Academics
Fall 2022

Fall 2022

This list is updated regularly. Check back often for the latest updates. Email lara@berkeley.edu with suggestions.

Graduate Courses

NWMEDIA 201, 3 units

Questioning New Media

E. Fraser

Questioning New Media is a hybrid studio/lecture course that explores issues and practices in contemporary new media culture. Students will research, present and make creative works that critically examine new media. The course will focus on the issues addressed in select campus lectures, local art exhibitions, and course readings. In class, students will enhance their skills in "questioning" new media: how to think critically about advanced topics, how to look at new media art work with a discerning eye, and how to transform their “questions” into an engaging creative work of art or performance.

Students will attend campus lectures, art shows and events, in addition to doing selected readings. There will be a final presentation/performance night open to the public. This course is open to graduate students from any department and upper- level undergraduates (upon instructor approval). This course fulfills one of the core course requirements for the Designated Emphasis in New Media.

NWMEDIA 205, 4 units

Locative Media

C. Wilmott

From postcards and maps to mobile phones, this course considers the history and future of locative media, as technological, situated and navigational ways of expressing and understanding space, place and mobility. Combining theory and praxis, students partake in a series of of lectures and discussion-based seminars as well as research, design and production workshops where they will learn to make a critical locative media project of their own.

NWMEDIA C262, 4 units

(laboratory also required)

Theory and Practice of Tangible User Interfaces

Staff

This course explores the theory and practice of Tangible User Interfaces, a new approach to Human Computer Interaction that focuses on the physical interaction with computational media. The topics covered in the course include theoretical framework, design examples, enabling technologies, and evaluation of Tangible User Interfaces. Students will design and develop experimental Tangible User Interfaces using physical computing prototyping tools and write a final project report.

NWMEDIA 290-001, 4 units

Cancel Culture: Performances of Public Complaint

A. De Kosnik

"Cancel culture" -- the calling-out of specific individuals for unethical/harmful behavior by numerous people online, (supposedly) followed by those individuals losing positions or privileges they formerly held -- is the subject of much debate in contemporary culture. In this seminar, we will examine pre-social media texts and events -- fiction and non-fiction -- that might be considered important to the history of cancel culture, such as Aeschylus's Oresteia, Martin Heidegger's and Paul De Man's collaborations with the Nazi regime, and Anita Hill's testimony at Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Then we will move on to more recent famous incidents of cancel culture involving serial harassers and predators (including Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K., and Bill Cosby), racists, and politicians. We will discuss when and how cancel culture has been performed, by whom, in what circumstances, how these performances have been received, whether or to what extent attempted cancellations have been effective, and what criticisms and anxieties circulate around the concept of cancel culture.

ARCH 200A, 5 units

Introduction to Architecture Studio

Choksombatchai, Sanchez Prieto, Sidell

Introductory course in architectural design and theories for graduate students. Problems emphasize the major format, spatial, material, tectonic, social, technological, and environmental determinants of building form. Studio work is supplemented by lectures, discussions, readings, and field trips.

ARCH 229, 1-4 units

Special Topics in Digital Design Theories and Methods

Staff

ARCH 270-001, 3 units

History of Modern Architecture

G. Castillo

This course examines developments in design, theory, graphic representation, construction technology, and interior programming through case studies of individual buildings. Each lecture will delve deeply into one or sometimes two buildings to examine program, spatial organization, critical building details, and the relationship of the case study building with regard to other parallel works and the architect's overall body of work.

