Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• GRS AR 770: New World Historical Archaeology: Colonial America
  Seminar in material culture of the people who colonized North America. Architecture, artifacts, and a variety of sites -- domestic, military, commercial, sepulchral -- are studied. Uses of archival evidence as factual and ethnographic documentation for archaeological interpretation are discussed.
• GRS AR 795: Politics, Nationalism, and Archaeology
  Explores how archaeology is shaped by and manipulated for political purposes. Case studies from Asia and around the world trace the development of archaeology during colonial empire-building and post-colonial nationalism, and the importance of archaeological heritage in regional politics.
• GRS AR 815: Plunder and Preservation: Cutural Heritage in Wartime
  Topics include safeguarding of cultural sites, monuments, and objects during armed conflict; history of cultural seizures as spoils of war; destruction of cultural heritage in war; development of legal protections; contemporary approaches to preservation of heritage at risk from war.
• GRS AR 891: Contemporary Theory in Archaeology
  Explores aspects of contemporary theory in archaeology, including post-modern critiques of contemporary practice, new approaches to archaeology of ritual, personhood, identity, and the body; indigenous and public archaeology; and politics and archaeology. Cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course with the same title previously numbered GRS AR 702. To be cross-listed with AN 791.
• GRS AR 892: Archaeological Ethics and Law
  Students examine archaeology and professional ethics; archaeology as a public interest; legal organization of archaeology; international approaches to heritage management; looting, collecting, and the antiquities market; maritime law and underwater archaeology; cultural resource management in the United States. Cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course with the same title previously numbered GRS AR 780.
• GRS AR 893: World Archaeology
  This seminar takes an explicitly comparative approach to addressing questions concerning the origins of and variability in human culture viewed through a review of worldwide archaeological literature. (Program core course) To be cross-listed with AN 793.
• GRS AR 894: Scientific Applications In Archaeology
  Seminar exploring new ways of addressing archaeological questions through the application of scientific techniques, focusing on cutting-edge methodologies and the most recent literature in the field. Students pursue questions of individual interest through readings, discussions, presentations, and research papers. (Program core course) Cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course with the same title previously numbered GRS AR 707. To be cross-listed with AN 794.
• GRS AR 901: Directed Research in Classical Archaeology
  Graduate-level directed research in classical archaeology.
• GRS AR 903: Directed Research in New World Historical Archaeology
  Graduate-level directed research in New World Archaeology.
• GRS AR 905: Directed Research in Old World Prehistoric Archaeology
  Graduate-level directed research in Old World prehistoric archaeology.
• GRS AR 907: Directed Research in New World Prehistoric Archaeology
  Graduate-level directed research in New World prehistoric archaeology.
• GRS AS 699: Teaching College Astronomy I
  The goals, contents, and methods of instruction in astronomy. General teaching-learning issues. Required of all teaching fellows.
• GRS AS 701: Introduction to Astrophysics
  Introduction to astronomical and astrophysical nomenclature and concepts. Coordinate systems, celestial orbits, radiation, stars, stellar structure, stellar evolution, clusters of stars, galactic components, galactic structure, galaxy types, active galaxies, cosmology.
• GRS AS 703: Introduction to Space Physics
  Survey of physical phenomena in the sun, solar wind, magnetospheres, ionospheres, and upper atmospheres of objects in the solar system. Introduction to the physical processes governing space plasmas, solar-terrestrial interactions, and ionized and neutral media surrounding the Earth and other solar system bodies.
• GRS AS 710: Observational Techniques
  Telescopes, light detection, and analysis tools and techniques of experimental astronomy. Signal-to-noise calculations. Photometric and spectroscopic instrumentation and applications. Use of the observatory, CCD light detectors, modern software analysis tools, image processing. Proposal writing and science writing.
• GRS AS 712: Radiative Processes in Astrophysics
  Generation, propagation, and transfer of electromagnetic radiation. Spectral energy distributions, continuum radiation, spectral lines. Interaction of radiation with matter, transfer of radiation through astrophysical media. Thermal and nonthermal radiative processes.
• GRS AS 713: Astronomical Spectroscopy
  Spectroscopic processes in astrophysics. Energy levels in atoms and molecules. Atomic and molecular spectral lines. Excitation of atoms and molecules. Transfer of line radiation. Spectroscopic instruments. Derivation of physical parameters from spectroscopic observations.
• GRS AS 725: Gravitational Astrophysics
  Orbital theory: two-body and three-body problems. Gravitational encounters. N-body problem and star/galaxy clusters. Precession and nutation. Special and General relativity. Collapsed stellar objects and black holes. Gravitational lensing.
• GRS AS 726: Cosmic Gas Dynamics
  Gas dynamics as applied to astrophysical settings. Basic fluid mechanics. Ideal gases. One-dimensional gas flow. Supersonic flows and shock waves. Quasar jets and stellar winds. Fluid instabilities, turbulence, and convection.
• GRS AS 727: Plasma Physics
  Physics of space and astrophysical plasmas. Individual particle drifts in fields, electrostatic and electromagnetic waves and instabilities, magnetohydrodynamics, kinetic theory of waves, instabilities, and Landau damping.

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