This course is an opportunity to reflect on past learning successes and unlock students’ highest potential. Students in this course will study the science of learning, develop strategies and habits to enhance existing strengths, and collaboratively discuss how to successfully meet learning challenges. This course is grounded in the fields of psychology and education.

Terms offered: 2022 Spring Semester; 2023 Spring Semester; 2024 Spring Semester; 2025 Spring Semester

Explores the possibilities and limitations of computation as applied throughout a liberal arts curriculum. Examines key issues in using computation as a tool. What sorts of questions can be asked and answered using computational methods? How do these methods complement and sometimes challenge traditional methodologies in the humanities? What are the primary tools and methods currently being used in the digital humanities? These questions are examined in the context of a series of projects. Weekly labs provide hands-on experience with the concepts and tools presented in class and an opportunity to work on the projects. Assumes no prior knowledge of computers, programming, or statistics.

Access to large-scale data about cities has caused policymakers and activists alike to shift their focus toward a movement of smart urbanism, i.e., interventions in urban issues through better uses of technology and data, from gentrification to pollution to walkability. How can written argumentation, data, and data visualizations be used to represent the multiple experiences of the city to affect public policy and support the growth of equal and just cities? Through field research, intensive computer training, techniques of social and spatial analysis using geographic information systems (GIS), and close readings of classic and cutting-edge studies of cities, namely New York City, New York, and Portland, Maine, students learn ways to create and critique urban public policy through data visualizations. This project-based course connects global urban issues to the intimate experiences of everyday life.

This course addresses the intersections between world language pedagogy, antibias education, and metalinguistic awareness. Through engagement with current research, students will explore theories of language acquisition and practices of intercultural communication from infancy through adulthood. The course will foster engagement in reflective practice concerning teaching and learning languages and cultures in the classroom, including designing and implementing short lesson plans tied to curricular goals. Students will develop oral and written proficiencies to engage with movements in language advocacy and representation. These experiences will be supported by a partnership with a team of Brunswick public school teachers and the Multilingual Mainers program. The course is open to all students with at least intermediate proficiency in a language other than English.

Terms offered: 2022 Spring Semester; 2023 Spring Semester

How did early modern intellectuals amass enough data to feel confident that the earth rotated around the sun? How did they write about their data (texts, diagrams, measurements, and calculations) in order to eventually convince a larger audience that the Copernican hypothesis of heliocentrism was valid even though the sun appears to move in the sky? Examines the literary, artistic, religious, political, economic, and scientific context of these questions by introducing and using large-scale digital textual analysis, network visualization, mapping, and computation. Defines a set of parameters for analyzing other famous cases of big data reshaping worldviews.

Considers what it means to be human through science fiction narrative, film, television, and other media depicting humans in relation to aliens, robots, cyborgs, genetically engineered or altered bodies, digital simulations, and the natural world. Explores predictions of our future as 'transhumans,' 'hyperobjects' impacting the Earth, off-world inhabitants, connected or isolated, and as a species of great diversity and disparity. Uses critical discourse in areas such posthumanism, transhumanism, affect studies, and 'the nonhuman turn.' Discussions center around embodiment, A.I., biotech, consciousness, language, emotion, and identity. Works include novels such as Mieville's 'Embassytown,' Butler's 'Dawn,' PKD's 'Androids;' films such as '2001,' 'The Congress,' and 'Arrival;' and episodes from television series such as 'Battlestar Galattica,' 'Black Mirror,' 'Sense8,' and 'Westworld.'

Focuses on the study of health from a wide array of disciplinary perspectives—across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Possible topics include epidemiology, medical ethics, environmental health, public policy, disability, nutrition, pharmaceuticals, health inequalities, and mental illness—as well as the history, globalization, and literary representations of health. It is targeted toward students with previous academic (or work) experience in a related field, and all participants will be expected to bring material learned from another class to the seminar table in this one. Student-led discussions and projects form the core of the class, which may also feature guest lectures from Bowdoin and/or external faculty.