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This course will consider the fundamental science of classical thermodynamics and its practical applications. Problem solving will be emphasized, including problem formulation, analytic, and computational solutions. Topics include the first law of thermodynamics, work, heat, properties of substances and state equations, the second law of thermodynamics and applications to engineering systems.

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This course will introduce students to the African American faith experience, with particular attention being given to the historical development of spiritualities of liberation in the American Diaspora. Brief lectures and seminar discussions will offer “perspectives” on this rich and heterogeneous tradition from several vantage points within the humanities, social sciences, and theological disciplines. This course was also cross-listed as AMST 30125, HIST 30649, SOC 33002, and THEO 33802.

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This course explores the social lives of the nonhuman primates. It begins with an introduction to primate evolution and taxonomy and behavioral ecology. It further examines select groups of living primates through topics such as conservation, social behavior, cooperation/competition, reproduction, ethnoprimatology, and evolution of social organization.

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This course offers a panoramic survey of the Islamic societies of the Middle East and North Africa from their origins to the present day. It will deal with the history and expansion of Islam, both as a world religion and civilization, from its birth in the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century to its subsequent spread to other parts of western Asia and North Africa. Issues of religious practices, political governance and movements, gender, social relations and cultural norms will be explored in relation to a number of Islamic societies in the region. The course foregrounds the complexities and diversity present in a critical geographic area of what we call the Islamic world today. This course was also cross-listed as AFAM 20367, ANTH 20040, ASIA 20004, GSC 20425, IIPS 20714, LLEA 20605, and SOC 20041.

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This course serves as a broad survey of women's and gender issues within the contexts of multiple societies in the Islamic world. The first half of the semester will concentrate on the historical position of women in Islamic societies, defined by the normative values of Islam and by cultural traditions and norms that were sometimes at odds with religious prescriptions. We will discuss how the interpretations of these values in diverse circumstances and who gets to do the interpreting have had important repercussions for women's societal roles. The second half of the course will privilege women's voices in articulating their gendered identities and roles in a number of pre-modern and modern Islamic societies in different historical circumstances as expressed in memoirs, fiction, magazine articles, and public speeches. As part of the historical contextualization of such works, we will focus on how modern phenomena like Western colonialism, nationalist liberation movements, civil and other forms of war have fostered women's organized movements, and their socio-political empowerment in some cases and marginalization in others, with lasting implications for these developing societies. This course was also cross-listed as GSC 20178, and IIPS 20710.

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This is a seminar that is open to graduate students and upper division undergraduates. It has no stipulated pre-requisites and is open to all majors. This course explores the evolutionary roots of form and order in the built environment. While grounded in scientific evidence, a broad perspective of humanism is emphasized throughout, with discussions of how ideas, beliefs, experience, ideals, and human nature animate individuals and societies and thereby give form to the things they make. Readings begin with the idea of nature and how it is manifest in ancient cities, architecture, and other artifacts. This is then contrasted with today’s built environment and our world of increasing economic and cultural globalization, the advent of mega-cities, and an impending worldwide scarcity of critical natural resources.

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This seminar provides a look at immigration from diverse perspectives, principally through a week-long immersion at the Annunciation House on the border of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. This course was also cross-listed as CST 33966, ILS 30804, and THEO 33966.

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This seminar invites the student to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of our health care system, explore possibilities for the future of American healthcare, and to consider how modifications might help create the society we hope to become. This course was also cross-listed as CST 3395, and THEO 33951.

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From the perspectives of environmental justice and human rights, this seminar will explore how impoverished communities in Louisiana are recovering from Hurricane Katrina. We will explore the historical, political, and economic issues that created a culture of inequality in these areas. The course will also critically reflect on the nexus between social stratification, poverty, and current environmental issues facing the New Orleans community.

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Fundamentals of numerical methods and development of programming techniques to solve problems in civil and environmental engineering. This course requires significant computer use via a scientific program language such as Matlab and/or FORTRAN. Standard topics in numerical linear algebra, interpolation, discrete differentiation, discrete integration, and approximate solutions to ordinary differential equations are treated in a context-based approach. Applications are drawn from hydrology, environmental modeling, geotechnical engineering, modeling of material behavior, and structural analysis.

