Ten New Gen Ed Courses Approved; Committee To Convene on Biweekly

The General Education committee approved 10 classes last Thursday, bringing the total number of courses counting for credit in the new program up to 66. But one of those classes might not be listed as a Gen Ed class if the professor cannot find enough teaching fellows to accommodate a large class size—an issue that has become a defining feature of Gen Ed courses thus far.

Medieval History Professor Daniel L. Smail’s new course History 1060: “Europe and Its Borders, 950-1550” was granted Societies of the World credit, but the committee will decide in January whether Smail will need to cap course enrollment.

Although there is only a handful of medieval history graduate students at Harvard, Smail said that he would be willing to teach a section himself if need be. The class has one teaching fellow so far.

The committee also decided last Thursday to convene every other week rather than every month in order to streamline the course approval process.

Two of the other nine classes approved are entirely new. Department Chair of Linguistics Gennaro Chierchia, Philosophy Professor Bernhard Nickel, and Computer Science Professor Stuart M. Shieber will co-teach “Making Sense: Language, Thought, and Logic,” which will fulfill the Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning requirement.

History of Art and Architecture professor Jeffrey F. Hamburger will also teach “Openings,” which will count toward the already robust Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding category.

Three other classes—Literature and Arts B-78: “Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World,” Literature 10: “Writing Across Cultures: Literatures of the World (To 1750),” and Literature 11: “Writing Across Cultures: Literatures of the World (From 1750 to the Present)”—have been revamped to fulfill the Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding requirement.

Japanese History Professor Andrew D. Gordon’s Historical Study A-14: “Japan: Tradition and Transformation” will join Societies of the World.

History of Art and Architecture 17y: “American Encounters: Art, Contact, and Conflict, 1550-1850” and Historical Study A-34: “Medicine and Society in America” will help fill the still-sparse category, the United States in the World.

Religion 70: “Introduction to Buddhism” will count toward the well-populated Culture and Belief category.

One additional course—not included in the aforementioned count—which was already approved for Gen Ed credit, has been approved for a second area. Ali S. Asani’s Culture & Belief 12: “For the Love of God and His Prophet: Religion, Literature, and the Arts in Muslim Cultures” will now count toward the Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding requirement as well.

—Staff writer Bonnie J. Kavoussi can be reached at kavoussi@fas.harvard.edu.