This class continues our study of the foundational texts of human culture, focusing on early modernity until the recent past. In many ways, this includes several questions such as: Why did these works achieve the fame and influence they achieved? How do they present what it means to be a human being? How do they describe the role of a member of a family, community, tradition, social class, gender? How do they distinguish between proper and improper behavior? How do they characterize the members of other groups? However, in several ways, these texts are also iconoclastic, breaking with centuries of established tradition to shed light on previously unexplored subjects, such as the status of women in society or the legacy of the colonial expansion of European countries. They also question well-established social beliefs like religion, monarchical rule and human nature in general.

This course aims to introduce students to the rich diversity of human culture from antiquity to the early 17th century. In this course, we will explore human culture in its myriad expressions, focusing on the study of literary, religious and philosophical texts as ways of narrating, symbolizing, and commenting on all aspects of human social and material life. We will work comparatively, reading texts from various cultures: Mesopotamian, Greek, Judeo-Christian, Chinese, Indian, and Muslim. Throughout the semester, we will be asking questions like: How have different cultures imagined themselves? What are the rules that they draw up for human behavior? How do they represent the role of the individual in society? How do they imagine 'universal' concepts like love, family, duty? How have their writers and artists dealt with encounters with other cultures and other civilizations?

Continues 18.100. Roughly half the subject devoted to the theory of the Lebesgue integral with applications to probability, and half to Fourier series and Fourier integrals.

Linear elastic and elastic-plastic fracture mechanics. Experimental methods. Microstructural effects on fracture in metals, ceramics, polymers, thin films, biological materials and composites. Toughening mechanisms. Crack growth resistance and creep fracture. Interface fracture mechanics. Fatigue damage and dislocation substructures in single crystals. Stress- and strain-life approach to fatigue. Fatigue crack growth models and mechanisms. Variable amplitude fatigue. Corrosion fatigue. Case studies of fracture and fatigue in structural, bioimplant, and microelectronic components.

" This class provides an introduction to quantitative models and qualitative frameworks for studying complex engineering systems. Also taught is the art of abstracting a complex system into a model for purposes of analysis and design while dealing with complexity, emergent behavior, stochasticity, non-linearities and the requirements of many stakeholders with divergent objectives. The successful completion of the class requires a semester-long class project that deals with critical contemporary issues which require an integrative, interdisciplinary approach using the above models and frameworks."

Urban governance comprises the various forces, institutions, and movements that guide economic and physical development, the distribution of resources, social interactions, and other aspects of daily life in urban areas. This course examines governance from legal, political, social, and economic perspectives. In addition, we will discuss how these structures constrain collective decision making about particular urban issues (immigration, education‰Ű_). Assignments will be nightly readings and a short paper relating an urban issue to the frameworks outlined in the class.

This course covers French politics, culture, and society from Louis XIV to Napoleon Bonaparte. Attention is given to the growth of the central state, the beginnings of a modern consumer society, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, including its origins, and the rise and fall of Napoleon.

Introduction to French language and culture. Emphasis on the acquisition of vocabulary and grammatical concepts through active communication. Immediate exposure to authentic French via video sources and printed materials for developing cultural awareness as well as linguistic proficiency. Coordinated language lab program. For graduate credit see 21F.351.

Further development of linguistic proficiency through active communication. Expansion of vocabulary and completion of the basics of French grammar. Continued exposure to culturally authentic audio and video materials in the classroom and the language lab. Study of short texts. Increased practice in writing. For graduate credit see 21F.352.

Since the discovery of the structure of the DNA double helix in 1953 by Watson and Crick, the information on detailed molecular structures of DNA and RNA, namely, the foundation of genetic material, has expanded rapidly. This discovery is the beginning of the "Big Bang" of molecular biology and biotechnology. In this seminar, students discuss, from a historical perspective and current developments, the importance of pursuing the detailed structural basis of genetic materials.

Are you interested in investigating how nature engineers itself? How engineers copy the shapes found in nature ("biomimetics")? This Freshman Seminar investigates why similar shapes occur in so many natural things and how physics changes the shape of nature. Why are things in nature shaped the way they are? How do birds fly? Why do bird nests look the way they do? How do woodpeckers peck? Why can't trees grow taller than they are? Why is grass skinny and hollow? What is the wood science behind musical instruments? Questions such as these are the subject of biomimetic research and they have been the focus of investigation in this course for the past three years.

The objective of this course is to introduce large-scale atomistic modeling techniques and highlight its importance for solving problems in modern engineering sciences. We demonstrate how atomistic modeling can be used to understand how materials fail under extreme loading, involving unfolding of proteins and propagation of cracks.

