Winter Study 2019 Course Offerings

In February of 1927 anthropologist Franz Boas asked folklorist Zora Neale Hurston to identify an ideal location in which to study and collect data about "Negro culture in the South."Hurston's reply, without hesitation, was the central and gulf coast of Florida because she believed there, "it was possible for [her] to get a cross section of the Negro South in one state." Hurston traveled directly to Eatonville, the town she eventually claimed as her birth home, and for over a decade, utilized the information she collected as the backdrop to her fiction as well as her nonfiction explorations of Black religion. Taking Hurston's lead, this course will utilize Florida's gulf coast as the backdrop to exploring the diverse manifestations of modern black religious expression. Because of its diverse geographical, political structures, populations, and economy, Florida has historically been characterized as a "new South" with distinctive cultural expressions. With this history in mind, this course will address four critical questions: (1) What is Black religion?; (2) What are the distinctive aspects of southern expressions of Black Protestant religion; (3) How do Black communities see themselves in relation to broader social concerns? and (4) How, if at all, is religious expression in Florida unique? To answer these questions, we will travel to Florida's west coast and visit three different church communities to understand Black Protestant religion as currently expressed in the 'New South' including a small mainstream denominational church in Talleveast Florida; a Pentecostal-Holiness church in St. Petersburg, Florida; and a mega-church in Eaton, Florida. In addition to learning about Black religion along the western coast of Florida through participant observation, students will visit and tour local historical sites significant to Black religious experiences, and will meet with local academics, archivists, and leaders. A 200-page course packet will contextualize the trip.

To be taken by students registered for Africana Studies 491 who are candidates for honors.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

What makes relatively recent books and manuscripts worth preserving? Whose voices are missing from the library's collections? Students in this course will explore the market for 20th-century rare books andmanuscripts and recommend items for Special Collections to purchase. We will spend our first two weeks exploring the library's existing collections of 20th-century Americana, focusing on what makes these books and manuscripts valuable--not just in terms of their cost but their usefulness in supporting teaching and student research. We'll explore the market for antiquarian books, and we'll consider how social movements and historical events including second-wave feminism, workers' strikes, and the civil rights era are documented in primary sources. Outside of class, students will spend additional hands-on time with rare materials in the Special Collections reading room. Students will also search printed and online catalogs from booksellers who specialize in 20th-century material to look for potential additions to our collections. Given a theoretical budget of $1000, each student will assemble a proposal to acquire a new collection of books and manuscripts for the Chapin Library or the College Archives. We'll spend the final week of class presenting these proposals to the Chapin Librarian, who will approve a selection of items to purchase for our collections. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Anne Peale, Special Collections Librarian at Williams, graduated from Dartmouth College and studied Material Cultures and Book History at the University of Edinburgh; she recently completed her PhD in Historical Geography.

This class gives students a chance to learn about resources and assets of Massachusetts's smallest city, North Adams. Readings, tours, films, field trips, and meetings with people who work withor lead nonprofits and civic organizations will introduce students to local history, current conditions in the city, and plans for future cultural and economic development. Students will be expected to complete assigned readings (assorted articles) and to attend all class meetings. Final assessment will be based on students' engagement in thoughtful discussions of class materials and in-person encounters and experiences. In addition, students will complete a final research project (written or multimedia) that they present to the class and two reflection papers. Most class sessions will take place off campus; students must be available to travel off campus and attend occasional sessions that occur outside of the regular class hours. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Anne Valk is Associate Director for Public Humanities at Williams, with affiliations in the Center for Learning in Action; the Office of Institutional Diversity; and the department of history.

This course will explore the history of the Williams College Davis Center (DC), formerly the Multicultural Center. In exploring this history, the course readings and discussions will contextualize the localspecificities of the Center's establishment within broader U.S. academic, political, and cultural discourses on student-led protest, the evolution of multiculturalism, the centrality of Black resistance, and the import of cultural specificity in creating an equitable and just world. The course will thus rely on resources in the College archives, and students will be encouraged to hone their research skills, but will also rely on communal construction of a theoretical framework to analyze the archived history of the Center while attending to the DC's current mission to facilitate conversations about race, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, religion, and ability. Readings will include work by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, Roderick Ferguson, Houston Baker, E. Patrick Johnson, Jeff Chang, Sami Schalk, and more. Students will be encouraged to engage in critical and constructive discussion about the historical place and work of the Davis Center, and contribute to that work with assignments that include weekly personal reflections and program proposals to enhance the curriculum and programmatic itinerary of the Center.

This course will focus on learning how to write and perform songs in classical contemporary style. Song styles that will be addressed include pop, rock, blues, country, folk and jazz.Topics addressed will include the evolution of song structure, how to create a lyric that communicates, vocal and instrument presentation, recording and performing techniques, publicity for events, and today's music industry. This class will culminate in a public performance of material written during the course. To successfully pass this course, students are required to create, edit, perform and possibly record two original songs in one of the above mentioned genres. These songs must be conceived during the course period (previously written material is not usable.) Students will be guided to create both music and lyrics. They may also be required to participate in a co-write session. One of these songs will be presented during the final performance, preferably by the student. Attendance at classes, feedback sessions, and final presentation is mandatory. Please note: this class meets every day. A short writing assignment will be passed in on the last day of class. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Bernice Lewis is the Artist Associate in Songwriting at Williams College. She is an accomplished singer, songwriter, producer and educator and has been a national touring artist for over thirty years She has performed at the Kerrville Folk Festival, PBS's Mountain Stage, and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. In 2009, she was chosen by the National Park Service to be an Artist in Residence. She has released seven recordings of original songs.

To be taken by students registered for American Studies 491 or 492.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

More and more, decisions in the health professions are being made on evidence from the medical literature rather than solely from the "experience" of the physician or other health practitioner.What kinds of questions (hypotheses) are being asked, and how are they answered, and answered reliably? How does a conscientious health professional keep up with this evidence and evaluate it both critically and efficiently? After a brief introduction to the history of epidemiology, the class will study a selection of "unknown" historic epidemics, and contemporary data sets in small groups, and present their conclusions in class. The remainder of roughly the middle third or so of the class will explore systematically the approaches and research designs epidemiologists use to answer, among others, questions of treatment effectiveness, preventive strategies, and to study cause and effect, e.g., is this exposure reliably related to an outcome of interest. And finally, how does one decide whether that relationship might be a causal one, and therefore actionable. The various research design applications will be illustrated by appropriate historic--some from the "canon" of the public health and clinical literature--or by more current papers. Although the first two weeks of this ambitious course is more about design issues than one of current topics in public health, about week 3--through lecture and perhaps student presentations--will apply the methodological "tool kit" to major current athletic health issues, e.g., athletic concussions and their short and long-term effects. The last week of the course the class will operate as a Journal Club, with individual and/or groups of students responsible for presenting and critiquing the design, conduct and analysis of a paper(s) concerning a current issue. These presentations may also look at athletic health issues. This WS course is designed to be a serious academic experience, with the rigor of a regular course. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Dr. Wright is a medical epidemiologist who first worked with maternal and child health and family planning programs in Alabama and Georgia. Later, after training as an EIS officer at the CDC, he was a resident consultant to both the Sri Lankan and Thai Ministries of Public Health. Still later, he was a faculty member in the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, in New Jersey.

The broad, "underground" influence of publicist-novelist Ayn Rand stands as one of the more curious sociocultural phenomena to have emerged out of post-War America. Examples: A youthful Alan Greenspan wasa dedicated disciple of Rand's in the 1940s and 50s; Michael Milken was reported to have kept twenty-six copies of Atlas Shrugged in his jail cell while serving time for securities fraud; Congressman Paul Ryan and Exxon CEO (and current Secretary of State) Rex Tillerson both are avowed fans of Ayn Rand; each year to this day, Rand's books sell hundreds of thousands of copies; and, in a crowning instance of "canonization," the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in Rand's honor (as part of its "Great American Authors" series) in April 1999. This course will examine the nature and origins of the Rand phenomenon through reading of relevant works of journalism, fiction, and philosophy. Titles to be studied: Jeffrey Walker, The Ayn Rand Cult; Mary Gaitskill, Two Girls: Fat and Thin; Gene H. Bell-Villada, The Pianist Who Liked Ayn Rand (selections) and On Nabokov, Ayn Rand and the Libertarian Mind; and John Locke, Second Treatise of Government. We will also view two films: the movie version of The Fountainhead (1949) and the 1996 documentary Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life. Note: No books by Rand will be read in this class! It is a course not "about" Rand but rather about the cultural sociology and anthropology of Randism.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Students will learn basic skills for piloting a small vessel in coastal waters using a compass and paper charts. Areas to be covered include: basic rules of navigation; reading nauticalcharts; recognizing and interpreting aids to navigation (buoys, lighthouses, etc.); reading a magnetic compass; plotting a position on a chart; plotting a course by dead reckoning; planning and charting a voyage; the use of standard navigation references; the use of open source chartplotting software. Work outside class meetings will consist of assigned readings and practice plotting.

When you look at a photograph, what is it really saying? How can you make photograph that says what you mean? This course will educate students on the concepts ofphotographic seeing and visual literacy, while also training students to apply these concepts to their own photography. In class we will review historical and contemporary photography, photobooks, and other sources of visual inspiration. Students will conceptualize and photograph a project of their own choosing. Students will learn to defend their work during in-class critiques, and at the end of the course the class will design and produce an exhibition of their photography. Outside of class, students will be expected to photograph on their own in the Williamstown area and access to a car may be helpful.

To be taken by students registered for Anthropology 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Arabic Studies senior thesis.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

How were coins made and circulated in the ancient world? Why did a city or individual choose to mint coins? What role did coins play in people's lived experience, aswell as in Greek and Roman visual culture? In this course, we will explore the Western coinage tradition from its origins through Late Antiquity, using the college's own numismatic collection as a basis for methodological discussions and for individual research. In consultation with the professor, each student will select coins from the collection and relate it to each of the different methodological issues under investigation. These topics will include mint and die studies; analysis of coin hoards; approaches to coin finds in archaeological excavation; the use of coins as historical "documents"; and the iconography of Greco-Roman coinage as it relates to classical art history. For most class meetings, students will present a short report on how the methodological issue under discussion relates to specific coins they have selected from the college's collection, before choosing a final research project. In addition to the hands-on experience of working with these coins, we will also survey the different historical coinages from antiquity (e.g., Classical Greek, Hellenistic Greek, Roman Republican) through a series of illustrated lectures.

This hands-on course, taught jointly by a nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist, Chan Lowe, and a former member of the Art Department faculty, E. J. Johnson, introduces students to the "UngentlemanlyArt" of cartooning through discussions and an emphasis on the creation of their own work. It is not an art course as much as an exercise in disciplining the mind to distill abstract concepts and opinions into visual and verbal symbols that can be clearly, economically and persuasively communicated to the reader. Previous drawing experience is NOT a prerequisite, nor even an advantage. Non-art majors are particularly encouraged to enroll. The basics of perspective, proportion, and shading will be covered as needed to provide all students with the necessary skills to express themselves. Much more important are an inquisitive mind, a healthy interest in the current national discourse, a willingness to enter into spirited classroom discussion, and an appreciation of satire. The fact that the course will meet during the second month of a newly elected Congress means that there will be plenty of material ripe for cartooning. Class assignments will be critiqued in a non-threatening atmosphere. Lowe, who will be continuously producing daily cartoons, will also present his own work for criticism. Class meetings, at least two hours per meeting three days a week, will alternate between the studio experience and lectures, given by Johnson, that will acquaint students with aspects of the history of caricature, cartooning and art with a propagandistic or overtly political purpose. The lectures will provide students with knowledge they may use in producing their cartoon assignments. The success of this course depends on the commitment and motivation of all participants. Course requirements include the drawing of several editorial cartoons per week, daily reading and viewing of news media. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Chan Lowe has been an editorial cartoonist and opinion writer since graduating from Williams in 1975. He has worked for newspapers in Oklahoma, Florida and is now a member of the editorial board of The Berkshire Eagle. His drawing and writing work have won many journalism awards, and is nationally and internationally syndicated by Tribune Content Agency. Co-Instructor: E.J. Johnson, Amos Lawrence Professor of Art, Emeritus

The Argentine film industry is one of the most developed in the Spanish-speaking world. It is rich in genres and production scales, and in the issues raised by the filmsthemselves. This immersive course encourages dynamic engagement with these issues, as we watch films that grapple with the country's painful legacy of dictatorial rule, coming-of-age road movies, familial dramas, and riotous comedies that feature that distinctive, biting Argentine humor. Our meetings consist of three mandatory screenings per week, two of which are followed by class discussion. In addition to learning about the Argentine context, we will learn vocabulary and tools for discussing and writing about film. No previous coursework in film, or fluency in Spanish required (the films are subtitled)--only an interest in contemporary Argentine cinema and culture.

Architectural history is generally taught by photographs, which compress three-dimensional things into two-dimensional projections. But describing the dynamic nature of architectural space with a flat image is like describing anice cream flavor with a flow chart. In this course groups of four or five students will receive measured drawings of major American buildings and construct models at quarter-inch scale. Possible subjects include works by Venturi, Wright, Eisenman, and Jefferson. No previous architectural experience is necessary. After the initial two sessions, there will be two three-hour studio sessions each week where the instructor will critique the projects. At a final meeting, a jury will review the models.

The role of museums in American culture has evolved dramatically over recent decades. No longer simply a repository of art and artifacts, the 21st century museum is a fully dynamiccenter of programming, cultural exchange, community building, and active inquiry. This is true across all types of museums--from art museums to scientific, historical, and specialty collections--and has affected every aspect of museum administration, from curatorial and collection priorities to methods of communication, fundraising, and engagement. With participation of WCMA staff, we will examine in-depth the role and behind-the-scenes work of contemporary museums. The class will include site visits to several area museums and discussions with specially skilled museum professionals, from directors, curators, and educators to collection managers, conservators, exhibition designers and development and communications managers. Students will research models of museum practice and brainstorm and develop proposals for the museum of the future. For the culminating project, the class will work as a group with WCMA staff to develop a gallery presentation and/or program that will connect with Claiming Williams Day. We will meet twice a week for four hours session at WCMA, plus 1 trip to area museums per week.

To be taken by students registered for ArtH 494. For requirements of entry into the course, please see "The Degree with Honors in Art, Art History" in the catalogue oron the Art Department's webpage.

To be taken by candidates for honors by the independent study route.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

This course will be a hybrid of studio practice and a visual survey of the painted portrait, tracing various approaches to portraiture and mark-making, from the Fayum mummies to therecently unveiled portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama, in order to inform the ways by which we will, throughout the course, paint portraits (of oneself or another). The course will culminate in a final exhibition of each participant's painting, which will be worked on throughout the duration of the winter study, in- and outside of class. We will begin the course by looking to a range approaches to portraiture and engaging in various drawing and painting exercises, before spending the bulk of the remaining time working towards a single, polished painting, in oil or acrylic on canvas or panel. We will analyze many of the touchstone examples of portraiture over the centuries to survey a range of styles and how their respective techniques and painted marks reflected the zeitgeist, or collective psychology of a time and place, in order to inform our own painted works. The course will meet three times per week to engage in dedicated studio work, and group analysis of historic examples of painted portraits. Outside of class, students will be expected to continue their studio work, as well as additional drawing or painting exercises, readings, and possible film screening(s). The final project, a single portrait painting, will be displayed in a group exhibition in the Spencer Art Building at the culmination of the Winter Study period, at which time each artist will present their finished work. No experience necessary, but some background in painting and drawing is a plus. Adjunct Instructor Bio: William Binnie (born Dallas, TX, 1985) is a visual artist living and working in Williamstown, MA and Brooklyn, NY. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in a number of public and private collections across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Binnie's work is currently on view at MassMoCA's "The Lure of the Dark: Contemporary Painters Conjure the Night," through 2019. For more information and images of work, please visit: www.william-binnie.com.

In this course we will revisit the boundaries between self-portraiture and portraiture. Working in pairs, students will both practice being a model and a photographer: they will pose as amodel for their classmates and assist a classmate in creating a self-portrait. In addition, using as a point of departure Hippolyte Bayard's photograph Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man, one of the first self-portraits in the history of photography, students will learn how to use a view camera (a large format camera used shortly after the invention of photography in 1839 and still in use today). We will also study the characteristics of film photography, specifically, light, chemicals, and sensitive media and use them as tools to make creative portraits in the darkroom. By the end of the course students will have learned to shoot with a 4 x 5 view camera and have practiced with manipulations in the darkroom in order to create unique portraits. Each student will exhibit their work as a triptych in an exhibition. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Documentary photographer Daniel Goudrouffe, who describes himself as a photographer-author, creates compelling visual narratives about the complexity of life in the Caribbean and its diaspora. His archive of the contemporary Caribbean equally enables a public reckoning with the impact of slavery and colonialism in the region. In 2017, his images were showcased at Les Photaumnales in Beauvais, France and at the Biennale Internationale des rencontres Photographiques de Guyane.

An exploration of cross-disciplinary sampling: digital and visual art, sculpture, sound, music, moving image, text, theater. Paul de Jong presents the vast media archive the Mall of Found as apoint of departure for discussion and as the resource for creative exploration, touching upon issues specific to the inception, production and presentation of art using sampled sources. De Jong will address topics related to the creative process and issues specific to the field of sampling: integrity in appropriation, conflict in collaboration, developing method and technique, making your own rules and having changes of heart, documenting and archiving, commercial considerations, presentation and audience subjectivity. Participants will receive a detailed introduction to the archive and its makeup. Throughout, access will be given to the digital collection. The physical archive (housed in North Adams, MA) will be accessible by appointment and through weekly group excursions. After determination of individual and collective goals, emphasis shall be given to a hands-on creative approach, outside-of-class. In-class time will be set aside for weekly individual presentations and critiques, as well as daily group meetings for topical discussions. The course may result in individual or group works presented in a gallery show, as a theatrical/musical performance, a movie showing, a web production, printed matter, publications, or readings. Paul de Jong's Mall of Found is home to a wealth of assorted fringe media and ephemera. This includes some 5,000+ VHS, 1,500 LP's, 5,000 cassette tapes, as well as photography, printed matter and film, numbering over 100,000. The subject matter is sprawling, favoring independent and amateur production and analog forms. Categories include: televangelism, self-help, hunting, meditation, technical, instructional, medical and much more. Paul de Jong (formerly of the Books) recently released his second solo album You Fucken Sucker.

The ancient art of shadow puppetry has seen a resurgence in contemporary art and theater. William Kentridge writes, "It is in the very limitations of shadows that we learn...It isin the gap between the object and its representation that the image emerges, the gap we fill in." In this course, students will explore a range of techniques in shadow theater and build towards a culminating performance. We will survey the history of the form, from Asian traditions such as wayang kulit, through Victorian shadow plays, to the uses of shadow by contemporary theater makers and artists (e.g. William Kentridge, Kara Walker). Shadow puppeteer Karen Zasloff and visiting artists will guide students in creating shadow imagery from flat cutouts, sculpted objects and their bodies, and choreographing scenes on a classroom overhead projector and translucent screen. In small groups, we will interpret excerpts of prose and poetry through these handmade projections, exploring relationships among text, image sequences and music, culminating in a public performance. We will meet three times/week for three-hour sessions, with additional supervised lab and rehearsal periods according to our needs. Some basic equipment will be supplied, but students will be expected to purchase some of the materials. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Karen Zasloff has created performances in the US and abroad with shadows, toy theater, giant puppets and video, on themes of political violence and the unconscious. She has performed in NY at PS1, Saint Ann's Warehouse, National Sawdust, PS122 and Here Arts Center, and for 20 years with the Bread and Puppet Theater. Her drawings feature in "Banished", which premiered at Sundance 2007. Recent projects focus on Rwanda and South Africa, including a Fulbright with the Handspring Puppet Company.

