Liberal Studies

Effective, vibrant leadership is essential to the success of any organization. This interdisciplinary course is designed to increase students’ understanding of major leadership behavioral patterns, personal leadership skills, and analysis in for-profit, nonprofit, community, and governmental organizations. Contemporary issues in leadership are addressed in the context of established leadership theory.

Credits: 4

The Civil War was arguably the most controversial and traumatic event in American history. This course considers how and why the war developed, its long-term results, and why it is such an important part of America’s cultural heritage. Through an examination of novels, films, diaries, and letters written by Civil War participants, students analyze the impact of this war and our continuing fascination with it.

Credits: 4

Students learn how to document community members’ traditions, memories, and stories through audio and video recording to create permanent records that contribute to understanding the past. By using a critical approach, students learn how to uphold professional and technical standards in order to capture, preserve, and make oral history narratives available in different forms for current and future use.

Credits: 2

Introduces students to the historical, artistic, and natural treasures of the Hudson River Valley. Students experience the Valley's historical and natural development from multiple disciplinary lenses. Sites may include: Jay Homestead, Marshlands Conservancy, Franklin D Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, St Paul's National Historic Site; Croton Point Park and Gorge Dam; Sunnyside, Philipsburg Manor, Hudson River Museum.

Credits: 2

An interdisciplinary course that examines the way air, ground, and marine transportation is structured and used to move demographically diverse people. Discussions about the role of public participation in planning efforts includes particular attention to youth, minority populations, and people with low income. Programs to increase participation from people traditionally under-heard in planning processes are examined and proposed.

Credits: 4

The modern conception of health and its resulting issues are examined from an interdisciplinary perspective. Topics include the origins of emerging health and related public policy issues; the impact on the local, national, and global economy and educational systems; national security; preventive efforts; and approaches to planning policy that address these health challenges now and in the future.

Credits: 4

An interdisciplinary course that examines physical aspects of the world’s water, from oceans and rivers to streams and ponds. Noting the role that water plays in ecosystems and social systems provides the basis for further exploration into the history of use, contamination, and protection. The physical and chemical properties of water provide the basis for questions of safety and sustainability.

Credits: 4

Food preferences differ culture by culture. This interdisciplinary course explores practices and politics of food production, consumption, and regulation locally and globally. After taking a historic look at how food practices have changed, students examine microbial and chemical agents that may contaminate food supplies and learn practical considerations for preventing food scarcity and contamination on small and large scales.

Credits: 4

Contemporary culture cannot be adequately understood without considering the impact of religious extremism. While other factors play a role, it is religious passions that fuel the jihadist movement in the Islamic world, incite violence in the occupied Palestinian territories, and amplify culture wars between secular and religious forces in the U.S. This course examines the root causes of such cultural phenomena, asking whether fundamentalism can exist in modern society without leading to bloodshed.

Credits: 4

This interdisciplinary course examines ethical, technical and workplace issues surrounding artificial intelligence (AI). By discussing conceptual dilemmas about human-AI interaction from science fiction, TV and film, considering the rise of workplace automation, and exploring specific cases from self-driving cars to intelligent systems that (un)lock front doors and control household items within the internet of things, students tackle policy implications.

Credits: 4

This course will examine the meanings and determinants of happiness from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, including cultural anthropology, economics, and psychology. Coursework will combine sociocultural and economic analyses with scientific research from the field of positive psychology regarding the psychosocial and neuropsychological nature of happiness, including how positive emotions influence cognition, health, wealth and social relations.

Credits: 4

This course emphasizes the importance of integrating interdisciplinary perspectives in problem-solving, as well as combining academic and experiential learning in confronting real-world challenges. Students will reflect on the meanings and purpose of higher education as a community of learners, will engage in a variety of activities designed to strengthen academic skills, and will address contemporary social issues from cross-disciplinary perspectives.

Credits: 4

Explores the meanings and definitions of ability and disability. Students examine genealogies of ‘disability’ in the United States and cross-culturally from historical, legal, and sociocultural perspectives. Representations of disability in art history, museums, and theatre and film are critically analyzed in efforts to move toward diverse and inclusive understandings of human ability and universal design principles.

Credits: 4

Provides a broad view of migration from multiple disciplinary perspectives, at multiple scales of analysis (local-global), and across geopolitical space. Explore how migration intersects with development, environment, security, and identity. A central concern includes how such sociopolitical considerations vis-a-vis migration, in turn, impact and fashion our sense of responsibility for the global commons.

Credits: 4

Explore the sociopolitical dimensions of the arts across diverse creative outlets. Students examine art in relation to the politics of power in society, and engage the activist dynamics of artistic expression with regards to persistent forms of inequality and oppression.

Credits: 4

This seminar will prepare students to select among research methods to examine and address a challenging social problem from multiple angles and perspectives for their capstone. By conducting a comprehensive literature review, students explore disciplinary connections and compile reflections within an e-portfolio. They will draft a field-based research proposal that addresses one complicated contemporary issue.

Credits: 4

To modern audiences, “fairy tale” suggests beautiful princesses and handsome princes, ball gowns, and singing mice, but fairy tales have much darker roots. Alongside true love, innocence, and bravery lies infanticide, incest, murder, and cannibalism. In this course, students study a selection of fairy tales and explore their origins, variants, interpretations, and the archetypal characters who inhabit them.

