Artificial intelligence is today's most-discussed technology, owing to the breakout success of ChatGPT and the resulting competition, investment, and policy challenges. While societal discourse around AI is prone to hyperbole and exaggeration, AI is not the first technology to be simultaneously exciting, promising, terrifying, and poorly understood. This class is designed to introduce students to how political economists reckon with challenging and uncertain new technologies by engaging with the discourse around AI. The course explores a wide range of topics concerning artificial intelligence, such as design and use considerations, employment impacts, regulation, energy policy, and climate change.

This course explores the evolution, operation, and future of American and global energy systems through the lens of political economy. Students will examine how energy is generated, stored, and utilized, analyzing the historical, economic, and policy frameworks that shape today’s energy landscape. Special focus is given to the intersection of energy with finance, real estate, and technological innovation, particularly in the transition toward clean, distributed, and renewable energy sources. Through case studies, financial modeling, and project-based learning, students will develop practical expertise in energy project development, valuation, and policy analysis. Leaders in the private, public, and academic sectors, including experts from finance, real estate, utilities, and clean energy, will provide guest lectures to offer real-world insights and applications. By the end of the course, students will be equipped to critically assess the energy transition’s impact on markets, infrastructure, and sustainability, with a strong foundation in real-world applications.

How has neoliberalism been represented in film, and what do films tell us about how our future may look as a result of neoliberal capitalism? While in the academy, we often spend a lot of time reading about the things we are studying, film is a medium through which many people gain an understanding of and form opinions about the world. In this summer course, we will watch a selection of films that attempt to shine light on the dominant political economic ideology of our time: neoliberal capitalism. The films will cover a wide variety of genres, and include films made all over the world including Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Man Who Sold His Skin, and Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You among many others. In addition to watching a wide variety of films together, students are expected to complete the course readings, actively engage in class discussions, write two brief papers, and complete a take-home final exam.

This course is designed to introduce students to modern theoretical works of central intellectual debates on 20th century international political economy. The course explores alternative explanations for inequality in economic development among nations and economic declines of of the dominate powers. It will also examine tensions between the increasing "globalization" of that economy and continued fragmentation of the international political system in nation-states.

In-depth analysis of the classical political economy literature, including such authors as Locke, Smith, Marx, Mills, and Weber to Veblen and Polanyi. Strong emphasis is placed on providing appropriate background for understanding the evolution of the literature that has emanated from the various social science disciplines which forms the basis of modern political economy.

It seems like we know many things. 2+2=4; my backpack is where I left it; my homework is due on Tuesday. We seem to rely deeply on our knowledge in our daily life. But what is knowledge? Should you believe what people tell you? How much more confident should you be about something after getting new evidence? What should you do when someone disagrees with you? The area of philosophy called “epistemology,” or the theory of knowledge, investigates answers to these questions and more. In this course, you will develop your own answers to a range of epistemological questions via a mix of reading, writing, and discussion. This course meets the philosophy and values general requirement and can count towards both the philosophy major and the evidence and inference domain emphasis in the data science major.

This course is an introduction to the philosophy of mind. You and I are conscious; we have experiences. In this respect among others we differ from such things as rocks, bicycles, planets, or waterfalls. But in some ways we are not so different from them. We have bodies composed of matter, subject to the laws of physics; the same is true even of our brains. What explains the fact that some of the things in the world have conscious experiences, while others do not? What is the nature of the mind and the self we often associate with it, and how do these connect up with our scientific picture of the universe? What is consciousness, anyway? How and to what extent do the perceptual experiences of a subject put her in touch with a mind-independent world? In the process of considering these questions and others, we’ll work on developing skills in reading and writing philosophy.

In this course we will study the philosophical views of the most important and influential thinkers in early modern philosophy (roughly, the 17th and 18th centuries). This period in western thought was nothing short of extraordinary in that it saw the overthrow of a philosophical and scientific worldview that had dominated the west for over one thousand years. Prior to the 17th century, philosophy had been a blend of church doctrine and classical philosophy, and its methodology had been quite narrowly defined. The unfortunate effect of both the church’s influence on scholarly endeavors and the strictly defined methodology was that philosophical and scientific creativity was largely stifled. By the 17th century, however, the medieval worldview was beginning to crumble due in large part to a variety of subversive scientific discoveries. Advances in physics, astronomy and chemistry undermined central assumptions of classical science, which resulted in the wholesale abandonment of medieval philosophy more generally. Thus the scientific revolution of the 17th century set off an explosion of inspiration and creativity in the world of philosophy. It forced thinkers to make a new start in answering fundamental questions about the world such as: What is the nature of mind? What are the limits of human knowledge? What is a person? What is the basic stuff in the world? These thinkers were the radicals of their day, and their views have shaped the way we practice contemporary philosophy. In fact, many of the philosophical questions we ask today could not have been formulated before these thinkers began to challenge philosophical orthodoxy. For that reason, studying the moderns is of central importance for understanding contemporary philosophy, and for understanding the nature of philosophical revolutions more generally.

This course will be oriented by three primary texts: Being and Time (1927), ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ (1935), and ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ (1954). We will follow and reflect on the development of Heidegger’s early effort to offer a ‘fundamental ontology’, through to his later interest in ‘poetic’ thinking. Our reading of Being and Time will focus on the connection between the question of the meaning of being, his analysis of the human way of being, and the phenomenological method. We will also cover the first three chapters of Division II, where Heidegger offers his analysis of death, conscience, and authenticity. As we move into his later work, we will reflect on questions about the relation between art, language, and technology. More specifically, we will attend to Heidegger’s interest in works of art and ‘poetic thinking’ as affording something of a ‘saving power’ for our destitute times. Throughout the course we will also critically analyze the problematic political implications of certain tendencies in his thought.

This course will cover central central questions and debates in the philosophy of perception, examining from various angles the idea that sensory perception is a way of being aware of and obtaining objective knowledge about the world – indeed, that it is in some sense the way of doing so. Students will read primary texts on these issues, and they will practice analyzing arguments and comparing philosophical views. They will also train their argumentative essay writing skills. Class meetings will be partly lecture-based, but there will be time for discussion and other activities as well.