Category Archives: Liberal Arts & Sciences – Electives

All Liberal Arts Elective Courses: Quantitative Reasoning, Physical Science OR Life Science, Societies & the Social Sciences, Expressive Culture, General Liberal Arts Electives

Fall 2023 Spring 2020

Animal Minds (ANST-UA 410)

This course examines the philosophy of cognitive ethology and comparative psychology. We begin by discussing the nature of animal minds. Are animals conscious? Do they experience pain? Do they have beliefs? Do they use language? Are they self-conscious? How can we know? This involves applying concepts from metaphysics and epistemology to research in cognitive ethology and comparative psychology. We then discuss more general questions like: Are animals agents? Do they have free will? Do they live meaningful lives? Do they have moral rights? This involves applying concepts from ethics, existentialism, and other areas of philosophy to our conclusions about animal minds. Finally, we also ask, along the way, how research on animal minds can affect our philosophical theories. For example, should we revise our theories of consciousness, language, agency, morality, and so on if they seem to have implausible implications about animals?

Animal Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2023)

ANST-UA 410-000 (23049)09/05/2023 – 12/15/2023 Wed4:00 PM – 7:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Franks, Becca

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate
Fall 2021

Literature and the Environment (ANST-UA 475)

This class explores the role of literature in creating empathy – how can it help us imagine the lives of “others” & that of animals? By querying the politics of meat mainly through contemporary literature, we put three similar (yet often disconnected) disciplines in conversation with each other: food studies, environmental studies, and animal studies. Two key questions we will address are: 1. What relationship – if any – is there between what we eat and who we are? 2. How are the intimate spaces of both human and nonhuman bodies – and their cultivation – related to notions of ecological violence?

Animal Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2021)

ANST-UA 475-000 (21118)09/02/2021 – 12/14/2021 Tue11:00 AM – 1:00 PM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by Athanassakis, Yanoula

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate
Spring 2019

Assessing Epidemiological Literature Public Health: What AELs you?” (AHSEM-UA 247)

In this age of ‘non-facts’ sufficing as the basis for populist resistance to scientific ‘facts’, the ‘citizen skills’ needed to be able to read, understand and make reasonable ‘action decisions’—both for personal health as well as community health issues—are ever more important to acquire within a liberal arts education. The overall goal of this course is to provide the student with fundamental ‘citizen skills’ in assessing epidemiologic original research articles. The fundamental concepts which underpin the range of epidemiologic research designs will be presented first, followed by skill-building exercises that culminates in assessing published epidemiologic original research articles. Both lecture and seminar-of-the whole formats will be utilized. At the end of the course the students should be able to: understand the basic concepts of epidemiologic research design; critically evaluate published epidemiology research article using the Literature Analysis Form-for Epidemiologic Research (LAF-fER); contribute to their future communities as an informed member; and savor and reflect upon the description of epidemiologic outbreaks in literature, esp. in short story and ‘novel-like’ formats.

Advanced Honors Seminars (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate
Spring 2019

History and the Novel (AHSEM-UA 235)

What can novels based on historic events tell us? What sorts of insights can they provide that journalism and works of pure history cannot? How much imaginative leeway should the author of a historic novel be allowed – and how closely should she stick to “true” events? In this course we’ll read a wide range of novels-looking at them both as literature and as keys to history-on topics that include slavery in the U.S., post-apartheid South Africa, McCarthyism, the 9/11 terror attacks, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Advanced Honors Seminars (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2019)

AHSEM-UA 235-000 (24462)01/28/2019 – 05/13/2019 Wed3:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate

Disability Studies (CAM-UY 2204)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates:
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates:

This course dynamically engages students in the world of disability. As a member of a team including a guest consultant with a disability, students will discover that person’s interests, abilities, and desires and portray them with digital storytelling. This active learning approach, carefully guided by the instructor, is enhanced with readings, guest lectures, videos and field trips. Students will learn about disability history, assistive technology and universal design. The end-of-semester is celebrated with a formal presentation of the person-centered projects. The aim is to show the individual, making the “invisible visible.” Satisfies a HuSS Elective.

Culture, Arts, and Media (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Fall 2025 Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Fall 2021

Food Management Theory (NUTR-UE 91)

Organization and management of commercial and institutional food service facilities in hotels, restaurants, and educational and community program sites.