This course provides an introduction to both a theoretical consideration of the glassy state of matter and the practical manipulation of glass. We do flameworking with hand torches for atleast 12 hours per week. While no previous experience is required, students with patience, good hand-eye coordination, and creative imagination will find the course most rewarding. The class is open to both artistically and scientifically oriented students. Note: if you are required to participate in a sustaining language program during Winter Study, this course meets at the same time.

What does it mean to represent your own body? How do we craft compelling performances of self in a social media marketplace that treats our bodies as currency? In thisstudio course, we look at the lineage of the self-portrait and the role it plays in the creation of our personal mythologies. We will consider the work of Frida Kahlo, Cindy Sherman, Carrie Mae Weems, Jacolby Satterwhite, Kim Kardashian West and others. How have artists, now and in the past, turned the camera on themselves? Is it possible to subvert the gendered and racialized gaze? Students will create their own kinetic self-portraits, exploring forms such as looping video, gifs, stop-motion, and animation. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Kameron Neal is a queer Black video artist and performance-maker based in NYC. His work has been seen and developed at Ars Nova, BAM, La MaMa, New York Theatre Workshop, Soho Rep., Digital Graffiti Festival, Vox Populi and Yale's Center for Contemporary Arts and Media. Kameron has also designed campaigns for The Public Theater, Joe's Pub, Under the Radar Festival, and Shakespeare in the Park, with the creative direction of Pentagram partner, Paula Scher.

Independent project to be taken by candidates for honors in Art Studio.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

To be taken by students registered for Astrophysics 493, 494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

To be taken by all students who are candidates for honors in Asian Studies.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Less than a generation ago, we wondered, as we had for millions of years before, whether there were any other planets at all. Now, we are privileged to be inthe first generation of humans to know that many of the points of light dusting our night sky are host to orbiting worlds, some of which may be like our Earth. In this course, we will explore the techniques that are being used to discover these new worlds. We will make our own contributions to this great age of discovery, by using remotely-operated telescopes in Australia to gather data on new planets. This course, meant for non-majors, will deal with the science of planet hunting, the astounding diversity of planets known to exist, the emerging science of astrobiology, and the enduring question of "are we alone?" through works of science fiction and cutting-edge research. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Rob Wittenmyer '98 is Associate Professor of astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia. He is a veteran planet hunter with nearly 20 published planet discoveries.

To be taken by students registered for Astronomy 493, 494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

BioEYES brings tropical fish to 3rd grade classrooms in Williamstown, North Adams, and Lanesborough Elementary schools, in a science teaching workshop. Elementary school students will breed fish in the classroom,then study their development and pigmentation during one week. Williams students will adapt BioEYES lesson plans to the science curriculum for the schools we visit, work with classroom teachers to introduce concepts in genetics and development, help the 3rd grade students in the classroom, and assess elementary student learning. No zebrafish experience is necessary; during the first week students will learn to set up fish matings, and learn about embryonic development and the genetics of fish pigmentation as well as practice teaching the 3rd grade BioEYES lesson plans with hands-on experiments using living animals. In the subsequent three weeks students will present lessons at the schools and review assessment data. Adjunct Instructor Bio:Jennifer Swoap, an elementary school teacher, currently coordinates Williams Elementary Outreach, where Williams students teach hands-on science lessons at area elementary schools. Adjunct Co-Instructor Bio:Renee Schiek currently serves as the liaison between Lanesborough Elementary School and the Williams Elementary Outreach, where Williams students teach hands-on science lessons at area elementary schools. She is a frequent substitute at Lanesborough ES and holds a degree in mechanical engineering.

This course has a focus on making music based on the principles of improvisation and street performance embodied by New Orleans-Style jazz. Typically composed of brass instruments, this course welcomesmusicians and performers of all types, from the classically trained to those with no experience who are willing to play washboards, kazoos, and experiment with other forms of sound-making. For when you travel the world after Williams, this course will prepare you to "busk," or make money playing music on the street, where some of the most dynamic forms of jazz and improvisation have been created. The course will include various street performances and culminate with a "gig" in a local music venue. We will meet twice a week for three-hour sessions, with extra band practices, five hours per week, and performances to be scheduled in accordance to our needs--attendance mandatory. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Andy Kelly, a local Jazz musician and former busker, Williams College Class of '80, now travels the world bridging cultures with music, using American jazz to make peace in the world.

This course is an introduction to the ancient art and science of animal tracking, and its use for ecological inventory. Participants will deepen their skills as naturalists, their awareness ofthe natural world, and discover that even the greens at Williams College are abundant with wildlife. Students will have field time in class at Hopkins Forest as well as through independent study at a convenient outdoor location of each student's choosing. Basic concepts of animal tracking, its history and use by indigenous people throughout the world will be discussed through video and slideshow. Students are required to create journals and site maps of Hopkins and their personal study areas, including all major features of the landscape, flora and fauna activity. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Dan Yacobellis is a local naturalist and wildlife tracker who has explored forest and field for more than 20 years. He teaches courses on wilderness skills and tracking at nature education centers in Massachusetts and New York as well as his own independent programs for private groups and associations.

An experimental research project will be carried out under the supervision of the Biology Department. It is expected that the student will spend 20 hours per week in the labat a minimum, and a 10-page written report is required. This experience is intended for, but not limited to, first-year students and sophomores, and requires the permission of the instructor.

This Winter Study Period course engages students with the diversity of agricultural practices in California on farms ranging from winter fruit and vegetable production, to orchards and vineyards, to livestockand dairy, to eggs along the Central Coast through hands-on experiences on a variety of farms. This is a Winter Study 2019 field course on Sustainable Agriculture in California, a field experience conducted primarily on-site for the month of January. For some participants, the WSP field course will segue from the seminar BIOL/ENVI 422--The Ecology of Sustainable Agriculture to be taught in Fall 2018 by H.W. Art. Preference for the WSP will be given to students who have previously taken BIOL 422. The WSP course will be limited to 8 students. This project is a replication of a WSP course HW Art taught in 2013 and again 2016, a travel WSP experiential course in which 7-8 students gained hands-on knowledge about agricultural systems by working on 8 farms and vineyards on the Central Coast of California. We concluded the month by participating in the Ecological Farming (EcoFarm) Conference. Sarah Gardner will be co-teaching the course with Prof. Art for pedagogical and practical reasons, including her experience in agriculture and her continuing this WSP periodically in the future. The learning-through-working experience is designed to both de-mystify and de-romanticize agriculture by having the students gain a fuller sense of the realities of producing food by working shoulder-to-shoulder with farmers and laborers. Art's previous experience is that the investments of time, labor, thought, and sweat by engaging in actual farming practice creates a depth of understanding not possible in the classroom. In addition to assigned texts, we also will be reading books individually and take turns reporting back to the group in the evenings, a bit like story-telling in the oral tradition. The final product will be a collaborative journal written by the class.

To be taken by students registered for Biology 493, 494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

The objective of this course is to introduce a process for preparing and delivering oral presentations with accompanying visuals to enable anyone to maximize their impact. In many fields theability to transform detailed personal knowledge of a subject into a more broadly accessible message is critical to both personal and organizational success. Often individuals are well prepared as subject matter experts, however, the ability to leverage that expertise into setting a direction or advocating for policy change is learned through trial and error. The instructor of this course has over 25 years of experience presenting scientific and product information in a corporate environment to internal and external customers. This course will focus on a deliberate method for developing persuasive communication that is both engaging and effective. The in-class portion of this course will focus on instruction with a heavy emphasis of "hands on" practice including iterative brainstorming, group sharing and feedback around presentation design, content optimization and oral delivery. The topics for these in class exercises will primarily be provided practice subjects and data sets related to everyday sales pitches and issue advocacy. Student provided topics will also be encouraged. Assigned work outside of class will focus on selected readings, viewing presentations by relevant thought leaders and developing a final presentation on a topic of interest to the student. Students should be prepared to develop ideas they wish to communicate about and preference will be given to students who can articulate concepts they wish to communicate about. This course will utilize Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Excel; students do no need to have expertise in these platforms, however, basic familiarity will be helpful. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Jamie Gardner holds a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from MIT and leads 3M's Global Fall Protection Laboratory. Over the last 25 years he has focused on the commercialization of Photosensitive, Pest Elimination, Electronic Adhesive, Lithium Ion Battery, Cleaning and Fall Protection products. In pursuit of these efforts he has developed and taught a process utilized to update and influence co-workers, executive stakeholders, customers, external investors and sponsoring government agencies.

This course provides an opportunity to drastically improve your life by introducing concepts that can start making a difference in the way you feel today! We will approach nutrition, lifestyle,and happiness from a holistic perspective. Students will learn how to tune out mixed media messages and look within to find ultimate health and wellness. Topics include: Ayurveda, cleansing, preventative medicine, yoga and meditation, food intolerance awareness, healthy eating and meal planning, deconstructing cravings and overcoming sugar addiction, healthy skin care with oils, finding your happiness. Evaluation will be based on completion of assignments, class participation, reflective 5-page paper or equivalent creative project, and final presentation that demonstrates a level of personal growth. After signing up for this course please email Nicole at [email protected] with a brief statement describing your interest in the course and what you hope to achieve in it. In the event of oversubscription, these statements will be used in the selection process. We will meet twice a week for three-hour sessions as a group. The course will include two individual sessions--in initial health assessment plus an additional session designed to personalize the course and assist the student in applying the learned techniques. There will be several books and a DVD required for this class. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Nicole Anagnos is Health Coach and Director at Zen Tree Wellness in Williamstown. She is co-founder of the organic skin care company, Klo Organic Beauty. She also holds a master's degree in education.

An independent experimental project in biochemistry is carried out in collaboration with a member of the Department with expertise in biochemistry. Biochemistry is a branch of chemistry that deals withthe molecular details of living systems including the interaction of biologically important molecules. In the Chemistry Department, studies are underway to investigate the structure/function relationship of proteins, the interaction between proteins and RNA and DNA, and the molecular basis of bacterial gene regulation.

This course introduces students to the advanced techniques used to study the fate of contaminants in the environment. Students will collect samples, learn a variety of extraction protocols, and becomecomfortable using chemical instrumentation (GC-MS, LC-MS, AA, etc.) to identify and quantify target inorganic and organic contaminants from various environmental media (soil, air, water, and biota). Studies may include: determination of heavy metals from water and sediment sources, measurement of chemical partition coefficients (octanol-water, soil-water, air-water, etc.), rates of contaminant degradation, microscopic and chemical analysis of airborne particular matter, etc. This course will meet for approximately 10-12 hours each week for lectures, discussion of reading assignments, laboratory work, and field sampling.

Representative projects include: Analysis of sediment and fish samples collected from the Hoosic River drainage basin for contamination with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and soil, plant and aquatic animal samples fromsouthern Vermont for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and its chemical relatives. This project focuses on techniques used in environmental analysis including trace-level determination of persistent organic pollutants by GC-MS and/or LC-MS.

An independent experimental project in physical chemistry is carried out in collaboration with a member of the Department with expertise in physical chemistry. Current research projects in the Department includecomputer modeling of non-linear, chaotic chemical and biochemical systems, molecular modeling of water clusters, laser spectroscopy of chlorofluorocarbon substitutes, and observing the dynamics in glasses using single molecule spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations.

To be taken by students registered for Chemistry 493, 494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Food plays a quintessential role in Chinese culture. Approaching the foot ways in various regions in China provides a unique path to a better understanding of the richness and diversityof China's regional cultures. Shanghai cuisine (benbang cai), originated in Shanghai and developed its cooking style under the profound influence of those surrounding regions, is a very popular branch of Chinese food. This hands-on course introduces the culinary tradition of many famous Shanghai dishes. The instructor will demonstrate how to turn those fresh raw ingredients and special seasonings into "color-aroma-tasty" Shanghai style dishes. (e.g. soup dumplings, wantons, eight-treasure rice puddings, red braised pork, sweet and sour spare ribs, crystal shrimp etc.) Through discussions of reading and videos, hands-on practices, as well as independently cooking of certain dishes, students will gain insight into the Shanghainese way of life. Students will be expected to complete assigned readings and videos outside class, participate discussions and cook with the instructor in class, make a few recipes of what they cook, and write a 10-12-page final essay. The final essay should include 5 to 6 finalized recipes of the dishes students cook and a conclusion. There is a mandatory field trip to a traditional Shanghai restaurant. Important reminder: for students who have food allergies and/or who are vegetarians please inform the instructor and consult your healthcare professional before the course starts on January 3rd, 2019. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Wendy Wan has extensive experience teaching Chinese language and culture at K-12 levels in the United States. She is a Shanghai native and a food enthusiast.

Interested in learning first-hand about Taiwanese culture and becoming acquainted with what has been called the "Taiwan (economic and political) miracle"? Want to improve your knowledge of Mandarin, the languagewith the largest number of native speakers in the world? Then join us on this 23-day study tour to Taiwan, Republic of China. We'll spend the first two weeks in Taipei, the capital city, where 3 hours of Mandarin language classes at levels from beginning to advanced will be scheduled each morning at the Mandarin Center of National Taiwan Normal University. After class we'll meet as a group for lunch and discussion. Activities with Taiwanese university students and visits to cultural and economic sites of interest will be scheduled for some afternoons and Saturdays, with other afternoons, evenings, and Sundays free for self-study and individual exploration. During the last week, we'll travel to central and southern Taiwan, staying at small hotels and youth hostels. Two orientation sessions will be conducted on campus in the fall to help participants prepare for their experience. .

To be taken by all students who are candidates for honors in Chinese.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Plato's Symposium commemorates a gathering held at the home of the poet Agathon of Athens, in 416 BCE, shortly after his first victory in the tragedy contest. The attendees ofAgathon's drinking party agree to dedicate their evening to delivering speeches in praise of love (eros/Eros). This dialogue has long been one of Plato's most widely appreciated works and its influence has ranged far beyond the purview of academic philosophy. We will read and analyze the dialogue itself, then turn to an eclectic array of works inspired by the Symposium to study its artistic and philosophical "afterlife."

May be taken by students registered for Classics 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

To be taken by students registered for Contract Major 493, 494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

May be taken by students registered for Cognitive Science 494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

While it may not be written on the campus map, it's common Williams knowledge that the gym on upper Lasell is called "the EstroGym." Have you ever wondered why cardiospaces, like the EstroGym, seem to be occupied predominantly by women while weight rooms (think Lower Level Lasell) are filled with men? We will explore the answers to this and many more questions in this hybrid physical and academic course. Half of this course will be a critical exploration of phenomena that are often taken for granted within the fitness industry. We will discuss the ways in which cultural understandings of gender and bodies are created and reinforced in physical activity spaces. Topics will include the cultural reinforcement of the gender binary, the policing of nonconforming identities in physical spaces, hegemonic masculinity in the gym, and the social construction of ideal femininity and masculinity. Much of our reading will be grounded in feminist and sociological theory (L. Heywood, Bodymakers: A Cultural Anatomy of Women's Body Building; Markula & Pringle, Foucault, sport, and exercise: Power, knowledge, and transforming the self) but will also include text and visual sources from CrossFit gyms, international weightlifting competitions, bodybuilding shows, and more. The other half of this course will be taught in the weight room, where students will learn proper strength training form and technique. It is a suitable introduction for novice lifters as well as an opportunity for experienced lifters to improve and refine their technique. Students will explore the differences between powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, and bodybuilding and will have the opportunity to practice these different forms. This includes, but is not limited to, the following exercises: squat, deadlift, overhead press, bench press, clean, jerk, push-up, and pull-up. Outside of class meeting times, students will be expected to complete readings, brief writing assignments (1-2 pages max), gym observations, short film viewings, and gym selfies (seriously). Depending on class size and logistics, we may take 1-2 field trips to other local gyms for observation purposes. Details TBA. **IMPORTANT NOTE: This course is open to students with any type of lifting experience (from zero physical activity background to Olympic athlete). This also includes students with any form of disability, so long as they are cleared by a licensed medical provider.

A 2013 law banning "homosexual propaganda" represents the latest in a long series of efforts by the Russian state to erase the existence and experience of its LGBTQ citizens. Thiscourse will explore Russia's suppressed queer archive from the imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet eras, focusing on the vibrant literature, art, and film about LGBTQ Russians. We will examine works produced by and about queer Russians in an attempt to understand distinctly Russian notions of gender and sexual identity, as well as how LGBTQ Russians have formed their own identity within the country's evolving gender regime. Our survey will include works of fiction, poetry, visual art, and film from before and after the Bolshevik revolution, Stalinism and its aftermath, and the post-Soviet era. Throughout our discussions, we will work towards an alternative cultural history of Russia that will allow us to determine how and why the country's queer citizens have become the despised Other under Putin. Knowledge of Russian is not required. All readings will be in English, and all films will include English subtitles.

The grand hotel with its dual promise of luxury and estrangement was considered a theater of social transformations in the age of travel. We will discuss novels, short stories andfilms that feature the hotel as a space of both class distinction and possible class confusion, of sexual taboo breaking, and gendered performance, and a transnational extension of colonialist oppression. Authors will include Edith Wharton, Thomas Mann, Vicki Baum, Ali Smith, Rick Moody. Films may include: The Last Laugh, Grand Hotel, Grand Hotel Budapest, Anomalisa, Screaming Man, Hotel Sahara, Hotel Rwanda, A Single Girl, Maid in Manhattan. We will also consider short theoretical readings on conspicuous consumption, branding, modernity and metropolitan spaces, and postcoloniality. In the present, hotel dramas focus on issues of the invisible worker, neoliberalism (Anomalisa, Single Girl), or the trauma of civil war and the raced body (Hotel Rwanda, Screaming Man), or cultural alienation and the inability to feel joy (Lost in Translation, Hotels of North America). Comedies explore the fantasy of a dramatic social climb through identity confusion in a hotel setting (Maid in Manhattan), satires highlight the confidence man/trickster who profits from social pretensions (Felix Krull, Grand Hotel). Class lines are straddled and the boundaries between death and life blurred (Hotel World, Hotel Sahara) as the hotel space becomes a riotous echo chamber, mirroring precarious lives of illegal migrants and displaced workers.

This course will serve as an intensive introduction to Fanon's philosophical and political writings, which continue to stand as some of the most influential and rousing works of the twentiethcentury. Born in Martinique and trained in France as a psychiatrist, Fanon spent the last decade of his life in Algeria, where he joined the struggle for national liberation. Marked by a layered history of anti-colonial struggle in the Caribbean, Europe, and North Africa, as much as by a commitment to the world-wide projects of decolonization and revolution, Fanon's writing was has been taken up by protest movements around the world, from South Africa to Sri Lanka, from the Black Panthers to queer theory.

To be taken by students registered for Comparative Literature 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Knowledge of computing fundamentals empowers people with a unique set of problem-solving skills. These skills are currently in high demand and are expected to remain so in the foreseeable future.Yet computer science isn't just a useful skill--it's also a limitless canvas for expressing one's own creativity. Computer science is interesting and fun! Hour of Code is a one-hour, hands-on workshop that introduces young students to computer science. Not surprisingly, mastery of computer science takes a bit longer than one hour. Therefore, the goal of Hour of Code is simply to demystify computer programming. A typical workshop blends self-paced activities with in-class tutorials. The best Hour of Code experience inspires participants to pursue further study in computer science on their own time. The first half of this winter study course exposes you to elementary programming, the nuts and bolts of pedagogy, and prepares you to run an Hour of Code workshop. The second half puts your training into practice: you will organize and run an Hour of Code workshop in a Berkshire-area middle school. No prior computer science knowledge is required. The only prerequisite is a love of technology and an enthusiasm for working with young learners.

