Acceso is a complete, interactive curriculum for intermediate-level learners of Spanish. The materials on the site are provided freely to the public and are intended as a replacement for commercial textbooks, which are generally ill-suited to the learning outcomes now considered crucial to successful language study. These materials are supplemented by an online workbook built on the MySpanishLab platform of Pearson Education, Inc., as well as detailed lesson plans, rubrics for the evaluation of student work, and reliable instruments for measuring student progress and learning outcomes.Winner of 2012 Computer Assisted Language Consortium (CALICO) Focus AwardReviewed in:CALICO Journal 29.2 (Jan 2012): 398-405.Hispania 95.2 (June 2012): 365-366

This interdisciplinary course surveys modern European culture to disclose the alignment of literature, opposition, and revolution. Reaching back to the foundational representations of anarchism in nineteenth-century Europe (Kleist, Conrad) the curriculum extends through the literary and media representations of militant organizations in the 1970s and 80s (Italy's Red Brigade, Germany's Red Army Faction, and the Real Irish Republican Army). In the middle of the term students will have the opportunity to hear a lecture by Margarethe von Trotta, one of the most important filmmakers who has worked on terrorism. The course concludes with a critical examination of the ways that certain segments of European popular media have returned to the "radical chic" that many perceive to have exhausted itself more than two decades ago.

This course explores the experiences and understandings of class among Americans positioned at different points along the U.S. social spectrum. It considers a variety of classic frameworks for analyzing social class and uses memoirs, novels, and ethnographies to gain a sense of how class is experienced in daily life and how it intersects with other forms of social difference such as race and gender.

ASL III is the third quarter of the first year study of American Sign Language (ASL) and the people who use it. ASL III will enhance the use of ASL grammar and consist of concentrated efforts to develop the studentęs expressive and receptive skills. The course will continue to provide insights into Deaf Cultural values, attitudes and the Deaf community. Now learning more abstract concepts of the language, ASL III students will be able to: narrate events that occurred in the past, ask for solutions to everyday problems, tell about life events, and describe objects. Students will also be able to: demonstrate intermediate finger spelling competency, generate complex ASL structures with intermediate vocabulary knowledge, execute a wide variety of grammatical principles, including classifiers and inflections, adapt to different sign language registers, dialects and accents, and create opportunities to interact with members of the Deaf community.

Seminar focuses on core issues and approaches in anthropological theory and method. Studies theoretical frameworks for the analysis and integration of material from other subjects in cultural anthropology. Subject provides instruction and practice in writing and revision whereby students produce one paper that is appropriate for publication or as a proposal for funding. This course introduces students to some of the major social theories and debates that inspire and inform anthropological analysis. Over the course of the semester, we will investigate a range of theoretical propositions concerning such topics as agency, structure, subjectivity, history, social change, power, culture, and the politics of representation. Ultimately, all theories can be read as statements about human beings and the worlds they create and inhabit. We will approach each theoretical perspective or proposition on three levels: (1) in terms of its analytical or explanatory power for understanding human behavior and the social world; (2) in the context of the social and historical circumstances in which they were produced; and (3) as contributions to ongoing dialogues and debate.

This class examines how anthropology and speculative fiction (SF) each explore ideas about culture and society, technology, morality, and life in "other" worlds. We investigate this convergence of interest through analysis of SF in print, film, and other media. Concepts include traditional and contemporary anthropological topics, including first contact; gift exchange; gender, marriage, and kinship; law, morality, and cultural relativism; religion; race and embodiment; politics, violence, and war; medicine, healing, and consciousness; technology and environment. Thematic questions addressed in the class include: what is an alien? What is "the human"? Could SF be possible without anthropology?

This class examines the ways humans experience the realm of sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. In addition to learning about how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally, students learn about the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, and sound recording, as well as about the globalized travel of these technologies. Questions of ownership, property, authorship, and copyright in the age of digital file sharing are also addressed. A major concern will be with how the sound/noise boundary has been imagined, created, and modeled across diverse sociocultural and scientific contexts. Auditory examples--sound art, environmental recordings, music--will be provided and invited throughout the term.

