All Harvard Classes

  • Core (Moral Reasoning) 22: Justice

    Instructor: Michael Sandel

    A critical analysis of selected classical and contemporary theories of justice, with discussion of present-day practical applications. Topics include affirmative action, income distribution, same-sex marriage, free speech vs. hate speech, debates about rights (human rights and property rights), arguments for and against equality, debates about political obligation and the claims of community. Readings include Aristotle, Locke, Kant, Mill, and Rawls.

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  • Core (Literature and Arts) A-86: American Protest Literature from Tom Paine to Tupac

    Instructor: John Stauffer and Timothy McCarthy

    This interdisciplinary course examines the rich tradition of protest literature in the US from the American Revolution to the rise of Hip Hop and globalization. Using a broad definition of “protest literature,” it focuses on the production and consumption of dissent as a site of progressive social critique, using a wide variety of print, visual, and oral forms. We examine the historical links between modes of protest and meanings of literature, and explore how various expressions of dissent function as aesthetic, performative, rhetorical, and ideological texts within specific cultural contexts. “Readings” range from novels to photographs and music.

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  • Core (Science) B-60: Origins of Knowledge

    Instructor: Koleen McCrink and Elizabeth S. Spelke

    This course explores the origins and development of knowledge in the human child, in relation to two larger time scales: biological evolution and historical/cultural change. Drawing on evidence from experimental, comparative, and developmental psychology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and history of science, it focuses on knowledge development in the domains of number, space, mind, biology, physics, and language. Questions include: How does human biology constrain and support human cognition? How variable are human knowledge systems across different cultures and times? What aspects of knowledge are unique to humans? How does knowledge change as children grow and adults gain expertise?

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  • Religion 42: The Christian Bible and Its Interpretations

    Instructor: Peter J. Gomes

    Introduction to the Christian conception of scripture from the closing of the Canon to the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy. Topics considered include the relationship of scripture to tradition, appropriation of Hebrew scripture, exegetical and hermeneutical theories, and scripture and culture. Particular attention paid to the development of theories of scriptural authority and their social consequences within the Western Christian experience and American Protestantism.

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  • Core (Science) A-43: Environmental Risks and Disasters

    Instructor: Brendan J. Meade

    An introduction to risks in the environment. Different types of hazards are analyzed and compared: natural disasters, such as tornados, earthquakes, and meteorite impacts; adverse health effects caused by exposure to radiation and toxic substances such as radon, asbestos, and arsenic; long-term effects due to environmental change, such as sea level rise and global warming. Emphasizes the basic physical principles controlling the hazardous phenomena and develops simple quantitative methods for making scientifically reasoned assessments of the threats posed by hazardous events, processes, and exposures. Discusses methods of risk mitigation and sociological, psychological, and economic aspects of risk control and management.

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  • Core (Science) A-50: Invisible Worlds: Micro- and Nanothings. Science, Technology, and Public Policy

    Instructor: George M. Whitesides and Mara Prentiss

    What we perceive as “reality” is the best effort of our senses to interpret a deeper, largely invisible, reality that is unnervingly strange. This course will survey the world of very small things, objects with dimensions of nanometers and micrometers. The behaviors of these objects are often entirely counterintuitive; they can also be quite useful. Micro- and nanostructures are the basis both of fundamentally new science, and of ubiquitous technologies: quantum dots, computers, the biological nanomotors that power muscle, buckyballs, tools for examining single mammalian cells, lasers. The course will describe these objects and how they function; it will also touch on issues of commercialization, economics, public policy, and ethics that spring from the avalanche of discovery and invention in this area.

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  • Core (Literature and Arts) B-21: The Images of Alexander the Great

    Instructor: David G. Mitten

    The images of Alexander the Great are examined within various cultural contexts ranging from 4th-century BCE Greece to 20th-century America. Various art forms (including sculpture, coins, and paintings) illuminate Alexander’s personality and career and the development of his legend. Course explores how images reveal the complex relationship between a strong individual personality and artistic conventions. Special attention is paid to the importance of political imagery and how the images of Alexander reflect changing ideas of rulership. Where, if anywhere, is the “truth” in these images? Original objects in the Sackler collection and Boston Museum of Fine Arts are emphasized.

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  • Core (Science) B-65: Evolutionary Biology

    Instructor: Jonathan Losos

    An exploration of the process of biological evolution, the way the biosphere and its inhabitants have changed through time, and how human actions affect the evolutionary process, thereby changing our contemporary biological environment. The mechanics and pace of evolution are examined from the molecular to the species level with an emphasis on the ecological context of natural selection. Modern approaches to the study of evolution–from genome sequencing to manipulative experiments in natural populations–are emphasized. Current controversies over the occurrence of evolution are discussed.

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  • Core (Science) B-35: How to Build a Habitable Planet

    Instructor: Charles H. Langmuir

    The steps involved in creation of our habitable planet: the Big Bang, origin of the elements, formation of minerals, origin of the solar system, formation of planets, origin of life, co-evolution of ocean, atmosphere, solid earth and biosphere, development of plate tectonics, operation of the modern whole earth system, and climate regulation. Finally we consider the arising of intelligent life that can understand and influence the planetary system, and whether Earth may be a microcosm reflecting laws of planetary evolution that may be common to a class of planets throughout the universe, or alternatively may be a low probability accident.

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