In this course students learn geometric drawing, design, and the traditional craft skills needed to build a stained glass window. Each student will make a single panel of stained glassfrom a mosaic of transparent colored glass tiles. Students will learn how to cut glass; to paint and print on glass with kiln-fired enamels; to assemble, solder, patinate and frame a stained glass window. Instructional sessions on the use of tools and safe handling of materials are included where necessary. Exhibition of work on the last day of Winter Study is mandatory. All students must participate in setting up a group exhibition of work, and tidying the lab at the end of Winter Study. This course is time-consuming. More information may be found at https://coombscriddle.wordpress.com/2016/03/28/stained-glass-tiling-the-process/ Adjunct Instructor Bio: Debora Coombs' stained glass windows are exhibited and commissioned internationally. She is a Fellow of the British Society of Master Glass Painters with a Masters degree from London's Royal College of Art and 35 years of experience in the design, fabrication and teaching of stained glass. Contact: (802) 423-5640, [email protected] Photos: http://www.coombscriddle.com and http://coombscriddle.wordpress.com

Broadly defined, a dynamical system is an object whose future state can be calculated from its current state. Examples include ordinary and partial differential equations, discrete dynamics, cellular automata, billiards,spatial games, coupled/synchronized systems, agent models, evolutionary/selective dynamics, graph dynamics, Markov chains, and many more. The instructor will give a survey of such systems, and students will be free to imagine, create, and compute their own systems with an emphasis on graphical presentation of results.

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental aspects of building a technology startup. It's one thing to make software--and it's another to build a successful software company. You willlearn how to develop product/market fit, how to build an MVP (minimum viable product), how to market products on a budget, organizing and running a team, shipping software, and the different types of corporate structures. You'll learn from a range of successful entrepreneurs and industry experts, through their writings as well as short guest appearances (via video calls) during classroom sessions. Students will create a demo and 5-minute pitch (pitch deck optional) by the end of the course. For the product demo, students can choose to produce either working code, a technical white paper, or design mockups/wireframes. Students will be graded on the quality of the product demo and pitch. Attendance and participation will also be taken into account for final grades. Students will have the opportunity to show off their final products, and their pitches, in an optional Demo Day. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Elissa Shevinsky '01 helped launch Geekcorps (acquired), Everyday Health (IPO), Daily Steals, Glimpse, and Brave ($35M ICO.) Shevinsky was featured on the cover of the New York Times Sunday Business, for her startup Glimpse. Shevinsky is Editor of the book "Lean Out: The Struggle for Gender Equality in Tech and Startup Culture."

An independent project is completed in collaboration with a member of the Computer Science Department. The projects undertaken will either involve the exploration of a research topic related to thefaculty member's work or the implementation of a software system that will extend the students design and implementation skills. It is expected that the student will spend 20 hours per week working on the project. At the completion of the project, each student will submit a 10-page written report or the software developed together with appropriate documentation of its behavior and design. In addition, students will be expected to give a short presentation or demonstration of their work. Prior to the beginning of the Winter Study registration period, any student interested in enrolling must have arranged with a faculty member in the department to serve as their supervisor for the course.

Designing a pair of computerized glasses is not enough. Who will use them, and what problems will they solve? How can you be certain someone will adopt your new technologybefore you spend millions of dollars building it? Google Glass and other wearable technologies have struggled to answer these questions. In fact, somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of large IT projects fail and all too often, the cause has little to do with the quality of technical engineering. Innovators often solve the wrong problem, misidentify the users of the software, or fail to adapt to evolving requirements. The challenge is that engineers--and Williams students--like to be told what problem they are to solve, but the average consumer is terrible at knowing what they want until they see how the new product will work. Solution design offers a powerful framework for resolving this paradox efficiently. We will examine how to visualize interactions between market forces, corporate directives, and engineering requirements, and how to apply design thinking to generate novel ideas within these constraints. Then, we will interrogate the strength of our ideas by asking author Marty Kagan's questions: is it feasible? is it valuable? will someone use it? and does it have business viability? Readings by Steve Blank and Eric Reis emphasize the importance of low-cost, rapid prototyping/experimentation and statistical analysis thereof that results in actionable development goals. Finally, we will introduce topics in human computer interaction, and organization tools for complex technical collaborations like Git and the Getting Things Done methodology for task management. Throughout the course, small teams will deploy this toolkit against problems of the students' choosing. One team may wish to design a new app for the WSO website. Another team may choose to interview a local organization and design a technology powered tool that can improve its operations. You are the innovator. Small teams of students will each execute one iteration of design and prepare a plan for developing a technological solution to a problem of their choosing. The contents of the plans may include: careful descriptions of the product's goals, stakeholders, target users, assumptions, and constraints; a business plan; sketches of a user interface; first steps in programming an application; write ups of experiments intended to test underlying assumptions; and a direction for future development efforts. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Allan Wellenstein is a senior vice-president at DataArt, a global technology consulting firm and the head of their Solution Design consulting practice. Allan has over 15 years of experience helping some of the world largest companies design and implement massive technology transformations. Though technically headquartered in New York City, he lives with his wife and three children in Pittsfield, MA.

To be taken by students registered for Computer Science 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

This course will focus on the foundations of Hip-Hop as dance and as culture. The techniques of lockin', poppin', breakin', 90's and house dance as well as terminology and history.Technique class will include across the floor and center combinations allowing dancers to find their relationship to athleticism, dynamics and articulation of the body. We will also view and discuss media and literature that contextualizes Hip-Hop, deepens understanding of the form as dance and embodied history. Students will journal to reflect and record information. Technique class will meet three times a week followed by a required rehearsal of choreography that will be created. The expected contact hours will meet the required average of 20 weekly.

This course is for ANYONE interested in learning more about ballet, through a variety of experiences. First, of course, will be physical practice, 2-3 times per week. For those whohave no (or little) prior ballet training, you'll learn the fundamentals of ballet technique in a safe but challenging class; separate classes will be held for intermediate/advanced dancers. All course participants will gather together twice a week for movie/documentary viewings--a wide range of films (primarily) about ballet and ballet dancers from around the world--and once a week for lectures and group discussions, either in a seminar format or during a meal, about the films as well as the history and/or current context related to them. Reading material will also be assigned so that all students have a grasp of the overarching history of ballet. At the end of Winter Study, students will participate in an informal physical presentation.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

A broad overview of various aspects of the Fixed Income and Equities Markets and the role of Investment Banks. Topics, amongst others, will include: The effect of Fiscal and Monetarypolicy on Markets, Securities Sales and Trading, Bonds and Bond Math, Public Equities and Asset Management, Credit Analysis, Private Equity and Leveraged Buy-outs, Mergers and Acquisitions and Risk Management. Course will focus on real life practices and will include guest speakers and case studies. Course Goal: (1) to provide you with an understanding of how modern capital markets operate from a practical, real-life perspective (2) to help you think critically about issues effecting the stock and bond markets, and (3) to have fun and instill a passion in some of you for future study and/or work in the Securities Industry. Required Readings: (1) Understanding Wall Street (Fifth Edition) by Jeffrey Little and Lucien Rhodes (2) Packet of Case Studies (3) Students will be asked to read the Wall Street Journal on the day that each class meets. Class will meet 3 days per week for 2-3 hours per meeting. Outside of class, students will spend time on readings, preparation for case studies, and writing term paper. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Tim Bock '88 worked at Credit Suisse for 28 years where he ran Global Capital Markets, leading a unit of 250 Investment Bankers responsible for Credit Suisse's global financing businesses, including equity capital markets, debt capital markets, leveraged finance origination and corporate derivatives. Tim held several other leadership roles at CS, including Global Co-head of the Product platform in the Private Bank and Head of Derivatives Origination in the Equity and Fixed Income Departments.

ECON 11 is an intensive winter study designed for students intending to pursue or explore professional opportunities in finance and investing, with a focus on the private equity industry. Incorporatinginstruction by a dynamic mix of industry professionals and faculty, the course aims to equip students with the fundamental skills required in many entry-level finance positions, preparing them for interviews, internships, and jobs in the field. The course is structured as four-section progression over the four-week term. The first section is an introduction to the basic concepts of corporate finance, and an overview of the private equity and investment banking industries. The second section covers financial accounting, during which students will learn accounting fundamentals, and how to construct, interpret and analyze financial statements. In the third section, students will receive rigorous training in financial modeling and valuation methods, provided by Training the Street, a professional financial training firm. In the fourth week, students will put to test the skills they've acquired and build financial models to evaluate an investment in a case company. This is a unique opportunity to receive professional-level training in core competencies of finance and investing, and students are expected to approach it as such. Given the nature and depth of material to be covered, students should plan on committing 20+ hours and 4-5 days per week between in-class sessions and assignments. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Alex Reeves `11 currently works in Corporate Strategy and Development at Penumbra, a medical technology company based in the San Francisco area. Prior to Penumbra, Alex was an Associate at private investment firm Graham Partners, where he evaluated investments in industrial and manufacturing-related businesses, and supported portfolio companies and their management teams across a range of strategic and financial initiatives. Alex plans to attend the Tuck School of Business in the fall of 2018. Adjunct Co-Instructor Bio: A.J. Rossi graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2014, with a double major in Economics and Political Science. A.J. has since joined Graham Partners as an Associate, where he sources and evaluates new investment opportunities and also provides support and oversight for a number of Graham Partners' portfolio companies. A.J. also currently manages the firm's intern and analyst training programs. Steven C. Graham '82 founded private investment firm Graham Partners in 1988 and serves as Senior Managing Principal. He oversees all of the activities of the firm, including investment sourcing, evaluating, monitoring and divesting.

This course will help students become effective and organized public speakers, whether public speaking means giving a class presentation, participating in a debate, or giving a formal speech before alarge audience. We will primarily use extemporaneous and prepared class presentations as a means of learning this skill, but we will also study great American speeches, presidential debates, and other examples for further insights into persuasive public speaking techniques. The class will provide a supportive environment to help each student create his or her own public speaking style that is comfortable, confident, and conversational. We will also focus on organizational techniques, handling visual aids effectively, eye contact and body language. Finally, receiving feedback and providing constructive criticism to other students in the class will be an important part of the course.

This course provides a road map for turning business ideas into successful businesses. Students generate business ideas and then work in teams to develop a business model to take theideas to startup and beyond. The course also provides basic training in design thinking, business financials, and business analysis. The course uses the Lean Launchpad methodology used at major business schools throughout the world and endorsed by the National Institutes for Health and the National Science Foundation for commercializing research projects. The course is appropriate for students in any field of study who want to know how to build a startup that succeeds. The class will meet for two and a half hours three days a week for short lectures, discussions, group work, and presentations. Outside of class, students will be required to watch online lectures and videos, read handouts, and to work in teams to develop and research their business models. Teams will be required to develop a team plan, to interview customers, to analyze the results, to revise their plans, to meet with the instructor, and to develop presentations of their work. Each team will make weekly presentations along with a final presentation of their work. They will also develop a team video of the lessons the team learned during the course. Students will also be required to provide a 2-3 page final paper of their experiences in the course. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Steve Fogel has thirty years of experience working with startups. He has helped over 1,000 people start businesses and works with hundreds of entrepreneurs each year. He has used the Lean Launchpad methodology for the past six years and received training at Stanford University.

This course is an introduction to the use of economic concepts and empirical tools in addressing puzzles and policy issues in the world of sports. Through independent study and in-classdiscussions of academic and non-academic readings, films, and other materials (including one or more talks by outside speakers), students will explore topics such as competitive performance and strategic incentives of athletes, the organizational structure of professional sports, the use of statistical methods for evaluating athletic performance, betting and gambling markets, professional athlete labor markets, the local economic impact of sporting events, and more. Students are expected to complete small research assignments outside of normal class hours, to present their findings, and to help lead discussions of readings and other materials assigned for each class. The course will culminate in a group research paper and presentation on a topic in the economics of sports.

The intent of the class is to introduce students to the principles of fundamentals based equity investing. The primary focus will be on value investing, but we will broadly exploredifferent equity investment strategies, understand the process behind successful equity selection, and study great investors. While oriented towards students interested in careers in investment management, students contemplating careers in consulting and investment banking will also benefit.

The course will examine the venture capital industry from both a theoretical and practical perspective and will focus on the interplay of the legal, business, economic and financial issues thatneed to be dealt with in the formation, organization, governance and financing of new enterprises. The course is designed to provide students with a fundamental knowledge of the corporate and other laws applicable to venture capital, as well as with an appreciation of the concerns of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and early employees. Class sessions will be devoted primarily to a discussion of business cases taken from the entrepreneurial curriculum of the Harvard Business School. In addition, students will be required to participate in small groups prior to class to prepare advice for entrepreneurs or key employees in three scenarios--an early stage company negotiating with a key executive the company is seeking to hire, a company considering two competing term sheets for venture financing and a company faced with the need for additional financing in a distressed situation. An alternative to one of these scenarios would involve splitting the class into small groups designated as either founders or investors and requiring the groups to negotiate investment terms. As a capstone to the class, students will participate in an in-class business simulation game developed at Wharton that will require students to interact in assigned roles as founders, investors or key employees. In addition to reading and analyzing the assigned business cases prior to class, students will be asked to review various background materials. Classes will meet for at least six hours per week, with additional sessions scheduled for meetings with outside industry experts that accept invitations to address the class. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Mr. Schwed retired from the law firm of WilmerHale in December 2015 after a 40-year career focused on private equity and venture capital. For nine years, he was an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School teaching a course on venture capital law. He taught this course during Winter Study in 2017 and 2018. Mr. Schwed graduated from Williams with a degree in Economics in 1971 and from Harvard Law School in 1974.

This course investigates the strategies for, as well as the relevance of, financial market analysis directed toward the public good. Students will develop a deeper understanding of global financial markets,and learn how that understanding can be leveraged to help shape and achieve policy goals. Specifically, the course will cover five major topics: 1) Basic techniques for financial market analysis across a variety of major asset classes; 2) The characteristics of financial market analysis--its forms, theoretical underpinnings, positive attributes, and deficiencies; 3) The hierarchy of policy relevance of financial market analysis; 4) Costs, risks, and difficulties of financial market analysis for the public sector; and 5) Future challenges and formulations of public sector market analysis given the technological developments in finance, money management, and trading. Readings will primarily be publicly available articles and papers, as well as one basic reference book: Gliner, Greg; Global Macro Trading: Profiting in a New World Economy; Bloomberg Press, 2014. We will meet three times a week for two-hour sessions, with extra discussion and presentation times scheduled in accordance to our needs. Adjunct Instructor Bio: John Fagan '95, Director of the Treasury Markets Room and former senior strategist at Discovery Capital, holds a JD and an MPA from Harvard and a BA from Williams.

We will explore interactive games and how they can be used for scholarly research, teaching or training, negotiation, and, oh, yes, having fun. In math and economics, games are thefundamental way we model situations in which people (or firms or governments) interact with each other, and we use these games to predict responses to new policies, to teach policymakers how policies might work in practice, and to test theories of behavior. In negotiation and policy making, games can be used to demonstrate key concepts about stakeholders, their positions, and their strategies, as well as pitfalls and paths to "win-win" outcomes to resolve public disputes. A number of popular board games and video games also can have similar applications. In our class, we will learn about different types of games and how they can be used. Short readings will be complemented with in-class game play and discussions of the games, and we will watch some relevant movies. Students will keep a journal of reflections on their experiences with the games. The semester will culminate in students designing games of their own--negotiation games, economic games, mathematical games, or board games--and presenting them and playing them with the group.

The term "Wealth Management" may already have STEM majors, history majors, performing artists and for that fact most liberal art students skipping to another course title. But why is thisrelatively new field being populated by the very people most likely to skip this offering? The challenges and issues involved in the field of Wealth Management touch everyone, not just the perceived elite on Wall Street. Early life decisions about such matters such as paying back student debt, getting married, buying a house are just the beginning of a life entangled with the issues of allocating and managing one's resources. At its root, wealth management is a multidisciplinary field, so whether as a consumer (which everyone will be) or a potential practitioner, this course will hopefully provide and introduction to the major issues, terminology, and theories that make up the field. This includes gaining an understanding of basic tenets including: Risk/Reward, Time Value of Money, Borrowing principles, gifting, gifting to Williams College, and other areas of market theory. Through simulations, group projects and an individual paper, students will gain a solid overview of the field, demystifying its language and becoming better lifetime consumers with the potential result of creating one or two eventual practitioners. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Kate Kennedy '88 is an Attorney and CPA who is a co-leader of the Executive Financial Planning practice at a growing Registered Investment Advisor. She has practiced law, done taxes, survived the 2008 financial crisis. She has worked as an attorney in a law firm as well as at Arthur Andersen LLP, The Ayco Company (A Goldman Sachs Company); Lehman Brothers; Barclays and now is a Partner at HPM Partners (which is to be renamed by 7/1/18).

Through lecture and case-study, this course is designed to introduce students to the structure and goals of hedge funds, the relevant laws and regulations that govern them, and the ethicalissues which arise as an employee and in-house counsel. Having established a working foundation of what a hedge fund is and how it operates, students will focus on the various conflicts of interest endemic to a hedge fund structure. Conflicts between the hedge fund manager and the hedge funds (employees and their investors) as well as conflicts among the multiple funds themselves. Students will learn to recognize these conflicts not just in finance but throughout their daily lives. The course will detail the structure of the compliance departments that monitor hedge funds and the ethical obligations of in-house compliance and legal departments. The class will work through real life examples of issues that have arisen at hedge funds in recent years. Cases will involve some of the significant issues monitored by compliance such as insider trading, failure to disclose information to investors, conflicts of interest, bribery issues, Anti-money laundering issues, and presentation of the fund's performance. The class will examine the responsibilities of young analysts at a hedge fund and what is expected of them as well as the pressure they face to play close to the edge of what is legal. The course will discuss creating a culture of compliance and what that entails from the compliance department as well as from employees themselves. What are the obligations of the individual to speak out when violations are observed? The students will be presented with articles about hedge funds from both the media, the SEC and hedge funds themselves. These readings will present the students with a window into the goals of hedge funds and the ethical issues which must be managed when working at a hedge fund. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Mark Schein '88: Econ/American Studies; Vanderbilt Law School 1991; Assistant District Attorney Bronx DA's Office (prosecuted organized crime and police corruption) (1991-1997); Trial Counsel NYSE Enforcement Division (1997-2001); Director of Broker Dealer Compliance US Trust Company (2001-2004); Director of Anti-Money Laundering Schwab Capital Markets (2004-2005); Chief Compliance Officer York Capital Management (2005 to present).

This experiential course provides students the opportunity to explore public policy through training and work as volunteer income tax preparers for low income working people in North Adams, Massachusetts. Bythe end of the term, students will be IRS-certified volunteer income tax preparers. Students have the option of writing a 10 page analytic essay or serving as tax preparers for local clients of the Berkshire Community Action Council. The course will also offer an overview of the U.S. income tax, and the role of the tax system in overall U.S. social policy, especially policy towards lower-income households. Coursework will consist of a series of classes and open lab sessions coordinated with the self-paced IRS "Link and Learn" online tax preparer training program. Class time will be spent discussing policy and program context as well as working through the online training program. A poverty simulation and follow up Q&A session featuring guests from local social service organizations will help orient students to the issues facing low-income families in the northern Berkshires.

This class is designed to provide students with an overview of endowment and investment management and is taught by members of the Williams College Investment Office. The Investment Office isresponsible for overseeing Williams' $2.7 billion endowment. Through presentations, discussion, readings, and project work, Winter Study students will gain a better understanding of the various components of an institutional investment portfolio, how it is managed, and how investment managers are selected and monitored. Students will learn about portfolio theory as well as specific asset classes such as global equities, hedge funds, venture capital, buyouts, real estate, and fixed income. Students are expected to attend all on-campus classes (approx. 6 hours/week) and complete a set of relevant readings, a case study exercise, journal entries, and a final project (approx. 20 hours/week). Students will also be required to complete an introductory excel course. The course is open to freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Abigail Wattley '05, Managing Director--Abigail rejoined Williams College in September 2010 after business school. From 2007 to 2008 Abigail worked in the Williams Investment Office in the role of Investment Analyst. Prior to working for Williams, Abigail was a Senior Consulting Associate at Cambridge Associates. Abigail received a B.A. in Economics from Williams College in 2005 and a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 2010.