Credits: 4

Students learn how to employ Excel to create and modify spreadsheets, create macros and scripts, create charts and graphs, import data, create concept maps and sequentially rank information. By learning how to harness Excel’s data analysis and visualization tools, they can analyze information, spot trends, and access information easily and recognize its importance in making critical financial decisions.

Credits: 2

Explores the elements of music, including melody, rhythm, harmony, tone color, texture, and structure. Students acquire basic literacy in music notation and score analysis while being guided through an in-depth listening experience of representative works spanning the history of Western classical, folk, and popular music. Experience in reading music is not required.

Credits: 4

Using an interdisciplinary approach, students analyze the social and historical effects of American music, from the music of Native Americans and the early Europeans in America to gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock ’n’ roll, rap, hip-hop, and beyond. The evolution and convergence of musical genres and forms are also examined, along with the artists, their aesthetics and audiences, and the evolving history of American culture.

Credits: 4

Art therapy offers patients with progressive and chronic illnesses a means to communicate through artwork when language or other avenues of communication are unavailable. This course introduces students to the fundamentals of art therapy. Lectures, readings, PowerPoint presentations, and experiential projects provide students with an understanding of how to analyze and interpret artwork produced by patients.

Credits: 2

Examines the means by which leading, contemporary American playwrights have tackled many burning social issues, including racial discrimination, gender bias, corporate abuse, and violence against gays and lesbians. Kushner’s Angels in America is used as a model for discussion of several important writers whose dramas have had an impact on American culture and effected change.

Credits: 4

Explores 20th-century world drama from an end-of-the-millennium perspective. Plays are chosen from North America, Africa, Asia, and Europe for cross-cultural thematic investigations. Close reading of the plays, along with class discussions, encourages students to theorize on the inter- and intra-textual nuances dramatized in the plays. The emphasis is on students’ response to the works, although they are expected to become familiar with various postmodernist theories, including feminist and postcolonial studies.

Credits: 4

Musicals are used as the focus for comparing works of art. Broadway musicals are often based on movies, and vice versa—and both draw from literature. They also generate multiple adaptations, recordings, and broadcasts. Topics include the relationship of theatre and film, use of song and dance, and how similar ideas and stories are handled in different media and eras.

Credits: 4

Come taste the finest sampling of the great Broadway songwriters. Each class examines a particular songwriter (Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim), idea (the subversives: Weill and Bernstein), or era (contemporary voices on Broadway). Students savor recordings, investigate the dramatic qualities of the songs, and analyze lyrics, melody, and song form.

Credits: 4

Explores the variety of ways in which readers, critics, actors, and directors have interpreted, and can interpret, Shakespeare's plays and poetry. While written work and some research are required, there are also opportunities for oral presentations and performance.

Credits: 4

Students develop strategies for overcoming creative writer’s block. Through a series of physical exercises, visualizations, and writing prompts, students learn to overcome obstacles that prevent them from writing or completing a written work. By building a toolkit of simple tactics, students learn how to become more productive creative writers.

Credits: 2

A workshop for beginning writers, with an emphasis on finding story ideas, beginning and ending narratives, creating plot and conflict, developing characters, controlling voice and point of view, and handling narration. Students read, discuss, and revise their work regularly. Individual requirements are developed with the instructor, who reviews and evaluates each writer’s work.

Credits: 4

This course in creative writing allows students to explore various genres, including poetry, the short story, and the memoir. Students should be prepared to write, revise, and share portions of their work with the class and to read a selection of works by contemporary authors.

Credits: 4

Focusing on the process of writing poetry, this course facilitates writing new work and sharpening revision skills. Students read contemporary poetry, participate in writing exercises, explore the writer’s craft, critique poems, and discuss the road to publication.

Credits: 4

For fiction writers with some experience. Students read and discuss their work regularly and revise their stories. Specific requirements are developed with the instructor, but writers normally work on at least two stories during the term or on a longer project (a novella or novel). The instructor periodically reviews and evaluates each writer’s work.

Credits: 4

This course in creative writing allows students to explore various genres, including poetry, the short story, and the memoir. Students should be prepared to write, revise, and share portions of their work with the class and to read a selection of works by contemporary authors.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: WRI2160 Or CWR1010 Or AWR2120

Focusing on the process of writing poetry, this course facilitates writing new work and sharpening revision skills. Students read contemporary poetry, participate in writing exercises, explore the writer’s craft, critique poems, and discuss the road to publication.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: WRI2170

Students learn how to examine and write their own stories through in-class exercises and discussion of both student and published work. Beginning writers, as well as those with a particular project in mind, learn how to place their stories in the larger context of the world and employ storytelling techniques, including imagery, voice, dialogue, and character development.

Credits: 4

Students examine how experience, research, and imagination are integrated in this evolving genre. Discussions focus on traditional published works and those that play with the boundaries of the nonfiction, integrating traditional styles to create new ones. Students analyze one another’s attempts to artfully place the subjective in the context of the larger world and create their own original works.

Credits: 4