ANTH H302  OIL, CULTURE, POWER  (1.0 Credit)

Zainab Saleh

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

This course will examine the political, social, and cultural history of oil. As the single most important commodity in the world, the story of control over this highly prized resource is a complex and violent one. It will discuss the ways in which oil has defined the fates empires and nation-states, the rise and fall of local political movements, violence, neoliberal governmentality, and knowledge production. Prerequisite(s): One 100-level course in anthropology, political science, sociology, or history, or instructor consent

(Offered: Spring 2026)

CHEM H310  SEMINAR IN THE SOCIAL RELEVANCE OF CHEMISTRY  (0.5 Credit)

Casey Londergan

Division: Natural Science
Domain(s): C: Physical and Natural Processes

This seminar will explore, articulate, and discuss the influence that Chemistry and society have on each other. Participants will develop awareness of the historical, political and cultural context of western science, with specific attention to how chemistry affects, and is affected by, the exclusion of people and ideas based on race, ethnicity, ability, socioeconomic status, and other identities. Participants will connect these topics of study to their current roles at Haverford and future careers. Pre-requisite(s): One semester of CHEM 225 or a declared Chemistry major Lottery Preference: Declared Majors: Seniors, then Juniors

(Offered: Fall 2025)

COML H257  ANTIGONE’S ECHOES: ACTIVISM AND THE LAW FROM ANCIENT GREECE TO TODAY  (1.0 Credit)

Matthew Farmer

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

Where should the law come from, the individual or the state? How can you protest an unjust system, and how can an ancient story help you do it? Who owns a “Classic”? These are just a few questions that Sophocles’ Antigone has raised for philosophers and playwrights from the Enlightenment to today. We'll read several versions of the Antigone myth and explore this character’s enduring relevance to theories of gender, performance, world literature, and politics. Crosslisted: COML,PEAC.

(Offered: Spring 2026)

CSTS H257  ANTIGONE’S ECHOES: ACTIVISM AND THE LAW FROM ANCIENT GREECE TO TODAY  (1.0 Credit)

Matthew Farmer

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

Where should the law come from, the individual or the state? How can you protest an unjust system, and how can an ancient story help you do it? Who owns a “Classic”? These are just a few questions that Sophocles’ Antigone has raised for philosophers and playwrights from the Enlightenment to today. We'll read several versions of the Antigone myth and explore this character’s enduring relevance to theories of gender, performance, world literature, and politics. Crosslisted: COML,PEAC.

(Offered: Spring 2026)

ECON H277  ETHICAL LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS AND THE PROFESSIONS  (1.0 Credit)

Neal Grabell

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

Through an exploration of ethical theory and case studies, we will examine topics such as: the tension between compliance with the law and the profit motive, professional responsibility and detachment, the proper treatment of clients/patients, short-term vs. long-term benefits, the relevance of social benefits claims to business practice, doing "well" by doing "good", and the dilemma of ethical relativism in the world of international business.

(Offered: Spring 2026)

ENVS H222  HEAT AND HEALTH: DESIGN ACTION LAB  (1.0 Credit)

Anna West, Joshua Moses

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression; B: Analysis of the Social World

This course will be offered in conjunction with 2025-26 thematic programming in the Kim Institute for Ethical Inquiry and Leadership on the subject of heat. The climate crisis is an existential threat that demands technical, political, financial, legal, and cultural responses. Hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and droughts capture popular attention, and heatwaves occasionally make the headlines–particularly when they turn deadly. But framing heat waves as events, as an episodic rather than chronic threat, misses the relentlessness with which heat impacts physical and mental health, learning and cognition, productivity, public safety, social cohesion, energy consumption, and infrastructure. The lived experience of heat is highly stratified: its effects are felt most acutely by the poor. The burden of heat is an injustice that, in the words of social epidemiologist Nancy Krieger, “structures chances” for surviving and thriving, for social and financial mobility, for engaged citizenship and political participation, and for collective flourishing. Making sense of heat–its uneven effects and the activities that contribute to warming–requires ethical frameworks to motivate and guide individual, institutional, and collective action. Philadelphia’s built environment, vibrant artist communities, and dynamic civil society afford Haverford students a unique opportunity to learn about the drivers and consequences of extreme heat and to engage in collaborative design for ethical action. This transdisciplinary and community-engaged course focuses on challenges of responding to extreme heat in Philadelphia. Site visits, guest speakers, readings, and community-driven research will deepen students’ understanding of the intertwined social, economic, health, and environmental challenges facing Philadelphia in a warming world. Central to the course is a collaboration between artists, community partners, students, and faculty to generate “social practice art” that motivates individual and collective action in response to the health impacts of extreme heat and the historical roots of heat-related inequities. This course will be taught in Philadelphia as part of the Tri-Co Philly Program. Prerequisites: Priority in registration will be given to students participating in the Tri-Co Philly Program (https://www.haverford.edu/philly-program), Kim Institute Student Fellows; HLTH minors and ENVS majors and minors; and Anthropology majors and minors. Remaining seats are available to other Tri-Co students, by lottery, if demand exceeds remaining spaces in the course. If you are interested in the program, you must fill out the application, which is due on Friday, April 4 by 11:59 pm. This program includes registering for two of three of the program’s courses, which include this course or Contemporary Art & Film in Philadelphia (HART B334) or Philadelphia the Global City: the Italian Legacy across Time (ITAL B240). Those not participating in the Philly program do not need to complete the application and can simply pre-register for the class

