14.74 Foundations of Development Policy (MIT)
This course explores the foundations of policy making in developing countries. The goal is to spell out various policy options and to quantify the trade-offs between them. We will study the different facets of human development: education, health, gender, the family, land relations, risk, informal and formal norms and institutions. This is an empirical class. For each topic, we will study several concrete examples chosen from around the world. While studying each of these topics, we will ask: Wh
MAS.961 Special Topics: Designing Sociable Media (MIT)
This project-based course explores new design strategies for social interaction in the computer mediated world. Through weekly readings and design assignments we will examine topics such as:
Data-based portraiture
Depicting growth, change and the passage of time
Visualizing conversations, crowds, and networks
Interfaces for the connected city
Mobile social technologies
The course emphasizes developing visual and interactive literacy.
24.08J Philosophical Issues in Brain Science (MIT)
This course provides an introduction to important philosophical questions about the mind, specifically those that are intimately connected with contemporary psychology and neuroscience. Are our concepts innate or are they acquired by experience? And what does it even mean to call a concept 'innate'? Are 'mental images' pictures in the head? Is color in the mind or in the world? Is the mind nothing more than the brain? Can there be a science of consciousness? The course includes guest lectures by
11.947 Urbanization and Development (MIT)
The course examines the causes and effects of rapid urbanization in developing countries. Using case studies from the world's four major developing regions, including (among others) Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Managua, Singapore, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Kabul, Beirut, Cairo, Kinshasa, Cape Town and Johannesburg, it explores the economic and political dynamics that grease the wheels of contemporary patterns of growth. In addition to examining both local and transnational forces that drive contempora
SP.401 Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies (MIT)
<p>This course is designed as an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Women's and Gender Studies, an academic area of study focused on the ways that sex and gender manifest themselves in social, cultural, and political contexts. The primary goal of this course is to familiarize students with key issues, questions and debates in Women's Studies scholarship, both historical and contemporary. This semester you will become acquainted with many of the critical questions and concepts f
9.70 Social Psychology (MIT)
Our conjoint participation in the 9.70 learning system places us in a consensually-shared social situation. (All of the foregoing words are important. Do you understand their meaning in this context?) We will endeavor to organize ourselves into a community of discourse that approximates (albeit in an altogether partial way) a meaningful, real-world research enterprise: Like all scientific communities, we will work with limited resources. Unlike "real" scientific communities, ours will operate un
SP.784 Wheelchair Design in Developing Countries (MIT)
According to the United States Agency for International Development, 20 million people in developing countries require wheelchairs, and the United Nations Development Programme estimates below 1% of their need is being met in Africa by local production. Wheelchair Design in Developing Countries (WDDC) gives students the chance to better the lives of others by improving wheelchairs and tricycles made in the developing world. Lectures will focus on understanding local factors, such as operating en
21L.016 Learning from the Past: Drama, Science, Performance (MIT)
This class explores the creation (and creativity) of the modern scientific and cultural world through study of western Europe in the 17th century, the age of Descartes and Newton, Shakespeare, Milton and Ford. It compares period thinking to present-day debates about the scientific method, art, religion, and society. This team-taught, interdisciplinary subject draws on a wide range of literary, dramatic, historical, and scientific texts and images, and involves theatrical experimentation as well
9.35 Sensation And Perception (MIT)
This course provides an introduction to important philosophical questions about the mind, specifically those that are intimately connected with contemporary psychology and neuroscience. Are our concepts innate, or are they acquired by experience? (And what does it even mean to call a concept 'innate'?) Are 'mental images' pictures in the head? Is color in the mind or in the world? Is the mind nothing more than the brain? Can there be a science of consciousness? The course will include guest lect
20.020 Introduction to Biological Engineering Design (MIT)
This class is a project-based introduction to the engineering of synthetic biological systems. Throughout the term, students develop projects that are responsive to real-world problems of their choosing, and whose solutions depend on biological technologies. Lectures, discussions, and studio exercises will introduce (1) components and control of prokaryotic and eukaryotic behavior, (2) DNA synthesis, standards, and abstraction in biological engineering, and (3) issues of human practice, includin
2.500 Desalination and Water Purification (MIT)
Water supply is a problem of worldwide concern: more than 1 billion people do not have reliable access to clean drinking water. Water is a particular problem for the developing world, but scarcity also impacts industrial societies. Water purification and desalination technology can be used to convert brackish ground water or seawater into drinking water. The challenge is to do so sustainably, with minimum cost and energy consumption, and with appropriately accessible technologies.
