Korea, South

This course introduces an anthropological study of nature-culture relations, illustrating its potentials and problems with reference to diverse topics in contemporary environmental politics. During the first half, it introduces prevalent and alternative approaches to understand nature-culture relations, covering key concepts and theories. The second half is dedicated to investigations of seven key environmental issues, including: climate change and energy politics, geoengineering, biodiversity conservation, animals, food, waste, and environmental health. 

This course examines the details of fiber structures, its properties, and the origin of major textile fibers. It covers the chemical and physical behaviors of fibers, including their optical, mechanical, and thermal properties. Students also learn terminologies, classification, and processing methods of important classes of textile materials: yarns, woven, knit, and nonwoven fabrics. This course defines terminology related to common textiles and fibers, analyzes the influence of fiber chemistry on fiber morphology and physical properties, and covers how to apply simple mathematical models, quantify, and analyze the physical properties of textile fibers.

This course provides an overview of the main aspects of biochemistry by relating molecular interactions to their effects on the organism as a whole. Topics include metabolism, glycolysis and gluconeogenesis, the citric acid cycle, oxidative phosphorylation, the light reactions of photosynthesis, the Calvin cycle and the pentose phosphate pathway, glycogen metabolism, fatty acid metabolism, protein turnover and amino acid catabolism, biosynthesis of amino acids, nucleotide biosynthesis, the biosynthesis of membrane lipids and steroids, and integration of metabolism.

This course systematically examines factors that influence happiness, such as objective conditions (money, marriage, etc.), happiness-related personality traits, and cultural variables that have been identified by recent scientific studies. It then re-evaluates happiness from an evolutionary perspective. 

This course examines the history of East Asia`s international relations and East Asia`s diplomacy towards the United States and the world at large from the 19th century to the advent of the Cold War. More specifically, this course is devoted to answering the question, "How did Korea charter her own path towards establishing a modern conception of national sovereignty throughout the long 19th and 20th centuries?" Topics include a comparison between a Confucian tributary system and a Westphalian system, Japan`s modernization and competing Chinese and Korean responses, Japanese imperialism and the coming of the First and Second World Wars, Japan`s surrender to the Allies and lingering post-colonial questions such as territorial sovereignty over Dokdo, the Korean War and the first two Indochina Wars as the opening "hot wars" of the Cold War, and finally, the future of the Northeast Asian international order after the Cold War.

There are three main objectives in this course. First, it examines how to prepare a theoretical basis to analyze East Asian international relations from the 19th century to the advent of the Cold War and paying special attention to how Korea encountered changes and vicissitudes of fortune as it chartered its own course in the world. Second, it identifies factors which stabilized and disrupted the East Asian international order and how interactions between such factors affected Korea’s responses. Finally, it explores what the future of East Asia’s international order will look like and how Korea’s diplomacy should act as a pivot between East Asia and the United States.

Computational social science is a new paradigm in social science that actively utilizes the methodologies of computer science and statistics for collecting, producing, and analyzing large-scale data sets. This class introduces a set of methodologies used in computational social science and how they change social science research designs and practices. It also discusses institutional and ethical issues that arise as a result of the widespread use of automated algorithms for managing massive data sets in the private and public sectors.

This course discusses the diversity in values, beliefs, cultures, races, genders, economic statuses, disabilities, generations, and other characteristics in the global world.