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This course introduces students to the history of ancient Rome from Romulus to Constantine (8th c. BC – early 4th c. AD). We will examine the meteoric spread of Roman rule in Italy and the ancient Mediterranean, the brilliance of a republican form of government tragically swept away by destructive civil war, the rise of repressive autocracy under the Caesars, and the threats to empire in late antiquity posed inside by the rise of Christianity and outside by hostile invaders. Special attention will be given to the types of primary evidence—historiography, inscriptions, coins, art and architecture—and how they influence our understanding of ancient Rome. This course was also cross-listed as HIST 30230.

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Multimedia technology surrounds us on computer screens, televisions, phones, and in public displays. It is used to persuade, delight, inform, and educate ... as well as to mislead or deceive. This course explores the ways web media are used to communicate and solve problems, preparing students to take advantage of a variety of tools at work or in a volunteer setting. It stresses four dimensions of multimedia: functionality, aesthetics, content, and usability. Students complete projects involving image editing, blogs, and sound editing. They also use the four dimensions as a framework to critically evaluate media.

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This course explores the use of multimedia in communicating information and solving problems. Using Adobe Flash and other tools, students create materials that incorporate text, animation, images, sound, and video. An overarching theme is appreciation of four dimensions of multimedia: content, aesthetics, functionality, and usability. The course also aims to equip students with strategies for enhancing their skills after the semester ends. This course was also cross-listed as DESN 30105. Note: This course has been updated for 2012, and contains new content. Those course materials can be found in Applied Multimedia.

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Welcome to "Forms of Democracy in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature." This graduate seminar will explore two central concerns in American literary studies: what is "democratic" about literature written in the United States? And how does the problem of representative politics influence literary and textual representation? Over the course of the term we will discusss the different ways in which major authors and literary scholars have addressed these questions. Our readings will include classic and contemporary works of democratic theory; critical readings that explore the relationship between verbal and political representation; and a range of literary works that foreground the problem of mediation and its relationship to democratic politics. Among these literary works will be Moby-Dick, Uncle Tom's Cabin, House of the Seven Gables, selections from Emily Dickinson's manuscript fascicles, Margaret Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Dion Boucicault's The Octoroon, William Apess's Eulogy on King Philip, selected speeches by Daniel Webster, Henry Highland Garnet, and Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown's Clotel, and John Rollin Ridge's Joaquin Murieta. This course was also cross-listed as LIT 73735.

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This course is structured around four main fairy tales: "Cinderella," the frame narrative for The Arabian Nights, "Beauty and the Beast," and "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," and we be looking at a number of different reinventions of those tales in the form of short stories, novels, poems, picturebooks, songs, and films. Because the basic content will be familiar to most students, the focus will be on the stylistic, rhetorical, and ideological changes that are grafted into different redactions. Each variation that we study will be contextualized in its historical moment, and through class discussion, we will map the major developments of each tale, and because fairy tales often teach lessons, we will always be asking ourselves “What is the moral of this story?” For example, in 18c. France, “Beauty and the Beast” was penned to persuade young women to accept physically or intellectually undesirable but financially and socially advantageous marriages. What does that mean in context of Disney’s musical celebration of true love: “bittersweet and strange/finding you can change/learning you were wrong”? Each set of fairy tales will also be paired with theory blocs addressing different critical frameworks: “Cinderella” with gender theory, The Arabian Nights with post-colonial and race theory, “Beauty and the Beast” with queer theory, and “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” with theories relating to the development of national identity. Students will be presented with a variety of (sometimes contradictory) arguments, and class discussion will be focused on exploring these intersections. Note: The idea that fairy tales are for children or are somehow "innocent" is a fairly recent development. Fairy tales often articulate the extreme experiences of human emotion, and several of the stories that we will be looking at deal frankly and explicitly with sex, murder, child abuse, rape, and other "adult" topics. This course was also cross-listed as GSC 20549.

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In cooperation with the Center for Social Concerns, these sections of First Year Composition place students in learning situations in the wider community , where they are in contact with people who are dealing with the specific content issue of their section. We welcome students with commitment to social justice and community service to enroll.