This course focuses to enrich students understanding, communication, and access of and to research in the biological sciences.
Working to remove the myths about fundamental and translation research, this course focuses on informing students beyond the public perception of biology and biological research. Striving to develop students’ scientific communication, personal identity in science, and the intersection between research and community, we will engage students through a collaboration with the Philadelphia community in addition to lecture and discussion based learning.
Spring 2026
African Contemporary Music: North, South, East, and West. Come to know contemporary Africa through the sounds of its music: from South African kwela, jazz, marabi, and kwaito to Zimbabwean chimurenga; Central African soukous and pygmy pop; West African Fuji, and North African rai and hophop.
Spring 2026
The phrase “failure to communicate” became iconic in American English from the 1967 film “Cool Hand Luke,” in which Paul Newman played a convict who refuses to listen or follow orders. The film raised questions about the multiple ways we understand “failure to communicate” and its consequences. Is it sometimes a decision to resist a presumption, a premise, an interpretation, an argument, a directive from authority? Is it at other times simply a mechanical failure? This course examines “failure to communicate” in multiple cultural areas, among them literature, romance, politics, show business, law, science, war, psychology, philosophy, business, religion, humor and education.