Letters and Science (L&S)

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Summer 2024 8 Week Session, Summer 2023 8 Week Session
This is a course for entering students, particularly those who are undecided about the major they would like to pursue. It provides an introduction to the intellectual landscape of the College of Letters and Science, revealing the underlying assumptions, goals, and structure of a liberal arts education. The ultimate goal of the course is to transform the students into informed participants in their own educational experiences, so that they can make the most of their years at Berkeley.
Research, Discovery, and You: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019
A hybrid course for entering students, particularly those who are undecided about the major they would like to pursue. It provides an introduction to the intellectual landscape of the College of Letters and Science, revealing the underlying assumptions, goals, and structure of a liberal arts education. Topics include the rationale behind the breadth requirement, the approaches and methodologies of each of the divisions in the college, and the benefits of engaging in research as an undergraduate. The ultimate goal of the course is to transform the students into informed participants in their own educational experiences, so that they can make the most of their years at Cal.
Exploring the Liberal Arts Hybrid Course: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2021 8 Week Session, Summer 2020 8 Week Session, Summer 2019 8 Week Session
This is a course for entering students, particularly those who are excited to be here but uncertain of where to start their explorations. It provides an introduction to the intellectual landscape of the College of Letters and Science, revealing the underlying assumptions, goals and structure of a liberal arts education. Guest speakers, drawn largely from the faculty and recent graduates of L&S, will shed light on the nature and attractions of their disciplines. The ultimate goal of the course is to transform students into informed participants in their own educational experiences at Berkeley.
Exploring the Liberal Arts: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020
Is democracy in crisis and does it have a future? How do we make sense of the rise of democratically elected but authoritarian figures like Trump, Putin, Modi, Bolsanaro? Are capitalism and social media the problem or the solution to failing democracies? Can democracy ever shed its racist, sexist, propertied and colonial foundations? This class aims to help you deepen these questions, and generate new ones.
Democracy in Crisis?: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2012, Spring 2012, Fall 2011
This course is designed for freshmen and sophomores who wish to know about entrepreneurship, its importance to our society, and its role in bringing new ideas to market. Students will understand the entrepreneurial business process and how they might become involved in those processes in their future careers--in whatever direction those careers might lead. This class will explore the structure and framework of entrepreneurial endeavors--both inside and outside the business world. The course will answer questions such as: What is entrepreneurship? What is opportunity recognition and selection? How can you create and define competitive advantage? How can you think about people in the entrepreneurial context? How can you garner support (financial and other) for an entrepreneurial venture? What do you do when nothing works as planned? And, how do you focus on doing right and doing well?
Introduction to Entrepreneurship: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
This course offers students a taste of what it’s really like to start a business. In addition to learning key foundational entrepreneurial concepts such as idea generation & evaluation, customer & product development, creating a business model, fundraising, marketing, and scaling & exiting a business, students will also hear from successful entrepreneurs who share their perspectives and best practices. Students will apply core concepts by working in teams to evaluate and select a venture idea that they will then develop throughout the semester.

Introduction to Entrepreneurship: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
This is a course for new students (freshmen or transfers) who would like to engage with the On the Same Page book or theme for their year in a more in-depth way than the average student might. They will take full advantage of the On the Same Page events and programming planned for the fall of each year, and will enjoy opportunities to discuss the book or theme with faculty and fellow students.
The On the Same Page Course: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Summer 2024 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Summer 2023 Second 6 Week Session
Berkeley Changemaker impact occurs across many fronts: scientific, artistic, social, and entrepreneurial. This course helps students identify as a Berkeley Changemaker and learn the critical thinking, communication, and collaboration skills to become one. Combining disciplines across UC Berkeley, the course also helps launch the Berkeley Discovery arc. Students develop their own leadership styles and discover how they can create and lead diverse teams to act upon the world. Values in Berkeley’s DNA like Questioning the Status Quo and going Beyond Yourself support students in leading from whatever position they occupy, preparing them to leave their mark on campus, in their communities, or beyond. More at: http://changemaker.berkeley.edu.
The Berkeley Changemaker: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2009
This course features significant engagement with arts, literature or language, either through critical study of works of art or through the creation of art. Art enables us to see the familiar world with new, often questioning eyes, and makes distant times and places, characters, and issues come alive in our imagination, which is essential to almost all intellectual endeavor. The Arts and Literature breadth requirement is intended to provide students with knowledge and appreciation of the creative arts so that, for the duration of their lives, engagement with art can be, variously, a wellspring of creativity, a lodestar for critical perspectives, and a touchstone of aesthetic quality--in sum, a continuing source of learning and serious pleasure.
