Built around Plato's Symposium, Shakespeare (including A Midsummer Night's Dream), Catholic writings (including Humanae Vitae), and several movies, this course explores the nature of romance and erotic love. We will examine such topics as sexuality, marriage, and procreation with an eye towards how we can be better at being in love. The course generally tries to integrate the analytic approach of philosophy with the imaginative approach of literature.

Chapter Eight of Marcia Brennan's Flowering Light: Kabbalistic Mysticism and the Art of Elliot R. Wolfson

This course will consider the claim that there is no such thing as race, with a particular emphasis on the question whether races should be thought of as natural kinds: is our concept of race a natural kind concept? Is the term 'race' a natural kind term? If so, is Appiah right to conclude that there are no races? How should one go about "analyzing" the concept of race?

The role of the family in human evolution, and as a symbol in our own social and political lives. Topics include: sex, marriage, and parenting; the labor market; class, race, and ethnicity; and the family's probable future. We begin by considering briefly the evolution of the family, its cross-cultural variability, and its history in the West. We next examine how the family is currently defined in the U.S., discussing different views about what families should look like. Class and ethnic variability and the effects of changing gender roles are discussed in this section. We next look at sexuality, traditional and non-traditional marriage, parenting, divorce, family violence, family economics, poverty, and family policy. Controversial issues dealt with include day care, welfare policy, and the "Family Values" debate.

The focus of this module will be to dispel some misconceptions about teenage motherhood and to introduce students to CHIP. Data from 1950 to 1990 will be examined by age, race/ethnicity, education, and poverty level.

Students will trace changes in family behavior from 1950 to 1990 and assess their magnitude, considering the pace and timing of these changes. Marital status, number of children and household type will be examined by both race/ethnicity and class. Additional team questions will be introduced that focus on marriage and intimate relationships; fertility and childrearing; divorce; and families and poverty. Students will present answers and supporting data to these questions via class presentations.

This course includes an introduction to the anthropological study of human sexuality, gender constructs, and the sociocultural systems that these are embedded in. Examines current critiques of Western philosophical and psychological traditions, and cross-cultural variability and universals of gender and sexuality.

This course introduces the basic techniques of demographic analysis. Students will become familiar with the sources of data available for demographic research. Population composition and change measures will be presented. Measures of mortality, fertility, marriage and migration levels and patterns will be defined. Life table, standardization and population projection techniques will also be explored.

Families and households are universal in world history. Their specific forms, however, vary widely through time and across countries and regions of the world. This course aims to provide students with a deeper understanding of diverse family structures, as well as the connections between the family life and broader socio-economic environment in which they are embedded. We will examine how conditions in the economy, labor market, households, and culture of a society can influence the well-being and functioning of individuals as well as families. We will also examine the reverse interaction—how relationships, patterns and decisions within the family may affect the behavior and performance of markets, enterprises, economic development and the overall economy.

The course will be divided into two parts. The first part will provide an overview of family structure(s) across the world, and develop insights into the economics of marriage systems and associated traditions. The second part of the course will examine economic decisions within the family such as the number of children, investments in health and education, decisions to work outside the home, etc. The role of policy in influencing such decisions, particularly in the developing world, will be highlighted.

This is an introductory course on marriage and the family, intended to present a more balanced understanding than your own personal experience might give you. A second objective is to apply what you learn in class to your own life, and better understand what you personally want in your future family and relationship experiences.

You know what the rights and duties of the spouses are and what types of marriage contracts exist. You explain your point of view on this matter.

This course introduces students to the basic concepts and methods of moral and political philosophy. Its primary focus is on the development of moral reasoning skills and the application of those skills to contemporary social and political issues. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: Discuss several major theories of justice and morality, including utilitarianism, libertarianism, social contract theory, deontology, and the ethics/politics of virtue; Demonstrate how moral and political dilemmas are handled differently by each set of theoretical principles; Develop their analytical skills through interpreting the consequences of various moral principles and revising principles to correspond with their own conceptions of justice; Discuss the relationship between morality and politics; Formulate their own positions concerning moral and political principles, especially in regards to particular issues discussed in this course; Discuss the origins of western democratic politics and constitutional government; Address a range of difficult and controversial moral and political issues, including murder, the income tax, corporate cost-benefit analysis, lying, affirmative action, and same-sex marriage. (Philosophy 103)

Studies the nature of love and sex, approached as topics both in philosophy and in literature. Readings from recent philosophy as well as classic myths of love and sex that occur in works of literature and lend themselves to philosophical analysis.

This course introduces scholarly debates about sexual identities, gender identities and expressions, and sexual orientation and its representation in film and literature. We begin with a contemporary debate about biology and gender identity, considering its relationship to the historical understanding of sex, gender, and sexual identity. Our investigation continues with the theoretical underpinnings of the emerging field of queer studies, from the nineteenth century to the present day, and considers how subsequent work in transgender studies continues to challenge traditional understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality.

Is marriage a patriarchal institution? Much feminist scholarship has characterized it that way, but now in the context of the recent Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, the meaning of marriage itself demands serious re-examination. This course will discuss history, literature, film, and legal scholarship, making use of cross-cultural, sociological, anthropological, and many other theoretical approaches to the marriage question from 1630 to the present. As it turns out, sex, marriage, and the family have never been stable institutions; to the contrary, they have continued to function as flash points for the very social and cultural questions that are central to gender studies scholarship.

Students will explore trends in marriage from 1950-2000. The purpose of this assignment is to give some familiarity with how sociologists use datasets to both describe and analyze the social world.

This module is used in an online Criminology Course. The students have read their textbook discussing social disorganization theory and in this data analysis exercise will have the opportunity to test this theory with data obtained from the Census Bureau.