LTA2073 Middle Eastern Literature
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course explores the most provocative literary movements of the contemporary Middle East, including authors from the Iranian, Arab, Turkish, Armenian, and North African areas of the region. From the experimental novels of Naguib Mahfouz and Orhan Pamuk to the prison poetry of Ahmad Shamlu, from such legendary voices of exile as Adonis and Mahmoud Darwish to the dark sensual narratives of Joyce Mansour and Forugh Farrokhzad, we will cover a range of creative experiments with romanticism, mysticism, surrealism, existentialism, and post-modernism. As such, this will also allow us to unravel the many intricate concepts (those of desire, violence, time, space, power, revolution, and catastrophe) that form the Middle Eastern cultural imagination.

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

ART1171 Mixed Media Drawing
4 General Credits

This is an introductory course designed to engage observational and experimental approaches to drawing. Employing a broad range of materials, from charcoal and pastels to ink and found materials, students will study and synthesize fundamentals such as perspective, mark making, line quality, value, and figure-ground relationships. Guided observational exercises will aid in deconstructing objects and translating spatial relationships. In addition to these techniques, the course will engage found imagery and printmaking strategies to explore drawing's vast possibilities as a methodology, a record, and a problem-solving tool. Critiques will provide an opportunity to collectively assess, interpret, and reflect upon students' work. A selection of artists' writings, interviews, and videos will complement the drawing prompts, investigating drawing as an evolving, contemporary practice.

Prerequisites: None

LIT4600 Modern Drama
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis is a survey of Western drama from the late nineteenth century to the present day. We'll study representative works of major dramatists of this period such as Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw, Brecht, O'Neill, Pirandello, Beckett, O'Casey, Soyinka, Churchill, Wilson, Stoppard, Mamet, Kushner, and Parks. You'll research and report on theatre movements such as symbolism, expressionism, realism, naturalism, epic theatre, and theatre of the absurd. We'll consider the play as both text and performance, making use of theatre reviews, director's notes, interviews, photographs, videos, and, when possible, live performances. Grades will be determined by two papers, a midterm and a final exam, a group performance project, and a thoroughly researched oral presentation.

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

LTA2045 Modernism and the Making of the New
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThe British novelist Virginia Woolf declared that human nature underwent a fundamental change _on or about December 1910.The first few decades of the twentieth century are characterized by a fervent desire to break with the past and to reject traditions that seemed outmoded and too genteel to suit an era of psychological and technological breakthroughs and violence on a grand scale. This class will look at works that reflect ideas of experimentation, in both form and content, and that engaged new understandings of time, space, and human subjectivity. We will read writers such as Virginia Woolf, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, E.M. Forster, Djuna Barnes, and Katherine Mansfield, as well as the theories of Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein (this is a tentative list). Be prepared; there is a lot of reading. These are difficult and challenging texts that do not rely on straightforward plot and narrative; they require careful analysis and critical engagement.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Spring or Fall

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

LTA2014 Money and Literature
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course looks at money and economic thinking in literature. We will examine works from a wide range of periods and genres, with a strong grounding in fiction and drama from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Aesthetic genres such as naturalism, modernism, post-modernism, and expressionism will be considered in terms of how they inform and are informed by thinking about money. There will also be contextual/theoretical readings from Marx, Benjamin, Simmel, Freud, Lacan, and others.

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

CSP2057 Narratives of Sustainability
(Formerly CVA2057 Imagining Sustainability)
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThe primary focus of this course is on the exploration of the concept of sustainability as a juncture of economic, environmental and social concerns. With the rapid expansion of globalization, and the attenuating crises that accompany it, with regard to these concerns, future business and public policy leaders will need to be in the vanguard at determining how best to effect solutions. To that end, this course will examine a variety of sources in the consideration both of what allows for the implementation of sustainability and what prohibits it--from business case study to philosophical/economic analysis to literary memoir. Within this context, students will be invited to examine what we mean when we talk about _justice,_ _ethics,_ _profit,_ _growth,_ and _community._ In sum, we will explore how concepts that contribute to our understanding of individual and communal responsibility might be revisited and redefined in the effort to create a world that offers sustainable economic opportunity for all, ensured within a vital commitment to environmental stewardship.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Spring or Summer

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

NST1060 Oceanography
4 CreditsOver 70% of the globe is covered by ocean. Marine systems are a nexus of life - crucial sources of protein for human populations, reservoirs of minerals, and regulators of the global climate. However, human populations have increased demand for ocean resources in greater numbers than is ecologically sustainable. In addition, the ocean serves as a dumping ground for many types of waste, resulting in waters degraded by pollution. The objective of this course is to give you a basic understanding of the physical, biological, and chemical processes driving ocean fundamentals. In addition, we will examine how human demand on marine resources impacts ocean communities.

This course will stress the importance of the scientific method - both in principle and in practice. Extensive discussion of human environmental impacts on the ocean (e.g., climate change, marine pollution, overfishing) will enhance perspectives of self-awareness and ethical decision-making related to social, economic and environmental responsibility and sustainability (SEERS). Critical analysis is emphasized in class discussions, exam questions, lab reports, written assignments, and the group project. Assignments facilitate development of logical communication skills, appropriate use of graphs and tables, and organizing, synthesizing, evaluating and interpreting scientific information. Through lab and group activities, this course fosters team work and ability to work with others. International and multicultural perspectives are integral to the course, since the oceans influence on human populations is global, both directly on the coasts, and indirectly away from the coasts (via weather, climate, and seafood production).

Prerequisites: None

QTM3620 Optimization Methods and Applications
(Formerly Operations Research)
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

This course provides an introduction to optimization techniques for decision making with spreadsheet implementation. Topics covered include: linear programming, sensitivity analysis, networks, integer programming, nonlinear programming, and multiple objective optimization. Models discussed span different business disciplines including finance, accounting, marketing, human resources, economics, operations, and project management. Throughout the course, learning is reinforced via hands-on computer experience using problems and cases.

Prerequisites: AQM 2000 or (QTM 1010 and QTM2000)

LTA 2007: Out of the Mouths of...Children Narrators

4 Intermediate Liberal Arts Credits

Children's minds work differently from those of adults; it's the way they make sense of the world, the way a child's own small world is the whole world and, at the same time, an ever-evolving concept, as they learn and grow and change. They understand and react instinctively. This can result in thoughts and actions that are both naïve and profound, innocent and wise, non-sensical and brilliant. And even when they don't (or can't) understand sophisticated issues, they remain keen observers. At Babson, there's a great deal of emphasis in thinking about your future self, the person you will be in five years or in twenty years. Clearly, that has value. But this course asks if there is also benefit in looking to the past. Through our texts and discussions, we will look at the ways we look at the world as children, the ways our perceptions change as we grow older, and the ways in which that evolution is both positive and negative.

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

ART1200 Painting Through Poetry

4 Free Credits

Artists have long produced work in conversation with others in their communities. This exchange is particularly vital and enduring among painters and poets. In this course, we will trace the relationships of contemporary and historical practitioners. With poems as our prompts, we will explore painting as a visual language that is fundamentally relational. Through a series of visual experiments, from painting to collage, we will interrogate the relationship between parts and wholes, representation and abstraction, text and image. We will consider moments in which language constrains meaning while painting expands it and vice versa. Together, through making, we will uncover questions, generate ideas, and apply the specificity of poetry to the space of painting.

Prerequisites: None