Arts and Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2008
This course features significant engagement with arts, literature or language, either through critical study of works of art or through the creation of art. Art enables us to see the familiar world with new, often questioning eyes, and makes distant times and places, characters, and issues come alive in our imagination, which is essential to almost all intellectual endeavor. The Arts and Literature breadth requirement is intended to provide students with knowledge and appreciation of the creative arts so that, for the duration of their lives, engagement with art can be, variously, a wellspring of creativity, a lodestar for critical perspectives, and a touchstone of aesthetic quality--in sum, a continuing source of learning and serious pleasure.
Arts and Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Fall 2016
Focusing on California writers and artists, this course will include a wide range of food-related texts and images in order to explore the relationship between representation, interpretation and cultural identity. Students will examine fiction, film, photography, food memoirs, paintings, advertising, cookbooks and television to help them think critically about issues of form, medium and audience. Assignments will help students develop “humanities” skills such as writing personal essays, doing cultural “close readings,” analyzing literary and visual representations, and organizing and writing materials and web designs that contribute to larger conversations about California, food and representation.
Edible Stories: Representing California Food Culture: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
Teaching you how to see; how to see historically; how to see like others see; how to see art’s politics of gender and race and class. Teaching you how to describe what you see with words.
An introduction to the history of art in Europe and the U.S. since the 14th century focusing primarily on painting and sculpture. Explores how art can function as a stabilizing force but also how it can contribute to social and political transformation, even revolution.
Introduction to European and American Art from the Renaissance to the Present: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Every day we make decisions that can and should be informed by science. We make decisions as individuals, as voters, and as members of our various communities. The problem is, we don’t do it so well—a fact sadly apparent in political debates. This course aims to equip students with basic tools to be better thinkers. We will explore key aspects of scientific thinking that everyone should know, especially the many ways that we humans tend to fool ourselves, and how to avoid them—including how to differentiate signal from noise, evaluate causal claims, and avoid reasoning biases. We’ll then look at the best models for using science to guide decisions, combining both evidence and values, with the ultimate goal of bettering the world.
Sense and Sensibility and Science: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2001
Today the humanities, once considered the jewels of a liberal arts education, find they must justify their very existence. In 1967, Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California, argued against taxpayers "subsidizing intellectual curiosity." By 2015, the Wisconsin governor had reduced his university's mission to "meeting the state's workforce needs." Is this self-styled "commonsensical" thinking valid? Should the humanities try to make themselves more professional or "scientific"? Rather than seeing the humanities as a series of independent disciplines focused on different specific ends, this course argues that the humanities map the many ways that human beings have sought to be human throughout human history.
The Humanities: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
The Freshman and Sophomore Seminars program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small-seminar setting. Freshman Seminars are offered in all campus departments, and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester.
Freshman Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2022
This course introduces students to key vocabularies, forms, and histories from the many arts and design disciplines represented at UC Berkeley. It is conceived each year around a central theme that responds to significant works and events on the campus, providing an introduction to the many art and design resources available to students on campus. Students will compare practices from across the fields of visual art, film, dance, theater, music, architecture, graphic design, new media, and creative writing, and explore how different artists respond formally to the central themes of the course, considering how similar questions and arguments are differently addressed in visual, material, embodied, sonic, spatial, and linguistic forms.
 

Thinking Through Art and Design @Berkeley: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2020
The history, chemical nature, botanical origins, and effects on the human brain and behavior of drugs such as stimulants, depressants, psychedelics, analgesics, antidepressants, antipsychotics, steroids, and other psychoactive substances of both natural and synthetic origin. The necessary biological, chemical, and psychological background material for understanding the content of this course will be contained within the course itself.
Drugs and the Brain: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2015, Spring 2014
This course challenges students to think about how individual and American consumer decisions affect forest ecosystems around the world. A survey course that highlights the consequences of different ways of thinking about the forest as a global ecosystem and as a source of goods like trees, water, wildlife, food, jobs, and services. The scientific tools and concepts that have guided management of the forest for the last 100 years, and the laws, rules, and informal institutions that have shaped use of the forests, are analyzed.
Americans and the Global Forest: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Relationship between human society and the natural environment; case studies of ecosystem maintenance and disruption. Issues of economic development, population, energy, resources, technology, and alternative systems.
