Online courses directory (19947)

This course addresses the place of contemporary queer identities in French discourse and discusses the new generation of queer authors and their principal concerns. Class discussions and readings will introduce students to the main classical references of queer subcultures, from Proust and Vivien to Hocquenghem and Wittig. Throughout the course, students will examines current debates on post-colonial and globalized queer identities through essays, songs, movies, and novels. Authors covered include Didier Eribon, Anne Garréta, Abdellah Taïa, Anne Scott, and Nina Bouraoui. This class is taught in French.

How do addictions develop? How are they best treated and how are they prevented? This course explores these key questions further.

Gain high-level perspective on the world of business and organisations today in preparation for a better understanding of tomorrow

Making decisions about managing natural resources can be difficult; this course explores why fairness needs to be part of policy.

Gain an understanding of the natural world, how the web of life works, with illustrations from around the world.

Explore the history and practice of physical theatre training using internationally recognised approach to acting: biomechanics.

This course provides a selective overview of electoral politics in the United States, with an emphasis on presidential and congressional elections. It examines the macro-level determinants of electoral outcomes as well as the political behavior of individual Americans. Each week covers a different topic, with readings designed to highlight controversies or debates in the political science literature.

This course covers issues in contemporary French society as expressed through movies made in the 2000s. Topics include France's national self-image, the women's movement, sexuality and gender, family life and class structure, post-colonialism and immigration, and American cultural imperialism. Films by Lelouch, Audiard, Doillon, Denis, Klapisch, Resnais, Rouan, Balasko, Collard, Dridi, Kassovitz, and others. Readings from French periodicals. Films shown with English subtitles. Taught in French.

This course introduces undergraduates to the basic theory, institutional architecture, and practice of international development. We take an applied, interdisciplinary approach to some of the "big questions" in our field. This course will unpack these questions by providing an overview of existing knowledge and best practices in the field. The goal of this class is to go beyond traditional dichotomies and narrow definitions of progress, well-being, and culture. Instead, we will invite students to develop a more nuanced understanding of international development by offering an innovative set of tools and content flexibility.

Does it matter in education whether or not you've got a Y chromosome? You bet it does. In this discussion-based seminar, we will explore why males vastly outrank females in math and science and career advancements (particularly in academia), and why girls get better grades and go to college more often than boys. Do the sexes have different learning styles? Are women denied advanced opportunities in academia and the workforce? How do family life and family decisions affect careers for both men and women?

This course focuses on feedback control mechanisms that living organisms implement at the molecular level to execute their functions, with emphasis on techniques to design novel systems with prescribed behaviors. Students will learn how biological functions can be understood and designed using notions from feedback control.

This course will explore food in modern American history as a story of industrialization and globalization. Lectures, readings, and discussions will emphasize the historical dimensions of—and debates about—slave plantations and factory farm labor; industrial processing and technologies of food preservation; the political economy and ecology of global commodity chains; the vagaries of nutritional science; food restrictions and reform movements; food surpluses and famines; cooking traditions and innovations; the emergence of restaurants, supermarkets, fast food, and slow food. The core concern of the course will be to understand the increasingly pervasive influence of the American model of food production and consumption patterns.

Are you a professional interested in sustainable development? This course looks at integrating a sustainable development strategy.

How do we read and model fictional minds? Introducing cognitive poetics: the application of cognitive science to literary reading.

This course explores how the police use science in criminal investigations and how it interacts with the criminal justice system.

This course develops and applies principles of game theory relevant to managers' strategic decisions. Topics include how to reason about strategies and opponents; strategic commitment, reputation, and "irrational" actions; brinkmanship and negotiation; auctions; and the design of markets and contests. Applications to a variety of business decisions that arise in different industries, both within and outside the firm.

This course introduces the mathematical modeling techniques needed to address key questions in modern biology. An overview of modeling techniques in molecular biology and genetics, cell biology and developmental biology is covered. Key experiments that validate mathematical models are also discussed, as well as molecular, cellular, and developmental systems biology, bacterial chemotaxis, genetic oscillators, control theory and genetic networks, and gradient sensing systems. Additional specific topics include: constructing and modeling of genetic networks, lambda phage as a genetic switch, synthetic genetic switches, circadian rhythms, reaction diffusion equations, local activation and global inhibition models, center finding networks, general pattern formation models, modeling cell-cell communication, quorum sensing, and finally, models for Drosophila development.

6.858 Computer Systems Security is a class about the design and implementation of secure computer systems. Lectures cover threat models, attacks that compromise security, and techniques for achieving security, based on recent research papers. Topics include operating system (OS) security, capabilities, information flow control, language security, network protocols, hardware security, and security in web applications.

This course, as a part of MIT's Center for Neurobiological Engineering curriculum, explores cutting-edge neurotechnology that is essential for advances in all aspects of neuroscience, including improvements in existing methods as well as the development, testing and discussion of completely new paradigms. Readings and in-class sessions cover the fields of electrophysiology, light microscopy, cellular engineering, optogenetics, electron microscopy, MRI / fMRI, and MEG / EEG. The course is designed with lectures that cover the background, context, and theoretical descriptions of neurotechnologies, and labs, which provide firsthand demonstrations as well as in situ lab tours.

What do technology and innovation mean from Africa? This is the central question of this course, which tackles a double absence: Of the meanings and role of technology in African history, on the one hand, and of Africa's place in the global history of technology, on the other. This course alternates between technologies from outside and technologies from within Africa and their itineraries in everyday life, and it is designed to provide students with grounded understandings of technology in Africa for intellectual and action-oriented purposes.