Nutrition & Dietetics (Undergraduate)
3 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2021)

NUTR-UE 91-000 (13048)09/02/2021 – 12/14/2021 Tue,Thu9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by Zagor, Stephen

NUTR-UE 91-000 (13196)09/02/2021 – 12/14/2021 Tue4:00 PM – 7:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Zagor, Stephen

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate

Jazz History (MPAJZ-UE 1121)

Credits: 2
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue
Credits: 2
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue,Thu

This course surveys the history and development of jazz music in America from the mid 1800s to current trends in popular music. Through a historical timeline, student will study jazz music’s range of styles as informed by social, regional, cultural, technological, and political trends. Realizing that all music is a reflection of historical events and the cultures they are informed by, students will analyze the close connection between jazz music and why it is known as America’s true original artform.

Music Instrumental: Jazz (Undergraduate)
2 credits – 15 Weeks

Fall 2025 Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Dance as an Art Form (MPADE-UE 1278)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue,Thu,Mon,Wed

Dance is an integral & defining component of cultures throughout the world & throughout history. This course introduces students to dance as a live & performing art through a variety of experiences including attendance at live performances, examination of videos & theoretical texts, & physical participation in the practice & performance of dance. Through discussions, written assignments, & the creation of original dance compositions, students will explore the history & cultural relevance of a variety of forms of dance within their own lives, larger society, & the global community beyond. Liberal Arts Core/CORE-MAP Equivalent – satisfies the requirement for Expressive Cultures for Steinhardt students.

Dance Education (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Expressive Culture Fall 2025 Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Fall 2021 Fall 2023 Fall 2024 Spring 2023 Spring 2024

From Polenta to Marinara: History of Italian Food (FOOD-UE 1052)

In this course we will cover the varieties of Italian food in their past and present forms. First, we will explore the history of food from past civilizations, leading up to World War I, just after the great immigration to the New World. Time periods examined will be ancient Rome, Medieval, Renaissance, Risorgimento, leading to the modern era. This course includes topics ranging from Pellegrino Artusi’s famous cookbook in the contest of Italian unification to the relationship between Italian Futurism and food. The second part of the course will introduce students to the regional diversity of Italian food using mediums such as TV, art, and film. We will examine the ways in which food shapes contemporary Italian society, from the more intimate family kitchen to the most elegant Italian restaurant in New York City.

Food Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2024)

FOOD-UE 1052-000 (10587)09/03/2024 – 12/12/2024 Tue,Thu11:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by Scarcella Perino, Roberto

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate

Fashion in Context (ARCS-UE 1088)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates:
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates:
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Fri

Why do fashion designers and brands exert such influence in contemporary society? What explains the trajectory from The House of Worth to Chanel to this season’s hottest label? This course investigates the interlocking forces shaping fashion: the designer system, celebrities, technology, politics, the arts and media. Through lectures and film viewings, readings, discussions, and individual research, students explore fashion as a crucial aspect of culture and how the fashion system evolved from roots in Parisian couture to become a global phenomenon. Liberal Arts Core/MAP Equivalent – satisfies the requirement for Expressive Cultures for Steinhardt students.

Art and Costume Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Expressive Culture Fall 2025 Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Spring 2021 Spring 2023

Race and Inequality: Advancing Equity through Policy and Practice (APSY-UE 1273)

This course shines a bright light on racial inequality in the United States by focusing on structural disparities in key areas of American life: Income, wealth and employment; the right to vote, health and wellbeing, education and juvenile justice. Vanguard leaders from across NYU and across fields of Law, Public Health and Allied Health fields, Education, Social Work, and Public Policy provide insights on key scholarly and community-based frameworks they use to confront problems of inequality in the United States. They share their expertise in designing and implementing policy solutions that offer the promise of a more equitable future.

Applied Psychology (Undergraduate)
2 credits – 15 Weeks

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate
Fall 2021

Mindfulness (UNDSW-US 54)

Social justice and wellbeing are one and the same”- Dr. Sará Yafa King. How can you care for yourself while shaping change in a world that is overwhelmed with narratives, systems, and structures of oppression? In order to care for our communities, we must care for ourselves, self-regulating with the wisdom of the body. This course is designed to help you deepen your practice and share mindfulness with your community and with the world. We’ll begin with an introduction to mindfulness, examining the theory and science from its origins in wisdom traditions to the modern mindfulness movement, and move toward a meaningful practice that will allow you to better heal and serve.