(Offered: Fall 2025)

HIST H252  HISTORY OF HAVERFORD COLLEGE: CONFLICT, CONSENSUS AND THE LIBERAL ARTS  (1.0 Credit)

James Krippner

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course provides a chance to work in the Haverford College archives, with guidance provided on how to analyze primary source evidence. Over the course of the semester we will debate and answer questions such as: How has Haverford College's status as a school of Quaker origin been significant and does that legacy remain relevant today? What is the purpose of a values-based undergraduate liberal arts education in the hyper-competitive, debt-fueled and increasingly consumerist educational marketplace found in the contemporary United States? Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or above.

(Offered: Spring 2026)

HLTH H215  SACRIFICE ZONES: EMPIRES, EPIDEMICS, AND CLIMATE CHANGES  (1.0 Credit)

Lauren Minsky

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

In this big picture course, we explore how humanity’s diverse imperial projects have interacted with specific ecologies and climate changes to shape the changing spatial distribution and concentration of human experiences with hunger, famines, droughts, floods, and diseases from pre-historical times to the present. In the process, we reflect upon and question commonsensical (and often mutually reinforcing) historical and presentist logics — of environmental determinism; historical inevitability; Eurocentrism; national becoming; development and growth; modernization and conservation; technological salvation; and of futility, doom and despair. In turn, we consider how fresh perspectives on the past can significantly (re)shape our assessments of contemporary global health and existential challenges, including what we make of the ongoing green growth vs de-growth debate and calls to cultivate “indigenous” understandings and approaches to life. Pre-requisite(s): Intro to Health Studies (HLTH H115/HLTH B115) or permission of instructor. Lottery Preference: (1) Declared Health Studies minors, (2) Environmental Studies and/or History majors/minors

(Offered: Fall 2025)

HLTH H222  HEAT AND HEALTH: DESIGN ACTION LAB  (1.0 Credit)

Anna West, Joshua Moses

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression; B: Analysis of the Social World

This course will be offered in conjunction with 2025-26 thematic programming in the Kim Institute for Ethical Inquiry and Leadership on the subject of heat. The climate crisis is an existential threat that demands technical, political, financial, legal, and cultural responses. Hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and droughts capture popular attention, and heatwaves occasionally make the headlines–particularly when they turn deadly. But framing heat waves as events, as an episodic rather than chronic threat, misses the relentlessness with which heat impacts physical and mental health, learning and cognition, productivity, public safety, social cohesion, energy consumption, and infrastructure. The lived experience of heat is highly stratified: its effects are felt most acutely by the poor. The burden of heat is an injustice that, in the words of social epidemiologist Nancy Krieger, “structures chances” for surviving and thriving, for social and financial mobility, for engaged citizenship and political participation, and for collective flourishing. Making sense of heat–its uneven effects and the activities that contribute to warming–requires ethical frameworks to motivate and guide individual, institutional, and collective action. Philadelphia’s built environment, vibrant artist communities, and dynamic civil society afford Haverford students a unique opportunity to learn about the drivers and consequences of extreme heat and to engage in collaborative design for ethical action. This transdisciplinary and community-engaged course focuses on challenges of responding to extreme heat in Philadelphia. Site visits, guest speakers, readings, and community-driven research will deepen students’ understanding of the intertwined social, economic, health, and environmental challenges facing Philadelphia in a warming world. Central to the course is a collaboration between artists, community partners, students, and faculty to generate “social practice art” that motivates individual and collective action in response to the health impacts of extreme heat and the historical roots of heat-related inequities. This course will be taught in Philadelphia as part of the Tri-Co Philly Program. Prerequisites: Priority in registration will be given to students participating in the Tri-Co Philly Program (https://www.haverford.edu/philly-program), Kim Institute Student Fellows; HLTH minors and ENVS majors and minors; and Anthropology majors and minors. Remaining seats are available to other Tri-Co students, by lottery, if demand exceeds remaining spaces in the course. If you are interested in the program, you must fill out the application, which is due on Friday, April 4 by 11:59 pm. This program includes registering for two of three of the program’s courses, which include this course or Contemporary Art & Film in Philadelphia (HART B334) or Philadelphia the Global City: the Italian Legacy across Time (ITAL B240). Those not participating in the Philly program do not need to complete the application and can simply pre-register for the class

(Offered: Fall 2025)

HLTH H315  CANCER AND CLIMATE CHANGE  (1.0 Credit)