COMPSCI 294-026, 1-4 units

Networks, Models, Processes, and Algorithms

Efros, Kanazawa

COMPSCI 294-043, 1-4 units

Vision and Language AI

T. Darrell

Grounded perception is a key feature of most visions of future AI: the ability to refer to entities in the world provides semantic cues for machines to understand and act and can allow effective communication with human partners. The interplay of vision and language has long tantalized AI researchers, and has recently begun to bear considerable fruit. As time and the interest of participants permit, this course will overview the history of vision and language models including early generative and translation based methods, cover key deep learning techniques that provided significant advances in previous years including recurrent convolutional networks, review in detail contemporary large scale transformer models for multimodal processing, assess the state-of-the-art these methods achieve on challenges including image captioning, VQA, Video-QA, Visual Dialog, Video Description, and text-to-image synthesis. We will also consider multimedia forensic challenges, and how vision and language methods can help defend against the spread of falsified media. Finally, we will discuss the ethical issues that arise with large-scale vision and language datasets and models, and will consider methods for removing unwanted dataset bias and/or making models more explainable and transparent. Permission of instructor required for all students, including auditors. Students are expected to have completed graduate computer vision and/or NLP courses and be engaged in active research on related topics. This course may be taken for variable units (2-4), may be audited, and may be retaken for credit in different semesters as the material will change from term to term.

COMPSCI 294-137, 3 units

Immersive Computing and Virtual Reality

B. Hartmann

CY PLAN C241, 4 units

Research Methods in Environmental Design

Staff

The components, structure, and meaning of the urban environment. Environmental problems, attitudes, and criteria. Environmental survey, analysis, and interview techniques. Methods of addressing environmental quality. Environmental simulation.

DESINV 201, 3 units

Debates in Design

B. Hartmann

As today’s most pressing challenges cut across disciplinary boundaries, designers need to articulate new methods for connecting conceptual knowledge with technical skills and develop new ways of integrating ideas from various perspectives and world views. Each year students in this colloquium-style course explore a topic in design. Invited lecturers present a relevant project or challenge from their professional careers at a given intersection of critical contemporary issues expressed at a particular scale of design practice. Speakers share background material or readings in advance, allowing students to arrive with thoughtful questions and discussion points. Students compose written reflections throughout and following each speaker.

DESINV 211, 5 units

Designing Emerging Technologies I

E. Paulos

This course is an intensive, project-based course that focuses on design of interactive artifacts that use emerging technologies. Students are led through a sequence of projects of varying lengths (from one week to three weeks). This serves as the first in a two part sequence of courses (with DES INV 212) intended to develop student skills in designing with technology as a material. Projects include both individual and team activities, with teams frequently changing in size and composition.

ESPM C252-001, 3 units

(also ANTHRO C254-001, HIST C250-001, STS C200-001)

Topics in Science and Technology Studies

H. Zeavin

This course provides a strong foundation for graduate work in STS, a multidisciplinary field with a signature capacity to rethink the relationship among science, technology, and political and social life. From climate change to population genomics, access to medicines and the impact of new media, the problems of our time are simultaneously scientific and social, technological and political, ethical and economic.

FILM 240-001, 4 units

J. Gaboury

GWS 236, 4 units

Diaspora, Border, and Transnational Identities

M. Moallem

This course will study debates around the notions of home, location, migrancy, mobility, and dislocation by focusing on issues of gender and sexuality. We will examine the ways in which various cultural flows have fundamentally challenged and changed the nature of global economy by expanding mobility of capital, labor, and systems of representations in a transnational context. We will also look at the impact of new technologies in production, distribution, communication, and circulation of cultural meanings and social identites by linking nationalism, immigration, diaspora, and globalization to the process of subject formation in a postcolonial context.

HIST C250, 3 units

Topics in Science & Technology Studies

H. Zeavin

This course provides a strong foundation for graduate work in STS, a multidisciplinary field with a signature capacity to rethink the relationship among science, technology, and political and social life. From climate change to population genomics, access to medicines and the impact of new media, the problems of our time are simultaneously scientific and social, technological and political, ethical and economic.

INFO 202, 2 units

Information Organization and Retrieval

M. Hearst

Organization, representation, and access to information. Categorization, indexing, and content analysis. Data structures. Design and maintenance of databases, indexes, classification schemes, and thesauri. Use of codes, formats, and standards. Analysis and evaluation of search and navigation techniques.

