English

The contemporary era is marked both by a proliferation of screens through which we access ‘content’, as well as fundamental and ongoing shifts in the media industries, largely driven by digital innovation. Given this context, this course provides students with a scholarly understanding of a range of screen media, past and present, in order to better comprehend continuities and disruptions. Students examine how formal elements combine to create meaning in screen texts and they are introduced to a wide array of critical terms through which they will develop their own analyses. Through a number of detailed case studies encompassing film, television as well as emergent “new media” forms, the course provides a foundation of methods and skills for researching and studying screen media in varied forms and contexts.

This course examines the relationship between words and music, discussing ways in which language and music can interact, and the different ways in which words and music may construct meaning. Examples are drawn primarily from Western art music. No prior knowledge of musical notation is necessary to take this course. Students should, however, expect to learn and use appropriate terms and concepts to describe and analyze set works. The syllabus draws on works composed in different cultural contexts to illustrate both short and longer sung musical genres, including some excerpts of longer, dramatic works. This course is intended to be of particular interest to students of English and other modern languages, but is open to all with an interest in music and lyrics.

This advanced course covers the dynamic interactions between humans and technology. Specifically, we trace the evolution of computer-mediated communication (CMC), explore impression formation, identity, and well-being online, and extend into human–machine communication (HMC) with AI, social robots, and algorithmic media. Students critically examine theories, research, and ethical issues shaping the future of communication. Students should expect to do extensive research and produce a research paper and final paper presentation.  

Topics include Computer-mediated communication, Impression formation and relationship development, Communication and self, Psychological well-being and social support, Merging mass and interpersonal communication via interactive communication technology, Are computers social actors?   

This seminar examines the historical emergence and theoretical foundations of property and wealth through the combined lenses of sociology and economics. It explores how ownership, inheritance, and taxation have been theorized and institutionalized from early human societies to contemporary capitalism, and how these processes have produced and sustained social inequalities, including gendered disparities.

This course explores how global “Unicorn” startups, such as OpenAI, Uber, Airbnb, ByteDance, SpaceX, and Taiwan’s Appier and Gogoro, evolved from early ideas into billion-dollar enterprises. Using the proven frameworks of Silicon Valley’s start-up ecosystem, the course emphasizes the Business Model Canvas and customer development methodology to ensure strong product–market fit and effective pivoting strategies. Through a team-based, hands-on approach, students form startup teams, test business hypotheses outside the classroom, and refine their models through direct feedback from professors, entrepreneurs, and investors. The course provides real-world experience in building scalable ventures, culminating in the creation of a viable business model ready for competition or seed funding opportunities.

This course provides students an interdisciplinary introduction to climate change, using approaches from both the social sciences (history, sociology, geography, politics, economics), and the natural sciences (engineering, physics, biology). The course provides a brief look into historical and sociological causes of the climate crisis, followed by both the physical and human consequences. The course has a strong focus on potential solutions, drawing on ideas from engineering and science (renewable technology), and politics, sociology, and economics (social change).  This leaves students with a positive, action-based knowledge base on the context of the climate crisis, and current theories on how to act.

This course covers machine learning techniques to analyze visual data. Specifically, this course focuses on fundamental machine learning and recent deep learning methods that are widely used in visual data analysis and discusses how these methods are applied to solve various problems with visual data. This course consists of lectures, practices, and projects. 

Topics include Introduction to CV/DL, Convolutional neural networks, Training, optimization, data, Few-shot learning, Object detection and segmentation, RNNS, Domain adaptation, Multimodal learning, Deployment. 

Prerequisite: Basic knowledge of Python 

This course provides an opportunity to examine current youth policy debates and how they have been framed and organized in different cultures, particularly in East Asian and Western contexts. Students focus on various social problems and challenges experienced by young people, compare welfare systems and how they are shaped by different cultural values, and discuss policy measures and welfare organization in a range of topical youth issues, including housing, poverty and inequality, work and education, and social connections in the "digital age."

This course develops and interprets the mathematical foundations of statistics including theories of stochastic variables, variable transformations, sample distribution, estimation, and hypothesis testing. 

Students explore calculus and probability theory necessary to analyze data and draw statistical inferences about the population. Thus, there is a major focus on deriving statistical estimators which are functions of data and a focus on studying their statistical properties. The course covers point and interval estimation methods which are widely used in academia and industry. After establishing statistical procedures to obtain inference about the population, we apply them to real problems by using Excel. If time permits, we will talk about linear regression models and Bayesian methods, which are both essential in quantitative finance, actuarial science, medical science, etc. Please note that the lectures are in-depth regarding mathematical proofs of theorems in the textbook; students should expect the class to be theoretical and rigorous. 

Prerequisites: An undergraduate level understanding of calculus and probability. Students should have a solid understanding of integral with one variable (calculus with two variables will be very helpful for advanced topics) and integral by parts.  

How did the cities in the Mediterranean world develop from the 4th to the 8th century? How did the arrival of Christianity and Islam influence the built environments, and how did the urban populations engage with the monuments of the pasts? This course uses texts and material culture (art, architecture and objects) to examine how people lived in, thought about and interacted with the urban space. Students begin with a critical examination of the models that scholars have used to explore the process of urban change. The course adopts a thematic approach by addressing the organization of physical space, examining the fabric of the late antique city, and exploring social and religious practices in the urban environment. Towards the end of the course, students return to the present to explore how archaeological practices and heritage management influences the view of the late antique city.