UMB: Agroecology and Food Systems (Course code PAE303)

21H.206 American Consumer Culture (MIT)
This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the "good life" through consumption, leisure, and material abundance. We will explore how such things as department stores, nationally advertised brand-name goods, mass-produced cars, and suburbs transformed the American economy, society, and politics. The course is organized both thematically and chronologically. Each period deals with a new development in the history of consumer culture. Throughout we explore both celeb
Author(s): Jacobs, Meg

2.00B Toy Product Design (MIT)
Toy Product Design is a MIT Public Service Center service learning design course offered in the Spring semester. This course, previously listed as SP.778, is an introduction to the product design process with a focus on designing for play and entertainment. In this course, students work in small teams of 5-6 members to design and prototype new toys. Students work closely with a local sponsor, an elementary school, and experienced mentors on a themed toy design project. Students will be introduce
Author(s): Wallace, David,Kudrowitz, Barry

MAS.962 Autism Theory and Technology (MIT)
This course will lay a foundation in autism theory and autism technology that significantly leverages and expands the Media Lab's ability to pioneer new technology. Students will not only develop new technologies, but also understand, help, and learn from people with autism, a fast-growing group that the CDC identified in the year 2005 as involving an estimated 1 in 150 school-age children ages 6-21. Students will gain an understanding of the basic challenges faced by people diagnosed with autis
Author(s): Breazeal, Cynthia,el Kaliouby, Rana,Picard, Rosali

6.931 Development of Inventions and Creative Ideas (MIT)
This course examines the role of the engineer as patent expert and as technical witness in court and patent interference and related proceedings. It discusses the rights and obligations of engineers in connection with educational institutions, government, and large and small businesses. It compares various manners of transplanting inventions into business operations, including development of New England and other U.S. electronics and biotechnology industries and their different types of institut
Author(s): Carter, Dedric,Rines, Robert

21M.873 Theater Arts Topics - Suburbia (MIT)
Directed practice in acting, production, or design on a sustained theater piece, either one-act or full length, from pre-rehearsal preparation to workshop production. Consult Theater Arts Office. Includes directed practice in stagecraft. Dramashop rehearses a production of Eric Bogosian's play "subUrbia" for presentation the first two weekends in February. Visiting artist, David R. Gammons, directs. Approximately 10 roles filled by auditions. Students can receive up to six credits for acting or
Author(s): Gammons, David R.

17.441 International Politics and Climate Change (MIT)
This course examines the interconnections of international politics and climate change. Beginning with an analysis of the strategic and environmental legacies of the 20th Century, it explores the politicization of the natural environment, the role of science in this process, and the gradual shifts in political concerns to incorporate "nature". Two general thrusts of climate-politics connections are pursued, namely those related to (a) conflict – focusing on threats to security due to envir
Author(s): Choucri, Nazli

STS.003 The Rise of Modern Science (MIT)
This course studies the development of modern science from the seventeenth century to the present, focusing on Europe and the United States. Key questions include: What is science, and how is it done? How are discoveries made and accepted? What is the nature of scientific progress? What is the impact of science on society? What is the impact of society on science? Topics will be drawn from the histories of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and medicine.AcknowledgementThis class is based o
Author(s): Gerovitch, Slava

21M.670 Traditions in American Concert Dance: Gender and Autobiography (MIT)
This course explores the forms, contents, and context of world traditions in dance that played a crucial role in shaping American concert dance. For example, we will identify dances from an African American vernacular tradition that were transferred from the social space to the concert stage. We will explore the artistic lives of such American dance artists as Katherine Dunham, Pearl Primus, and Alvin Ailey along with Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, George Balanchine, and Merce Cunningham as Amer
Author(s): Blanco, Melissa

STS.036 Technology and Nature in American History (MIT)
This course considers how the visual and material world of "nature" has been reshaped by industrial practices, ideologies, and institutions, particularly in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. Topics include land-use patterns; the changing shape of cities and farms; the redesign of water systems; the construction of roads, dams, bridges, irrigation systems; the creation of national parks; ideas about wilderness; and the role of nature in an industrial world. From small farms to suburbia,
Author(s): Pietruska, Jamie

STS.011 American Science: Ethical Conflicts and Political Choices (MIT)
We will explore the changing political choices and ethical dilemmas of American scientists from the atomic scientists of World War II to biologists in the present wrestling with the questions raised by cloning and other biotechnologies. As well as asking how we would behave if confronted with the same choices, we will try to understand the choices scientists have made by seeing them in their historical and political contexts. Some of the topics covered include: the original development of nuclea
Author(s): Foley, Brendan

21W.730-5 Writing on Contemporary Issues: Culture Shock! Writing, Editing, and Publishing in Cybersp
This course is an introduction to writing prose for a public audience—specifically, prose that is both critical and personal, that features your ideas, your perspective, and your voice to engage readers. The focus of our reading and your writing will be American popular culture, broadly defined. That is, you will write essays that critically engage elements and aspects of contemporary American popular culture and that do so via a vivid personal voice and presence. In the coming weeks we wi
Author(s): Faery, Rebecca Blevins