Environmental Issues: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2014, Spring 2012
An introduction for students who do not intend to major in biology but who wish to satisfy their breadth requirement in Biological Sciences. Some major concepts of modern biology, ranging from the role of DNA and the way cells communicate, to interactions of cells and creatures with their environment, will be discussed without jargon and with attention to their relevance in contemporary life and culture.
Big Ideas in Cell Biology: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2015, Spring 2014
This is a Discovery Course for non-Biology majors designed to introduce lower-division college students to biology through the lens of the contemporary problems facing people, the planet and the species of the planet. Modern genetic contributions will be presented on such issues as genetic engineering of plants and animals, the emergence of new pathogens, the role of genetic variation among individuals, and the extent to which DNA is and isn’t destiny. Each week will close with the presentation and discussion of a defining biological challenge facing the world.
Biology for Voters: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
Bioinspired design views the process of how we learn from Nature as an innovation strategy translating principles of function, performance and aesthetics from biology to human technology. The creative design process is driven by interdisciplinary exchange among engineering, biology, art, architecture and business. Diverse teams of students will collaborate on, create, and present original bioinspired design projects. Lectures discuss biomimicry, challenges of extracting principles from Nature, scaling, robustness, and entrepreneurship through case studies highlighting robots that run, fly, and swim, materials like gecko-inspired adhesives, artificial muscles, medical prosthetic devices, and translation to start-ups.
Bioinspired Design: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2011, Spring 2011
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2013
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2017, Fall 2015
This course is about the history of the Hollywood "Dream Factory," focusing on both parts of that phrase. We will examine the historical and geographical development of the motion picture industry from the rise of the studio system to the "new" entertainment economy of the 1980's, as we think about the way films have constructed powerful and productive fantasies about the boundaries between public and private, work and play, commerce and art, fantasy and reality. Our topics will include the history of labor in the culture industry, the implications of shifts in the spatial organization of film production, and the effects of Hollywood on the larger politics of southern California.
Hollywood: The Place, the Industry, the Fantasy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2014, Fall 2009
Each lower-division course in this series deals primarily with the human events, institutions and activities of the past. Historical Studies are particularly important because, to paraphrase the philosopher George Santayana, those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. The study of history provides us with perspective on the human condition and with an appreciation of the origins and evolution of the numerous cultures and social orders that have populated the earth. Whether students study history to understand how our world evolved from the past or to focus on the distinctions between the present and previous eras, they will come away with a richer understanding of and appreciation for human experience.
Historical Studies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2022, Fall 2020
The word “Disney” refers to a man who died in 1966, a film studio that became a global media corporation, six amusement parks/resorts, an oeuvre of audio-visual texts with hundreds of characters and millions of associated products, and a theory of space and landscape design. The word also suggests a set of ideological messages about gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and nationhood. This course will focus on all things “Disney” to introduce students to the study of American history, Hollywood films as cultural representations, and the American built environment.
Learning from Disney: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2023
In this course, we will move backwards from 1910 to the 1890’s and forward to World War I to discuss modernization, a history of the economic and social processes of industrialization, urbanization, consumerism, mass immigration and bureaucratization as well as modernism, the aesthetic and artistic responses to those developments.
Modernity and Its Discontents: American History and Culture at the Turn of the 20th Century: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2013
This course will introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of American Studies, taking the "Hollywood Dream Factory" as the central theme. Focusing on both parts of that phrase, the course will proceed along a double path. We will examine the historical and geographical development of the motion picture industry from the rise of the studio system to the "new" entertainment economy of the 1980's and we will examine ways Hollywood is represented in literature and film.
Introduction to American Studies: Hollywood: the Place, the Industry, the Fantasy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
Introduction to California geography, environment, and society, past and future climates, and the potential impacts of 21st-century climate change on ecosystems and human well-being. Topics include fundamentals of climate science and the carbon cycle; relationships between human and natural systems, including water supplies, agriculture, public health, and biodiversity; and the science, law, and politics of possible solutions that can reduce the magnitude and impacts of climate change.
Climate Change and the Future of California: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2018
In this course, we will bring together scholarly inquiry with applied practice. Throughout the semester we will read from contemporary scientific literature on meditation and mindfulness practices – looking at the research from multiple angles: psychological, neurobiological, physiological, and social. In tandem, throughout the semester, we will learn and practice techniques of meditation and concentration. For those with no experience, this class is intended to be an introduction to meditation, and those with existing experience, it is presented as a context in which to deepen one’s practice in community and to explore new methods.