This subject introduces skills needed to build within a landscape establishing continuities between the built and natural world. Students learn to build appropriately through analysis of landscape and climate for a chosen site, and to conceptualize design decisions through drawings and models.

This course is an exploration of visual art forms and their cultural connections for the student with little experience in the visual arts. It includes a brief study of art history and in depth studies of the elements, media, and methods used in creative processes and thought. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: interpret examples of visual art using a five-step critical process that includes description, analysis, context, meaning, and judgment; identify and describe the elements and principles of art; use analytical skills to connect formal attributes of art with their meaning and expression; explain the role and effect of the visual arts in societies, history, and other world cultures; articulate the political, social, cultural, and aesthetic themes and issues that artists examine in their work; identify the processes and materials involved in art and architectural production; utilize information to locate, evaluate, and communicate information about visual art in its various forms. Note that this course is an alternative to the Saylor FoundationĺÎĺ_ĺĚĺ_s ARTH101A and has been developed through a partnership with the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges; the Saylor Foundation has modified some WSBCTC materials. This free course may be completed online at any time. (Art History 101B)

This subject focuses on the objects, history, context, and critical discussion surrounding art since World War II. Because of the burgeoning increase in art production, the course is necessarily selective. We will trace major developments and movements in art up to the present, primarily from the US; but we will also be looking at art from Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, as well as art "on the margins" -- art that has been overlooked by the mainstream critical press, but may have a broad cultural base in its own community. We will ask what function art serves in its various cultures of origin, and why art has been such a lightning rod for political issues around the world.

Aswaat Arabiyya is an archive of 245 videos in Arabic, listed by difficulty level and accompanied by glossaries and four worksheets each that focus on every aspect of listening comprehension. Selections come largely from Arabic media, with some cultural presentations by native speakers. Videos cover the entire Arabic-speaking world and include MSA and different dialects. Materials are designed to be used both as in-class activities and homework assignments. Videos can be slowed down.

Learning about primary sources in an archives where students can see and examine materials is a unique opportunity. This exercise aims to provide a similar level of hands-on active learning while students attend a synchronous class online.

This text is intended to help students understand how to use primary sources and how to research at the University of Baltimore Special Collections & Archives in order to explore potential research topics regarding 20th century social history, arts history, cultural history, and more, in Baltimore, Maryland. The class activity is designed to be completed synchronously in an online learning environment using video conference tools such as Zoom in order to provide students with a collaborative group based experience.

Childhood is a source of fascination in most Western cultures. It is both a major inspiration for artistic creation and a political ideal, which aims at protecting future generations. Which role does it play in French society and in other francophone areas? Why is the French national anthem (La Marseillaise) addressed to its 'children'? This course will study the transformation of childhood since the 18th century and the development of sentimentality within the family. We will examine various representations of childhood in literature (e.g. Pagnol, Proust, Sarraute, Laye, Morgiĺvre), movies (e.g. Truffaut), and songs (e.g. Brel, Barbara). Course taught in French.

This Gallatin seminar links the #blacklivesmatter” movement to four broader phenomena: 1) the rise of the U.S. prison industrial complex and its relationship to the increasing militarization of inner city communities 2) the role of the media industry in influencing national conversations about race and racism and 3) the state of racial justice activism in the context of a neoliberal Obama Presidency and 4) the increasingly populist nature of decentralized protest movements in the contemporary United States. In this course we will be mindful of an important distinction between #blacklivesmatter (as an emergent movement that has come into existence within roughly the past three years) vs. a much older and broader U.S. movement for black lives that has been in existence for several centuries (which can be traced back to at least the first slave uprisings in the antebellum south). Part of our goal then, we be to think about how the former has been influenced by the latter and to what ends. Among the many topics of discussion that we will debate and engage this semester will include: the moral ethics of black rage and riotous forms of protest; violent vs. nonviolent civil disobedience; the hyberbolic media myth of “black on black” crime; coalitional politics and the black feminist and LGBTQ underpinnings of the #blacklivesmatter movement; the similarities and differences between the blacklivesmatter movement and the U.S. civil rights movement; and the dynamics of political protest among the millennial and post-millennial generations.