INFO 213-001, 4 units

User Interface Design and Development

N. Salehi

User interface design and human-computer interaction. Examination of alternative design. Tools and methods for design and development. Human computer interaction. Methods for measuring and evaluating interface quality.

INFO 217A-001, 3 units

Human Computer Interaction Research

N. Salehi

This course is a graduate-level introduction to HCI research. Students will learn to conduct original HCI research by reading and discussing research papers while collaborating on a semester-long research project. Each week the class will focus on a theme of HCI research and review foundational and cutting-edge research relevant to that theme. The class will focus on the following areas of HCI research: ubiquitous computing, social computing, critical theory, and human-AI interaction. In addition to these research topics the class will introduce common qualitative and quantitative methodologies in HCI research.

INFO 256, 3 units

Applied Natural Language Processing

D. Bamman

This course examines the state-of-the-art in applied Natural Language Processing (also known as content analysis and language engineering), with an emphasis on how well existing algorithms perform and how they can be used (or not) in applications. Topics include part-of-speech tagging, shallow parsing, text classification, information extraction, incorporation of lexicons and ontologies into text analysis, and question answering. Students will apply and extend existing software tools to text-processing problems.

INFO 271B, 3 units

Quantitative Research Methods for Information Systems and Management

Staff

Introduction to many different types of quantitative research methods, with an emphasis on linking quantitative statistical techniques to real-world research methods. Introductory and intermediate topics include: defining research problems, theory testing, casual inference, probability, and univariate statistics. Research design and methodology topics include: primary/secondary survey data analysis, experimental designs, and coding qualitative data for quantitative analysis.

INFO 272, 3 units

Qualitative Research Methods for Information Systems and Management

L. Ulaby

Theory and practice of naturalistic inquiry. Grounded theory. Ethnographic methods including interviews, focus groups, naturalistic observation. Case studies. Analysis of qualitative data. Issues of validity and generalizability in qualitative research.

INFO 290-001, 1-4 units

Product Design Studio

J. Reffell

INFO 290-002, 1-4 units

Biosensory Computing

J. Chuang

INFO 290-003, 1-4 units

Future of Cybersecurity

C. Hoofnagle

INFO 290-005, 1-4 units

Politics of Information

A. Saxenian

JOURN 216, 2-3 units

Multimedia Reporting

Staff

For journalists, the World Wide Web opens a powerful way to tell stories by combining text, video, audio, still photos, graphics, and interactivity. Students learn multimedia-reporting basics, how the web is changing journalism, and its relationship to democracy and community. Students use storyboarding techniques to construct nonlinear stories; they research, report, edit, and assemble two story projects.

JOURN 233, 3 units

Advanced Coding Interactive Stories

Staff

This course teaches students code literacy. Beyond the specific skills they learn, students will have a more well-rounded understanding of crucial technologies that in influence the news industry in innumerable ways. They become better decision makers when working with technologists, and will help to forge the future of the journalism industry. This class covers prototypical object-oriented programming, an important component in many web coding languages. Topics covered include variables, typecasting, arrays, for-loops, conditional statements, comparison operators, functions, enclosures and cross-domain data requesting. This course will also cover popular data libraries like D3 and Pandas.

MUSIC 201A, 4 units

Proseminar in Computer Music

Staff

Overview of the field of computer music and its application to music composition. Practices, procedures, and aesthetics related to the application of newer technologies to music composition will be covered in tandem with contemporary research topics in computer music. Recent computer music repertoire with its related technologies will be examined. Students in this proseminar must have advanced musical training and knowledge of the history and repertoire of electro-acoustic music.

MUSIC 207, 4 units

Advanced Projects in Computer Music

E. Campion

Designed for graduate students in music composition, but open to graduate students in related disciplines who can demonstrate thorough knowledge of the history of electro-acoustic music as well as significant experience with computer music practice and research. All projects are subject to approval of the instructor.

MUSIC 207, 4 units

Advanced Projects in Computer Music

E. Campion

Designed for graduate students in music composition, but open to graduate students in related disciplines who can demonstrate thorough knowledge of the history of electro-acoustic music as well as significant experience with computer music practice and research. All projects are subject to approval of the instructor.