Mindfulness and Meditation: Traditional and Scientific Perspectives: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2018, Fall 2011
What or who decides whether something is beautiful or not? What purpose do beauty and art serve? Where do originality, genius, and inspiration come from? What do art and beauty have to do with freedom and human progress? We will examine primarily western European and North American approaches to beauty as presented in works of philosophy, literary theory, and theories of art and aesthetics, exploring key theoretical questions as they evolve among several intellectual arenas over many centuries.
What is Beauty?: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2020
We will explore the ways in which Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud--three of the most important thinkers in modern Western thought--can be read as responding to the Enlightenment and its notions of reason and progress. We will consider how each remakes a scientific understanding of truth, knowledge, and subjectivity, such that rationality, logic, and the powers of human cognition are shown to be distorted, limited, and subject to forces outside our individual control. All lectures and readings in English.
Revolutionary Thinking: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021
How do we know what the “moral” of a story is? We will focus on three biblical narratives that have frequently been interpreted as teaching moral lessons: the story of Job, the story of Abraham and the binding of Isaac, and the story of Moses giving the law. These stories have been interpreted variously in moral terms--e.g. as demonstrating the virtues of faith, obedience, mercy, and forgiveness, and as teaching us about guilt, punishment, reward, and human frailty. They have also been analyzed as existential parables, psychological dramas, and political allegories. The goal of this class is to examine how a range of different, and often provocative, interpretations of these stories’ moral lessons rest on particular ways of reading.
Moral Provocations: Job, Abraham, Moses: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2021
What is everyone talking about when they talk politics? Do you wish you had an entry point into the conversation? Or a guide to its ABC’s? Do you wonder why everyone else seems to have such strong opinions? Or why your own opinions seem too strong–or not strong enough to go anywhere? Do you like to think about words and meanings and where they come from and how they change? Each week, students will read a selection involving one particular word and also a contemporary instance of it in discussion or debate. By the end of the course, students will understand that the words used in political and legal discourse have a history and philosophy that is worthy of further humanistic (or rhetorical) study.
Big Words in Politics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2022
In this class we will consider big words in law that are key to our present, understood as plural and global. Each semester, the course will focus on twelve timely words that demand our attention and critical reflection. We will choose words that are often mobilized in political battles, approaching them not as fixed units of speech but as sites for arguments and visions for the planet we co-inhabit. The objective is not to secure a definition for the word; it is rather to open it up and to gain appreciation for its different layers, operations, and sometimes unrealized meanings. Because law and legal words are themselves contested, we will also consider the differing commitments that people display toward what counts as law for them.
Big Words in Law: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2016, Spring 2015
Physics and Music is a course designed to help students think about how to approach the world with the eyes, ears, and mind of a scientist. We will use the domain of music and sound to ask what we can learn about the nature of reality and the methods that we humans have developed to discover how the world works. The mysteries of music have long inspired scientists to invent new tools of thought, and some of the earliest scientific concepts were invented to understand music. Surprisingly the concepts that underlie our approach to music appear again and again in the world around us, and they are still at play in the very latest theories and experiments of fundamental physics.
Physics and Music: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
Introduction to natural and human-induced hazards and their impacts on current and future development. The course explores dangers posed by geologic-, atmospheric-, pandemic-, and climate change-hazards and their impacts on human health and well-being. Examples of these dangers include earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, the C0VID-19 pandemic, extreme heat, and drought. The course evaluates these hazards in the context of long-term hazards and risks to society and options for future adaptation and mitigation. The course explores the way scientists and engineers understand and evaluate hazards, vulnerability, and risk: three central and unifying concepts explored throughout the semester.
Living on the Edge: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course examines global warming as both a geophysical and social issue. We will introduce the physical science that explains the problem, from the basic concepts of climate (carbon cycle, greenhouse effect, climate feedbacks) through to the models that project future climate changes and their impacts. Social scientific perspectives will cover the history of climate science, the geographical and political-economic implications of fossil fuels for industrial production, and the regulatory and ethical challenges posed by the current and prospective impacts of global warming. We will provide students with a solid understanding & information base with which to analyze and evaluate ongoing developments and debates surrounding climate change.
Global Warming: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
A tour of the mysteries and inner workings of our solar system. What are planets made of? Why do they orbit the sun the way they do? How do planets form, and what are they made of? Why do some bizarre moons have oceans, volcanoes, and ice floes? What makes the Earth hospitable for life? Is the Earth a common type of planet or some cosmic quirk? This course will introduce basic physics, chemistry, and math to understand planets, moons, rings, comets, asteroids, atmospheres, and oceans. Understanding other worlds will help us save our own planet and help us understand our place in the universe.
