FRN4615 French Cinema and Conversation

(Formerly Social Justice in France)
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

This course is designed as a conversation class, with a strong cultural component. The major course materials are contemporary French & Francophone language films and short readings. Through the lens of ethical questions and concerns that surface in these films, students will study issues relevant to the history, culture, and politics of the French-Speaking World. Films and readings serve as the basis for debate, discussion, and written analysis. This course aims to ease the path towards greater fluency through improvements in accuracy and more spontaneous communication.

Open to students with an Intermediate level of French, or higher.

Prerequisites: FRN4620, or equivalent proficiency as demonstrated through a placement test.

Placement test: https://www.babson.edu/academics/academic-divisions/arts-and-humanities/languages-and-global-cultures/language-placement-test/

FRN4610 French II
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsFRN4610 French II is a fast-paced course that builds on the knowledge gained in FRN2200 French I. Students will continue to expand their vocabulary and communication skills as they gain confidence in their abilities to communicate in spoken and written French. Conversation and listening activities in class will be supplemented by a variety of readings and written assignments. In addition, discussions of authentic texts, short films, and cultural experiences will help students gain a deeper appreciation for French and Francophone people and cultures.

Not open to native speakers

Prerequisites: FRN2200 French I, or similar proficiency as indicated by a placement test

FRN4620 French III
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

FRN 4620 is an intermediate language and culture course aimed at improving students' comprehension and expression in French. We will continue to reinforce language skills acquired at the beginning levels (French I and II) and work towards building fluency in the language. Students will learn about topics such as immigration, the French school system, the auto industry, and globalization through short texts, films, debates, presentations, and news articles from contemporary French and Francophone sources. A project-based class, students will develop business skills in French related to negotiating, persuading, advising, and forecasting.

Prerequisites: FRN2200 and/or FRN4610 or equivalent proficiency as demonstrated through a placement test or by instructor's permission. Not open to fluent speakers of French.

HUM4602 Future Studies: Theories of the World to Come

4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

This course provides a captivating looking glass into the most fascinating debates surrounding the future. We will trace those radical transformations and cutting-edge paradigms that are emerging to forever alter our experience of time and space, body and mind, objects and images, reality and illusion, human and machine. To achieve this task, our course will follow an interdisciplinary, multicultural, and multimedia approach that explores provocative new dimensions in the areas of literature, philosophy, society, culture, politics, media, architecture, design, biogenetics, ecology, film, art, and technology. Together, these speculative fragments will come together to offer crucial insight into our era's experiments with speed, virtuality, artificiality, and utopia, allowing us to test the outer boundaries of the unknown worlds to come.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

HUM4603 Future Worlds: Revolutions of the Humans and Post-Humans

4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

This course provides radical exposure to the most astonishing trends of the next age as students interface with leading futuristic thinkers from around the world. Students will have the rare occasion to engage with fifteen renowned professors, reading their writings closely a, as we move across multiple intellectual surfaces to ask the most provocative questions facing our time and beyond. Each scholarly figure will present a series of speculative theories and visionary examples from the fields of sociology, architecture, economy, design, political science, cultural studies, media studies, literature, philosophy, film, medical science, virtual reality, visual art, artificial intelligence, and environmental studies. Moreover, students themselves will not only directly encounter this network of vital futurist scholars in their weekly sessions but will also have the occasion to undertake strikingly original research that tracks obscure, secretive, post-human, and unfathomable innovations transpiring in every arena of human experience. In this way, the seminar will trace a sequence of worlds not yet arrived, interpreting horizons of global and even extra-planetary scope as they test out riddles for the coming centuries.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

LTA2035 Ghost Stories and the Grotesque in Literature
Intermediate Liberal ArtsBecause a "ghost" is a haunting by political history, personal choices, and social expectations, they do exist. Therefore, this course will look at the genre of the ghost story (and esthetic considerations of the grotesque) in relation to both the eighteenth-century gothic (from which it emerged) and the horror story (from which it needs to differentiate itself). Class discussion will focus on how the ghost story explores ideas of identity, both national and personal. Mostly comprised of short stories and films, the narratives we will enjoy can teach us about what haunts us as humans and why. Authors included are Morrison, Poe, Kubrick, James, and the HBO series "LoveCraft Country", among others.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

LTA2013 Global Cinema

4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsGlobal Cinema provides an overview of the history and aesthetics of films from Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. Students will analyze films as cultural artifacts and will consider the interrelationship among various national film movements and aesthetic approaches. Weekly film viewings will be complemented by readings in the history and practice of several national cinemas and of post-colonial, transnational cinemas. Films are in their original language with English subtitles.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Fall

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

SCN3665 Global Climate Change
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsGlobal climate change is one of the most contentious, yet critically important issues facing the world today. However, the science behind climate patterns and the influence of human actions on global climate are not always well understood. This course is designed to investigate scientific knowledge and uncertainty regarding past, present and future changes in the earth's climate, and how scientists study and predict patterns of climate change. We will investigate the known relationships between the earth's atmosphere and global climate, historic patterns of climate change, recent observations of changes in global climatic conditions, how scientists develop models and conduct experiments to predict future change, and the myriad of predicted ecological, economic and societal shifts that may occur. Finally, we will discuss options to mitigate climate change impacts, public perception and media portrayals of climate change, and ethical considerations related to climate change.

Prerequisites: Foundation Science

MUS4620 Global Pop: Mass-Mediated Musics in a Transnational World
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits"Global pop" is music that results from contact between two or more cultures. Examples include rap français, flamenco, reggaetón, afrobeat, K-pop, and Bollywood film music, among many others. This course examines how global pop acquires ideological force and accrues historical layers as it circulates around the world. In scrutinizing the musical style, discourse, and business of global pop, we will focus on such issues as authenticity, hybridity, cultural imperialism, nationalism, personal identity, censorship, political protest, ownership, and appropriation - in short, all the ways in which music means. No previous musical knowledge necessary.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

NST1040 Human Biotechnology
4 Foundation Liberal Arts CreditsThis course will provide you with a broad review of the basic scientific concepts, ethical considerations, and practical applications of biotechnology in our daily lives. We will discuss the regulations, technologies, and methods used by academic research laboratories, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries, and forensic scientists. Through this course, you will gain a number of different perspectives on personalized medicine, stem cells, drug discovery, development, and regulation, food, and the environment, all of which are directly connected to human health and well-being. By the end of this course, you will recognize the importance of biotechnology in the world today and see multiple scales of its application from molecular to global levels. You will be able to compare and contrast the positive and negative contributions biotechnology has made to our lives and you will grasp its strengths and limitations as we move forward into the middle of the 21st century.