Undergrad Social Work (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate
Spring 2022

Storytelling in the Digital Age (WRTNG-UG 1544)

The main goal of this course is to provide students with ways how to enhance traditional storytelling by new technologies without diminishing the role of the written word. We will examine every aspect of the craft of traditional fiction writing: plot, structure, point of view, narrative voice, dialogue, building of individual scenes, etc as well as the new techniques of the digital age: hypertext, visual and audio images, social media. We will learn how to balance the traditional with the new without overwhelming the written text with gadgets. The class will become a creative lab studying ideas by others, coming up with their own, presenting their fiction, responding to the writing of others, and discussing questions about literature, editing, and publishing in the digital age.Each student will create and present to class a work of fiction based on some of the ideas we will be discussing.The works don’t have to be in the electronic form, but the students will need to explain how they would work. Each student will create a basic website with a writer’s profile and portfolio of her works. Readings will include fiction by: Borges, Nabokov, Michael Joyce, Margaret Atwood, Jennifer Egan.

Advanced Writing Courses (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2022)

WRTNG-UG 1544-000 (13971)01/24/2022 – 05/09/2022 Thu6:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Evening)at Washington SquareInstructed by Vapnyar, Larisa

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate

Writing the Portrait: Depicting Artists in Fiction (WRTNG-UG 1529)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon

How do fiction writers imagine the creative process, life and world of an artist? How do we write about the artistic process? What, if any, parallels may exist between writing and the creative process of a painter, composer, musician, dancer or actor? This course will explore these questions as students read and write fiction focused on artists working in different artistic mediums. We will read fictional portraits of artists both real and imagined, paying attention to the particulars of language associated with each art form and how the writers have incorporated elements of the art form into their work. Writing workshop will include a critique of the writing and story development as well as a critique of how well the world of the artist has been built within the bounds of the fictional realm. We will also delve into research—artist interviews, online performances and exhibitions—using the art and performance worlds of New York City as a resource, culminating in a final research portfolio and presentation to be submitted alongside the final work of fiction. Readings may include works by Baldwin, Bernhard, Bolaño, Hustvedt, Maugham, McCann, Ondaatje, Rushdie and Woolf. Readings will also include essays by artists, artist interviews and profiles, and art and performance criticism.

Advanced Writing Courses (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Spring 2022 Spring 2023

Writing the Visual (WRTNG-UG 1531)

How does language make us see? From petroglyphs to internet memes, there are many points of intersection between written and visual modes of communication. This multigenre creative writing workshop begins with a close examination of literary images. Through a mix of creative writing assignments and readings, students identify and practice techniques by which writers have rendered the visual in language; explore ekphrasis (that is, literary descriptions of and responses to works of art); experiment with the wide array of traditions in which text and image are combined (e.g. concrete poetry, collaged text, and the comic panel); respond to visual arts that use language as a primary medium; and consider description as deception. At the heart of this course are fundamental questions of representation. What besides visual content do literary images offer? What are the mechanics of description, and what aesthetic and ethical questions can it pose for writers? Readings include works by Virginia Woolf, John Keene, Marjane Satrapi, Anne Carson, and Robin Coste Lewis, among others.

Advanced Writing Courses (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2023)

WRTNG-UG 1531-000 (13431)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Mon,Wed12:00 AM – 1:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Paty, Allyson

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate
Fall 2021

Creative Nonfiction: From Idea to Essay (WRTNG-UG 1295)

Some of the strongest nonfiction writing out there—whether cultural criticism, the reported personal essay, an historical nonfiction narrative, or piece of long-form investigative journalism—grew from the flimsiest of tendrils: a hunch, a spark, an enthusiasm. In this advanced creative nonfiction writing course, you’ll learn how to hack your own unique brain into an idea-generating machine, and pair each idea with the genre that best suits it. Course readings will include essays by great practitioners past and present, among them James Baldwin, Eula Biss, Barbara Ehrenreich, Darryl Pinckney, Richard Rodriguez, Rebecca Solnit, Alice Walker, Ellen Willis, and Virginia Woolf. We will analyze these works to figure out how each idea was brought to fruition, and learn tricks of the trade that will in turn fuel your idea-generator. The class will be a combination of class discussions, lectures, and workshops.

