Contemporary Spanish Literature in Translation (SPAN264) will examine, in English, major Spanish authors, literary periods and artistic trends through narrative, poetic, dramatic and visual filmic cultural artifacts produced from 1936-1940 to the present day while learning about the historical, political and cultural contexts that surround them.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

Analyze and formally interpret the assigned texts, visual and filmic artifacts.
Examine and reflect critically upon the cultural values and ideas conveyed by them.
Become familiar with basic cultural, social and political aspects of contemporary Spanish history.
Demonstrate knowledge of the themes, problems and ideas that appear in the texts.
Learn some key concepts, including literary and rhetorical terminology, for the analysis of contemporary literature and cultural production.

This course aims to develop a sociological frame to describe and analyze the nature, function, and causes of “crime” and legal institutions in our society. The class begins with a broad overview of criminology as a field and some of the major classic and contemporary theories. The second part of the course reviews empirical works which illustrate, explore, and/or critique these theories. The final part of the course builds on Part 2 and reviews three recent topics of interest in modern criminology.

At the end of the course, you will be able to:
Describe, discuss, and critique arguments about how our society defines crime, why crime occurs, and how our society reacts to and controls behavior deemed “criminal”
Apply criminological theories to social problems of interest
Understand, critique, and/or apply reform and abolitionist frameworks to current key topics related to the nature and role of our criminal legal system

This course was created as part of the Open Pedagogy Fellowship, through the Mina Rees Library at The Graduate Center, CUNY.
Read more about the process of course design here: Criminology - A Critical and Open Approach
https://gclibrary.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2021/03/19/criminology-a-critical-and-open-approach/

World Theatre I is meant to provide a historical survey of performance practices across the globe covering early theatrical forms until broadly the 15th century and traveling through performance traditions in Africa, Western Europe, Asia, and the Americas. This course provides a historical survey of theatre across the globe, covering early theatrical forms until the 15th Century. Through traditions in Africa, Western Europe, Asia, and the Americas, we will examine a variety of theatre forms and styles, as well as individual plays, playwrights, and designers. We will study theoretical texts on theatre and performance from the periods and locales covered. We will also consider the influences on theatre from different cultural, social, political, and economic contexts, and the manners in which theatre has engaged critically and politically in different societies.

We’ll read scripts, theatre/performance theory, and look at some primary sources. All the materials for the class will be housed on this website, including our syllabus, videos from the series Theater CrashCourse, podcasts on Theatre History @Howlround Commons, Library Research Guides (Tools), and other Open Educational Resources. This site is also a work-in-progress platform for rethinking our class’s contents. It will host thoughts and open-access resources to question, research, and practice performance history. [This site was created as part of the Open Pedagogy Fellowship, hosted by the Mina Rees Library, The Graduate Center, CUNY].

This website was created by Julie Van Peteghem (Hunter College) for the course ITAL 37001 Prose Works of Dante with the support of a CUNY Academic Commons OER Faculty Teaching Fellowship during the Spring 2018 semester. A work-in-progress, the site provides the English translations of Dante’s Vita nuova, De vulgari eloquentia, Convivio, De monarchia, and the letters at zero cost, and other OER materials related to Dante’s works and world, including some created by the ITAL 37001 students. Unless otherwise indicated, the entries are written by Julie Van Peteghem.

The students will familiarize with Dante’s Divine Comedy 1) as a poetic and encyclopedic text that borrows and adapts from ancient texts and from contemporary culture 2) and as a text that, its turn, has influenced our imagination over the centuries.
While learning about the major characters, scenes and literary strategies of the Divine Comedy, the students will engage in discussions, research, writing and peer reviewing. Students will learn to describe a visual artifact in relation to Dante’s text.

With an emphasis on close reading, English 220 is intended to develop in students the analytical and interpretive skills necessary for both written and verbal critical response to literature that is firmly grounded in the text. It also establishes a common knowledge base, however minimal, in literature in English, and it equips students with the vocabulary and techniques for describing and analyzing literary works, with an emphasis on developing critical writing skills specific to literary analysis. In addition, the course develops in students an appreciation and understanding of the aesthetic qualities of literature, as well as an awareness that literature is part of a larger ongoing cultural, social, and historical dialogue that informs, influences, and inspires our experience.