This course provides an introduction to the economics, geography and appreciation of wine. We will be studying the economics and geography of wine production, and will also learn to identify,understand and appreciate the major wine types of the world. The course will involve lectures, outside readings, discussions, and in-class wine tastings. We will focus primarily on the Old World wine styles and regions of France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Spain and Portugal, but will also cover some New World wine regions including California, Oregon, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia among others. Students are invited to email the instructor with a brief description of background and interests, but are not required to do so.

Quilting as an art form is present in many communities, but residents of Gee's Bend, Alabama are recognized for their very distinctive quilting style. In this hands-on class students willlearn the basics of quilt-making, inspired by the designs and techniques used in Gee's Bend. Students will also learn about the history of this group of African American quilt-makers and the economic forces that influenced their work. The course will involve field trips to a local quilt store and museum, instruction in techniques such as improvisational piecing, and creation of an original art quilt. The course will culminate with a public exhibition of students' quilts. No previous sewing experience required. Adjunct Co-Instructor Bio: Chris LaLumia is a life-long quilter and retired teacher. She taught one of her daughters to be an award-winning art quilter. Her other daughter is an economics professor at Williams College.

The "Specialization Route" to the degree with Honors in Economics requires that each candidate take an Honors Winter Study Project in January of their senior year. Students who wish tobegin their honors work in January should submit a detailed proposal. Decisions on admission to the Honors WSP will be made in the fall. Information on the procedures will be mailed to senior majors in economics early in the fall semester. Seniors who wish to apply for admission to the Honors WSP and thereby to the Honors Program should register for this WSP as their first choice. Some seniors will have begun honors work in the fall and wish to complete it in the WSP. They will be admitted to the WSP if they have made satisfactory progress. They should register for this WSP as their first choice.

To be taken by students participating in year-long thesis research Economics 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Academic courses from all disciplines at Williams often require the use of a journal to help students focus on their work. This course will push that concept to its limitas we explore some of the classic writings of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte. Our goal will be to find real and tangible ways that visual art journaling can enhance our learning of literature. We will create and record visual insights as we read, and we will explore how this practice can help us conceive what we are reading. In addition to reading the entirety of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre we will read Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights as well as selections from Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. There will also be readings from various authors and artists on the subject of journaling as a tool for learning. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Patricia Malanga received her BA in English Literature from the University of Massachusetts in 1990. While working as the Academic Assistant in the English Department here at Williams for the last 20 years, she has explored her love of literature and her love of the visual arts. This course will be the culmination of those interests.

How do you offer an audience, out loud, a compelling and memorable story? This course will aim to develop both a sense of the structure behind a good story andthe improvisational skills that bring a told story to life. In class we'll tell stories. We'll explore basic approaches to shaping stories (and elaborations on these approaches), as well as what makes a story a "story" instead of something else, using the models of folktales and narrative nonfiction. We'll engage in improvisational exercises, and explore the expressive capacities of voice, body, tempo and silence, considering how the improvisation of told tales might intersect with or resemble improvisational performance in other arts. We'll also discuss issues facing tellers of traditional tales, personal stories, and other story types. When do you or do you not have the right to tell a particular story? How do you claim "authority" to tell a story? What are the implications of choosing the stories we do tell? What stories need to be told that are not? What stories need amendment? What does storytelling mean for other academic or social realms? Outside class, students will analyze and critique videos of other storytellers with the goal of enhancing their own storytelling strategies. Students will prepare for presentation in class three different kinds of stories and will offer stories to two different public audiences, one on campus and another in a local school. Students will also be asked to write a brief reflective essay. The class will meet for two hours a day, Monday through Thursday. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Kelly Terwilliger has been telling stories professionally for 17 years in schools, libraries, festivals, parks, museums, community centers, and pubs.

In this class we'll hijack the tools of fiction writers, dishonor the genre of memoir, perpetuate the problem of fake news and push the bounds of taste in memes. You'llwrite something for every class, and most of your writing will be discussed in a workshop format. You'll also submit written reflections on the required text, Just the Funny Parts by Nell Scovell and make an oral presentation analyzing a specific work that you consider an example of comic excellence. We'll discuss what kind of relationship thinking people should have with sexist, ethnic and religious humor. And we'll talk quite a bit about postmodernism. Hey, it's an English class. Adjunt Instructor Bio: Eric Randall is a journalist whose work has been published in USA Today, Time, Newsweek and The Washington Post, as well as some reputable publications. He has no particular qualifications for teaching this class but is a firm believer in doing what you can get away with.

In this class we'll read and discuss in depth the literary and imaginative richness of J. R. R. Tolkien's beloved fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings,as well as the aspects of his biography and the scholarly works he wrote while an Oxford professor that most illuminate his fantastical writings: "On Fairy-Stories," "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," and "On Translating Beowulf." By combining the fantastical and the academic in Tolkien, we'll get a better view of his imagined fortresses, castles, strongholds, of his elves, dragons and shires, as well as a better view of "the city of dreaming spires," his beloved Oxford nestled in the green hills of its own Oxfordshire. Students are asked to participate in all class discussions, and, at the end of the class, students will be asked to submit a 10-page research paper. Class will meet three times a week for two hours each session, and your work outside the class will average around twenty hours a week and involve reading and film viewing. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Ryan Riley earned a master's degrees in literature from both Oxford and Yale, and a bachelor's in literature from Harvard, where he was a humor writer for The Harvard Lampoon and started a literary discussion and writing group inspired by Tolkien's Inklings.

In this course we will read Henry James' late novel, The Golden Bowl, which dramatizes many of James' crucial preoccupations. Centered on a wealthy American collector living in England atthe turn of the twentieth century, the novel examines the personal and cultural costs of an American obsession with amassing relics of a collapsing European empire, as well as the potentially ruinous effects of wealth and refined sensibility on tangled love relations. The novel's ethical and perceptual intricacies are conveyed in an ingeniously demanding style that presses syntax to its limits. We will read critical essays on the novel, and draw on Walter Benjamin's work on collecting and on the Arcades of 19th-century Paris.

You glanced eagerly over the course descriptions, looking for something that would allow you finally, at last, to wrestle with the ridiculous assumption that those literary genres-namely, "Fiction" and "Non-Fiction"-hadintrinsically established identities and clear bounds. You wanted the class that would allow you to write the truth as you experienced it, the truth that was not entirely dependent on facts as markers of truth, but also not so flimsy as to bend in the gentle breeze of every casual opinion. Your eyes stopped on the title, "How to Write Auto-Fiction," and your attention was piqued. Will it all be written in the second person? you wondered, a thought that had you a little concerned, but the professor calmly stepped in to assure you that no, it would not, in fact it would be best if you avoided that particular narrative mode entirely. You would be focusing on writing stories from your life (10-20 pages each), narrated in the first-person, not entirely factual, but certainly not false. They would be workshopped by your peers, revised, and resubmitted. You would come to class ready to write on the first day, and you would be ruthless in your revisions of shitty first drafts. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Dalena Storm is local writer of fiction and non-fiction. She earned her BA from Williams College and her MFA from Bennington College where she participated in a number of combined workshops on memoir and fiction, and she began to explore the space between the genres in her own fiction in addition to completing a memoir.

The goal of this course is to draft a screenplay inspired by the last twelve years (1916-1928) of the remarkable Czech composer Leos Janacek's life. Before the course begins studentswill listen to a wide array of Janacek's music and read a number of essays about his life. Every weekday during winter study we will immerse ourselves in brainstorming and writing, with the aim of completing a draft by the end. The workload will be intense but (I hope) extremely rewarding. I particularly encourage students with a passion for writing and classical music to apply. A writing sample (any genre) and a brief description of what drew you to the course is required.

This course will engage with the natural world through writing, drawing, and personal observation. Students will spend time out of doors exploring the ecosystem of the Williamstown area, and indoorspracticing reflective writing (both poetry and prose), and observational drawing. Everyone will be required to keep a nature journal, to be shared and displayed as part of the final project. This course is designed for students who are interested in environmental studies, creative writing, and drawing. Instructor will meet with students for 6 hours of in-class time, and will provide assignments totaling at least 15 hours a week, including daily visits to a chosen spot on campus for writing and observation. Students will be provided with a binder of articles and poems, which they will be expected to read and comment on. There will be at least one field trip. The class will conclude with a celebratory reading/showing of student work. Students will be required to keep a daily journal, and also to write in class. They will be asked to perfect and edit several of these pieces in place of a ten page paper, and to read from one or more of them at the final celebration.

This course will give students an in-depth view of the inner workings of journalism today. It will feature the perspectives of several Williams alumni who work in a broad spectrumof today's media universe, including print, broadcast, and new media. Our guests will help students workshop their ideas for a feature-length piece of journalism they're expected to create during the month. They will discuss the reporting skills to use, as well as their own experiences. In addition to reading the work of guests, there may be required texts about issues and methods related to journalism. Students will be expected to complete several small reporting and writing exercises, as well as one feature-length news story on a topic chosen at the beginning of the course. There will be a week-long trip to New York for field work and to visit various newsrooms. In previous years, organizations visited have included CNN, the New York Times, the Columbia School of Journalism, ABC News, Bloomberg News, BuzzFeed News, ProPublica, the Wall Street Journal and APM Marketplace. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Christopher Marcisz is a freelance writer and editor based in Williamstown. He was a reporter (and later editor) at the Berkshire Eagle. Previously he worked in Washington covering national energy policy, wrote about sports in Moscow, and worked on the international desk at Newsweek. Christopher graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Required during Winter Study of all seniors admitted to candidacy for honors via the specialization route.

Required during Winter Study of all seniors admitted to candidacy for honors via the thesis route.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

A vicarious trip through a variety of national parks of the U.S. and Canada to appreciate the geological basis of their spectacular scenery. Areas will be selected to portray awide range of geological processes (volcanism, desert and coastal erosion, mountain building, glaciation, etc.). We will meet most mornings during the first two weeks for highly illustrated classes supplemented by the interpretation of topographic and geologic maps and by out-of-class study of rock samples. Reading will be from a paperbound text (PARKS AND PLATES) and from short publications by the U.S. Geological Survey and by natural history associations linked to the parks. The second part of the month will involve independent meetings with the instructor to prepare an oral report about the geology of a park of the student's choice. These reports during the last week will be comprehensive and well-illustrated, using PowerPoint and pertinent maps and samples. A detailed outline and bibliography will be distributed by the presenter at the time of the report.

In this course we will explore, far and wide, the New England Landscape and try to make some sense of the amazing physiographic and biological diversity that it offers ina relatively small area. From the spruce clad Berkshires to the broad Connecticut River Valley to the glacially forged coastal plain, we will delve into various landscapes and decipher the primary forces and features that make them distinct--their bedrock and climate, glacial history, flora and fauna. We'll learn the predominant trees and shrubs and search for patterns to their occupation of the landscape. We will observe the behavior and evidence of winter-hardy wildlife--including chickadees, waterfowl, rabbits, weasels, beavers and coyotes. How do they manage to cope in their often rigorous and fickle environments and how might they be affected by climate change and other human influences? Through field trips, museum visits, individual investigations, readings, discussions and guest presentations, you'll become a little more aware and appreciative of the natural heritage of the region that you have made your recent home. Students should be prepared to spend significant time outdoors, sometimes hiking several miles, in winter conditions; some trips will require students to be away from campus beyond normal class hours. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Drew Jones is Manager of Hopkins Memorial Forest where he oversees the management of the facilities, coordinates research and teaching activities and outreach programs for the public and local schools. He also operates an owl banding station in the fall and intermittently engages in other field research. In the past, he has worked as a wildlife biologist and educator from the Southern Appalachians to the North Woods.

The goal in this course is to provide an opportunity for students to develop an intimate understanding of 19th century Mystic through lived experience. To appreciate a culture or acommunity so different from what we live and experience today, you must also understand the ways in which its residents shaped their world, specifically, the crafts they plied. There are few opportunities in life when this understanding can be delivered through lived experience. This will be one of them. Taking advantage of the extraordinary resources of Williams-Mystic, the coastal and ocean studies campus of Williams College located at the Mystic Seaport in Mystic, CT, this winter-study course, taught at Williams-Mystic, aims to: 1) provide rich hands-on participatory experiences that authentically mirror 19th century maritime craft and culture; and 2) offers learners a rare opportunity to delve deeply into the mindset of 19th century maritime culture by creating an authentic artifact that reflects understanding of the values and mores of this time period. There will be a number of instructors; including instructors employed by the Mystic Seaport in who specialize in chanteys, shipsmithing, ship Carving, scrimshaw, canvasworks, and boatbuilding.

To be taken by students registered for Environmental Studies 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

In 2007, the world became majority urban. But most of these urbanites live not in places like New York or Tokyo but rather in places like Lagos or Mumbai, dwellingin shantytowns and working in petty commerce. Their cities' path of urbanization diverges from the "normal" one accompanying industrialization in the West and in East Asia. About this phenomenon, arguably the most important social fact in today's world, observers have adopted wildly divergent normative and theoretical stances, from the romantically optimistic to the apocalyptic. We read a few of these, including Mike Davis, Rem Koolhaas, Hernando De Soto, and Robert Neuwirth, and watch some films and videos on the subject.

To be taken by candidates for honors in Global Studies.

Global Studies senior thesis.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

River restoration is a growing billion-dollar international industry. Since the environmental movement began in the 1960s and 1970s, renewed interest in the beauty and benefits of healthy streams has resultedin increased research, funding, and applied restoration of rivers, streams, wetlands, and riparian corridors. The restoration of rivers and streams comes in many different forms including dam removal and in-channel habitat restoration. In this course, we'll learn about the history of restoration and the basics of fluvial geomorphology and hydrology. We will gain applied knowledge and experience with the practice of restoration through a combination of lectures, classroom exercises, conversations with restoration advocates and practitioners, field trips and field data collection. A final practicum will involve the design of a restoration project. The course will generally be structured around three sections: Science: Week 1 will primarily involve lectures and classroom exercises and discussion of the literature, learning about the history and evolution of river restoration as well as the basics of the science that drives restoration. Data Collection and Analysis: Week 2 will focus on data collection and analysis typically required for river restoration projects. This will include topographic surveying, geomorphic and habitat mapping, pebble counts, stream discharge measurements, GIS mapping, and hydraulic modeling. Intensive Practicum: Small groups of students will be given a real restoration project example to research, analyze, and design. This practicum will include data collection, GIS analysis, flow modeling, and design plan sheets describing the restoration plan. The class will meet on average 8 hours per week and will include up to 3 day-long field trips. Students should expect to be outside for portions of the day collecting field data in/near rivers in winter conditions. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Nick Nelson is a fluvial geomorphologist and regional director for Inter-Fluve, a river and wetland restoration company. He has assessed hundreds of miles of river and designed/managed the removal of more than a dozen dams in New England. He has lectured at the University of MN, Tufts University, University of TN, and currently teaches courses at Northeastern University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

To be taken by students registered for Geosciences 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

In 1989, in the wake of the rapid crumbling of their power in the face of massive popular resistance, the authorities in the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, orDDR) opened the Berlin Wall. Within a year the wall had been torn down and the East German state voted itself out of existence, absorbed wholly into the belly of its larger and more powerful neighbor to the West. Suddenly, the nation born of the promise to create a genuine people's democracy and claiming the moral high ground as an anti-Fascist state had vanished, its political culture and social institutions suddenly erased. What were the promises of the regime and what happened to those promises? What were the contradictions in East German society and why and where did resistance slowly build to the point where the entire edifice came crashing down? This course will briefly chart the short history of the DDR, from the founding of the Socialist Unity Party in the Soviet occupation zone of a defeated Germany at the end of the Second World War to the total collapse of the regime in 1989/90. The course will explore key moments in the political history of the DDR, including the uprisings of 1953 and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. It will also focus on the social and cultural practices of East German society, exploring the nature of everyday life under the Communist regime. The course will meet three times per week (2-3 hours each meeting) for the four weeks of Winter Study. Part of the evidence for our discussions will come from the viewing and analysis of seven films, the majority of which were made in the DDR during its short existence and are essential viewing for the course. A textual history of the DDR will also be accompanied by a packet of additional reading materials that will be discussed in class.

To be taken by honors candidates following other than the normal thesis route.

To be taken by students registered for German 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, a nearly half-century standoff, was as ideological as it was military. For every nuclear test, arms sale, or militaryoperation there was a propaganda ploy, rhetorical barb, or diplomatic ultimatum to match. Amidst this hostile competition between two incompatible ways of life-capitalism and communism, totalitarianism and democracy--an atmosphere marked by panic, secrecy, insecurity, paranoia, surveillance, and conformity pervaded American life. This class will explore these quintessential, overlapping elements of Cold War culture in a series of films produced from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. Film screenings will be accompanied by contextual readings to be completed prior to class discussion.

What did Christopher Columbus write in his 1493 letter to the Spanish court? How did John Smith describe the Virginia colony the early 1600s? What would a pioneer find whenfollowing the Oregon Trail west in 1846? How much did a female slave cost in Richmond, Virginia, in 1860? These and many other intriguing questions are answered by rare books, manuscripts, newspapers, maps, and prints in the Chapin Library, primary sources which contain eyewitness accounts of important events in American history. Students in this course will learn, through handling rare materials, how to analyze primary sources and put them in historical context. For the first two weeks, they will investigate items, selected by the instructors, in tutorial-like sessions, with one student presenting conclusions of research and another giving a critique. For the final project, each student will select an item from the Chapin Americana holdings, write a 10-page research paper and present it to the class, and write a brief note about the item for a public display in the Special Collections instruction Gallery.

Long before the palace intrigues of Jaime, Cersei and Tyrion Lannister, Mesopotamian monarchs established the world's first empires and littered their landscapes with palaces and temples, fortresses and monumental art.The two Assyrian stone reliefs at WCMA are stunning examples of the "calculated frightfulness" with which the kings ruled, employing politics and religion in effective and deliberate combination. In this course, we meet twice­-weekly for an interdisciplinary, close­up look at the WCMA reliefs and objects in the WCMA cuneiform collection to ask: What (and how) did the reliefs 'mean?' Why did they merit inclusion in the palace of the one of the most powerful kings in the ancient world? What (and how) do they 'mean' in their present Williamstown setting? Finally, what is the status of Nimrud, the ancient city where the reliefs were excavated, post-ISIS, and why does the study of the ancient world matter in the digital age? In this course, our 'work' includes readings in ancient texts, learning to write cuneiform signs and words in clay, the Epic of Gilgamesh, royal correspondence, ancient conceptions of the past, gender, sexuality, religion, and stories of queens, kings and courtiers in love and war. We finish with a feast of ancient Mesopotamian fare and an overnight field trip to Yale's Babylonian Collection. Readings from the extensive bibliography will be selected based on student interest, and the course can be further refined for individual students, including those whose senior theses may benefit from consideration of the ancient world. Students with no experience in art history or ancient history are warmly invited to join, as are those with some background in relevant subjects, such as the religions, cultures and history of the modern Middle East. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Alison Gruseke, PhD, studied at Williams and Yale. Her research and teaching focus on the Hebrew Bible, the ancient Near East, and on the ways in which the ancient world can illuminate modern problems of identity, theology and ethics. The negotiation of cultural boundaries, identity formation, and the interrelationship of cultures in conflict form a strong thread that runs through her work.

This course will examine the impact of combat trauma on American soldiers during the war in Vietnam, and how that trauma affected their return to the United States. We willread two books that explore these issues through the lens of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Jonathan Shay's Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America. We will discuss how Homer's classics have come to represent the trauma of war and coming home from the Trojan War to our current wars in the Middle East and beyond. In addition to discussing these two books, we will also view a number of films that address these issues. The class will be primarily discussion based on the readings and films.