Lauren Minsky

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

In this course, we explore malignant, “self-devouring growth”: a global pandemic condition afflicting both the human and planetary body. We start by studying scientific models of oncogenesis — including infectious, genetic, behavioral and metabolic — and the kinds of connections each makes with climate changes. We then turn to probing the social determinants of rising cancer incidence and mortality during our present era of global warming, including social inequality; biodiversity loss; changing food systems and entitlements; novel and expanding pandemics of infectious disease and industrial air, soil and water pollution. In the final section, we read cancer memoirs that reflect on the deeply human experience of making meaning of existential threats, and the possibilities that exist for hope, caregiving, transformation and healing. Throughout the course, we engage with our own greater Philadelphia/Delaware river “cancer center”, as well as consider the many “cancer villages” and “cancer alleys” with which we are interconnected around the world. Pre-requisite(s): Any previous course in Health Studies

(Offered: Fall 2025)

ICPR H146  ETHICS AND THE USE OF MATHEMATICS, WITH A FOCUS ON ANTI-RACISM  (0.5 Credit)

Tarik Aougab

This half-credit seminar will explore what it means to “do math ethically”, to emphasize the ways in which mathematics is inherently political, and to think about anti-racism in mathematical disciplines. This course is graded P/F. Crosslisted: Independent College Programs, Mathematics

(Offered: Spring 2026)

ICPR H277  ETHICAL LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS AND THE PROFESSIONS  (1.0 Credit)

Neal Grabell

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

Through an exploration of ethical theory and case studies, we will examine topics such as: the tension between compliance with the law and the profit motive, professional responsibility and detachment, the proper treatment of clients/patients, short-term vs. long-term benefits, the relevance of social benefits claims to business practice, doing "well" by doing "good", and the dilemma of ethical relativism in the world of international business.

(Offered: Spring 2026)

MATH H146  ETHICS AND THE USE OF MATHEMATICS, WITH A FOCUS ON ANTI-RACISM  (0.5 Credit)

Tarik Aougab

This half-credit seminar will explore what it means to “do math ethically”, to emphasize the ways in which mathematics is inherently political, and to think about anti-racism in mathematical disciplines. This course is graded P/F. Crosslisted: Independent College Programs, Mathematics

(Offered: Spring 2026)

PEAC H201  APPLIED ETHICS OF PEACE, JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS  (1.0 Credit)

Prea Persaud Khanna

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

This course surveys major legal and ethical theories with a view to helping students understand arguments about peace, justice and human rights and formulate their own creative approaches to ethical problems. Theories will be applied to concrete problems of justice. No prerequisites.

(Offered: Spring 2026)

PEAC H257  ANTIGONE’S ECHOES: ACTIVISM AND THE LAW FROM ANCIENT GREECE TO TODAY  (1.0 Credit)

Matthew Farmer

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

Where should the law come from, the individual or the state? How can you protest an unjust system, and how can an ancient story help you do it? Who owns a “Classic”? These are just a few questions that Sophocles’ Antigone has raised for philosophers and playwrights from the Enlightenment to today. We'll read several versions of the Antigone myth and explore this character’s enduring relevance to theories of gender, performance, world literature, and politics. Crosslisted: COML,PEAC.

(Offered: Spring 2026)

PEAC H325  LAW: SETTLER AND INDIGENOUS  (1.0 Credit)

Jill Stauffer

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

Explores legal theories underpinning legal systems in settler colonial states. Studies settler legal forms and Indigenous legal forms alongside each other, and thinks about what gives law power, how that power stays in place, and what law is supposed to be and do for those who are guided by it. Readings include classics of settler/western legal theory and various Indigenous traditions. Assignments include papers, presentations, research, storytelling, and moot courts in multiple traditions. Pre-requisite(s): PEAC 101 or 201 or consent of instructor Lottery Preference: PJHR Concentrators

(Offered: Spring 2026)

POLS H224  THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY  (1.0 Credit)

Zachary Oberfield

Division: Social Science

This course examines theories of presidential power and the interplay between presidents, Congress, the bureaucracy, and the public.

(Offered: Spring 2026)

WRPR H135  HEALTH AND HUMANITIES  (1.0 Credit)

Jess Libow

Division: First Year Writing; Humanities

Over the last few decades, “medical humanities” and “health humanities” initiatives have been established at health professional schools across the country. In these programs, students study art, literature, history, and philosophy in the hopes that these endeavors will help them become better healthcare providers. But what exactly are “the humanities”? How do they differ from and relate to “the arts” or “humanity” itself? And how does a humanistic education benefit both healthcare providers and their patients? In this writing seminar, we will explore how humanistic inquiry contributes to knowledge about health and healthcare by turning to four foundational humanities concepts: observation, narrative, history, and ethics. Throughout the semester, we will focus in particular on how we might leverage tools from the humanities to promote health equity and create more just systems of care. Open only to first-year students as assigned by the Director of College Writing.

(Offered: Fall 2025)