MUSIC 208A, 4 units

Advanced Music Perception and Cognition

J. Wagner

Experimental studies in Music Perception and Cognition. Research projects required.

MUSIC 258A, 4 units

Sound and Music Computing with CNMAT Technologies

E. Campion

Explores the intersection of music and computers using a combination of scientific, technological, and artistic methodologies. Musical concerns within a computational frame are addressed through the acquisition of basic programming skills for the creation and control of digital sound. Will learn core concepts and techniques of computer-based music composition using the Cycling74/MaxMSP programming environment in combination with associated software tools and programming approaches created by the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. Included will be exposure to the essentials of digital audio signal processing, musical acoustics and psychoacoustics, sound analysis and synthesis. The course is hands-on & taught from the computer lab.

Undergraduate courses:

NWMEDIA 190-002, 4 units

Advanced Digital Animation

D. Garcia

This year-long course is targeted at students with backgrounds in art, film, or computer science who intend to work in the visual effects, animation, and entertainment industries. It will build upon students’ knowledge from related courses to guide them through the digital animation production process in an environment similar to industry production houses. We will survey many advanced topics and allow students to focus on a subset they find interesting while collaborating with their team to develop a 30-second animation piece. The course will be enhanced with industry guest lectures.


ART W23AC, 4 units

Data Arts

G. Niemeyer

Can we measure everything? What is the role of privacy? Can we count beauty? Is data always fair? This course explores participation as the foundation of online citizenship. Participation is based on data literacy and community awareness. Through online assignments, peer reviews and video chats, students form communities of explorers and innovators who challenge data culture through creative interventions including surveys, visualization, animation, video, interaction design, music and other forms of digital expression. Assignments are based on readings about media theory, abstraction, interactivity, design theory, archives, performance, identity, privacy, automation, aggregation, networking, diffusion, diffraction and subversion.

ART 26-001, 4 units

Moving Image: Foundations

L. Weefur

A practical and critical introduction to moving image media, focusing primarily on independent and experimental film and video art. Students learn video production and post-production and are introduced to key moments and concepts in moving image history and criticism. Course instruction includes basic camera operations, sound recording, and lighting, as well as basic editing, compression, and dissemination formats. Solo and group assignments are completed, and group critiques of class projects train students to recognize and discuss the formal, technical, critical and historical dimensions of their works. Weekly readings in philosophy, critical theory, artist statements and literature are assigned

ART 171-001, 4 units

Video Projects

A. Kazmi

This course develops more advanced technical and conceptual skills, with focused attention on the pre- and post-production practices of writing and production design as well as image and sound editing. Class meetings include technical workshops, studio work, individual and class critique, and discussion of readings and screened course materials. Course projects vary in focus depending upon instructor; areas of emphasis may include: video in performance practices; video for sculptural installation; and social activist video.

COMPSCI 10, 4 units

The Beauty and Joy of Computing

D. Garcia

An introduction to the beauty and joy of computing. The history, social implications, great principles, and future of computing. Beautiful applications that have changed the world. How computing empowers discovery and progress in other fields. Relevance of computing to the student and society will be emphasized. Students will learn the joy of programming a computer using a friendly, graphical language, and will complete a substantial team programming project related to their interests.

COMPSCI 188, 4 units

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

P. Abeel

Basic ideas and techniques underlying the design of intelligent computer systems. Topics include heuristic search, problem solving, game playing, knowledge representation, logical inference, planning, reasoning under uncertainty, expert systems, learning, perception, language understanding.

COMPSCI 195-001, 1 unit

Social Implications of Computer Technology

M. Ball & L. Yan

Topics include electronic community; the changing nature of work; technological risks; the information economy; intellectual property; privacy; artificial intelligence and the sense of self; pornography and censorship; professional ethics. Students will lead discussions on additional topics.