This course is intended for both junior History majors and sophomores intending on majoring in history who think they might like to do a senior thesis and would like togain more experience in independent research. Students who are interested in exploring a possible topic for a senior thesis are especially encouraged to sign up. This workshop will help familiarize students with methods for doing historical research, including how historians define good research questions; become familiar with the historiography; and identify primary sources. Students will pursue their own research on any topic of their own choosing for a 10-page final paper, and we'll use a workshop format to discuss the research and writing of that paper.

To be taken by all senior honors students who are registered for HIST 493 (Fall) and HIST 494 (Spring), HIST 31 allows thesis writers to complete their research and preparea draft chapter, due at the end of Winter Study.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Kyoto, the former imperial capital of Japan has 1200 years of history. It is called Japan's cultural treasure house. The purpose of this travel course is to explore the culturalhistory of Kyoto and how traditional craftsmanship is perpetuated and transformed in a modern era as the city of Kyoto developed. Students will visit Kyoto artisans at their studio and through a discourse with thriving artists, they will arrive at their own conclusion about what it means to sustain tradition while pursuing modernization and innovation. The first week of the course is conducted on campus. Students will intensively study the cultural history of Kyoto with readings, films and discussion. Also in pairs, they will conduct research on one selected area of Kyoto craftsmanship to acquire in-depth knowledge. Each pair will be responsible to educate the entire group for the onsite visit in Kyoto. Then, for the second and third week, the class will travel to Kyoto. We will first visit historic sites to learn the context of how craftsmanship developed from courtly culture in the Heian period, samurai tradition in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, religious ceremonies and Noh Theater and tea ceremonies. After and during these excursions, we will visit four artisan studios. They are a sacred mirror maker who could be the last of his kind, a textile weaver, a Noh mask maker, a sculptor of Buddhist statues. Some of these artisans are perpetuating hundreds of years of family tradition. Some started out as an apprentice and established his/her own studio. Students will also have hands on experiences at some studios. Students are expected to participate in all the scheduled activities, post a daily journal on the course website and share daily reflections. At the end of the Kyoto visit, students will summarize their reflections and present their views on Japanese traditional and modern craftsmanship to the local community and the Kyoto artisans at a public forum.

To be taken by all students who are candidates for honors in Japanese.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

In the Mock Trial course, students are divided into two teams in which they play the roles of attorneys and witnesses during their preparation for and participation in a simulatedcivil trial. They are given a series of witness statements and pleadings together with various documents and other data that they must evaluate for potential use as evidence as they plan to present their case as either the plaintiff or the defendant. Team members must prepare and deliver Opening Statements and Closing Arguments as well as handle direct and cross-examinations of the witnesses who testify for both sides. The "final exam" consists of two trials with the two teams switching sides on the second day such that they must evaluate the case from both sides. At the two trials, an experienced attorney plays the role of judge, and volunteer jurors from the community listen to the evidence and render their "verdict" based on the presentations. Adjunct Instructor Bio: David Olson '71 has practiced as a civil trial attorney for 40 years with a firm currently with over 500 attorneys handling cases in state and federal courts. He has taught Mock Trial on 6 previous occasions, receiving strong reviews for the course. Adjunct Co-Instructor Bio: After graduating from Villanova Law School where he was Editor in Chief of the Law Review, Steve Brown has been a litigator and trial lawyer for 40 years concentrating his practice in white-collar criminal defense and civil rights. He was a partner at Dechert LLP from 1991 to 2016, when he retired and became Civil Rights Counsel to the firm. He has spent much of his career doing pro bono work including representing Guantanamo Bay detainees and people and prisoners whose constitutional rights have been violated, and supervising Dechert associates in 40 trials in federal courts.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Jewish Studies senior thesis.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Students must register for this course to complete an honors project begun in the fall or begin one to be finished in the spring.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

This course will examine issues related to effective leadership in a variety of contexts, primarily through the experience of guest lecturers. We will begin by identifying key principles of leadershipwith reference to several great leaders in history, moving on to consider contemporary yet timeless topics such as personal responsibility, corruption and fraud in the private sector as well as the essential role good communications skills play in exercising leadership. The majority of class sessions will feature distinguished guest speakers, many of whom are Williams alumni, who have held leadership roles in government, business, philanthropy and healthcare. Probing our guests' approaches to organizational leadership is the primary goal of this Winter Study. Each student will be asked to host a guest at dinner or breakfast before we meet, to introduce him or her to the class, and to stimulate discussion. After each lecture, we will spend time in the next class sharing impressions, surprises and lessons learned. There will be a 10-page final paper which may take a variety of forms and formats, but which should address the basic themes in our readings as well as what you have learned from our guests, both collectively and more specifically in the case of at least three individuals. Adjunct Instructor Bio: William E. Simon, Jr., '73. Businessman, lawyer, and philanthropist, Mr. Simon is Co-Chairman of William E. Simon & Sons, a private equity firm, and the William E. Simon Foundation. Early in his career he was Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York and later was the 2002 Republican gubernatorial nominee in California. Mr. Simon is a Trustee Emeritus of Williams College.

Students will dramatically enhance and expand their own practical professional competencies and personal attributes by gaining specific skills valuable and relevant for success in the real-world of work! Dynamic sessionsare conducted by an exceptionally accomplished instructor focusing on character, interpersonal astuteness, communicating skills, leading effective change, financial statement literacy, decision-making under pressure, and thinking critically about and acting intentionally for personal development. Knowledge is transferred in the classroom through fast-paced, concise student-led discussion, live interaction with seven world-class guest speakers, individual communications exercises, role-playing, and personal one-on-one mentoring by the instructor. Preparing for productive class discussions and participation requires reading three short books (The Headmaster; Killer Angels; Breaking Through) and various articles, watching selected videos, understanding material provided in a subject matter guidebook, completing a private Birkman assessment online, as well understanding wide-ranging human performance though an encapsulated case study of the people at the Battle of Gettysburg. Benefits realized by students from all classes can be applied to any enterprise, including business, entrepreneurial initiatives, education, non-profits, and public sector governmental service. Students prepare a 5-page paper on a topic of their choosing that is work-shopped in a tutorial peer evaluation format prior to submission to the instructor. A one-page personal development action plan is also prepared that remains confidential between the student and the instructor in order to provide private individual mentoring and coaching. Class meetings are conducted with lots of fun starting in mid-morning for 1 hour and 45 minutes Monday through Thursday during Winter Study with an estimated three hours of daily preparation (about 20 hours per week) necessary by each student in order to take ownership for achieving and enjoying the full learning experience. Course Daily Agenda: http://www.intersolvegroup.com/wp-content/uploads/WilliamsWinterStudyAgenda2019.pdf Adjunct Instructor Bio: http://www.intersolvegroup.com/leadership-profile/

This course will trace the evolution of CIA from an organization largely focused, in its early days, on coups and regime change under the Dulles brothers, to its present rolein the war on terror and beyond. Students will consider how intelligence is and ought to be gathered, and the political issues that emerge from those activities. Some of the Agency's signal successes and failures will be examined, and some of its directors will be evaluated. The fluctuating relationship between CIA and the FBI will also be discussed. Stress will be placed on the personal experiences of those who have served in the Agency. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Donald Gregg '51 served in CIA from 1951-82, worked in the White House from 1979-89, and was US Ambassador to South Korea from 1989-93. He is now chairman emeritus of The Korea Society. 1980-89, taught a second-year graduate level course at the Master of Science in Foreign Service Program of Georgetown University. He is now chairman of the Pacific Century Institute in Los Angeles.

Barack Obama's election in 2008 seemed to many Americans to mark the dawn of a new era in American history. Eight tumultuous years later, he left office with a significantrecord of achievement-and his political opponents in control of the White House, Congress, and most of the states. This course will undertake a preliminary historical assessment of the Obama presidency. Looking at foreign policy and domestic issues (including economic policy, health care, immigration, and LGBTQ rights), we will examine Obama's leadership style and its relation to the structure of American politics in the early 21st century; the sources of his achievements and disappointments; and his enduring significance for American politics and history. Students will read (and view) primary sources as well as works of journalism and scholarly analysis, which we will discuss in seminar-style class meetings. Halfway through the course, students will propose an essay on some important aspect of Obama's presidency; the final assignment will be the essay itself.

This Winter Study course is for students who would like to participate in a 9 day, 72 hour comprehensive hands on in-depth look at the standards and skills of dealingwith wilderness based medical emergencies. Topics that will be covered include, Response and Assessment, Musculoskeletal Injuries, Soft Tissue Injuries, Environmental Injuries, and Survival Skills. Additional topics, such as CPR, are also included. Students will be required to successfully complete the written and practical exams, and not miss any of the 9 classes to receive credit and WFR/CPR certification.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Maritime Studies senior thesis.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

This course is a modification of five previous winter studies I have done on the Mathematics of LEGO bricks. Similar to those, we will use LEGO bricks as a motivatorto talk about some good mathematics (combinatorics, algorithms, efficiency). We will partner with Williamstown Elementary and teach an Adventures in Learning course (where once a week for four weeks we visit the elementary school after the day ends to work with the kids). We will also submit a Lego Ideas Challenge, to try and create a set that Lego will then market and sell.

SET is a popular game where players try to find certain collections of three cards, which share or fail to share properties like color, shape, and number. This seemingly simplegame gives rise to an incredibly variety of mathematical ideas. These range from counting and probability, to the behavior of lines in strange models of geometry. Throughout this class we'll study these mathematical ideas, as well as those coming from other mathematically interesting games (and we'll of course play lots of SET and other games!). Previous experience with SET or with mathematics is not required! We will be meeting for 6 hours per week in class. Outside-of-class work will include readings (from the book "The Joy of SET" and short mathematical readings relevant to other board games), learning and practicing other mathematically relevant board games, working on small problem sets, and as a final project designing a new game based on mathematical ideas. These final projects will be showcased in a board game night at the end of Winter Study.

Learn techniques to take care of yourself and others! In this course, students will explore acupressure and reflexology through hands-on practice with partners. Modalities will first be demonstrated by theinstructor, and then will be reinforced through in-class practice. The course will also cover essential oils and the chemistry behind aromatherapy, studying chemical families and their main characteristics. With this knowledge, students will create custom aromatherapy blends to address specific health issues. These blends will be made in class, and can be taken home. This class is designed to be useful to students and their loved ones, providing the student with tools to cope with life events. The focus will be on using acupressure, reflexology and aromatherapy to help with stress, anxiety, sleep, skin health, and sickness. Assigned reading and/or online videos will be required to prepare for each class. In addition, students will complete 16 hours of acupressure and reflexology practice outside of class on volunteers. These hours will be signed off on a log sheet by the volunteers. In-class assessments of techniques will also occur. Each student will prepare at least one presentation to share with the class. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Graduate studies in zoology took Jennifer Turek to the University of Otago in New Zealand, where she also attended the Lotus College of Natural Therapies. After graduating, Jennifer opened up her business, Koru Therapies first in New Zealand, then California and now in Williamstown, MA. Jennifer provides a custom holistic health experience which is a unique blend of Eastern, Western, Kiwi and American techniques that is unlike what most have experienced before.

This dance class will be based on the modern dance technique developed by Jennifer Muller, with whom the instructor danced professionally for 5 years in New York City and inEurope. Jennifer Muller was a soloist in the dance company of José Limon before she started her own company in 1974. She has added her own style of movement to the Limon technique, creating an expansive, free flowing dance that is wonderful to do and to watch. The class will be multi leveled and open to both men and women alike. Students will have the opportunity to choreograph a short piece either as a soloist or in small groups. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Sylvia Logan received her B.A. in Slavic Literature from Stanford University. She danced professionally with several dance companies including Jennifer Muller and the Works, a modern company based in New York City for five years.

Python has become one of the most commonly used programming languages in recent times, due to its flexibility, readability, and reusability. In this course, we will develop the basic toolswithin python. These include mathematical and string operators, if-then statements, loops, functions, modules, objects, and file operations. .

To be taken by candidates for honors in Mathematics other than by thesis route.

To be taken by students registered for Mathematics 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

I will organize a classical chamber orchestra to read and perform music of assorted periods and genres. Two student conductors will lead the orchestra, each one having completed my Fallconducting class. In addition to conducting the orchestra, they will act as personnel managers and librarians. I will coach them on every aspect involved in producing a symphonic performance. Berkshire Symphony members and players in the Chamber Orchestra of Williams will make up the majority of the ensemble. The backbone of the training for the orchestra and the student conductors will involve issues of intonation, articulation, balance, bowing, dynamics, tempo, and interpretation. During rehearsals, members of the orchestra will be encouraged to offer ideas and suggestions in order to take part in the ownership of the final product. There will be a final recorded and videotaped concert at the end of Winter Study. Maximum enrollment: Strings: 12 violins, 5 violas, 4 cellos, 2 basses, and Winds: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani.

Countless films take place in New York City, but not all foreground the city as an active character in the plot. In this course we will seek answers to thefollowing questions: how does the urban environment participate in a film's story? How can a movie soundtrack create a particularly urban atmosphere? How can sound represent or subvert the urban communities represented on screen? And more broadly: what does it mean to be a New Yorker? Films such as The Naked City (1948), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Taxi Driver (1976), Manhattan (1979), and Do the Right Thing (1989) are wildly diverse in terms of genre, cinematography, soundtrack, and the subject positions they represent, and yet their soundscapes all forge a distinctly New York "feel." Through close viewing--and listening--we will explore how the directors, mixers, editors, and composers deployed sound to forge distinct perspectives on the urban experience. Students will be expected to attend all screenings, read reviews and secondary literature, maintain a "sound journal," and produce a ten-page final paper.

The Sacred Harp is a tunebook, a style, a community, and a tradition. One of the most distinctly American forms of music, with a continuous tradition dating back over 150years, shape-note music continues to be sung in amateur communities around the country-and increasingly, the world. In the reading portion of the course, we will study the history and current culture of shape-note singing. We will discuss issues of tradition and community, including shifts and tensions with respect to geographical region, religious affiliation, and race. Meanwhile, we will engage in the actual practice of shape-note singing. For those with little formal training in music, this will include a quick introduction in the basics of music, but it will also highlight unique aspects of the Sacred Harp style in comparison to Western classical music, including the four-shape system of solfège. In addition to singing in class, we will visit one of the regular weekly singings in Northampton (mandatory). For the final project, students will have the opportunity to write a paper analyzing the tradition or stylistic aspects of the music; to write one or more tunes and compare them stylistically to those found in The Sacred Harp; or to undertake a quantitative analysis of the tunebook's music and its use in recorded singings. Assignments throughout the course will include smaller versions of these varied options, including short composition exercises and responses to the readings. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Micah Walter received his A.M. in Music from Harvard University and his B.A. in Music and Linguistics from Haverford College. He is interested particularly in non-performative forms of music, and the impact music and community have on each other. He feels strongly that all people, regardless of training, should be able to participate in music-making in a fulfilling way. An active Sacred Harp singer, he has attended all-day singings and conventions in seven states and written over thirty tunes.

A historical look at American Black Gospel, stressing the vocal tradition of the African American Church. Vocalists and instrumentalists are encouraged to participate, but there is no required prerequisite forthe course. Course will consist of historical workshops in Gospel music. Required reading People Get Ready by Robert Darden, course booklet and will require a minimum of 10-page report. Music covered will be from the mid 1800's to contemporary gospel music. Field trip will include a trip to an African American Church service (Sunday morning). Requirements for the course include a 5-page paper with creative project or performance and a field trip to church. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Legendary Bassist Avery Sharpe has performed with Jazz greats from McCoy Tyner to Dizzy Gillespie. Sharpe is a Gospel Historian and has a strong up bringing in "The Church of God in Christ."

This Winter Study will give participants an opportunity to study and perform numbers for one or more singers in great American musicals and European light operas. You have sung asolo, you have sung in chorus--now practice the exacting art of singing an ensemble on stage. The course will culminate with a performance of ensembles, solos, and duets from a variety of musical theater shows. Other ensembles from European models may also be included. Singers, actors, and pianists are all welcome to participate. The course is intended especially for singers who wish to have some stage time, and for actors who wish to work on their singing. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Keith Kibler has performed under some of the finest directors currently working including David Alden, Peter Sellars, Galina Vishnevskaya. He sang a major role in Kurt Weill's "Die Kleine Mahagonny" under Alvin Epstein with the American Repertory Theatre. He has been a featured soloist with the Boston Pops in American theater music. Keith Kibler is an Associate Artist in the Music Department at Williams College. He can be reached at [email protected]

This course focuses on teaching Zimbabwean music performance. Besides introducing a selection of basic songs on mbira, marimba and voice, the course explores orchestration of such music on other instrumentssuch as brass, woodwinds, strings and additional percussion. The course content will trace both continuity and change in music from traditional song styles into African popular music. Beside the instrumental practice of the class, we will watch on YouTube and other videos the collaborative nature of this music. The class will end with an end-of-Winter Study performance by the participants.

This travel course will focus on creative work inspired by the history and culture of Native American Indians of Southern Florida. We will discuss the history and culture of NativeAmericans in the area, focusing mostly on the Calusa, their society, politics, system of government, trading customs, and religion. We will also talk about their construction of canal systems, and their architecture and engineering. Students will arrive to their own conclusion about the impact of Native Americans in our culture. They will also use their experiences during field trips, workshops, lectures, and group discussions as a source of inspiration for their creative work in one or more of the following fields: music composition, visual arts (video, photography), literature, poetry, and theater. They will create their projects individually or could form teams to create interdisciplinary works. If teamwork is selected for the creation of a project there will be a limit of one student per discipline in each team. We will visit archaeological and historical sites, Research Centers, and Museums focused in the History and Culture of Native American Indians of Southwest Florida. We will attend lectures offered by archaeologists, and will participate in the process of screening, cataloging, and analysis of samples extracted from the shell mounds of Useppa Island and Pineland at the Randell Research Center of the University of Florida. Calusa artifacts made with ceramic materials, wood carving, and painting, are recognized worldwide as remarkable examples of Native American artistic achievement. Samples of their art found during excavations in SW FL are part of exhibitions in the Historical Museums that we will visit. Students will learn about music inspired by pre columbian Native American instruments and art. We will discuss information and will visit the estuaries that sustained the world of the Calusas.

To be taken by students registered for Music 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

An interactive and collaborative exploration of what neuroscience research reveals about how the brain learns and what factors can be influenced to facilitate successful learning. Topics include the neuroscience ofattention, emotion, understanding, memory, and executive functions. Emphasis will be on the neuroscience itself with opportunities for students to make connections to their own learning processes and strategies. Students will engage in collaborative research projects that will develop their use of the medical model to evaluate primary neuroscience research studies for validity. They will develop their own evaluation systems for identifying how valid research interventions and expanded opportunities for successful learning. Students will lead class discussions based on their reading of primary research. Small groups of 2-3 students will be assigned different articles on the same topic and spend time in class. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Dr. Judy Willis '71 combined her 15 years as a board-certified practicing neurologist with ten subsequent years as a classroom teacher to develop her focus in the neuroscience of learning. Dr. Willis has written nine books and more than 100 articles, as well as giving invited presentations internationally, applying neuroscience research to potential interventions to facilitate successful learning. She has been on the adjunct faculty of the University of California Graduate School of Education, Santa Barbara.

To be taken by students registered for Neuroscience 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Spinoza's Ethics aims to prove that human happiness consists in our rationally perceiving that God is all there is, and that all there is--including you and I--is God. Yet theChristian Church immediately deemed the Ethics "a book which, perhaps since the beginning of the world until the present day, surpasses all others in godlessness and endeavors to do away with religion and set godlessness on the throne." Spinoza's own Jewish community issued a writ of herem, excommunicating him for "monstrous deeds" and "abominable heresies." In our Winter Study we will closely read Spinoza's Ethics together, in order to understand how its doctrine that God is everything could be so profoundly godless. Our goal will be to view the universe from the standpoint of eternity. This may involve some monstrous deeds and abominable heresies of our own.

