Online courses directory (19947)

This course will examine the history of Western art from approximately 1600 to approximately 1800a period that bridges the gap from the Renaissance to the earliest days of the Modern era. Beginning with the Baroque in Counter-Reformation Italy and concluding with Neoclassicism in the late 18th century, we will trace the stylistic developments in Europe and America through a variety of religious, political, and philosophical movements. The class begins with the Baroque, which was the immediate successor to the Renaissance and to Renaissance humanism, and we will examine this period by regions (Italy and Spain, the Netherlands, and France and England). Next, the course moves on to explore the development of two opposing styles that emerged in the 18th century: Rococo and Enlightenment art. The course culminates with Neoclassical art, its development in a politically turbulent France, and its spread into other Western cultures, including Italy, England, and the United States. Crucial to this course is the emer…

This is a survey course, and as such it can either be used by students who are looking to take just one general overview course, or for students who want to go on to more advanced study in any of the subfields that comprise the political science discipline, such as American politics, comparative politics, international politics, or political theory.  This course will survey the different ways in which political scientists study the phenomena of politics and will deepen your understanding of political life as both a thinker and a citizen.  The goal of this course is to introduce you to the discipline’s concepts, terminology, and methods and to explore instances of applied political science through real world examples. As an introductory course, POLSC101 will focus on the basic principles of political science by combining historical study of the discipline’s greatest thinkers with analysis of contemporary issues.  We will also identify and discuss the questions that perennially drive the field of polit…

In BIO101 [1], you were introduced to biology on a microscopic scale when you learned about the functions of molecules, genes, and cells.  In this course, you will learn about biological changes that happen on a very large scale, across entire populations of organisms and over the course of millions of years, in the form of evolution and ecology.  Evolution, the process by which different species of organisms have developed and diversified from their evolutionary forbears, has been a central theme in the field of biology ever since Darwin first published his theories about it.  Mounting evidence from many different branches of science all point to the fact that species have experienced a gradual but definite physical change.  In this course, we will learn about evolution and theories that stem from evolution. We will also learn about ecology, the study of the interactions between different types of organisms and their surroundings.  Changes in surroundings will force organisms to adapt and changeoften…

This lab course supplements BIO102: Introduction to Evolutionary Biology and Ecology [1].  Although we cannot virtually replicate a true lab experience, this “lab” will allow you to become familiar with scientific thinking and techniques, and will enable you to explore some key principles of evolutionary biology and ecology. The material in this lab supplement directly relates to the material covered in the lecture and reading portion of the course.  While the lecture and reading portion focuses on big-picture concepts, here we will focus more on visual understanding, application, and practical use of your knowledge.  In each unit, you will work through tutorials related to important scientific concepts and then will be asked to think creatively about how your knowledge can be put to practical or experimental use. [1] http:///courses/bio102/…

This course is designed to introduce you to the study of Calculus.  You will learn concrete applications of how calculus is used and, more importantly, why it works.  Calculus is not a new discipline; it has been around since the days of Archimedes.  However, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, two 17th-century European mathematicians concurrently working on the same intellectual discovery hundreds of miles apart, were responsible for developing the field as we know it today.  This brings us to our first question, what is today's Calculus?  In its simplest terms, calculus is the study of functions, rates of change, and continuity.  While you may have cultivated a basic understanding of functions in previous math courses, in this course you will come to a more advanced understanding of their complexity, learning to take a closer look at their behaviors and nuances. In this course, we will address three major topics: limits, derivatives, and integrals, as well as study their respective foundations and a…

This course serves as an introduction to the Buddhist artistic traditions of South, Southeast, and East Asia, as well as the Himalayas.  It is organized into four units based on the development of Buddhist schools and artistic traditions in Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, and China, Korea, and Japan.  The first unit surveys the core tenets of Buddhism, Buddhist iconography, and early Buddhist art and architecture in India.  The second unit reviews the development of Buddhist art and architecture in Southeast Asia, focusing on the patronage of Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism by rulers in the modern countries of Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand.  Unit three examines the particular form of Vajrayana Buddhism and its artistic traditions that developed in the Himalayas.  The final unit traces the spread of Mahayana Buddhist art and architecture into China and later into Korea and Japan via the Silk Roads.  All four units highlight the interaction between Buddhist doctrine, art, and architecture; Bud…

The physics of the universe appears to be dominated by the effects of four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear forces, and strong nuclear forces.  These forces control how matter, energy, space, and time interact to produce our physical world.  All other forces, such as the force you exert in standing up, are ultimately derived from these fundamental forces. We have direct daily experience with two of these forces: gravity and electromagnetism.  Consider, for example, the everyday sight of a person sitting on a chair.  The force holding the person on the chair is gravitational, and that gravitational force balances with material forces that “push up” to keep the individual in place.  These forces are the direct result of electromagnetic forces on the nanoscale.  On a larger stage, gravity holds the celestial bodies in their orbits, while we see the universe by the electromagnetic radiation (light, for example) with which it is filled.  The electromagnetic force also makes…