As important, English 220 introduces students to discipline specific academic writing, with an emphasis on thesis driven analytical and interpretive essays, including a substantial research paper. While each academic discipline has its own writing and research requirements, style, and conventions, 220 students will gain an understanding of the basic components of academic writing: thesis creation and development, argumentation, analytical reasoning, evidence, and the engagement of both primary and secondary sources. Students will be able to use the academic writing skills learned in this class across the disciplines, adapting them to the specific field of study they pursue.

Chemistry is a challenging and often abstract science, but as you progress through this course we hope you will discover that chemistry is also exciting and that many of the key concepts in chemistry are both important and relevant to life on earth. Throughout this semester we will provide you with the basic skills and knowledge to think and feel like a chemist. You will learn that chemistry is exciting!

This course was created as part of the Open Pedagogy Fellowship, through the Mina Rees Library at The Graduate Center, CUNY.

Read more about the process of course design here: https://gclibrary.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2021/04/29/oer-in-science-catching-up-in-stem/

This class is primarily skills-oriented; here are some of the things you will be able to do by the end of our time together:

Read and write many aspects of Western classical music notation
Analyze and describe music (both written and heard) using vocabulary and concepts of Western classical music theory
Perform rhythms and melodies, both from call & response with a group leader and from reading notation
Specific topics include: pitch, rhythm, meter, major and minor scales, keys and key signatures, intervals, and triads and seventh chords

In addition to the practical aspects of the course, we will also think critically about music by asking the following questions (and more!):

What am I hearing?
Who is playing this and in what context?
How has my understanding of music been shaped by my personal life experiences and in what ways might that understanding differ from people of different times and spaces?
What is music theory and how does it help me?

Physics 110LB: General Introductory Physics Laboratory Exercises (Electricity, Magnetism, Light, and Atomic Physics)

In person, this lab class was designed to allow students to obtain hands-on experience in semi-formal laboratory settings. The goal of this design was two-fold: to give students a visual and tactile understanding of the basic principles of physics; and to give students a taste of the world of scientific research and literature.

Due to the COVID-19, we can no longer have in-person lab class. To fill this gap, we turn to online simulations which model real world experiments, albeit with simplified physics. While these simulations are helpful, we should go into this class understanding that the simplified physics removes the key factor of error in measurement and manual labor, but gives us more expected results. In other words, the labs looked cooler in person, but these simulations should give you the results you want much more easily.

Our modified goals for our online lab class are as follows:

To utilize simulations for their visual and semi-tactile representations of basic physics.
To enter into the world of academic research papers and its language, format, and style.

This course is an introduction to the field of urban studies. We will consider how social, political, and economic transformations shape the material and ideological landscape, and the many ways we experience these forces in our everyday lives. Taking the urban setting as our focus, we will examine what it is that constitutes a city and what significance different approaches to this question have for the way we relate to one another. The course is designed to lay a foundation for you to be able to critically analyze some of the prominent threads and debates in urban studies, while engaging with overlaps from your other courses and experiences.

We’ll read work from a range of academic disciplines, including urban planning, geography, history, and sociology. You will learn to identify the methods used by the authors of our course readings, and the assignments will challenge you to use these methods to construct and present knowledge about your urban environment.

This course is designed to survey the diversity and breathe of what we call music. The emphasis of the course is on perspectives of critical thinking, reflective listening and active engagement. Throughout the course, we will learn about local musical traditions on their own terms as well as attempt to understand the socio-cultural conditions of each tradition.

In considering some of these issues we move from one genre or locale to another, the focus will be developing our abilities to identify, describe, and discuss music, in terms of both style and cultural context. Through the lens of music, we will investigate human diversity, ingenuity, and artistry and highlight ways in which music-making are integral to the spheres of collective and individual expression in all its political, social and cultural dimensions.