Active Euthanasia? Okely Dokely! Human cloning? Don't have a cow, man! Over the past twenty years The Simpsons has included a healthy dose of stinging and sometimes surprisingly illuminating critiqueof numerous bioethical issues. In this winter study course we will use clips and episodes from the classic animated series as a launch pad for investigating the deeper philosophical concepts and ethical questions involved in a variety of bioethical topics. Good comedy has a way of driving straight to the core of contested issues and painful circumstances, providing a point of entry for students in the class to more serious, academic material. Along the way, the course will also investigate what makes The Simpsons's treatment of these bioethical issues *funny*-how its satire plays on common misunderstandings, contradictions and inconsistencies in social policy and individual decisions, and how serious issues drive the comedic effect. During the first portion of the course, the instructor will present selections from The Simpsons that take up several core bioethical issues, paired with related readings from the bioethics literature. In the second portion of the course, the students themselves will identify and present clips pertaining to bioethical issues. The final project for the course will be collaborative in nature: small groups of students will be asked to develop and pitch (to the other class members) a storyline for a Simpsons episode (or portion thereof) that centers on a bioethical topic. Classes will meet two or three afternoons each week, and students will be expected to read a substantial amount of philosophical material in preparation for these meetings. In addition, students will need to spend significant amounts of time outside of class viewing videos and developing their final projects. Evaluation will be based on class participation, one in-class presentation, and the final collaborative project.

Boxing is one of the world's oldest sports, and there are 3000 year old artistic representations of boxing from ancient Egypt. The history of boxing in the United States duringthe nineteenth and twentieth centuries reflects the history of the nation. Issues of class, ethnicity, race, and gender have played a central role in the sport. Stories about boxing also play a central role in the popular culture. In this course we will look at some treatments of boxing by social historians, examine some depictions of boxing in documentary and dramatic films, and watch some classic fights. We will also learn some of the fundamental skills involved in boxing. Training as a boxer will give men and women a better appreciation of the physical demands involved. Four days a week we will engage in an intensive training regimen working on basic punching technique, footwork, defense and conditioning. The workouts will involve minimal contact, but will be physically demanding. Students will need to purchase boxing gloves, handwraps, and a jump rope.

"Yoga and a Grounded Life" will examine what the practice of yoga is, and how it can serve as a foundation, guide, and inspiration for living, particularly in the faceof personal or societal challenges. Alongside the physical practice of yoga, the class will investigate the philosophical and ethical teachings of yoga's ancient text, the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali. Students will learn a number of basic yoga poses and breathing techniques in 1.75-hour classes that will meet 5 days a week. In addition, students will read and discuss portions of the Yoga Sutras and several different commentaries, such as those of BKS Iyengar and Chip Hartranft. Attendance at all classes is required. Missed classes must be made up before the end of Winter Study, usually by attending a regular class at Tasha Yoga. Students will be expected to practice on their own outside of class, to journal, and to participate in class discussions of the readings. Students will submit weekly written assignments in response to prompts relating to class material. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Yoga teacher Anne O'Connor is certified in the Iyengar yoga method, which she has been practicing for 20 years. O'Connor, a freelance editor, also serves on the Williamstown Select Board and is a member of the First Congregational Church of Williamstown.

We will spend around ten days in Nicaragua, chiefly in the Atlantic Coast Autonomous Regions. Almost all of the days in those regions will be spent in clinics, where students-inconjunction with optometrists who volunteer their time for the trip-will administer eye exams, write prescriptions, and distribute glasses. While in Nicaragua, the students will keep detailed journals that they will complete following their return to Williamstown. They will interact with Nicaraguans during the eye clinics, and will have opportunities for speaking with them during evenings. Students will also be required to attend organizational and training meetings and to complete a number of relevant readings prior to the trip.

Philosophy senior essay.

To be taken by students registered for Philosophy 491 or 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

In this course, students will learn about behavioral health prevention and promotion, with an emphasis on the prevention of substance use disorders and the Substance Abuse & Mental Health ServicesAdministration's (SAMHSA) Strategic Prevention Framework. Following this grounding in prevention science, students will learn about middle school leadership development and community action with a behavioral health and wellness focus, and be trained to deliver core components of the New Hampshire Teen Institute's (TI) Leaders in Prevention program for students in grades 6-8. The classroom portion of this course will prepare students to put this knowledge into practice as staff members at the January session of Leaders in Prevention, serving with other youth & adult staff members of TI to facilitate a weekend of education and networking for 50-60 middle school students from around NH and New England. Students in this course will work with teams of middle school students to help them create a student-led action plan for a school or community wellness event to be implemented in their home communities. During the first 2 weeks of the Winter Study period, students will meet on campus for approx. 15 hrs per week. The experiential portion of the course--serving as facilitators at the Leaders in Prevention weekend--will be an overnight trip from Thurs. 1/17--Sun 1/20 to a conference center in Greenfield, NH. (Lodging & food will be provided to students free of charge while at the camp.) This trip is mandatory for the course, and involves working with middle school youth for 3 very full days. Students will meet once again during the final week of Winter Study to debrief and process their facilitation experiences. Academic work will be primarily contained to the classroom time of the first two weeks. A culminating 10-page reflection paper to demonstrate a synthesis of students' classroom and practical learning will be the only sizeable out-of-class work. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Marissa is the Executive Director of the NH Teen Institute and a trainer for multiple workshops developed by SAMHSA's CAPT and ATTC systems. She is the Secretary of the Prevention Certification Board of NH and the NH Prevention delegate to the IC&RC, and serves on the NH Governor's Commission Prevention Task Force. Outside of prevention work, she is Assoc. Artistic Dir. of Mill City Productions in North Adams, MA.

In today's health care atmosphere of physician accountability, advanced medical technology, and evidence-based diagnosis, the "human side" of medical practice is often minimized or even disregarded. Medical schools debate howor whether to emphasize this more interpersonal aspect of medicine within their curriculums. This concern with the patient/physician relationship becomes particularly relevant with today's reliance upon personal devices and with a culture promoting medicine as a big business model. Increasingly research shows that the combination of both perspectives--patient centered understanding and technical proficiency--lead to better diagnosis and treatment; to improved patient compliance and satisfaction; and to increased physician professional satisfaction. Original thinking, examining personal/family experiences, in-class skill practice, and skype interviews with patients/student/health care professionals will provide much of the learning experience. This seminar works well for those who have shadowed physicians or are planning to shadow, but all majors are welcome. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Sandra Goodbody is a clinical social worker. She has maintained a psychotherapy practice in D.C., has a clinical appointment at The George Washington School of Medicine, and has served as a senior project director at the National Academy of Medicine.

This course is designed to assist students while at Williams and after graduation develop an effective understanding of the impact and treatment of addiction. It is designed for students planningto continue on to Med School and graduate work in the Humanities; work in public health; are a part of a family; a friend of an addict or those impacted by addiction; or to be an educated citizen. Students will be familiarized with the DSM-5, the text used to diagnose mental illness in the US. Speakers will tell their stories in their journey from addiction to recovery as well as their experience working as therapists. Students will be expected to accurately diagnose the speakers according to the criteria in the DSM-5. Finally, an annotated bibliography and oral presentation will be presented in groups at the end of the course. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Mr. Berger has been teaching this course at Williams since 2010. He has advanced degrees from Springfield College and the Hazelden Graduate School of Addiction Studies, 30 years of recovery from addiction, and a decade of experience in community mental health and clinics.

Since 2011, student activism and federal guidance of dramatically changed how campuses address sexual violence. This class will explore response to and prevention of sexual violence on college campuses andmore broadly, across topics related to gender and sexuality, race, constructs of accountability, and public health and social justice approaches to prevention. Class will be heavily comprised of interactive activities, along with reading, films, and reflective writing. Course will meet 3 days per week for 2 hours. Some outside of class work in the form of film viewing and attendance at talks. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Meg Bossong '05 is the Director of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response. Prior to returning to Williams, she was the Manager of Community Engagement for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, where she worked with community stakeholders in education, faith communities, medical and mental health care, law enforcement, and beyond on response and prevention initiatives.

This course will explore access to and reliance on public health services, NGOs, and education in a rural Indian social context. As one of the fasted growing and most populatedcountries in the world, India has the potential to have an enormous global impact. However, the country's future in entirely dependent upon the health of its population, specifically its most vulnerable--and most vital--members: women and children. To understand how public health and education policy can be formed and changed to address inequity and sociocultural biases, students will learn about the context of India and how local, national, and global actors currently interact with social systems. The course will begin with an orientation and introductory lectures in New Delhi. Then students will travel to rural Uttar Pradesh (UP) for 10 days for seminars with local experts and field trips to community health centers, schools, and villages. Following their trip to UP, students will travel to Rajasthan to meet NGO workers in Jaipur. The course will include an introduction to fieldwork methods and an interview project on a topic chosen by the student addressing development in India. This course will be run in partnership with the Foundation for Public Health, Education, and Development (http://fphed.org/). A UP-based organization with its own campus, FPHED's board collectively has decades of experience hosting study abroad programs, including biannual semester-long programs with the School for International Training. FPHED will assist in making all accommodations and travel arrangements, as well as making local connections with experts and translators for students. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Ms. Curtis graduated from Williams College in Spring of 2017 with a degree in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and a Concentration in Public Health. With the support of a Fulbright-Nehru student researcher fellowship, she is currently conducting community-based participatory research with FPHED on reproductive health programs in rural UP. She has spent a cumulative 11 months to-date studying and researching reproductive health in rural India.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Representational drawing is not merely a gift of birth, but a learnable skill. If you wanted to draw, but have never had the time to learn; or you enjoy drawingand wish to deepen your understanding and abilities, then this course is for you. This intensive course utilizes traditional drawing exercises to teach representational drawing. By using simple techniques and extensive exercises you will develop your ability to accurately see and realistically represent the physical world. You will learn to draw a convincing portrait, interior, and still life. This course is designed to develop your powers of observation and teach creative problem solving abilities. Students need no previous artistic experience, just the willingness and desire to learn. Students will be expected to attend and participate in all sessions. They will also be required to keep a sketchbook recording their progress and complete a final project. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Stella Ehrich is a professional painter whose work includes portraits, landscapes and still life subjects. She studied for seven years at Studio Simi in Florence, she holds an MFA in painting from Bennington College and a BFA from the Memphis Academy of Art.

Electronic circuits and instruments are indispensable parts of modern laboratory work throughout the sciences. This course will cover the basics of analog circuits, including transistors and operational amplifiers, and willbriefly introduce digital circuits and the Arduino, a microcontroller. Class will meet four afternoons a week for a mixture of lab and lecture, providing ample opportunity for hands-on experience. Students will build and test a variety of circuits chosen to illustrate the kinds of electronic devices and design problems a scientist is apt to encounter. In the last week, students will design and build a final project, or will write a 10-page paper. If students have prior experience with electronics, they should contact the instructor prior to enrollment. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Daniel Maser is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Physics, working with Professor Tiku Majumder in his atomic physics research laboratory. Adjunct Co-Instructor Bio: Jason Mativi is the electro-mechanical technician in the Bronfman Science Center. He will teach the digital electronics portion of the course.

The course assumes you know nothing about cooking, and, with that in mind, will focus on the basics. The course will teach you how to prepare simple, healthy, and deliciousfood. You'll learn about basic knife skills, sanitary kitchen practices, cooking equipment and menu planning. Some of the foods you will learn to make during the course of winter study will include Mac 'n Cheese, quick breads, soups and salads, pie crusts and cookies. Time permitting, we may take a field trip to a local farm. You will also get to meet with some local chefs to help you understand why everything we do revolves around food. The reading list will include: Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain, The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, and one of the basics cookbook.

How does a motor run? What do chocolate and steel have in common? How does Williams heat and power the campus? Can paper be washed? What's inside everyday appliances? Howdo you build a speaker? From simple machines to complex processes, in this course we'll explore the way things work! Class will meet three afternoons a week for a mixture of lecture, discussion, local field trips, and lots of hands-on exploration. Homework will primarily consist of readings and exercises relevant to the current class topics and extra tinker-time. In the last part of the course, students will have a chance to explore the functioning of some process, object, or technology of their choice.

Several members of the department will have student projects available dealing with their own research or that of current senior thesis students. Approximately 35 hours per week of study andactual research participation will be expected from each student.

To be taken by students registered for Physics 493, 494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

To be taken by students registered for Political Economy 493.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

The Constitution is a covenant among the people, the states and government of the United States that substantially defines the unique American experiment and experience. First numerically, and in importanceto many Americans, is the Constitution's guarantee of free thought and expression, encompassing the First Amendment's freedoms of speech, press, assembly, petition and religion. Over time the Supreme Court of the United States ("SCOTUS") and the "inferior" federal courts and state courts have given the First Amendment special and exalted status, ruling it contains "preferred freedoms" that are the "matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom," and the mechanisms Americans employ to "form a more perfect union" through democratic processes. The course will provide students an intensive examination of First Amendment law and policy, with substantially more time and attention devoted to these rights than possible in a survey civil liberties or constitutional law course. We will examine the most important First Amendment decisions and influential concurring and dissenting opinions dealing with government action purportedly infringing a First Amendment right. We will also examine how free expression fares in and shapes American society at large. A private employer's, college's or other institution's restriction of expression may not violate the First because it is not government action, but the First and its judicial interpretation affects the discussion and resolution of non-government conflicts involving speech, political activity and religious exercise. The course will explore the rationale and implications of permitting and fostering or limiting certain categories of free expression or in specific contexts (libel--obscenity--"fighting words"--hate speech--depictions of violence and cruelty--child pornography--and others) and in various settings, public and private, involving and outside government. The course will be offered at a time when First Amendment rights are being challenged, especially press freedoms and free speech on college campuses, including Williams". With the press held in historically low esteem by the public and under attack from the current federal administration the course will incorporate lessons and discussions involving these matters. Some portion of each class will be devoted to current free expression issues in America, in its local communities and on the Williams" and other college campuses. Students will be assigned to identify, research and lead discussions of such issues. The course requires reading (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1puCX7gzBRfH_3Km2tVClZU0ELE7JS8RQaWmd5KTg84k/edit?usp=sharing), class participation and writing. Class participation will be important because the course will be taught Socratically (as most law school classes are with the teacher asking and students answering questions -- and many in the other direction). There will be an optional SCOTUS simulated oral argument at the end of the winter study. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Lloyd Constantine '69 has argued many constitutional law cases in SCOTUS and "inferior" federal courts. He has taught law school (Fordham) and both civil liberties and first amendment law and policy to undergraduates (SUNY).

This course will examine the meaning and uses of the classical Chinese text, The Art of War, by Sunzi. Students will consider Sunzi's insights both in the context of ancientChinese philosophy and in terms of their contemporary relevance. The first half of the course will concentrate on placing Sunzi in historical and philosophical context; the second half will examine how The Art of War has been used in a variety of modern fields.

"The techniques of Aikido are intended as tools for us to use in examining the nature of power, to engage in uncompromising self-scrutiny, and to realize our potential as powerful,compassionate, creative, self-aware human beings."--Mary Heiny Sensei Aikido is a Japanese martial tradition that combines the samurai arts of swordwork and grappling with the philosophical desire to forge a path of harmony in the face of determined opposition. As such, it addresses situations of conflict that manifest themselves physically, but also offers insight into how to redirect the energies--social, psychological, or political--that might otherwise become conflict in one or another aspect of our lives. As a martial art, Aikido teaches us more than simply how to survive; it also teaches us how to physically express our noblest intentions in movements that protect not only ourselves but the attacker as well. Martin Luther King famously observed that "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars." Aikido, a physical expression of nonviolence, is the alternative approach made manifest--the light that can drive out darkness and the love that can drive out hate. The physical training (10 am-noon each weekday morning in Currier Ballroom) will improve each student's strength, balance, posture, and flexibility. Everyone will also learn how to throw friends twice their size across the room. About 25% of training time will be devoted to sword, staff, and dagger techniques. The academic component of the course will engage with how the physical training resonates with selected writings on nonviolence (Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and theoretician Gene Sharp) and the tactical practices of successful nonviolent protest campaigns. Each student will research and profile a successful nonviolent campaign, explain why it worked, explain what was "aikido" about it, and in small groups will pick a target and draft a plan for a contemporary protest campaign on a topic of their choosing. Each group will be responsible for crafting speech text, a tactical analysis of their proposed campaign, and a social media plan. Actually implementing the campaign is not a part of the course. By integrating physical and intellectual components, the course seeks to forge in each student a stronger and more coherent perspective on how the pursuit and embodiment of harmony can resolve the conflicts that we so often encounter. Joining us for several sessions will be local scholar Stewart Burns, author of the award-winning MLK biography To the Mountaintop. Additional relevant experiences, such as meditation practice, outdoor misogi, and feature films (Gandhi, Selma, etc.) will be woven into the course as schedules permit. Students do not have to be especially athletic, and in Aikido women train as equals with men. Students are encouraged to correspond with the instructor (rkent-at-williams.edu) before registration begins if they have questions. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Robert Kent '84 spent 3 years in Kyoto, Japan earning his Sho Dan (first degree black belt), directly after majoring in both Philosophy and Religion at Williams. He currently holds a Yon Dan rank (Fourth degree black belt), having studied for 21 years at Aikido West in Redwood City under Frank Doran Shihan, where he helped run the youth program for 18 years. He is currently President of Aiki Extensions, Inc, a nonprofit that supports programs that bring the strategic insights and practical wisdom of Aikido into non-traditional settings. He earned a Masters degree in Philosophy at Claremont Graduate School in 1993, writing his thesis on the Ethics of Authenticity. This will be the twelfth year he's offered a Winter Study class.

This course brings together a selection of films that challenge the narrative of girl-meets-boy as the privileged formula for representing the growth and development of young women around the world.Sometimes girl does meet boy, but the challenge that these films put to us is to re-imagine the path to womanhood as mediated by other factors as well: girls' own curiosity and ambition, their resourcefulness in the face of poverty and exploitation, resistance against being gendered in conventional ways, their friendships and romantic ties with one another, and their many creative ways of defining how one becomes a woman. To support our analysis of the films, we will also consider how some transnational feminist movements have responded to the challenges and creative energies of girlhood. Special attention will be given to the difficulty of securing girls' rights through international conventions that implicitly treat all children (ages 0-18) as male, and all women as adults. Films and film-makers will likely be selected from the following countries: Korea, India, Great Britain, Belgium, Senegal, France, Australia, Colombia, Argentina, and the United States. Readings to be completed outside of class time include children's books, young adult fiction, and international human rights documents.

The law may be deployed to achieve social justice in different ways: through the courts, legislation, and the ballot. While we will see the law work positively, we also willexamine its limitations and failures due to societal, economic and human obstacles. We will read 2 books in full and 2 in part, all of which relate compelling stories. We begin with Devil in the Grove (winner, 2013 Pulitzer for non-fiction), which is about a 1949 Florida rape case involving 3 black men who are defended against the charge of raping a white woman by Thurgood Marshall, at risk to his life. While we encounter the brutal obstacles to obtaining justice in the deep South, the book also is in part a mini-biography of Marshall, and we will read about the great victories he achieved nationally in Supreme Ct. cases involving voting, housing and education. Next is Gideon's Trumpet, a classic in the field of constitutional law by Anthony Lewis about winning the right of a pauper to be provided with a lawyer in state felony cases. The book elegantly describes the structure of our Federal system, delineating the tension between the rights reserved to the states in the area of criminal law, and the protection provided to individuals by the Bill of Rights. The third book is Winning Marriage by Marc Solomon. It narrates the incredibly successful effort by the LGBT community to win for same-sex couples the right to marry, focusing on gritty political battles at the state level, moving to landfall Supreme Ct. decisions. We will read the penultimate Obergfell decision. The last book is Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action (winner, 1996 Nat'l Book Critics Circle Award for non-fiction). The issue is environmental justice and the case is a lawsuit between private litigants: Woburn MA residents who suffered leukemia and other illnesses arising out of toxic chemicals dumped by two large corporations. A David, a very small law firm, takes on Goliath, two giant companies and their huge law firms. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Richard Pollet graduated from Williams in 1969 cum laude, with Honors in Poli Sci, and thereafter obtained a law degree from Columbia Law School. He spent 40 years practicing law, the last 26 as General Counsel of J. Walter Thompson Company (JWT), retiring in 2013. Subsequently, he has done some consulting for WPP, JWT's parent company, and last taught this Winter Study course in Jan. 2018.

