Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS)

Communication is essential to our everyday lives, yet we often don’t consider the complexity involved in understanding and being understood by others. In this course we will explore how language allows us to exchange ideas and the dynamics of human...

In this course, we will explore how the family impacts psychopathology, including relapse, recovery, and resilience, for a member with a mental disorder. We will examine the relationship between the family and mental health conditions like anxiety, autism...

Humans are children for longer than any other species on the planet. We are born especially helpless and dependent on others. We start unable to walk, talk, or even grasp objects. Yet, somehow we become people who invent things like airplanes or democracy...

An introduction to social psychological research and theory regarding everyday behavior, incorporating methods from the life sciences (neuroscience, genetics, evolutionary biology). Topics include: attitudes and social influence; obedience to authority...

Psychology 1 is not just an introduction to the field of psychology but an owner's manual for the human mind — and an opportunity to explore some of the most fascinating issues in intellectual life. After laying a foundation in concepts about the brain...

Music shapes the course of human history at both a micro and macro scale; The "universal language" has the power to connect people who share no other common ground. Its power to bind people together is intuitively understood, but only through recent...

What determines how the words in a sentence are put together in a given language? This course introduces the field of syntax, and the study of order and structure among words. Students will learn to construct and evaluate syntactic analyses and...

Even though everyone speaks or signs at least one language, the complexity of language in its structure and function is often underappreciated and misunderstood. This myth-busting class guides students to the field of linguistics. Together, we will...

Education is often understood as a lever for social change, but ideas about what constitutes a good education have long been hotly contested. What is more, the seeds of today’s most urgent educational controversies—such as debates about equity...

In its nearly 400 years of existence, Harvard has been transformed from a tiny educational institution in a colonial outpost to the world’s most famous and envied university. How did this transformation take place? This course will explore this change...