The Planets: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
A description of modern astronomy with emphasis on the structure and evolution of stars, galaxies, and the Universe. Additional topics optionally discussed include quasars, pulsars, black holes, and extraterrestrial communication, etc. Individual instructor's synopses available from the department.
Introduction to General Astronomy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022
The most interesting and important topics in physics, stressing conceptual understanding rather than math, with applications to current events. Topics covered may vary and may include energy and conservation, radioactivity, nuclear physics, the Theory of Relativity, lasers, explosions, earthquakes, superconductors, and quantum physics.
Descriptive Introduction to Physics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
What can we learn about the nature of reality and the ways that we humans have invented to discover how the world works? An exploration of these questions through the physical principles encountered in the study of music. The applicable laws of mechanics, fundamentals of sound, harmonic content, principles of sound production in musical instruments, musical scales. Numerous illustrative lecture demonstrations will be given. Only the basics of high school algebra and geometry will be used.
Physics and Music: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
Introduction to earthquakes, their causes and effects. General discussion of basic principles and methods of seismology and geological tectonics, distribution of earthquakes in space and time, effects of earthquakes, and earthquake hazard and risk, with particular emphasis on the situation in California.
Earthquakes in Your Backyard: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2017
This seminar-style course will take up a range of questions related to art works, aesthetic theory, the politics of art, and the relationship between artistic form and meaningful content by way of examinations of specific works at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA). Students will see how experts from several different disciplines approach works of art: What questions do scholars bring to an art work? What is a formal analysis vs. a critical interpretation of an art work? How do curators approach art? Are we supposed to ‘learn from’ an art work or ‘experience’ it or have some particular ‘relationship’ to it? Is art a matter of conveying feeling, a message, or an encounter with beauty?
Beauty and the Beholder: Approaching Art at the Berkeley Art Museum: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Fall 2018, Spring 2018
Connector courses are intended to connect the Foundations of Data Science (COMPSCI C8/INFO C8/STAT C8) course with particular fields of study. They will apply the concepts and techniques of the foundation course to topics of interest in a particular discipline in order for students to develop critical thinking in data in subject areas that most interest them; these courses also provide a more nuanced understanding of the context in which the data comes into existence.

Data Science Connector: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2023
Student-directed course under the supervision of a faculty member. Subject matter to change from semester to semester.

Directed Group Study: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Spring 2015, Spring 2014
As a subject, food is multi-disciplinary, drawing on everything from economics and agronomy to sociology, anthropology, and the arts. Each week experts on organic agriculture, school lunch reform, food safety, animal welfare, hunger and food security, farm bill reform, farm-to-school efforts, urban agriculture, food sovereignty, local food economies, etc. will lecture on what their areas of expertise have to offer the food movement to help it define and achieve its goals.
Edible Education: The Rise and Future of the Food Movement: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2012
As the costs of our industrialized food system become impossible to ignore, a national debate over the future of food and farming has begun. Telling stories about where food comes from, how it is produced (and might be produced differently) plays a critical role in bringing attention to the issues and shifting politics. Each week a prominent figure in this debate explores what can be done to make the food system healthier more equitable, more sustainable, and the role of storytelling in the process.
Edible Education: Telling Stories About Food and Agriculture: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2013
The Brilliance of Berkeley offers Berkeley students an opportunity to appreciate the range of rich academic experiences that make studying at Berkeley worthwhile. Students will hear guest lectures from luminary Berkeley faculty from diverse colleges and schools.
Brilliance of Berkeley: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2008
This upper division course features significant engagement with arts, literature or language, either through critical study of works of art or through the creation of art. Art enables us to see the familiar world with new, often questioning eyes, and makes distant times and places, characters, and issues come alive in our imagination, which is essential to almost all intellectual endeavor. The Arts and Literature breadth requirement is intended to provide students with knowledge and appreciation of the creative arts so that, for the duration of their lives, engagement with art can be, variously, a wellspring of creativity, a lodestar for critical perspectives, and a touchstone of aesthetic quality--in sum, a continuing source of learning and serious pleasure.
Arts and Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2021, Fall 2017, Fall 2015
The ways that people understand the Bible are deeply linked with their ways of understanding and living in the world. We will explore the changes in biblical interpretation over the last two thousand years as a key to the shifting horizons of Western culture, politics, and religion. Topics will range widely, from the birth of the Bible to ancient heresies to modern philosophy, science, and literature. This will be a genealogy of western thought as it wrestles with its canonical text.