Since St. Augustine's Confessions, great political thinkers have crafted personal stories as evidence of and witness to their own political times. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs told their stories tofurther the abolitionist movement. W.E.B. DuBois, James Baldwin, and Simone de Beauvoir ushered us through the turbulent 20th century showing how the personal is political, and the political, personal. Today, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Suki Kim, Maggie Nelson, and Claudia Rankine, among others, show us how well-crafted personal stories can bring important political ideas to the forefront of our collective imagination. Anticipating criticism of the form, Beauvoir wrote in the preface to her 1961 autobiography that "if any individual...reveals himself honestly, everyone, more or less, becomes involved. It is impossible for him to shed light on his own life without at some point illuminating the lives of others." In this workshop, you will do just that, crafting a nonfiction project--memoir, personal essay, or a hybrid form--the final draft of which will determine half of your grade. We'll meet for six hours each week, splitting our time between discussions of the published work we're reading and a workshop-setting discussion of the work you're producing. Your engagement with this class will occupy significantly more time outside of the classroom--roughly twenty hours a week--during which you'll be engaged in the writing process and reading for class. Readings for the course will be selected from: Baldwin, James. "Notes of a Native Son" Biss, Eula. Selections from Notes from No Man's Land Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Selections from Between the World and Me Hurston, Zora Neale. How It Feels to be Colored Me Khan-Cullors, Patrisse and Asha Bandele. Selections from When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir Nelson, Maggie. Selections from The Argonauts Rankine, Claudia. Selections from Citizen Smarsh, Sarah. "Poor Teeth" and others Adjunct Instructor Bio: Julia Munemo holds her MFA in creative nonfiction and has completed a memoir about race, love, mental illness, and her father--a writer of racially charged pulp fiction. Her manuscript explores how her legacy conflicts with her present-day life as one half of an interracial marriage and the mother of mixed-race children. She teaches writing workshops in Williamstown and Maine.

This course is a participant-observation experience in which students work full-time for a governmental or nongovernmental (including voluntary, activist, and grassroots) organization or for a political campaign. Students may findplacements in government and nonprofit organizations in which their work involves significant involvement with public issues. Examples include: town government offices; state or federal administrative offices (e.g., environmental agencies, housing authorities); interest groups that lobby government (e.g., ACLU, NRA); nonprofit organizations such as service providers or think tanks (e.g., Habitat for Humanity, Cato Institute); and grassroots, activist or community development organizations (e.g., Greenpeace or neighborhood associations). The instructors will work with each student to arrange a placement; such arrangements must be made in advance of the Winter Term. Students should first make their own contracts with an institution or agency. The instructors and members of the Political Science Department are available to help students find placements, if necessary. Each student's fieldwork mentor shall send a confirmation letter to the instructor verifying the placement and describing the nature of the work to be performed. During the session, students are responsible for keeping a journal of their experiences and observations. Additionally, students write final papers summarizing and reflecting upon the experience in light of assigned readings. A group meeting of all students will occur before winter study to prepare and after to discuss the experience.

This course pairs energetic Williams students with adolescents involved in the Juvenile Court System of Berkshire County. Judges assign teenagers (ages 13-17) to this alternative sentencing program--this is certifiedas an official Commonwealth of Massachusetts probation program--when their absence from or misbehavior in schools has been a central feature of their delinquency. The goal of this program is to show these teens that learning can be fun, can center on topics that matter to them, and can be empowering. If the teens see school as something other than a form of incarceration, they will be motivated to stay there and to succeed. Each Williams student helps a teen investigate, develop a report on, and present their conclusions about a topic of the teen's choosing. In the past these have ranged from BMX, to the history of North Adams, to the causes of teen methamphetamine use. The course ends with a presentation in which each adolescent/Williams student pair formally presents its work via PowerPoint to an audience that includes the Berkshire County Juvenile Court judges and probation officers, town and city chiefs of police, County District Attorney and assistant DAs, the teens' peers and families, Williams faculty and community members. Williams students gain experience serving in an official capacity, learn to mentor teenagers, and gain insight into the causes of and solutions to the incidence of juvenile crime and underachievement. Williams students are expected to attend trainings, meet with their teens three times a week, co-give a final presentation, and keep a weekly journal detailing their meetings. {This is a student-led course.} In order to enroll in the course, all students must write a paragraph explaining why they want to take it. Students should email their paragraphs to student coordinator Marissa Levin Shapiro at [email protected] and cc: [email protected]

Political Science senior essay.

To be taken by students registered for Political Science 493-494.

To be taken by students registered for Political Science 495 or 496.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

This course takes a psychological approach to helping you figure out what to do with your life. We start by reviewing your life story up until now and determining howit has shaped you. We discuss, for example, whether you feel pressured to go down a certain road, whether you feel torn between your head and your heart, or whether you feel directionless. Then we take stock of who you really are now, including your core interests, tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses. We try to identify life designs that play to your signature strengths, as opposed to situations that are a setup for frustration and failure. The class encourages you to let go of comparing yourself to your peers, as different people need different things. You explore your underlying values and what you find most important in life. You consider the level of meaning you need in your work, as well as how much you care about money, status, fame, independence, connection, and creativity. The class introduces you to the concept of "flow," the feeling you get when engaging in activities that provide ideal levels of challenge and mastery. By designing lives and careers that promote flow states, you will be most likely to thrive and not merely succeed. Indeed, it is important not to design a life that appears successful but feels miserable. Your choice of a romantic partner can also have huge implications for the trajectory of your life. The class helps you to identify typical traps, such as staying with someone who is a bad match, and discusses how to make constructive relationship choices. Ultimately, as there are likely multiple valid life and career paths for you to take, you identify and develop three different plans that feel authentic and inspiring to you. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Dr. Johnson received his B.A. from Williams College, his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Yale University, and is a Clinical Associate Professor at Brown University. He has taught this Winter Study for the last two years and deeply enjoys mentoring students around career issues.

Seventy-two percent of college students report that they used alcohol at least once within the past 30 days. Where is the line between fun and danger? This course will examinethe realities of the role of alcohol in the social lives of college students. Students will engage in active discussions of readings, videos, and myths vs. facts, as well as personal observations and opinions. Class structure will involve 3-hour classes that meet twice weekly. Participants will learn scientific facts about alcohol, including how it gets metabolized in the body differently in men and women, and how to recognize and respond to the signs of alcohol poisoning. Films will include evocative footage and interviews, such as "College Binge Drinking and Sober Reflections." We will hear from an expert in trauma and sexual assault and explore the significant role of alcohol in sexual assault on college campuses. We will discuss alcohol-related medical emergencies and problem-solve strategies to stay safe when choosing to use alcohol. Statistical data from colleges here in the Northeast will be reviewed, including survey results from the Core Institute and the Harvard School of Public Health Alcohol study. The course culminates in a final peer education presentation each student develops over the first 3 weeks through independent study outside of class on a related topic of their own choosing approved by the instructor.

This course will explore the nature of selection processes. What does an optimal selection process look like? How do our implicit biases materialize in selection? These are just a fewof the questions that we will seek to understand through guest speakers from The Davis Center, Psychology Department, Admissions, and the Career Center. The majority of the time will be dedicated towards applying these ideas in selecting the next class of Junior Advisors, an undertaking that will allow students to examine selection processes in general. Readings will cover topics such as organizational behavior and human decision processes, social networks and organizational dynamics, and gendered wording and inequality.

This studio course will lead the student through various piecing, appliqué and quilting styles and techniques, with some non-traditional methods included. Samples will be made of techniques learned, culminating inthe completion of a sizeable project of the student's choosing (wall quilt or lap-size quilt). There will be an exhibit of all work (ephquilts), at the end of winter study. "Woven" into the classes will be discussions of the history of quilting, the controversy of "art" quilts vs. "traditional" quilts, machine vs. hand-quilting and the growing quilting market. Reading list: Pieces of the Past by Nancy J. Martin; Stitching Memories: African-American Story Quilts by Eva Ungar Grudin; Sunshine and Shadow: The Amish and Their Quilts by Phyllis Haders; A People and Their Quilts by John Rice Irwin; Treasury of American Quilts by Cyril Nelson and Carter Houck; The Quilt: New Directions for an American Tradition, Nancy Roe, Editor. Requirements: attendance of all classes (including field trip), a love of fabric, design and color, an enthusiasm for handwork, participation in exhibit. Extensive time will be spent outside of class working on assigned projects. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Debra Rogers-Gillig, one of the top quilters in New England, has been quilting for over 35 years, and teaching classes and coordinating shows and exhibits for 30 years. She has received numerous prizes and awards from quilt shows in New York and New England and been published in quilt magazines.

Ever put yourself down when things aren't going well? Offering yourself compassion is often recommended by therapists and is a skill taught in some modes of therapy. What is thebasis for this recommendation? How is self-compassion put into practice? What makes it so challenging? You will learn about the elements of self-compassion, explore and experience different ways of offering yourself compassion, and discuss your experiences. You will look at ways that self-compassion can positively impact your mental health, your work, your play, and your relationships. You will be taught self-compassion skills, including mindfulness practices and recognizing and challenging negative self-talk, among others. You will be asked to practice these skills between classes, do some reading, and reflect on your experiences. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Becky is a licensed clinical social worker. She has worked as a psychotherapist with Integrative Wellbeing Services here at Williams since 2014. She has explored the topics of compassion and self-compassion both professionally and personally.

This course will introduce students to transformative sexuality education. Transformative sexuality education assumes students will experience major shifts in their sexual knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Undergraduates commonly report inadequate sexeducation in high school, concern that students are sexually harassed, assaulted, or raped during their four years in residence and that little opportunity exists on campus for students to talk with each other candidly about sexual issues. The course is designed to improve the sexual culture on the Williams College campus by expanding knowledge, fostering skills, and providing opportunities for intergroup dialogue. Students will explore topics such as communication and sexual communication, gender diversity, enthusiastic consent, pleasure in and out of committed relationships, hookup culture, models of sexual functioning, BDSM/kink culture, and sexual identity. Topics will be examined through an intersectional lens. A variety of methods will help engage students with course material. Lectures by the instructors, large and small group discussions, role-plays, practice of empathy, intimacy, interviewing skills, reading literary fiction, DVD screenings, anonymous class surveys, and taking sexual histories promote students' learning. Sexually explicit material is used in this course, following trauma-informed practices and guidelines specifying best pedagogical practices. Each class session is designed to create activities that will lead students to achieve at least three learning objectives. Evaluation will be based on submission of a journal entry related to each class session and a journal entry related to a reading/movie due each class session. Students will submit a final paper and creative project. Attendance and participation are crucial to successful completion of this course.

This course is the full training for students who would like to cover Call In Walk In shifts in the Peer Health Office (Paresky 212). Students should either already bea member of Peer Health, or have an interest in joining Peer Health, as those students will get priority acceptance. Topics that we will cover include alcohol and other drug use; sex, STIs and contraception; rape, sexual assault and Title IX compliance; mental health; stress and sleep; healthy and unhealthy relationships, etc. Students will meet various on- and off-campus resources for referral. Outside of class work will include readings, video viewings, information gathering, and a possible field trip to local agencies.

Would you like to explore applications of psychology in the "real world?" This course gives students an opportunity to work full-time during Winter Study in a mental health, business, education,law or other setting in which psychological theories and methods are applied to solve problems. Students are responsible for locating their own potential internships whether in the local area, their hometowns, or elsewhere, and are welcome to contact the course instructor for suggestions on how to do this. In any case, all students considering this course must consult with the instructor about the suitability of the internship being considered before the Winter Study registration period. Please prepare a brief description of the proposed placement, noting its relevance to psychology, and the name and contact information of the agency supervisor. Before Thanksgiving break, the student will provide a letter from the agency supervisor which describes the agency, and the student's role and responsibilities during Winter Study. Enrolled students will meet the instructor before Winter Study to discuss matters relating to ethics and their goals for the course, and after Winter Study to discuss their experiences and reflections.

This course provides a research opportunity for students who want to understand how psychologists ask compelling questions and find answers about behavior. Several faculty members, whose subfields include behavioral neuroscience,cognitive psychology, social psychology, clinical psychology, developmental psychology, and the psychology of education, will have student projects available. Since projects involve faculty research, interested students must consult with members of the Psychology Department before electing this course. In addition, students should discuss with faculty what the weekly time requirements will be.

To be taken by students registered for Psychology 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Zen is the sect of Buddhism that stresses experience overall cognitive formulas and principles. Based on the tenet that all beings have what is called Buddha Nature, practice is enteredinto with the faith than one can have exactly the same experience that the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, had and can thereby come to know the process that constitutes the nature of all beings and things that comprise the universe. The primary method of practice is the meditative technique known as zazen, and the type of Zen that focuses on the consciousness that develops from diligent zazen practice is known as Tathagata Zen. Through one's efforts in zazen, one may come to the intuitive experience of the Dharma Activity, the activity that gives birth to all things and into which all things return. Although the Dharma Activity cannot be described fully in words, it is possible to use words that point to it without running afoul of its truth. The Mumonkan (The Gateless Gate) is a classic Zen text containing 48 such pointers or koans. Utilizing this text as a focus of discussion, students will attempt to grasp the teaching contained in these pointers by means of the principles of Tathagata Zen. The practice of zazen will be part of each class, and the course will culminate in a two-day zen retreat. Those taking the course will keep a daily journal of their course-related experiences which will be reviewed by the instructor. They will also write a series of short papers on selected koan from The Mumonkan. The course will meet from 9am--Noon on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Anyone wishing to take this course must submit a paragraph stating their purpose for doing so. Up to ten students will be accepted for this course and all are eligible, including those who have taken a prior Winter Study Zen course taught by this instructor. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Williams '62.Retired psychiatrist. Zen practitioner for 48 years,17 as a monk.

Sacred mountains play a central role in the founding myths of many religious traditions. Mountains such as Sinai, Olympus, and Kailash are considered divine abodes, entry into which confers spiritualpowers. For many religious practitioners, pilgrimage to and practicing in and around the mountains provides a special opportunity to encounter the gods and acquire spiritual benefits. In this comparative course, we will explore the special role and function of mountains in Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam, with a special focus on contemplative practices from Japan's Shugendo tradition and the kaihogyo nighttime hikes of Tendai monks, circumambulation of Himalayan peaks and mantra recitation, and pilgrimage journeys. Class will meet for three 2-hour sessions per week. Readings will consist mostly of journal articles and selections from books, with a 5-page reflective paper due at the end of the course. Depending on the weather, we will take advantage of the surrounding mountains for short contemplative hikes, applying some of the practices we will study.

What does a Bible from 1462 feel like? Smell like? In this course, students will touch, smell, and examine early and rare Bibles from the world-class collection of Bibles housedin Williams's own Chapin Library. Highlights of the collection include multiple significant 15th and 16th century Bibles, as well as a 1611 King James Bible. Through class readings and discussions, as well as a small research project, students will learn about the history of the book, the history of the Bible as a book, and the specific histories of one or more rare Chapin Bibles of their choosing. The major project for the course will be for students to experiment with and curate a Twitter account and course website as online exhibits of the 'rare and wondrous' Bibles of Chapin Library.

This course delves into the theory and practice of both Hindu and Buddhist yoga in their land of origin, India. In the first half, we stay in the North Indiantown of Rishikesh, one of the main centers of Hindu yoga today, located on the banks of the Ganges River. There we practice yoga and meditation daily, study yoga philosophy, and visit leading yoga centers. In addition, we volunteer daily at Mother Miracle Community Development Program, where a K-12 school is dedicated to teaching exceptionally intelligent poor children. In the second part of the course, we travel to South India and stay at Sera Je Monastic University, the largest center of Tibetan Buddhist monastic learning in India. There we continue our daily practice of yoga and meditation, and study with a Tibetan monastic scholar the theory of Tibetan Buddhism. In the afternoons students volunteer with Tibetan students and visit Tibetan service organizations in the area. In this way we gain a solid overview of the practice of yoga and meditation in India. We come to appreciate and learn from the people upholding the living traditions of yoga, as well as helping these people to strengthen the education that will allow them to interact with the global world. Required Reading: The Path to Enlightenment by The Dalai Lama; Yoga and the Luminous: Patanjali's Spiritual Path to Freedom by Christopher Key Chapple; selected articles about yoga and contemporary yoga exchanges. Adjunct Co-Instructor Bio: Tasha Judson, M.Ed., is a certified alignment oriented Hatha yoga teacher and authorized meditation teacher. She has directed Tasha Yoga studio in Williamstown since 2003.

An advanced course for senior Religion majors (who are not writing theses) to further develop their senior seminar paper into a polished 25 page research paper (which will also bethe focus of a brown-bag presentation during the spring semester). The course will help the students with general research methods, workshopping, paper writing, and presentation practice.

Religion senior thesis.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

To be taken by candidates for honors other than by thesis route.

To be taken by students registered for French 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

To be taken by candidates for honors other than by thesis route.

To be taken by students registered for Spanish 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

From the beginning of the Cold War to the present, the presence of Russian intelligence operatives in the nation's capital has been the subject of fascination and speculation. In thiscourse, we will examine the FX channel's series The Americans, in light of both the popular imaginary about Russian spies in the United States and the actual history of intelligence wars in Washington. How does the series represent the lives of Russian political and intelligence operatives during the Reagan presidency, and how does it interpret the larger events of the Cold War in its final decade? Readings will draw from accounts on both side of the Cold War, focusing on signature developments such as Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union, the covert biological weapons programs, and Soviet attempts to build relations with progressive movements in the United States. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Alexandar Mihailovic has taught at Bennington College, Williams College, and Brown and Columbia Universities. His books include *Corporeal Words: Mikhail Bakhtin's Theology of Discourse,* *Mitki: The Art of Postmodern Protest in Russia*, and the edited volume *Tchaikovsky and His Contemporaries: A Centenary Symposium." He has also published articles about cultural relations during the Cold War, African-American studies, art history, and cinema studies.

Williams has a unique program in the Republic of Georgia, which offers students the opportunity to engage in three-week-long internships in a wide variety of fields. Our students have helpedin humanitarian relief organizations like Save the Children, interned in journalism at The Georgian Times, taught unemployed women computer skills at The Rustavi Project, documented wildlife, studied with a Georgian photographer, done rounds at the Institute of Cardiology, and learned about transitional economies at the Georgian National Bank. In addition to working in their chosen fields, students experience Georgian culture through museum visits, concerts, lectures, meetings with Georgian students, and excursions. Visit the sacred eleventh-century Cathedral of Sveti-tskhoveli and the twentieth-century Stalin Museum, take the ancient Georgian Military Highway to ski in the Caucasus Range, see the birthplace of the wine grape in Kakheti and the region where Jason sought the Golden Fleece. Participants are housed in pairs with English-speaking families in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital city. At the end of the course, students will write a 10-page paper assessing their internship experience. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Vladimir Ivantsov holds a PhD in Russian Studies from McGill University (Canada). Prior to coming to Williams, he taught at McGill University and St. Petersburg State University (Russia). His research interests cover a broad spectrum of topics, including Dostoevsky, existentialism, and rock and pop culture. He published a book on the contemporary Russian writer Vladimir Makanin.

May be taken by candidates for honors other than by thesis route.

To be taken by students registered for Russian 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

To be taken by students registered for Sociology 493-494.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Are you the person your friends turn to for support? Good listening and communication skills are of benefit to everyone, but particularly for students with support responsibilities and those interestedin helping professions. This course will prepare you to be a better listener and more effective, confident communicator. Develop a deeper sense of presence to help others feel more at ease with sharing, facilitate decision-making and problem-solving using validation and active listening skills, and learn effective strategies and boundaries appropriate to more urgent situations. We will practice fundamental counseling skills, learn about factors influencing our own communication styles and the roles we gravitate toward in our relationships with others. You will learn how to communicate about sensitive issues and find your own style in helping roles. Emphasis will be given to understanding one's limits within a given situation, knowing when to refer to other resources, and what resources are available to students. We will meet twice a week for 3 hour sessions. This is an experiential training augmented by relevant readings, journaling, and out of class exercises designed to deepen your understanding and practice. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Karen Theiling is psychotherapist at Williams College where she has provided counseling to students since 2000. She is a licensed mental health counselor whose particular interests include trauma, gender and sexuality, Dialectical Behavior Therapy and outreach of all kinds. Adjunct Co-Instructor Bio: Laini Sporbert is a Health Educator at Williams College, focusing on substance abuse education and counseling, mental health awareness, sexuality education, and sleep. She has been at the college since 1997, and has been the Peer Health Staff Advisor since 2006. She has an M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology with a specialty in addictions.

How do New England food producers approach issues of justice and climate change while maintaining viable businesses? In this course students will interview farmers and food entrepreneurs and weave thoseinterviews into compelling audio stories for a wide variety of audiences. Students will study interviewing, storytelling, and podcasting best practices and will use what they learn to create interesting podcasts that are both rich in content and in sound. Guiding questions will include: How do farmers view their role on issues of justice and climate change? What are they currently doing to make an impact on these issues? What opportunities and challenges lay ahead for them related to these issues? How does one tell a story in a way that is universal or at least relevant to one's intended audience? What are the opportunities to enhance storytelling by using an audio format as the medium? In partnership with the Massachusetts chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA Mass), the class as a whole will attend the NOFA Mass Winter Conference at Worcester State University on Saturday January 12 and will conduct initial interviews there with presenters and attendees. Informative and impressive podcast creations will be used as resources on the NOFA website, the Williams sustainability website, and will be posted to Stitcher, iTunes, and Soundcloud. A number of assignments will involve listening to and critically analyzing podcasts. Our time together will be a combination of learning about various farming issues in Massachusetts, analyzing content and audio choices, practicing interview techniques, and getting feedback from peers. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Mike Evans is the Assistant Director of the Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives at Williams College. Prior to working at Williams, he was the associate director of Utahns Against Hunger and founded and directed Real Food Rising, a youth-empowerment sustainable farming program.

Admittedly, only a handful of Williams students will enter the advertising business, especially the classic Madison Avenue version of it. On the other hand, an appreciable percentage of graduates willjoin fields where some form of advertising and promotion is a critical but complicated success factor, whether in NGOs, business, non-profit organizations or startup ventures. The proposed course is a high level view of one of the most important levers in society today. In one form or another, advertising influences not just our purchase decisions but also (and increasingly) politics, public policy, use of social media and a host of cultural issues, including perceptions about diversity, gender and the role of women in society. This course teaches how insights, strategy and positioning come to creative life, are assessed and how they percolate through brand experience and within the organization. We will consider why and how marketers align themselves with different demographic and age groups creatively and how they build positive perception. It will also help students understand why--after all the metrics and analysis and research--a brilliant creative idea is worth its weight in gold. The course is intended as an overview and will necessarily proceed at a rapid pace. Course content will be a mix of case studies, examples drawn from the current marketing world and original research by students. Where appropriate and possible, guest speakers will be invited in order to provide particular insight or participate in debate. The final project presentation will ask student teams to 'reverse engineer' the observed advertising and communications strategies of a marketer (broadly defined) using publicly available data and course materials. The course would meet twice per week in three hour sessions. Out-of-class expectations are approximately 10 hours/class in research, writing and group work projects. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Steve Harty worked in advertising for 30 years, spanning developments such as the launch of cable networks, interactive and digital platforms and into today's highly diversified communications environment. He was CEO or Chairman for four firms and served clients such as American Express, Johnnie Walker, Axe deodorant, Cadillac, Verizon, IBM and Miller Lite. He helped launch jetBlue Airlines, Ally Bank and the Voom HDTV service. He is a 1973 graduate of Williams and a trustee emeritus.

Experience of a clinical environment is essential to making the decision to enter the health professions. Through this internship, students clarify their understanding of the rewards and challenges that accompanythe practice of medicine (human and animal) and dentistry. Generally, a shadowing experience focuses on provider-patient interactions within out-patient and in-patient settings. These experiences provide students with the opportunity to observe clinical interactions, as well as to learn about the systems within which healthcare is delivered. Students will also be introduced to core concepts of population health, providing a broad perspective on health outcomes within a geographic region and expanding their perspective on the individual clinical interactions which they observe. This course will encourage participants to reflect on their clinical experiences with a dual focus- from the perspective of the individual provider-patient relationship and within a systems-level context. Weekly didactic sessions (3) will focus on "substance abuse" as a thematic construct for the discussion of related chronic and acute conditions frequently encountered in clinical and social/behavioral contexts. The thematic focus on substance abuse will allow students to reflect on their clinical experiences across a wide range of clinical specialties and also to engage in discussion of a public health crisis affecting quality of life across the lifespans of Berkshires residents. By the end of the course, students will demonstrate greater understanding of the fundamentals of patient-provider interactions. Students will also demonstrate an enhanced awareness of the systems through which medical care is delivered and the challenges of health care delivery within a rural community. Students will also be expected to reflect on their clinical experiences through didactic sessions and case presentations, as well as in a final paper. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Barbara Fuller is the Director of Science and Health Professions Advising.

Field experience is a critical element in the decision to enter a profession. Through this internship, students can clarify their understanding of the rewards and challenges that accompany the practiceof many different aspects within a profession, and understand the psychology of the workplace. Internship placements are arranged through the Career Center, with selected alumni and parents acting as on-site teaching associates. The expectation is that each student will observe some aspect of the profession for the better part of the day, five days per week. It is also expected that the teaching associate will assign a specific project to be completed within the three-to-four week duration of the course depending upon appropriateness. Participation in this winter study will require the student to quickly assess the work environment, make inferences about corporate culture, performance norms and expectations, and to take initiative not only to learn from this experience, but also to contribute where and when appropriate. Understanding the dynamics within a work environment is critical to success in any organization and this hands-on experience will illuminate lessons learned in the classroom. Upon completion of the winter study, it is expected that the student write a thorough report evaluating and interpreting the experience. Students will be required to read one of two books selected for this course. There will also be reading selected from such works as What Should I do with My Life?by Po Bronson, 2003 and Working by Studs Terkel, 2004. Interested students must attend an information meeting in late September or early October and follow up with Dawn Dellea if students have questions about specific internships listed in the SPEC 21 syllabus. Application are submitted via Handshake.

The course will develop the technical proficiency and leadership skills required to effectively and efficiently administer emergency medical care in outdoor and wilderness environments. Successful completion of all 3 sectionsof the course, along with demonstrating ski/snowboard proficiency, can lead to certification as a member of the National Ski Patrol. The course is based upon 1. National Ski Patrol's Outdoor Emergency Care (5th Edition), a curriculum containing textbook/web-based learning and hands-on, practical skill development 2. CPR for the Professional Rescuer 3. Approximately 18 hours of outdoor training in Ski Patrol rescue techniques Specifically, the course teaches how to recognize and provide emergency medical care for: Wounds and Burns; Environmental Emergencies (e.g., frostbite, hypothermia, heat exhaustion); Musculoskeletal Trauma (e.g., breaks, sprains, etc.); Shock, Respiratory, Poisoning, Substance abuse emergencies; Medical emergencies (e.g., heart attack, stroke, seizures, etc.) The course will teach the use of various splints, bandages, and other rescue equipment as well as methods of extrication, use of oxygen, and how to deal with unusual emergency situations such as mass casualty incidents. On-line and textbook learning will be supplemented by classroom work that includes lectures, videos, and hands-on skill development and practice. There will be a written and practical final exam. The outdoor portion of the course includes rescue toboggan handling, organization and prioritization of rescue tasks, and practical administration of emergency care in the outdoor environment. Each week there will be ~15 hours of classroom work plus ~8 hours of practical outdoor work at Jiminy Peak ski area. Homework (online and textbook based) will be required. Attendance at all classes is mandatory. The course is limited to 16 students, chosen based on ski/snowboard interest and ability as well as prior first aid experience. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Thomas Feist ('85) is a 35-year ski patroller, certified OEC Instructor and Instructor Trainer. He has taught chemistry at Williams College and served as acting director of the Williams Outing Club in 1990-91.

Liberal Arts for Epic Challenges is an introduction to the techniques of design thinking to help liberal arts students gain the necessary skills and confidence to tackle complex social andeconomic problems: attention to the human dimensions of problems and solutions, creative confidence, risk taking, learning from failure, effective collaboration, and story-telling. Design thinking has become an increasingly prevalent approach in encouraging innovative solutions among start-ups, corporations repositioning themselves, government agencies seeking to improve their citizen services, and NGOs addressing major social problems like rural health care. This winter study course will expose students to the tools of design thinking and then will take on several challenges selected by the students. Students will undertake the research phase in Williamstown, then go to the IBM Design Studio in Austin, Texas (or a similar consulting firm design lab) for the ideation phase in collaboration with designers at IBM and Watson, using the same facilities that IBM design thinkers use. Solving truly difficult problems facing society in the 21st century requires a purposeful approach that draws on a full range of the experiences and perspectives of those who have studied the liberal arts. Only with the advantage of those with an understanding of the social sciences, physical sciences, arts, and humanities provide a sensitivity to both the dimensions of difficult problems and how to address them for human-centered solutions. There will be two 3 hours workshops in the afternoons when in Williamstown, All day in the Design Studio in Austin for 3 days. Light reading, but necessary team meetings between classes.

This course will provide an opportunity for immersion in the life of a preschool community in the Bronx. Future of America Learning Center (FALC) is a nationally-accredited program that isrecognized for its quality and standard of excellence in the field of Early Childhood Education. Students from varied educational institutions, teachers and instructional coaches are recommended by the Department of Education to visit FALC's classrooms to observe, experience and learn about the Plant-a-Dream curriculum. Winter Study students will actively participate in the daily classroom activities with the children in order to develop a sense of best practices in Early Childhood Education. Students will live with families whose children are in the program, in the model of Gaudino's experiential learning, to access a deeper sense of context and a better understanding of the issues facing children and families from this community. Opportunities for dialogue between families, staff, and students, will also be central to the learning experience. Furthermore, our mentors will guide students in robust self-reflection, as well as inquiry into the environment in which they are immersed, and the personal meaning derived from these experiences. More information about FALC and the course mentors can be found at https://goo.gl/PEJsoq.

This course is designed to give students insight into how technology start-ups work and well as a chance to practice their problem-solving skills and gain deeper insight into the customerdiscovery process. The course will start in Williamstown with a review of idea development tools used in today's start-up environment, particularly those pioneered by Stanford d.School such as the Lean Start-up method, Business Model Canvas and Design Thinking. Reading will include The Lean Start-up by Eric Ries, Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Edward deBono's Thinking Course as well as articles and podcasts. The class will be split into three teams of four students and paired with a Bay Area start-up looking to enter a new market, a new customer segment or are considering certain product modifications. The student teams will work on identifying customer needs, qualifying customer feedback and making recommendations to management. The class will tap into the strong Bay Area alumni network which will allow for visits to several different start-ups and fast-growing tech companies and compare how they approach their markets. The final project will be a ten-minute presentation to management. Student should submit a short statement of why they would like to participate and what they expect to learn. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Williams.

This 2019 Winter Study course examines social justice advocacy and activism in New York City's nonprofit organizations, churches, and private and public universities. The focus is on antiviolence and humanrights initiatives based in New York City's institutions that shape the perspectives not only of the city but influence debates about democratic values and political perspectives throughout the nation and the world. Students would work with non-profit and advocacy organizations such as the Social Justice Committee of Trinity Luther Church (TLC) Immigrants Rights Coalition; and ConnectNYC , a Harlem-based non-profit that works city-wide to end domestic, social, and religious violence. For three weeks in the city students would attend forums on social justice, anti-racism/feminist/lgbtq rights at Barnard; Columbia University; City College, and CUNY Graduate Center. The three weeks in NYC focus on three overlapping themes central to social justice advocacy: domestic/family safety; community values in policing and citizen's and prisoners' rights; immigration and human rights.

Students in this course learn about the front-line challenges of urban public education by working in one of New York City's public schools. Participants will be expected to pursue afull day's program of observing, teaching, tutoring and mentoring in their choice of more than 20 different school situations from elementary through high school. Each of the participating schools will have a resident supervisor who will meet with the January interns to arrange individual schedules and provide mentoring during the month. There will be weekly seminar meetings of all the interns who are expected to participate in group discussions, keep a journal and write a 5 page paper reflecting upon their experience. The course will conduct orientation meetings with students prior to January, matching each student's interest with appropriate teaching subject areas and a host school. Dormitory-style housing will be provided along with some assistance with transportation and food costs-estimated at $400 for the term. Further assistance is available for financial aid students. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Tracy Finnegan is a master's level teacher with training and teaching experience in a variety of approaches and settings.

This course will explore how video content is distributed in the United States and examine how a business deal to do so may actually take shape. Topics may include thehistory of television, various business models used to distribute video content to consumers, governmental policy and regulatory impacts on the television business, contract law and its application to video content distribution, and negotiation theory and practice. Students will explore the various ways video content is distributed, how content owners and distributors make money, the relationship between content ownership and distribution, and how the industry is changing. The course will provide students with a basic introduction to contract law and explore a video content distribution agreement in detail. Students will be expected to read articles from the trade press on a daily basis, lead and participate in class discussions, debates and negotiation case studies, analyze legal opinions, read and dissect a video distribution agreement, and, yes, watch "television." The class will culminate in students working in teams to negotiate and draft a video distribution agreement. Class is expected to meet for 6-8 hours per week. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Robert Goldstein has practiced law for over twenty years, the most recent fifteen of which have been in the television industry. He has been the General Counsel for a privately-held telecommunications venture, worked in-house at a Fortune 500 media company, and represented a wide range of communications companies in various stages of development.

Learning to form pottery shapes with your hands on the potter's wheel is challenging but accessible to any student who invests time and effort. This is a very old-fashioned skill--archaeologiststell us potter's wheel skills were widespread in world culture by 3000 BCE. YouTube videos will not help you to learn the subtle hand positions and pressures needed to succeed in shaping symmetrical pleasing forms. A teacher/coach will help you understand and learn these skills, but it is up to you to apply yourself with repeated practice, patience and persistence. Each class will begin with an explanatory demonstration followed by student practice on the potter's wheel. Woven into pottery making demonstrations will be presentations, in response to student interest, on various topics relating to the science and history of pottery making. Every student will have exclusive use of a potter's wheel for each class. Pottery making classes will be held in the mornings, 9 AM to 12:00 PM, at Oak Bluffs Cottage Pottery in Pownal, Vermont. We will use both stoneware and porcelain clay bodies, and will work on mugs, bowls, pitchers, plates, jars, lids, vases, and bottles, and will finish these shapes by trimming and adding handles, lugs, lids, spouts, and knobs. We will also work on hand-building projects. Early in the Winter Study Session there will be a 1.5-hour slide presentation held one afternoon at a location on campus. After the tenth pottery making class meeting, all completed work will be kiln-fired to biscuit, approximately 1750F. The eleventh meeting will be devoted to glazing your biscuited pieces. Glazing techniques will include pouring, dipping, layering, brushing, and stamping, and using wax resist and other masking techniques to develop pattern and design. The completed work will then be glaze-fired to cone 5, approximately 2150F. The last meeting, held at Oak Bluffs Cottage Pottery early in the new semester, will be devoted to a "final project positive-orientation critique" in the studio of your finished work. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Ray Bub is a ceramic artist and teacher at Oak Bluffs Cottage Pottery in Pownal, Vermont, 10 minutes north of the Williams College campus. All class meetings except the slide show take place at Oak Bluffs Cottage Pottery. Learn more about Ray Bub at www.raybub.com

"Composing a Life:" Finding Success and Balance in Life After Williams Description: To be at Williams you have experience as a successful student, but how do you learn to be successfulin life? How will you define success in both your personal life and in your career? How will you achieve balance between the two? In short, what will constitute the "good life" for you? We borrow the concept of "composing a life" from Mary Catherine Bateson, as an apt metaphor for the ongoing process of defining success and balance in life. This course is designed: (1) To offer students an opportunity for self-reflection, as well as to examine and define their beliefs, values, and assumptions about their future personal and professional lives; (2) To encourage students to gain a better understanding of how culture, ideology, and opportunity affect their life choices; (3) To provide an opportunity for students to consider different models of success and balance through "living cases" (in the form of guests from various professions and lifestyles); and (4) To aid students in contemplating their own life/career options through individual advising and introducing various career and life planning resources. Using selected readings, cases, and guest speakers, we will explore both the public context of the workplace as well as the private context of individuals and their personal relationships in determining life choices. Weekly assignments include cases and readings from a variety of related fields, and some self-reflection exercises. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Geraldine Shen '01 is a former management consultant, development officer, curriculum coordinator, and admissions officer who currently leads a community non-profit organization in Williamstown. Adjunct Co-Instructor Bio: Joe Bergeron '01 is a technology consultant, entrepreneur, and software developer.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

To be taken by candidates for honors in Statistics other than by thesis route.

Statistics senior honors thesis.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

Theatre senior production.

Theatre senior thesis.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.

This class will take a group of 6 students to Senegal to learn about successes and challenges in grassroots organizing, with a focus on the interrelated areas of public health--especiallyHIV and AIDS--women's rights, and economic empowerment, including through cooperatives. We will build on established relationships in Senegal, where the instructor has taken several groups of students since 2006. That country has many lessons to teach, as a majority Muslim culture with a female Prime Minister where women have created and continue to build cooperatively owned enterprises, a West African country that has consistently kept the rate of HIV prevalence under 1%, and a diverse culture with a democratic tradition of tolerance, even celebration of ethnic difference. Our hosts, ACI's Baobab Center, have a strong record of working with visiting scholars and students to teach them local languages and orient them to Senegalese culture, as well as a deep and well-respected history of capacity-building work with local groups working on HIV, public health, women's rights, and LGBTQ issues. We will spend our first week in Dakar, the capital, with students doing homestays with Senegalese families. We will attend Wolof classes and lectures on local issues as well as visiting NGOs. In our second week we will move inland to the town of Kaolack, where we will be hosted by the Association pour la Promotion de la Femme Sénégalaise, a 30-year-old group with an extensive record of empowerment of village women through strategies ranging from small-scale credit to popular education and theater. Requirements: Before we leave campus, each student will choose a particular focus for the trip, and do preliminary research to inform their visit--including comparative material about the US. Upon our return to campus we will meet to discuss our findings, and students will write 10-page papers drawing upon existing research as well as our conversations and experiences in Senegal.

See description of Degree with Honors in Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Open to upperclass students. Students interested in doing an independent project (99) during Winter Study must make prior arrangements with a faculty sponsor. The student and professor then complete theindependent study proposal form available online. The deadline is typically in late September. Proposals are reviewed by the pertinent department and the Winter Study Committee. Students will be notified if their proposal is approved prior to the Winter Study registration period.