This course's aims are two-fold: 1) to offer students the theoretical and practical tools to understand how and why cities become torn by ethnic, religious, racial, nationalist, and/or other forms of identity that end up leading to conflict, violence, inequality, and social injustice; and 2) to use this knowledge and insight in the search for solutions. As preparation, students will be required to become familiar with social and political theories of the city and the nation and their relationship to each other. They also will focus on the ways that racial, ethnic, religious, nationalist or other identities grow and manifest themselves in cities or other territorial levels of determination (including the regional or transnational). In the search for remedies, students will be encouraged to consider a variety of policymaking or design points of entry, ranging from the political- institutional (e.g. forms of democratic participation and citizenship) to spatial, infrastructural, and technological interventions.

Citizen participation is everywhere. Invoking it has become de rigueur when discussing cities and regions in the developing world. From the World Bank to the World Social Forum, the virtues of participation are extolled: from its capacity to ‰ŰĎdeepen democracy‰Ű to its ability to improve governance, there is no shortage to the benefits it can bring. While it is clear that participation cannot possibly ‰ŰĎdo‰Ű all that is claimed, it is also clear that citizen participation cannot be dismissed, and that there must be something to it. Figuring out what that something is -- whether it is identifying the types of participation or the contexts in which it happens that bring about desirable outcomes is the goal of the class.

Around the world, major challenges of our time such as population growth and climate change are being addressed in cities. Here, citizens play an important role amidst governments, companies, NGOs and researchers in creating social, technological and political innovations for achieving sustainability.

Citizens can be co-creators of sustainable cities when they engage in city politics or in the design of the urban environment and its technologies and infrastructure. In addition, citizens influence and are influenced by the technologies and systems that they use every day. Sustainability is thus a result of the interplay between technology, policy and people’s daily lives. Understanding this interplay is essential for creating sustainable cities. In this MOOC, we zoom in on Amsterdam, Beijing, Ho Chi Minh City, Nairobi, Kampala and Suzhou as living labs for exploring the dynamics of co-creation for sustainable cities worldwide. We will address topics such as participative democracy and legitimacy, ICTs and big data, infrastructure and technology, and SMART technologies in daily life.

Do you want to think about ways to help solve New Orleans' problems? CityScope is a project-based introduction to the contemporary city. “Problem solving in complex (urban) environments” is different than “solving complex problems.” As a member of a team, you will learn to assess scenarios for the purpose of formulating social, economic and design strategies to provide humane and sustainable solutions. A visit to New Orleans is planned for spring break 2007.

Do you want to think about ways to help solve New Orleans‰ŰŞ problems? Cityscope is a project-based introduction to the contemporary city. "Problem solving in complex (urban) environments" is different than "solving complex problems." As a member of a team, you will learn to assess scenarios for the purpose of formulating social, economic and design strategies to provide humane and sustainable solutions. A visit to New Orleans is planned for spring break 2007.

This class is intended to introduce students to understandings of the city generated from both social science literature and the field of urban design. The first part of the course examines literature on the history and theory of the city. Among other factors, it pays special attention to the larger territorial settings in which cities emerged and developed (ranging from the global to the national to the regional context) and how these affected the nature, character, and functioning of cities and the lives of their inhabitants. The remaining weeks focus more explicitly on the theory and practice of design visions for the city, the latter in both utopian and realized form. One of our aims will be to assess the conditions under which a variety of design visions were conceived, and to assess them in terms of the varying patterns of territorial "nestedness" (local, regional, national, imperial, and global) examined in the first part of the course. Another will be to encourage students to think about the future prospects of cities (in terms of territorial context or other political functions and social aims) and to offer design visions that might reflect these new dynamics.

City to City, as a class, will jump into the complexity of planning in New Orleans, a post-disaster city. City-to-City will ask how a post-disaster city grapple with its ideas of identity, what it is, who it represents, and how it projects its sense of self to residences, businesses, tourists, and to the outside world. In considering its people, how do city planners think about who lives where and why? At the same time, how can city planners celebrate a city's history and its culture and how can these elements be woven into reconstruction? Students will travel from Cambridge to New Orleans over Spring Break to meet and consult with their alumni clients, and continue to work on projects.

CAP is a free project-based learning program for civics and government. Think of it as a culmination of students’ social studies education, a chance for them to apply what they have learned to the real world and impact an issue that matters to them.

From the CAP curriculum, you will first teach three lessons that are tied to government/civics content. These lessons provide content that students will need to start their own CAP projects. Once students start working on their own CAP issues, you will teach two more lessons that focus on policy analysis.

A CAP project is an issue or problem students select, research and then identify propose and submit a solution for.

CAP provides a bundle of additional lessons for you to choose from, based on the needs and interests of your students.

Students could select issues related to school, community, or even national or global issues. CAP students identify an issue or problem that matters to them, connect it to public policy, then take “civic actions” to try to impact their selected issue/problem. It is up to you, the teacher, if you want to limit the scale of the issues they choose.

In any case, it is key that you require students to make the connection to public policy if you are integrating CAP into your government course.

Introduces the concepts, techniques, and devices used to measure engineering properties of materials. Emphasis on measurement of load-deformation characteristics and failure modes of both natural and fabricated materials. Weekly experiments include data collection, data analysis, and interpretation and presentation of results.

