function.

Specific topics and readings in this College Core Curriculum course may vary from term to term.

Cultures and Contexts prepares students for life in a globalized world by introducing them to the ways in which humans come to understand themselves as members of social, religious, national, and regional collectives and by fostering their appreciation of the dynamics of cultural interaction and influence. Individual sections focus on specific social or cultural groups different from the dominant traditions of contemporary North America. They share a common concern to examine the ways cultures have interacted, for example, through trade, colonization, immigration, religious dispersion, and media representation; how such groups define themselves against internal and external difference; and how the dominant perspective of Western modernity affects comprehension of the ways in which people outside that position understand, experience, and imagine their lives. Offerings include emergent traditions, diaspora formations, and societies understood as nationally, geographically, or culturally distinct from the dominant traditions of contemporary North America. Courses focusing on ancient civilizations are also included, as are courses that address contemporary challenges to traditional European conceptions of national identity. Consult the Core Curriculum website for descriptions of each term’s offerings.

Over the last 50 years, millions of Latin Americans have experienced extraordinary shifts in their social, political, and cultural landscape, a result of the transformative effects of revolution or insurgency, state repression, popular resistance and social movements. We focus on events that had continental, hemispheric, and even global impact, including the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the military coups of the 1970s, and the Zapatista uprising in 1994. Drawing on a range of primary sources and cultural forms, we listen carefully to the voices of the major social actors of the time. Our sources are drawn from a wide range of media: newsprint, television broadcasts, transcripts, testimony, essay, documentary and feature film, art, and music. We deliberately mix artistic representations with documentary evidence to understand how the arts—music, visual art, literature, film—do not just reflect the reality around them, but are themselves vital sites for shaping and changing that reality and our imagination of it, both then and now.

This course considers the Black Atlantic as a socio-cultural economic space from the first arrival of Africans in the ‘New World,’ beginning around in the 15th century, through the rise of slavery in the Americas. During this class we will trace the origins and importance of the concept of the Black Atlantic within broad political contexts, paying special attention to the changing social, cultural and economic relations that shaped community formation among people of African descent and laid the foundations for modern political and economic orders. Once we have established those foundations, we will think about the Black Atlantic as a critical site of cultural production. Using the frame of the Atlantic to ask questions about the relationship between culture and political economy. We will explore a range of genres--film, fiction, music, as well as formal scholarship--so as to explore questions of evidence in the context of the real and the imaginary. Topics to be covered include African enslavement and settlement in Africa and the Americas; the development of transatlantic racial capitalism; variations in politics and culture between empires in the Atlantic world; creolization, plantation slavery and slave society; the politics and culture of the enslaved; the Haitian Revolution; slave emancipation; and contemporary black Atlantic politics and racial capitalism.

The course description varies depending on the topic taught. Please view the course description in the course notes section.

With an important history of immigration, France has long been a site of cultural contact and exchange. This course considers the country's multicultural make-up and the ideologies, institutions, conflicts, and paradoxes that shape how that diversity has taken form through time. Conflicts and controversies of the past 40 years, which include the rise of the extreme right, the problem of the disadvantaged suburbs, the question of Islamic headscarves, and more, have in particular pushed these questions to the front of the country’s domestic agenda. Looking historically and across several case studies, we ask as well as what the French example can add to our understanding of culture, diversity, and race. Conducted in English.

The course description for this Topics in CORE course varies depending on the topic taught. Please view the course descriptions in the course notes section below.

In pre-modern Europe, where a Christian outlook prevailed, the existence of pre-Christian cultures drove a master narrative that all but cast them off as the heterodox mythology and magic of primitive religions. We examine both the medieval evidence for the nature of European pagan cultures and the tendency of modern scholarship to endorse the medieval self-proclaimed image of a monolithic Christian occident. The medieval discourse on paganism cannot be reduced to its condemnation and rejection; this would ignore the ways that the predominant culture had in fact integrated elements of paganism into its theology, philosophy, rituals, calendar, life-cycle events, scientific knowledge, intellectual categories, literary creations, artistic repertoire, and physical environment. As we consider a millennium of European civilization (60 c.e.-1600 c.e.) from the perspective of paganism, we cross-pollinate multiple streams of evidence (textual, archeological, artifactual) with various epistemologies (history, anthropology, folklore, literary criticism), which will allow a new chronology and a new geography to emerge.

The course examines how Italian identity has been transformed through encounters with foreigners. These foreigners were not only invading armies and colonizing powers but also artists and scholars, travelers and tourists. All contributed in fundamental ways to the evolution of Italian society and culture.Through the study of primary sources we will explore, for example, how the Greek, Arab, Byzantine, and Jewish presences reshaped Italian civilization up until the Renaissance. As well as outlining the historical circumstances for each of these encounters, our account will focus on their cultural consequences from a number of perspectives, from science to language, from philosophy to art and architecture. A field trip to Ravenna (capital of the Western Roman Empire, then of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, and later of the Byzantine Exarchate) will offer a vantage point to appreciate the many layers of Italian cultural history. As a case study, we will analyze a number of coeval reports on the sacks of Rome by the Visigoths (410 AD) and by the troops of Charles V (1527).Florence will be used as a primary source. The city and its surroundings will provide the most favorable context also to address the issue of tourism, from the Grand Tour to the most recent developments of mass tourism in Italy.