The Bible in Western Culture: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2021
What is the purpose of education? Should the university prepare students for the job market or emphasize the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake? Is knowledge a value in itself? This course explores these questions, among others, while concentrating on the German idea of Bildung. It introduces students to the classical idea of education and self-formation by reading a wide range of texts from German philosophy, intellectual history, and literature. Furthermore, the course traces the history of this idea by exploring how Bildung informs contemporary literary works and film. Emphasis will be on issues of class, race, and gender.
Ideas of Education: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2015, Spring 2013
This course explores the concepts of origins in science and religion and their cultural contexts and entanglements, from antiquity to the present. Guiding questions include these: What are origins, and why do we want to know about them? How does this desire manifest itself in different ways of constructing and analyzing knowledge? What sorts of intellectual processes, standards, and tests can be applied to different concepts of origins? What happens when different notions of origins clash?
Origins in Science and Religion: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2013, Spring 2003, Spring 2001
Augustine said, famously, that he always thought he understood what time was until he started thinking about it. That was when he realized he had no idea. This course will address various aspects of the nature of time, including the way we experience it, the way it organizes our everday world, and the way it stands if it does at the foundation of the physical universe. The course will be devoted both to understanding, and to understanding the relations among, these three aspects of temporality.
Time: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2014, Spring 2002
Twenty-five years ago the Dalai Lama suggested that a dialogue between Buddhist practitioners and Western scientists interested in the nature of consciousness and its relationship to the world might lead to new ideas and be of benefit to both communities. While science and religion are not generally considered to be natural collaborators, the dialogue that ensued quickly gained momentum and catalyzed new strands of research, most notably in the area of the neuroscience of meditation and emotion. We will continue this dialogue, first by laying the necessary groundwork in our respective fields, and then by exploring areas of convergence and divergence around certain themes.
Consciousness: Buddhist and Neuroscientific Perspectives: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2017, Spring 2016, Spring 2015
This Big Ideas course will challenge students to develop an interdisciplinary understanding of the concept and manifestations of time, through the lenses of physics, cosmology, geology, psychology and human perception, and big history. Topics will include the following: What is time? How do we organize time? Time in the cosmos. Time in Earth history. Time in life history. Time in human history.
Time: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2018
What is a crowd? Is it a swarm of bodies on the street, a dancing flash mob, or a set of data points culled from social media? This class investigates how digital cloud technologies cluster us together into formations that could be understood as both pleasurable and dangerous. We will look at how visual artists and social theorists have addressed issues such as self-tracking, fears around immigration, and crowdsourcing. We will also investigate how surveillance, big data, and social media are used by current governments and reframed by insurgent political movements. We approach the topic through historically grounded, interdisciplinary scholarship in the visual arts, art history, ethnography, literature, and geography.

Crowds and Clouds: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
Every day we make decisions that can and should be informed by science. We make decisions as individuals, as voters, and as members of our various communities. The problem is, we don’t do it so well—a fact sadly apparent in political debates. This course aims to equip students with basic tools to be better thinkers. We will explore key aspects of scientific thinking that everyone should know, especially the many ways that we humans tend to fool ourselves, and how to avoid them—including how to differentiate signal from noise, evaluate causal claims, and avoid reasoning biases. We’ll then look at the best models for using science to guide decisions, combining both evidence and values, with the ultimate goal of bettering the world.
Sense and Sensibility and Science: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2021, Spring 2020, Spring 2019
This course explores the intersections between aesthetic practice and social change. Students will investigate—in both theory and practice—the capacity of art making to cultivate transformation of themselves, their relationships, their practices, their institutions, and the larger economic and socio-political structures in which they function, locally and globally. Focusing on historical and contemporary artists and political issues, we ask: 1) How is art impacted by social change? 2) How has art been used toward social change? and 3) How can we, as course participants, use art to bring about social change?
Art and Activism: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2008
Each upper-division course in this series deals primarily with the human events, institutions and activities of the past. Historical Studies are particularly important because, to paraphrase the philosopher George Santayana, those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. The study of history provides us with perspective on the human condition and with an appreciation of the origins and evolution of the numerous cultures and social orders that have populated the earth. Whether students study history to understand how our world evolved from the past or to focus on the distinctions between the present and previous eras, they will come away with a richer understanding of and appreciation for human experience.
Historical Studies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2010
Each upper-division course in this series deals primarily with the human events, institutions and activities of the past. Historical Studies are particularly important because, to paraphrase the philosopher George Santayana, those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. The study of history provides us with perspective on the human condition and with an appreciation of the origins and evolution of the numerous cultures and social orders that have populated the earth. Whether students study history to understand how our world evolved from the past or to focus on the distinctions between the present and previous eras, they will come away with a richer understanding of and appreciation for human experience.