DESINV 22, 3 units

Prototyping & Fabrication

C. Myers

This course teaches concepts, skills and methods required to design, prototype, and fabricate physical objects. Each week relevant techniques in 2D and 3D modeling and fabrication are presented, along with basic electronics. Topics include a range of prototyping and fabrication techniques including laser-cutting, 3D modeling and 3D printing, soldering, and basic circuits. This course may be used to fulfill undergraduate technical elective requirements for some College of Engineering majors; students should refer to their Engineering Student Services advisors for more details.

DESINV 95, 1 unit

Design Innovation Lecture Series

A. Dinh

In this one semester, P/NP course, students will attend the weekly Design Field Notes speaker series, which features local design practitioners who share real-world stories about their projects, practices, and perspectives. Talks are scheduled most weeks during the semester; during any off weeks, students will engage in facilitated discussions.

DESINV 190-002, 1-4 units

Electric Mobility Engineering

S. Moura

EDUC W140A, 4 units (also EDUC 140AC)

The Art of Making Meaning: Educational Perspectives on Literacy and Learning in a Global World

G. Hull & C. Park

This course combines theory and practice in the study of literacy and development. It will introduce sociocultural educational theory and research focused especially on literacy teaching and learning, and this literature will be examined in practice through participation in after-school programs. In addition, the course will contribute to an understanding of how literacy is reflected in race, culture, and ethnicity in the United States and how these symbolic systems shift in a digital world.

ENVDES 1, 3 units

Introduction to Environmental Design

Staff

This course will teach anyone how to start to be a designer, not just of drawings and objects, but also buildings, landscapes, and urban spaces. And not just in isolation, but in the complex web of ecological and man-made systems which makes up our shifting environment. You will take from the course first-hand experience of drawing, measuring, and design which form the basis of the professions of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning and which culminate in a final design project in the course. The course is open to all undergraduate students.

FILM 20, 4 units

Film and Media Theory

M. Doane

This course is intended to introduce undergraduates to the study of a range of media, including photography, film, television, video, and print and digital media. The course will focus on questions of medium "specificity" or the key technological/material, formal and aesthetic features of different media and modes of address and representation that define them. Also considered is the relationship of individual media to time and space, how individual media construct their audiences or spectators, and the kinds of looking or viewing they enable or encourage. The course will discuss the ideological effects of various media, particularly around questions of racial and sexual difference, national identity, capitalism, and power.

FILM 135, 4 units

Experimental and Alternative Media Art

J. Skoller

This course is a survey of the history and aesthetics of experimental and alternative media forms and practices situating them in relation to the larger art historical, social and intellectual contexts from which they arise.

GEOG 80-001, 4 units

Digital Worlds: An Introduction to Geospatial Technologies

C. Wilmott

An introduction to the increasingly diverse range of geospatial technologies and tools including but not limited to geographical information systems (GIS). Via a mix of lecture and lab-based instruction, students will develop knowledge and skills in web-mapping and GIS. How these tools are used to represent fundamental geographic concepts, and the wider socioeconomic context of these technologies will also be explored.

HISTORY 100S, 4 units

Special Topics in the History of Science

H. Zeavin

This course is designed to engage students in conversations about particular perspectives on the history of a selected nation, region, people, culture, institution, or historical phenomenon as specified by the respective instructor. By taking this course, students will come to understand, and develop an appreciation for, some combination of: the origins and evolution of the people, cultures, and/or political, economic, and/or social institutions of a particular region(s) of the world. They may also explore how human encounters shaped individual and collective identities and the complex political, economic, and social orders of the region/nation/communities under study. Instructors and subject will vary.

INDENG 115-001, 3 units

Industrial and Commercial Data Systems

Staff

Design and implementation of databases, with an emphasis on industrial and commercial applications. Relational algebra, SQL, normalization. Students work in teams with local companies on a database design project. WWW design and queries.