Advanced Writing Courses (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate
Fall 2021

Writing the Fantastic (WRTNG-UG 1260)

Tzvetan Todorov defines the fantastic as a “subgenre of literary works characterized by the ambiguous presentation of supernatural forces.” Donald Antrim, on the other hand, regards the fantastic not as a genre, but as a condition shared between author and reader: “a potential state” in which “everything is vivid, yet nothing is clearly defined,” where “the fantastical and the real are equally questionable, equally challenged by one another.” Frankenstein’s monster comes to life. Alice goes down the rabbit hole. How can [an] author make these events seem not only uncannily plausible, but even expectable—the sudden eruption of some carefully encrypted logic operating beneath our conscious awareness? How do we ground the fantastic in enough realism to sustain the reader’s suspension of disbelief? This class will explore the fantastic as the strangest and most explicit demonstration of what literary technique can achieve in any genre. We will focus on various kinds of world-making, from magical realms to dystopias to refracted versions of “realism.” Special attention will be devoted to how writers use altered states of consciousness like trauma, intoxication, and psychosis to create a hallucinatory space between the supernatural and the deeply improbable. Readings will also span a wide spectrum of cultures and historical periods, from canonical works like Frankenstein to Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities to contemporary novels like Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, Joy Williams’ The Changeling, and Donald Antrim’s The Hundred Brothers. Assignments will include several creative writing prompts and longer pieces of original fiction for workshop.

Advanced Writing Courses (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2021)

WRTNG-UG 1260-000 (14201)09/02/2021 – 12/14/2021 Wed3:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Gladstone, Bret

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate
Fall 2021 Fall 2023

Writing Cross-Culturally (WRTNG-UG 1230)

In this course, students will create writing that traverses identities, borders and cultures, as well as genres, as they explore and deepen their understanding of issues of form, craft and ethics. The class will read and discuss a variety of texts that center around various modes of culture crossing, such as travel and study abroad; third culture and diaspora identities; immigration and escape, and historical and/or political clashes and conflicts. Through an ongoing examination of structural and craft issues in the exemplary texts, students will make creative decisions to help write three main assignments dealing with themes of Memory, Identity and Conflict. We’ll use our discussions of Memory to help focus on expository and reflective rhetorical strategies, Identity as a way to experiment with point of view and character development, and Conflict as a method for exploring structure and dramatic tension. In order to write cross-culturally about personal experiences, students will be encouraged to create texts along the spectrum between creative nonfiction and autobiographical fiction. Theoretical essays will help inform how we ethically position ourselves as writers observing cultures not (necessarily) our own in order to inform audiences and to challenge our own prejudices. Through it all, we’ll consider how formal experiments across genres may help illuminate experiences and confront perceptions. Authors to be read include Gloria Anzaldua, Edwidge Danticat, Randa Jarrar, Salman Rushdie, Amy Tan, and Ocean Vuong.

Advanced Writing Courses (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2023)

WRTNG-UG 1230-000 (19855)09/05/2023 – 12/15/2023 Mon3:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Agabian, Nancy

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate
Spring 2022 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025

Conservation Biology in Practice: Solutions for People and Nature (PRACT-UG 1550)

The past century of exponential population growth, infrastructure development, and inequitable resource uses has stressed nature”s systems to dangerous levels. We are losing cultural and biological diversity at unprecedented rates, and these threats are compounded by the associated challenges from severely disrupted climate systems. This Gallatin practicum will provide students with a forum to develop a cross-disciplinary 21st Century nature conservation toolkit – one that can create cutting-edge strategies to reduce the risks to species and ecosystem, adapt to a changing climate, and produce a healthier relationship to nature. Students will work in teams to select a site-based project from a menu of real-world options, and then design practical and achievable solutions to these risks and challenges.We will use tools from biology, earth sciences, anthropology, social psychology, economics, and business to determine the cause, magnitude, and urgency of risks. Each student team will then combine the results from these scientific and financial assessments with the skills, power, and insights from the arts and communication media to plan and implement practical conservation solutions, tell the story of conservation needs, and build commitment to get the work done.

Practicum (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2025)

PRACT-UG 1550-000 (10413)01/21/2025 – 05/06/2025 Mon3:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Tolisano, James

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate