Subject considers how the visual and material world of "nature" has been reshaped by industrial practices, beliefs, structures, and activities. Readings in historical geography, aesthetics, American history, environmental and ecological history, architecture, city planning, and landscape studies. Several field trips planned to visit local industrial landscapes. Assignments involve weekly short, written responses to the readings, and discussion-leading. Final project is a photo-essay on the student's choice of industrial site (photographic experience not necessary).

Our linked subjects are (1) the historical process by which the meaning of technology has been constructed, and (2) the concurrent transformation of the environment. To explain the emergence of technology as a pivotal word (and concept) in contemporary public discourse, we will examine responses--chiefly political and literary--to the development of the mechanic arts, and to the linked social, cultural, and ecological transformation of 19th- and 20th-century American society, culture, and landscape.

Learn the basics of process design for biobased products. From feedstock to biomaterials, chemicals and biofuels.

As fossil-based fuels and raw materials contribute to climate change, the use of renewable materials and energy as an alternative is in full swing. This transition is not a luxury, it is has become a necessity. We can use the unique properties of microorganisms to convert organic waste streams into biomaterials, chemicals and biofuels.

This course provides the insights and tools for biotechnological processes design in a sustainable way. Five experienced course leaders will teach you the basics of industrial biotechnology and how to apply these to the design of fermentation processes for the production of fuels, chemicals and foodstuffs. Throughout the course, you will be challenged to design your own biotechnological sprocess and evaluate its performance and sustainability. The undergraduate course includes guest lectures from industry as well as from the University of Campinas in Brazil, with over 40 years of experience in bio-ethanol production. The course was a MOOC in a joint initiative of TU Delft, the international BE-Basic consortium and University of Campinas.

A survey of America's transition from a rural, agrarian, and artisan society to one of the world's leading industrial powers. Treats the emergence of industrial capitalism: the rise of the factory system; new forms of power, transport, and communication; the advent of the large industrial corporation; the social relations of production; and the hallmarks of science-based industry. Views technology as part of the larger culture and reveals innovation as a process consisting of a range of possibilities that are chosen or rejected according to the social criteria of the time.

Today many people assume that technological change is the major factor in historical change and that it tends to lead to historical progress. This class turns these assumptions into a question "what is the role of technology in history?" by focusing on four key historical transitions: the human revolution (the emergence of humans as a history-making species), the Neolithic Revolution (the emergence of agriculture-based civilizations); the great leap in productivity (also known as the industrial revolution), and the great acceleration that has come with the rise of human empire on the planet. These topics are studied through a mix of textbook reading (David Christian's Maps of Time"), supplementary readings (ranging from Auel, "The Clan of the Cave Bear" to Hersey, "Hiroshima"), illustrated lectures, class discussions, guest lectures/discussions, short "problem paper" assignments, and a final project defined by the student. Because MIT is celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2011, this version of the class will also focus on connections between MIT as an institution and technology in the history of the last 150 years. "

This course provides an introduction to the transportation industry's major technical challenges and considerations. For upper level undergraduates interested in learning about the transportation field in a broad but quantitative manner. Topics include road vehicle engineering, internal combustion engines, batteries and motors, electric and hybrid powertrains, urban and high speed rail transportation, water vessels, aircraft types and aerodynamics, radar, navigation, GPS, GIS. Students will complete a project on a subject of their choosing.

Through four lessons and three hands-on activities, students learn the concepts of refraction and interference in order to solve an engineering challenge: "In 2013, actress Angelina Jolie underwent a double mastectomy, not because she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, but merely to lower her cancer risk. But what if she never inherited the gene(s) that are linked to breast cancer and endured surgery unnecessarily? Can we create a new method of assessing people's genetic risks of breast cancer that is both efficient and cost-effective?" While pursuing a solution to this challenge, students learn about some high-tech materials and delve into the properties of light, including the equations of refraction (index of refraction, Snell's law). Students ultimately propose a method to detect cancer-causing genes by applying the refraction of light in a porous film in the form of an optical biosensor. Investigating this challenge question through this unit is designed for an honors or AP level physics class, although it could be modified for conceptual physics.

The goals of this instructional course are to get you started in this wonderful sport and to give you a working knowledge of tennis. It should help you to understand the basics of a sport and how to perform these basics. Most of the course will focus on the basic stroke techniques. Variation to those techniques will be presented, as well as drills and games, so that you can take it to the court. Singles and doubles tactics will be covered as well.

This graduate seminar introduces an emerging research program within International Relations on territorial conflict. While scholars have recognized that territory has been one of the most frequent issues over which states go to war, territorial conflicts have only recently become the subject of systematic study. This course will examine why territorial conflicts arise in the first place, why some of these conflicts escalate to high levels of violence and why other territorial disputes reach settlement, thereby reducing the likelihood of war. Readings in the course draw upon political geography and history as well as qualitative and quantitative approaches to political science.