Specific topics and readings in this College Core Curriculum course may vary from term to term.

Contemporary Art in Britian. Contemporary art raises vigorous debate and criticism. But what is contemporary about contemporary art? We consider some key issues in dealing critically with contemporary art with a focus on work on display in exhibitions in London, both major national collections and private galleries, exploring art produced since the late 1950s through case studies of the work of individual artists and through themes which include photography, representations of the body, gallery display, video practice, and installation art. Topics include how contemporary art came to look as it does, with a focus on British art; the different forms of material and presentation artists have employed; why and how diverse audiences are addressed; and how markets, national prizes, and private collections shape the kinds of art produced and inform public taste. We also look at the collection and display of contemporary art, on a private and a public scale; dealer galleries, and issues of curation. Critical and historical writings by artists and theorists will be considered.

The course description for this Topics in CORE course varies depending on where the course is taught. Please view the course descriptions in the course notes section below.

With its vast array of institutions dedicated to distinct cultural groupings and its formation inextricably linked to the halls of power, the museum culture in our nation’s capitol is uniquely Washington D.C. Taking advantage of behind-the- scenes access to some of the most prestigious museums in the world and their staff, students will explore various approaches to interpreting art and will develop tools for appreciating their aesthetic experiences. We will also look critically at the ways in which museums—through their policies, programs, exhibitions, and architecture—can define regional or national values, shape cultural attitudes, inform social and political views, and even effect one’s understanding of the meaning of a work of art. Starting our class at The Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art, we will visit other pioneering private and public museums both old and new and have the opportunity to meet with staff members actively involved in different activities. We will explore the collections, learn about the inner workings of the exhibition process, and investigate the diverse educational missions these museums fulfill. Against the backdrop of the Capitol Building where legislation is made influencing museums on the National Mall and beyond, we will examine the political sides of this cultural history and the unusual array of institutions that have been legislated into existence, specifically museums dedicated to defined constituencies.

This is a chance to immerse yourself in the musical culture of Prague. You will attend five music performances together with the class and two on your own. Each of the concerts will be in a different style, and performed in a different sort of venue. Each concert will be preceded by a lecture/listening session, often involving the actual performers; you will also be assigned a reading excerpt relevant to the music you will hear. The concerts, scheduled about once every two weeks on evenings between Mondays and Thursdays, will be supplemented by architecture walks and film showings, which will usually take place during class time. In addition, you will undertake a “Personal Connection Project”, in groups of two or three, in which you will choose a local genre, performer or composer to research. The research will include reading relevant contextual material, attendance at a live concert or rehearsal, and an interview with a performer. You will share your project with the class in an oral presentation, which will take place at the end of the semester. after which you will submit your conclusions in a final paper, in lieu of a final exam.

For more than four centuries, opera has made us cry and laugh, and it still speaks to us today about ourselves and our lives. It does so by telling us stories of love and death, of power and despair, through a unique way of combining words, music and stage action, and ever new styles of performance. This course is designed to develop an understanding of the details of such combination and the way they cooperate in making an opera work in general and for us today. It does not develop chronologically, but through exposure to a selection of major works by Monteverdi, Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini. The presentations will be organised around individual operas, exploring their historical background, text and music, performing issues, reception history, and adaptation to other media (not necessarily in this sequence). Each opera will also be taken as a vantage point to explore one main thematic issue, while broader issues – such as genre, the development of formal conventions of librettos and music, Italian opera and its terminology, modes of production, cultural expression, social factors that give rise to certain narratives, how opera fits into the larger history of ideas in Western culture – will build up over the course.

The course description for this CORE class varies on the location where taught. Please view the course description in the course notes below.

Course Description: Topics vary. Please see course notes for description.

The location of Israel at the geographic junction between the West and the East, between the Arab world and the Western world, against the background of the long historical complexity of this piece of land provides a panoramic view of Israeli culture and art by examining thematic crossroads and ideas, via problems and social conflicts which lie at the heart of those art works and are reflected by them. Themes include: religion and secularism, universalism/globalism versus localism, Jews and Arabs, Ashkenazic and Sephardic cultures, multiculturalism in Israel, Zionism and Post-Zionism, right and left political world views, questions of gender, historical perspectives on war and peace and the Holocaust. Students explore the way different forms of art—visual, literary, and performance—reflect and shape the understanding of the "Israeli mosaic" while learning about the way the artists and writers internalize, consciously and unconsciously the complex Israeli reality.