This course will introduce you to the field of computer science and the fundamentals of computer programming. Introduction to Computer Science I is specifically designed for students with no prior programming experience, and taking this course does not require a background in Computer Science. This course will touch upon a variety of fundamental topics within the field of Computer Science and will use Java, a high-level, portable, and well-constructed computer programming language developed by Sun Microsystems (now Oracle), to demonstrate those principles. We will begin with an overview of the course topics as well as a brief history of software development. We will cover basic object-oriented programming terminology and concepts such as objects, classes, inheritance, and polymorphism, as well as the fundamentals of Java, its primitive data types, relational operators, control statements, exception handling, and file input /output. By the end of the course, you should have a strong understanding of the fundam…

A chronological and thematic survey of the major themes and developments in the history of Latin American art, this course traces the evolution of visual culture over approximately four millennia.  Organized into three parts, the course begins with the pre-Columbian period (1800 BC to AD 1492), moves into the years of European contact and conquest (AD 1492 to 1800), and concludes with an overview of modern and contemporary art across the Americas.  You will learn to identify and describe works of art and discuss the broader historical and social contexts in which they were produced and circulated. The first part of the course will introduce you to the major artistic achievements and archaeological record of the ancient Mesoamerican and Andean cultures: monumental architecture, urban planning, painting, sculpture, and portable arts.  The study of colonial art focuses on Mexico, Peru, and Brazil, introducing concepts of artistic hybridity and diversity, indigenous and national cultures, and transatlantic e…

In this course, we will study the history of Eastern (Orthodox) Christian art.  The course begins with an overview of the emergence of Christianity in the Late Antique period and the formation of the Christian visual language that grew out of the Classical tradition.  The course then follows the development of Christian art after the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of a “new Rome” in the East: the Byzantine Empire.  A series of reading assignments paired with lectures and virtual tours will introduce you to important works of Early Christian and Byzantine art and will also give you an understanding of the central debates of Early Christian and Byzantine art historical scholarship. By the time you finish the course, you will be able to identify the most important artworks from this period and understand how their appearances relate to the social, political, and religious environment in which they were produced.  You will also be able to trace the ways in which Early Christian and Byzantine…

This course will introduce you to the history of the Middle East and Southwest Asia from the pre-Islamic period to the end of World War I.  You will learn about the major political, economic, and social changes that took place.  The course will be structured chronologically.  Most units will include representative primary-source documents that illustrate important overarching political, economic, and social themes, such as the formation of ancient empires in the second and first millennia BCE, the political and social influence of Islam on the region in the first millennium CE, the growth and expansion of Muslim states in the second millennium CE, and the impact of European imperialism on the region in the 18th and 19th centuries.  By the end of the course, you will understand how the Middle East and Southwest Asia developed politically, economically, and socially prior to World War One and recognize the critical role that the region played in the broader development of European and Asian societies.

This course will introduce you to the art and architecture of the African continent from the prehistoric to the present. The objects, images, and sites featured in this course represent a small cross-section of the diverse ethnic and artistic heritage in Africa. This course emphasizes the role of art as manifested in the lifestyles, spiritualities, and philosophies of particular African societies, while also breaching aesthetic principles and the study and display of African art. Many works produced in Africa are used for spiritual purposes that include ritual and performance. The study of masks and ceremonies will enable you to become more familiar with the significant role art plays in the everyday lives of the citizens of African nations. For example, most traditional African art was not meant to be displayed, but rather viewed in use and in motion, especially in mixed-media masquerades. Body adornment and textiles have long been important forms of visual communication and expression in Africa, whereas pai…

The ability to research topics and incorporate information from your sources into your work is an important skill both in college and on the job.  This course will reinforce the concepts you practiced in English Composition I by introducing you to basic research concepts and techniques.  It will also give you a chance to put these new concepts and techniques to work as you develop a final research paper.  We will begin by looking at how to build research into an effective writing process.  First, you will learn to think of researching not as a requirement for getting a good grade on a paper but as a valuable tool that can make your writing more powerful and convincing.  You will learn how to build research into your writing process so that you can add persuasive power to your finished work.  Through rigorous practice of the fundamental techniques, you will come to see that, like writing itself, research is an act of discovery rather than a search for prefabricated ideas. The intent of this course is t…