Historical Studies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2013, Spring 2011
This course explores how archaeologists and bioarchaeologists study human families' and communities' conceptualizations and experiences of health and health care cross-culturally and through time. Students will be exposed to case studies drawing upon skeletal and material cultural evidence.
The Archaeology of Health and Disease: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
This course examines the historical development of human rights to the present day, focusing especially (but not exclusively) on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. More than a history of origins, however, this course will contemplate the relationships between human rights and other crucial themes in the history of the modern era, including revolution, slavery, capitalism, colonialism, racism, and genocide. As a history of international and global themes and an examination of specific practices and organizations, this course will ask students to make comparisons across space and time and to reflect upon the evolution of human rights in international thought and action—from imperial beginnings to the crises of our time.
The History and Practice of Human Rights: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2011, Spring 2009, Spring 2008
Each upper-division course in this series involves the study of the contemporary politics, culture, arts or socio-economic structure of at least one country other than the United States. International Studies courses sensitize students to the immense diversity of cultures and social orders in the world today. As connections and communication between nations become more frequent, it is important that students of the College of Letters & Science have exposure to the essential difference and similarities among various peoples of the earth. The International Studies breadth requirement is designed to foster a spirit of open-mindedness that characterizes a well-educated citizen of the world, and to equip our graduates to thrive in an age of increasing globalization
International Studies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2010
Each upper-division course in this series involves the study of the contemporary politics, culture, arts or socio-economic structure of at least one country other than the United States. International Studies courses sensitize students to the immense diversity of cultures and social orders in the world today. As connections and communication between nations become more frequent, it is important that students of the College of Letters & Science have exposure to the essential difference and similarities among various peoples of the earth. The International Studies breadth requirement is designed to foster a spirit of open-mindedness that characterizes a well-educated citizen of the world, and to equip our graduates to thrive in an age of increasing globalization
International Studies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
Each ethical decision we make (or avoid) co-creates who we are, our lives, our relationships, and the world we live in. Readings from Aristotle through the existentialists, an exploration of comparative religion, studies in intra- and inter-personal psychology, and cases from literature to business will orient and inspire and support students’ quests to find and live their deepest values. We will investigate those characteristics and habits of human nature that hinder affirmative ethical behavior (and the realization of maximum human potential generally), and explore characteristics and practices that can foster each student’s inherent imagination, creative capacity, integration, and fully satisfying participation in his or her life.
Effective Personal Ethics for the Twenty-First Century: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2013, Spring 2013, Spring 2012
According to Aristotle, every exercise of our faculties has some good for its aim. Every discipline taught in the College of Letters & Science has ethical implications, and to study a particular subject without considering these implications can be a sterile--and in extreme cases hazardous--exercise. The urge and ability to ponder such questions as the meaning of life distinguish human beings from the other animals. In an increasingly complex world, in which traditional values are often called into question, students of the College are encouraged to reflect upon their own assumptions as well as the assumptions of other times and cultures. In these upper-division Philosophy and Values courses students in the College will be encouraged to ponder the types of questions that will enhance their ability to understand their heritage, their contemporaries, and themselves.
Philosophy and Values: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2010
According to Aristotle, every exercise of our faculties has some good for its aim. Every discipline taught in the College of L&S has ethical implications, and to study a particular subject without considering these implications can be a sterile--and in extreme cases hazardous--exercise. In an increasingly complex world, in which traditional values are often called into question, students of the College are encouraged to reflect upon their own assumptions as well as the assumptions of other times and cultures. In these upper-division Philosophy and Values courses students in the College will be encouraged to ponder the questions that will enhance their ability to understand their heritage, their contemporaries, and themselves.
Philosophy and Values: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2008, Fall 2006
Mind and matter; other minds; the concept of "person."
Philosophy of Mind: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2022
This course will take an interdisciplinary approach to an understanding of happiness. The first part of the course will be devoted to the different treatments of happiness in the world's philosophical traditions, focusing up close on conceptions or the good life in classical Greek and Judeo-Christian thought, the great traditions in East Asian thought (Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism), and ideas about happiness that emerged more recently in the age of Enlightenment. With these different perspectives as a framework, the course will then turn to treatments of happiness in the behavioral sciences, evolutionary scholarship, and neuroscience. Special emphasis will be given to understanding how happiness arises in experiences of the moral emotions, including gratitude, compassion, reverence and awe, as well as aesthetic emotions like humor and beauty.