Our reading material will often be supplemented with live, in-person dialogues with contemporary grassroots activists who are currently involved in the movement. Through our readings and direct engagements with activists on the frontlines, we will ask: How, when, and in what ways is it possible for us to stand in formation against the treacherous legacies of capitalist patriarchal white supremacy?

This course studies the transformation of childhood and youth since the 18th century in France, as well as the development of sentimentality within the family in a francophone context. Students will examine the personification of children, both as a source of inspiration for artistic creation and a political ideal aimed at protecting future generations, and consider various representations of childhood and youth in literature (e.g., Pagnol, Proust, Sarraute, Lave, Morgievre), movies (e.g., Truffaut), and songs (e.g., Brel, Barbara). This course is taught entirely in French.

City to City, as a class, will jump into the complexity of planning in New Orleans, a post-disaster city. City-to-City will ask how a post-disaster city grapple with its ideas of identity, what it is, who it represents, and how it projects its sense of self to residences, businesses, tourists, and to the outside world. In considering its people, how do city planners think about who lives where and why? At the same time, how can city planners celebrate a city's history and its culture and how can these elements be woven into reconstruction? Students will travel from Cambridge to New Orleans over Spring Break to meet and consult with their alumni clients, and continue to work on projects.

In an increasingly interconnected world, communicating across cultures is a crucial skill in the international networks of business, science, and technology. Subject examines a range of communication styles and techniques resulting from different cultural norms and traditions. It begins with a general theoretical framework and then moves into case studies. Topics include understanding the relationship between communication and culture, differences in verbal and non-verbal communication styles, barriers to intercultural communication, modes of specific cross-cultural communication activities (e.g. argumentation, negotiation, conflict resolution) and intercultural adjustment. Case studies explore specific ways of communicating in Asian and European cultures. Graduate students are expected to complete additional assignments. Taught in English.It has become commonplace knowledge that globalization is one of the major forces shaping our world. If we look at the spread of information, ideas, capital, media, cultural artifacts--or for that matter, people--we can see the boundaries and borders that have historically separated one country or one group from another are becoming more and more permeable. For proof of this close to home, you need only to look at the composition of the MIT student body: 8 percent of the undergraduates and 37 percent of the graduate students are from 109 different countries. "Communicating Across Cultures" is designed to help you meet the challenges of living in a world in which, increasingly, you will be asked to interact with people who may not be like you in fundamental ways. Its primary goals are to help you become more sensitive to intercultural communication differences, and to provide you with the knowledge and skills that will help you interact successfully with people from cultures other than your own. We hope the course will accomplish those goals by exposing you to some of the best writers and scholars on the subject of intercultural communication, and by giving you a variety of opportunities to practice intercultural communication yourself. As you read the syllabus for this course, we hope you get a sense of our commitment to making this course a rewarding experience for you.

This course enhances cross-cultural understanding through the discussion of practical, ethical, and epistemological issues in conducting social science and applied research in foreign countries or unfamiliar communities. It includes a research practicum to help students develop interviewing, participant-observation, and other qualitative research skills, as well as critical discussion of case studies. The course is open to all interested students, but intended particularly for those planning to undertake exploratory research or applied work abroad. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

This course is an intermediate subject designed to help students gradually build an in-depth understanding of France. The course focuses on French attitudes and values regarding education, work, family and institutions, and deals with the differing notions that underlie interpersonal interactions and communication styles, such as politeness, friendship and formality. Using a Web comparative, cross-cultural approach, students explore a variety of French and American materials, then analyze and compare them using questionnaires, opinion polls, news reports (in different media), as well as a variety of historical, anthropological and literary texts. Throughout the course, attention is given to the development of relevant linguistics skills. This course is recommended for students planning to study and work in France and is taught in French.

This course examines how medicine is practiced cross-culturally, with particular emphasis on Western biomedicine. Students analyze medical practice as a cultural system, focusing on the human, as opposed to the biological, side of things. Also considered is how people in different cultures think of disease, health, body, and mind.