INFO C8, 4 units

Foundations of Data science

Staff

Foundations of data science from three perspectives: inferential thinking, computational thinking, and real-world relevance. Given data arising from some real-world phenomenon, how does one analyze that data so as to understand that phenomenon? It teaches critical concepts and skills in computer programming and statistical inference, in conjunction with hands-on analysis of real-world datasets, including economic data, document collections, geographical data and social networks. It delves into social and legal issues surrounding data analysis, including issues of privacy and data ownership.

LS 25, 3 units

Thinking Through Art and Design @Berkeley

E. Wymore

This course introduces students to key vocabularies, forms, and histories from the many arts and design disciplines represented at UC Berkeley. It is conceived each year around a central theme that responds to significant works and events on the campus, providing an introduction to the many art and design resources available to students on campus. Students will compare practices from across the fields of visual art, film, dance, theater, music, architecture, graphic design, new media, and creative writing, and explore how different artists respond formally to the central themes of the course, considering how similar questions and arguments are differently addressed in visual, material, embodied, sonic, spatial, and linguistic forms.

MEDIAST 104D, 3 units

Privacy in the Digital Age

G. King

This course examines issues of privacy in contemporary society, with an emphasis on how privacy is affected by technological change. After an introduction to features of the American legal system and the theoretical underpinnings of privacy law, we will consider privacy in the context of law enforcement and national security investigations; government records and databases; commercial enterprises; and the freedoms of speech and press.

MEDIAST 111B, 4 units

Text and Data Media History

M. Berry

This course covers the modern global history of textual and digital media forms, with a focus on interactions between emerging media technologies and emerging modern power structures. We will examine how and why historical agents responded to, made use of, and tried to regulate new information technologies such as the printing press, documents and forms, newspapers, the postal service, the telegraph and teletype, filing and punch-card systems, electro-mechanical and electronic computers, networked databases, and the internet. Lectures will consider the impact of specific media technologies on the historical development of state administrations, colonial empires, ideological movements, and modern global business.

MUSIC 107, 4 units

Independent Projects in Computer Music

E. Campion

Students will develop, in consultation with the instructor, a semester length project that focuses on creating a piece of music, and/or researching and building new software tools for music.

MUSIC 158A, 4 units

Sound and Music Computing with CNMAT Technologies

E. Campion

Explores the intersection of music and computers using a combination of scientific, technological, and artistic methodologies. Musical concerns within a computational frame are addressed through the acquisition of basic programming skills for the creation and control of digital sound. Will learn core concepts and techniques of computer based music composition using the Cycling74/MaxMSP programming environment in combination with associated software tools and programming approaches created by the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. Included will be exposure to the essentials of digital audio signal processing, musical acoustics and psychoacoustics, sound analysis and synthesis. The course is hands-on and taught from the computer lab.

RHETORIC 107, 4 units

Rhetoric of Scientific Discourse

N. Zakariya

Examination of the characteristic functions of discourse in and about the natural sciences; with particular examination of the ways in which scientific language both guarantees, and at the same time, obscures the expression of social norms in scientific facts.

SOCIOL 167, 4 units

Virtual Communities/ Social Media

E. Lin

With the advent of virtual communities and online social networks, old questions about the meaning of human social behavior have taken on renewed significance. Using a variety of online social media simultaneously, and drawing upon theoretical literature in a variety of disciplines, this course delves into discourse about community across disciplines. This course will enable students to establish both theoretical and experiential foundations for making decisions and judgments regarding the relations between mediated communication and human community.

THEATER 177, 4 units

Sound Design for Performance

R. Kheshti

In this course, undergraduate students will learn to construct sound cues and soundtracks for theater performances and videos using industry standard software, and will learn fundamental principles of incorporating video and sound into stage productions. Students will be exposed to the writings and works of prominent sound theorists, designers, and engineers and multimedia performance artists. The most successful students may be invited to participate in UC Berkeley theater productions as sound designers.





FOR MORE INFORMATION or to suggest changes or additions, please contact BCNM Associate Director Lara Wolfe (lara [​at​] berkeley.edu).