No matter what career you pursue, you must be able to communicate effectively and clearly if you want to be successful.  This course will enhance your ability to do so by sharpening your critical thinking and writing skills.  We will begin with a unit designed to change the way in which you think about writing.  First, you will learn to think of writing not as a solitary act but as a conversation between yourself and an audience.  In this light, writing becomes a dynamic, interactive, and creative rather than a rote practice.  You will also begin to value writing as a process an admittedly difficult one  rather than a product.  You will come to see that writing is an act of discovery rather than a recitation of prefabricated ideas. Because this course is designed specifically for students in a university setting, the second unit will focus on academic writing.  We will learn how to respond to an assignment or test question by using the “PWR-Writing” or “Power-Writing” Method (PWR: Pre-write…

The physics of the universe appears to be dominated by the effects of four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear forces, and strong nuclear forces.  These forces control how matter, energy, space, and time interact to produce our physical world.  All other forces, such as the force you exert in standing up, are ultimately derived from these fundamental forces. We have direct daily experience with two of these forces: gravity and electromagnetism.  Consider, for example, the everyday sight of a person sitting on a chair.  The force holding the person on the chair is gravitational, and that gravitational force balances with material forces that “push up” to keep the individual in place.  These forces are the direct result of electromagnetic forces on the nanoscale.  On a larger stage, gravity holds the celestial bodies in their orbits, while we see the universe by the electromagnetic radiation (light, for example) with which it is filled.  The electromagnetic force also makes…

In this course, we will study important movements and some influential artists in Western art history.  We will begin with the “Proto-Renaissance” in Italy in the 13th century and continue through to the late 20th century.  You will become acquainted with certain regional and personal styles of art through this period, as well as a number of renowned works of art and architecture. Art forms and imagery are influenced by the surrounding world, the biography of the artist who produced the artwork, and other circumstances of artistic production.  This course provides a framework for considering how and why certain artistic movements emerged in certain places at certain times.  Some of the names and works we will look at might already be familiar to you, while others will be new.  The ultimate goal of this course is not to provide data on individual works of art, although that is part of art history, but to act as a sort of springboard.  You will gain tools for looking at and analyzing not only art by…

The purpose of this course is to provide you with a basic understanding of foreign affairs and introduce you to the fundamental principles of international relations within the political science framework. We will examine the theories of realism and liberalism as they are understood in world politics. These theories will serve as the foundation for more advanced study in the International Relations field of the Political Science major, and will help you develop the critical thinking skills you need in order to analyze conflicts between states. We will also explore issues that relate to the politics of global welfare, such as war, world poverty, disease, trade policy, environmental concerns, human rights, and terrorism. You will learn about the ethics of war, the global distribution of wealth, the concept of the balance of power and its relationship to the causes of war, and what happens in the international system when the balance of power collapses. At the end of this course, you will have a comprehensive…

Like it or not, we can’t escape politics.  Politics, a term best defined as the distribution, exercise, and consequences of power, exists at multiple levels in our society and in our daily lives.  We experience politics in action, for example, in international negotiations, government policy choices, our workplace, and even in our own families.  This course focuses its efforts on exploring the formal, public sphere of politics and power relations through a systematic study and comparison of types of government and political systems. Comparatists (practitioners of comparative politics) seek to identify and understand the similarities and differences between these systems by taking broad topicssay, for example, “democracy” or “freedom”and breaking them down into factors that can be found in individual systems.  We call this general approach “the comparative method.”  The goal of the comparative method is to identify the factors and/or categories of analysis to effectively compare and contra…

This course will introduce you to the concepts and ideas in the area of social psychology. Social Psychology aims to discover the different ways in which people interact with other individuals, groups, and the larger society as a whole, as well as why people act in certain ways. As with an anthropology or sociology course, social psychology looks at the inner workings of groups of people. However, it differs from these courses in terms of its focus; social psychology focuses primarily on the single individual’s psychology as part of the group or society, rather than the culture or group interaction (though both of these areas have some relevance in social psychology). This may seem to be quite a broad subject area and it is. Humans are social creatures (in other words, they have evolved to be able to interact and communicate at high levels with individuals of their own species) and almost invariably exist in a social context (even a situation in which society is absent could be studied by social psychologi…

Mathematics comes together in this course. You enter precalculus with an abundant array of experience in mathematics, and this course offers an opportunity to make connections among the big ideas you encountered earlier. It also assists you in developing fluency with the tools used in learning calculus. The focus of this course is the concept of function - it’s with functions that mathematicians and scientists can model the world and make leaps of invention, sending rockets to far planets, determining the future size of populations, and finding the amount of earth to be moved when creating new roads. The unit begins by defining and exploring certain attributes of functions and continues with specific kinds of functions - linear, polynomial, rational, logarithmic, and exponential. In addition to precalculus being important for many fields, the subject is obviously designed to prepare you for calculus, which is the mathematics of things that are changing. Calculus allows us to find areas of strangely curv…