In diesem Kurs erhalten Sie einen ?berblick ?ber einige wichtige literarische Texte, Tendenzen und Themen aus der deutschsprachigen Literatur- und Kulturszene. Wir werden literarische Texte, Gedichte, Theaterst?cke und Essays untersuchen, sowie andere ?sthetische Formen besprechen, wie Film und Architektur. Da alle Texte gleichzeitig in ihrem spezifischen kulturellen Kontext gelesen werden, tragen sie zu einem Verst?ndnis von verschiedenen historischen Aspekten bei. Unter anderen werden folgende Themen und Fragestellungen besprochen: Technologie und deren Einfluss auf die Gesellschaft, Fragen der Ethik bei wissenschaftlicher Arbeit, Konstruktion von nationaler Geschichte und kollektivem Ged?chtnis.

Opportunity for the study of theater arts topics not covered by regular subject listings, including experimental subjects offered by permanent and visiting faculty. Students seeking an individual program of study with a faculty member must also obtain the approval of the Director of Theater Arts. Consult Theater Arts Office for departmental form.

Opportunity for the study of theater arts topics not covered by regular subject listings, including experimental subjects offered by permanent and visiting faculty. Students seeking an individual program of study with a faculty member must also obtain the approval of the Director of Theater Arts. Consult Theater Arts Office for departmental form.

A study of contemporary North American theater movements and selected individual works that are organized around issues of ethnic and socio-cultural identity. Class lectures and discussions analyze samples of African-American, Chicano, Asian-American, Puerto Rican and Native American theater taking into consideration their historical and political context. Performance exercises help students identify the theatrical context and theatrical forms and techniques used by these theaters.

This course analyzes cooperative processes that shape the natural environment, now and in the geologic past. It emphasizes the development of theoretical models that relate the physical and biological worlds, the comparison of theory to observational data, and associated mathematical methods.

We will doggedly ask two questions in this class: "What is history?" and "How do you do it in 2010?" In pursuit of the answers, we will survey a variety of approaches to the past used by historians writing in the last several decades. We will examine how these historians conceive of their object of study, how they use primary sources as a basis for their accounts, how they structure the narrative and analytical discussion of their topic, and the advantages and limitations of their approaches.

This seminar is open to graduate students, and is intended to offer a synoptic view of selected methodologies and thinkers in art history (with some implications for architecture). It is a writing-intensive class based on the premise that writing and editing are forms of critical thinking. The syllabus outlines the structure of the course and the readings and Assignments and Labs for each week. The discipline of art history periodically surges into crisis." The demise of formalism as a guiding tenet, or connoisseurial appreciation as a general guide, plunged the field into confusion during the 1970s when the battle raged over "social histories of art" or "revisionism;" in the late 1990s the debate was staged between "visual studies" versus "normative art history." The course takes this confusion as itself worthy of study, and seeks to make available some of the new methodologies that have emerged over the past two decades. The ultimate goal is to bring students closer to discovering their own individual methods and voices as writers of art historical prose. In broader terms, we will attempt to understand the historiography of visual art and images more broadly. Our efforts will be predicated on the conviction that art history can serve as a generative discipline for all humanistic disciplines, and even those that style themselves as "Bildwissenschaft" (or "image-science")."

This course covers theories about the form that settlements should take and attempts a distinction between descriptive and normative theory by examining examples of various theories of city form over time. Case studies will highlight the origins of the modern city and theories about its emerging form, including the transformation of the nineteenth-century city and its organization. Through examples and historical context, current issues of city form in relation to city-making, social structure, and physical design will also be discussed and analyzed.

Computability Theory deals with one of the most fundamental questions in computer science: What is computing and what are the limits of what a computer can compute? Or, formulated differently: ‰"What kind of problems can be algorithmically solved?‰" During the course this question will be studied. Firstly, the notion of algorithm or computing will be made precise by using the mathematical model of a Turing machine. Secondly, it will be shown that basic issues in computer science, like "Given a program P does it halt for any input x?" or "Given two program P and Q, are they equivalent?" cannot be solved by any Turing machine. This shows that there exist problems that are impossible to solve with a computer, the so-called "undecidable problems".

This course is an introduction to epistemology: the theory of knowledge. We will focus on skepticism—that is, the thesis that we know nothing at all—and we will survey a range of skeptical arguments and responses to skepticism.

This course is an elementary introduction to number theory with no algebraic prerequisites. Topics covered include primes, congruences, quadratic reciprocity, diophantine equations, irrational numbers, continued fractions, and partitions.