This subject w
21W.749 Documentary Photography and Photojournalism: Still Images of a World in Motion (MIT)
This course is an introduction to the great tradition of documentary photography. Students learn to see the world around them in a new way and produce a documentary project. The course requires reading and writing about photography, as well as doing it on a regular basis. The class emphasis is on thinking about why people photograph, what photographs do and do not mean to us, and on doing documentary work, on telling stories with photographs. This is not a technical class, and it should not be c
14.71 Economic History of Financial Crises (MIT)
This course gives a historical perspective on financial panics. Topics include the growth of the industrial world, the Great Depression and surrounding events, and more recent topics such as the first oil crisis, Japanese stagnation, and conditions following the financial crisis of 2008.
17.42 Causes and Prevention of War (MIT)
The causes and prevention of interstate war are the central topics of this course. The course goal is to discover and assess the means to prevent or control war. Hence we focus on manipulable or controllable war-causes. The topics covered include the dilemmas, misperceptions, crimes and blunders that caused wars of the past; the origins of these and other war-causes; the possible causes of wars of the future; and possible means to prevent such wars, including short-term policy steps and more uto
14.15J Networks (MIT)
Networks are ubiquitous in our modern society. The World Wide Web that links us to and enables information flows with the rest of the world is the most visible example. It is, however, only one of many networks within which we are situated. Our social life is organized around networks of friends and colleagues. These networks determine our information, influence our opinions, and shape our political attitudes. They also link us, often through important but weak ties, to everybody else in the Uni
21A.348 Photography and Truth (MIT)
Still photography, a practice and form of expression that has worked its way into every facet of social life and every culture in the world, is considered here from the perspectives of history and social science. We will discuss the uses and functions of pictures; how they are to be understood and interpreted; whether they have clear-cut content and meanings; how they shape and are shaped by politics, economics, and social life.
The devil's in the details - regulating financial innovation
With elections in India in a few months, the war on terror must be squarely at the centre of the political agenda. Not far away will be regulation of finance. As Sonia Gandhi put it, the poor had nothing to do with fancy sounding financial instruments. The livelihoods of the poor are at great risk now that financial globalisation has spread the damaging effects of some types of innovative finance across the world. Dr Paul Kattuman looks at the unintended consequences of complex, unproven financi
STS.S28 Godzilla and the Bullet Train: Technology and Culture in Modern Japan (MIT)
This course explores how and why Japan, a late-comer to modernization, emerged as an industrial power and the world's second-richest nation, notwithstanding its recent difficulties. We are particularly concerned with the historical development of technology in Japan especially after 1945, giving particular attention to the interplays between business, ideology, technology, and culture. We will discuss key historical phenomena that symbolize modern Japan as a technological power in the world; spe
Lichen World 1 : Lichen Biology
This package provides background information on lichens and lichen communities, using examples from the larger 'Lichen World' full version to illustrate lichen ecology studies.
STS.464 Cultural History of Technology (MIT)
The subject of this course is the historical process by which the meaning of "technology" has been constructed. Although the word itself is traceable to the ancient Greek root teckhne (meaning art), it did not enter the English language until the 17th century, and did not acquire its current meaning until after World War I. The aim of the course, then, is to explore various sectors of industrializing 19th and 20th century Western society and culture with a view to explaining and assessing the em