Subject consists of five sections. After a general survey of the field, students consider cases of stable civilian control, stable military rule (coups), and transitions from military to civilian rule. Cases are selected from around the world.

In recent years both scholars and policymakers have expressed a remarkable amount of interest in the concepts of social capital and civil society. A growing body of research suggests that the social networks, community norms, and associational activities signified by these concepts can have important effects on social welfare, political stability, economic development, and governmental performance. This discussion based course examines the roles played by these networks, norms, and organizations in outcomes ranging from local public goods provision and the performance of democracies to ethnic conflict and funding for terrorism.

This graduate seminar examines the roles that civil society actors play in international, national, and local environmental governance. We will consider theories pertaining to civil society development, social movement mobilization, and relations between state and non-state actors. During the course of the semester, particular attention will be given to the legitimacy and accountability of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Case studies of civil society response to specific environmental issues will be used to illustrate theoretical issues and assess the impacts that these actors have on environmental policy and planning.

This course surveys the social science literature on civil war. Students will study the origins of civil war, discuss variables that affect the duration of civil war, and examine the termination of conflict. This course is highly interdisciplinary and covers a wide variety of cases.

Anti-slavery and the intensification of sectionalism in the 1850s; the secession crisis; political and military developments in the Civil War years; why the North won; and the political, economic, and social legacies of the conflict. Although attention will be devoted to the causes and long-term consequences of the Civil War, this class will focus primarily on the war years (1861-1865) with special emphasis on the military and technological aspects of the conflict. Four questions, long debated by historians, will receive close scrutiny: 1. What caused the war? 2. Why did the North win the war? 3. Could the South have won? 4. To what extent is the Civil War America's "defining moment"?

Concentrates on specific periods of Classical Greek and Roman Literature in translation with attention to cultural, political, and social influences. Topics vary from year to year chosen from among fifth-century Athens, the Golden Age of Latin Literature, the Silver Age, and Late Antiquity. Roman Literature of the Golden Age of Augustus Caesar, produced during the transition from Republican to Imperial forms of government, was to have a profound and defining influence on Western European and American societies. These writings ultimately established lasting models of aesthetic refinement, philosophical aspiration, and political ambition that continue to shape modern cultures. This class will be exploring the Golden Age of Latin Literature from an historical perspective in order to provide an intensive examination of the cultural contexts in which these monumental works of classical art were first produced. Readings will emphasize the transition from a Republican form of government to an Empire under the rule of Augustus Caesar and the diversity of responses among individual authors to the profound structural changes that Roman society was undergoing at this time. Particular attention will be devoted to the reorganization of society and the self through textuality, the changing dimensions of the public and the private, the roles of class and gender, and the relationship between art and pleasure. Writings covering a wide variety of literary genres will include the works of Caesar, Cicero, Catullus, Livy, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, with additional readings from Cassius Dio for background.

" We will study the fundamental principles of classical mechanics, with a modern emphasis on the qualitative structure of phase space. We will use computational ideas to formulate the principles of mechanics precisely. Expression in a computational framework encourages clear thinking and active exploration. We will consider the following topics: the Lagrangian formulation; action, variational principles, and equations of motion; Hamilton's principle; conserved quantities; rigid bodies and tops; Hamiltonian formulation and canonical equations; surfaces of section; chaos; canonical transformations and generating functions; Liouville's theorem and PoincarĚŠ integral invariants; PoincarĚŠ-Birkhoff and KAM theorems; invariant curves and cantori; nonlinear resonances; resonance overlap and transition to chaos; properties of chaotic motion. Ideas will be illustrated and supported with physical examples. We will make extensive use of computing to capture methods, for simulation, and for symbolic analysis."

"This course is an introduction to the history, theory, practice, and implications of rhetoric, the art and craft of persuasion throughAnalyzing persuasive texts and speechesCreating persuasive texts and speechesThrough class discussions, presentations, and written Assignments and Labs, you will get to practice your own rhetorical prowess. Through the readings, you'll also learn some ways to make yourself a more efficient reader, as you turn your analytical skills on the texts themselves. This combination of reading, speaking, and writing will help you succeed in:learningto read and think criticallytechniques of rhetorical analysistechniques of argumentto enhance your written and oral discourse with appropriate figures of speechsome techniques of oral presentation and the use of visual aids and visual rhetoric."

This course is an introduction to three of the major genres of traditional Chinese literature - poetry, fiction and drama, with a focus on vernacular fiction. We will read translations of a number of the "masterworks" of Chinese literature. We will also examine the intertextuality between these genres - how poetry blends into narrative, how fiction becomes drama, and drama inspires fiction. Through reading these selected works of traditional Chinese literature, we will examine some of the major features of traditional Chinese society: religious and philosophical beliefs, the imperial system and dynastic change, gender relations, notions of class and ethnicity, family, romance and sexuality. All works are read in translation; no language background is necessary.

This course explores how citizen science can support community actions to combat climate change. Participants will learn about framing problems, design ways to gather data, gather some of their own field data, and consider how the results can enable action. Leaks in the natural gas system—a major source of methane emissions, and a powerful contributor to climate change—will be a particular focus. The course was organized by ClimateX and Fossil Free MIT, with support from the National Science Foundation for the methane monitoring equipment. It was offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week January term at MIT.

This course introduces students to climate studies, including beginnings of the solar system, time scales, and climate in human history. It is offered to both undergraduate and graduate students with different requirements.