Explores the impact of the printing press upon European politics and culture during the first several centuries after Gutenberg and compares these changes with the possibilities and problems inherent in contemporary electronic technologies of the word. Assignments include formal essays and online projects. There has been much discussion in recent years, on this campus and elsewhere, about the death of the book. Digitization and various forms of electronic media, some critics say, are rendering the printed text as obsolete as the writing quill. In this subject, we will examine the claims for and against the demise of the book, but we will also supplement these arguments with an historical perspective they lack: we will examine texts, printing technologies, and reading communities from roughly 1450 to the present. We will begin with the theoretical and historical overviews of Walter Ong and Elizabeth Eisenstein, after which we will study specific cases such as English chapbooks, Inkan knotted and dyed strings, late nineteenth-century recording devices, and newspapers online today. We will also visit a rare book library and make a poster on a hand-set printing press.

Examines interactions across the Eurasian continent between Russians, Chinese, Mongolian nomads, and Turkic oasis dwellers during the last millennium and a half. As empires rose and fell, religions, trade, and war flowed back and forth continuously across this vast space. Britain and Russia competed for power over Eurasia in the "Great Game" of geopolitics in the nineteenth century, just as China, Russia, and others did in the twentieth century. Today, the fall of the Soviet Union and China's reforms have opened new opportunities for cultural interaction. Topics include: the religious traditions of Central Asian Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, and Confucianism; caravans and travelers like Marco Polo and Rabban Sauma, the first Chinese to travel to the West; and nomadic conquest and imperialist competition, past and present. Source materials include primary documents, travelogues, films, music, and museum visits.

" We are now at an unprecedented point in the field of neuroscience: We can watch the human brain in action as it sees, thinks, decides, reads, and remembers. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is the only method that enables us to monitor local neural activity in the normal human brain in a noninvasive fashion and with good spatial resolution. A large number of far-reaching and fundamental questions about the human mind and brain can now be answered using straightforward applications of this technology. This is particularly true in the area of high-level vision, the study of how we interpret and use visual information including object recognition, mental imagery, visual attention, perceptual awareness, visually guided action, and visual memory. The goals of this course are to help students become savvy and critical readers of the current neuroimaging literature, to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the technique, and to design their own cutting-edge, theoretically motivated studies. Students will read, present to the class, and critique recently published neuroimaging articles, as well as write detailed proposals for experiments of their own. Lectures will cover the theoretical background on some of the major areas in high-level vision, as well as an overview of what fMRI has taught us and can in future teach us about each of these topics. Lectures and discussions will also cover fMRI methods and experimental design. A prior course in statistics and at least one course in perception or cognition are required."

" This team-taught multidisciplinary course provides information relevant to the conduct and interpretation of human brain mapping studies. It begins with in-depth coverage of the physics of image formation, mechanisms of image contrast, and the physiological basis for image signals. Parenchymal and cerebrovascular neuroanatomy and application of sophisticated structural analysis algorithms for segmentation and registration of functional data are discussed. Additional topics include: fMRI experimental design including block design, event related and exploratory data analysis methods, and building and applying statistical models for fMRI data; and human subject issues including informed consent, institutional review board requirements and safety in the high field environment. Additional Faculty Div Bolar Dr. Bradford Dickerson Dr. John Gabrieli Dr. Doug Greve Dr. Karl Helmer Dr. Dara Manoach Dr. Jason Mitchell Dr. Christopher Moore Dr. Vitaly Napadow Dr. Jon Polimeni Dr. Sonia Pujol Dr. Bruce Rosen Dr. Mert Sabuncu Dr. David Salat Dr. Robert Savoy Dr. David Somers Dr. A. Gregory Sorensen Dr. Christina Triantafyllou Dr. Wim Vanduffel Dr. Mark Vangel Dr. Lawrence Wald Dr. Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli Dr. Anastasia Yendiki "

The basic properties of functions of one complex variable. Cauchy's theorem, holomorphic and meromorphic functions, residues, contour integrals, conformal mapping. Infinite series and products, the gamma function, the Mittag-Leffler theorem. Harmonic functions, Dirichlet's problem. This is an advanced undergraduate course dealing with calculus in one complex variable with geometric emphasis. Since the course Analysis I is a prerequisite, topological notions like compactness, connectedness, and related properties of continuous functions are taken for granted. This course offers biweekly problem sets with solutions, two term tests and a final exam, all with solutions.

Fundamentals of Biology focuses on the basic principles of biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, and recombinant DNA. These principles are necessary to understanding the basic mechanisms of life and anchor the biological knowledge that is required to understand many of the challenges in everyday life, from human health and disease to loss of biodiversity and environmental quality.

" This class covers the history of 20th century art and design from the perspective of the technologist. Methods for visual analysis, oral critique, and digital expression are introduced. Class projects this term use the OLPC XO (One Laptop Per Child) laptop, Csound and Python software."

This design-based subject provides a first course in energy and thermo-sciences with applications to sustainable energy-efficient architecture and building technology. No previous experience with subject matter is assumed. After taking this subject, students will understand introductory thermodynamics and heat transfer, know the leading order factors in building energy use, and have creatively employed their understanding of energy fundamentals and knowledge of building energy use in innovative building design projects. This year, the focus will be on design projects that will complement the new NSTAR/MIT campus efficiency program.