Human Happiness: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2009, Spring 2008, Spring 2007
Upper-division courses in this Social and Behavioral Sciences series provide students with the tools they need to analyze the determinants of human behavior and the dynamics of social interaction among human beings. While fulfilling this breadth requirement, students may find that they look upon the world with a fresh perspective: every encounter or gathering provides an opportunity to observe society in action. Students of the College of Letters & Science will also find that the ability to analyze the complex political, economic, social, cultural, and psychological factors at play in contemporary life will equip them to evaluate the evidence mustered in support of key public policy decision
Social and Behavioral Sciences: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2021, Spring 2020, Spring 2015
Brings together theoretical work on sex and gender from gender and women's studies, science studies, philosophy, and the social sciences, with archaeological case studies from the forefront of comtemporary scholarship. Emphasizes the experience of people with different cultures of sex/gender in the U.S., tracing specific historical traditions and examining how different conceptions of sex and gender were mediated when people of different racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds came together in the U.S. past.
Archaeology of Sex and Gender: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2006
"Sticks and stones/ Can break my bones/ But words will never hurt me"—but is that really so? People do things with words and in turn words do things to people. Language can inform or deceive, seduce or insult, make us fall in love or kill our reputation. What is it about language that gives it that power? How can sounds in a conversation, signs on a page make us laugh or cry? What does it take to speak and be not only heard but actually responded to? How do our words remember, imagine, anticipate, respond to the words of others? And how can we acquire conversational power? This course will explore the workings of language as social symbolic power in everyday life, as well as the relation between language and identity, ideology and myth.
Language and Power: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
This course is designed to provide students with a deeper understanding both of the organization of the political economy in the United States and of other advanced economies, and of why the distribution of earnings, wealth, and opportunity have been diverging in the United States and in other nations. It also is intended to provide insights into the political and public-policy debates that have arisen in light of this divergence, as well as possible means of reversing it.
Wealth and Poverty: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2014, Spring 2013
Survey of government policy toward the arts (especially direct subsidy, copyright and regulation, and indirect assistance) and its effects on artists, audiences, and institutions. Emphasizes "highbrow" arts, U.S. policy, and the social and economic roles of participants in the arts. Readings, field trips, and case discussion. One paper in two drafts required for undergraduate credit; graduate credit awarded for an additional short paper to be arranged and attendance at four advanced colloquia throughout the term. Undergraduate level of 257.
Arts and Cultural Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2022, Fall 2020
Gender, sex, and power shape and influence our cultural and social world in obvious and in hidden ways. Bay Area artists and activists focus on illuminating, shifting, redefining, and making use of the juncture of gender, sex, and power to bring about new opportunities and new futures. We will first explore the terrain of academic definitions of gender, sex, power and the connections among them, emphasizing how gender/sex/power is interlinked with racism, classism, colonialism, and dis/ablism. Topics addressed will include: labor, migration and belonging; food, shelter, and land; health and health care; sexuality and love; and politics and political action.
Gender, Sex and Power: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course seeks to create a space for dialogue and leadership-training on the Berkeley campus around differences, tensions, and disagreements arising from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is a two-semester sequence course; credit and grade to be awarded upon completion of the full sequence.
Dialogue Across Differences: Israel and Palestine: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course seeks to create a space for dialogue and leadership-training on the Berkeley campus around differences, tensions, and disagreements arising from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is a two-semester sequence course; credit and grade to be awarded upon completion of the full sequence.

Dialogue Across Differences: Israel and Palestine: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Summer 2024 Second 6 Week Session, Fall 2023, Summer 2023 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2023
Berkeley Changemaker impact occurs across many fronts: scientific, artistic, social, and entrepreneurial. This course helps students identify as a Berkeley Changemaker and learn the critical thinking, communication, and collaboration skills to become one. Combining disciplines across UC Berkeley, the course also helps launch the Berkeley Discovery arc. Students develop their own leadership styles and discover how they can create and lead diverse teams to act upon the world. Values in Berkeley’s DNA like Questioning the Status Quo and going Beyond Yourself support students in leading from whatever position they occupy, preparing them to leave their mark on campus, in their communities, or beyond. More at: http://changemaker.berkeley.edu.
The Berkeley Changemaker: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
Group study, led by faculty or students, of topics that may vary from term to term.
Directed Group Study: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
Enrollment restrictions apply; see the Introduction to Courses and Curricula section in this catalog.
Supervised Independent Study: Read More [+]