This course, along with 21G.107 / 157 Chinese I (Streamlined) offered in the previous fall, form the elementary level of the streamlined sequence, which is intended for students who, when they began the sequence at beginning level, had basic conversational skills (gained, typically, from growing up in a Chinese speaking environment), but lacked a corresponding level of literacy. The focus of the course is on standard usage, on reading in both traditional and simplified characters, and on writing. The course is conducted entirely in Chinese.
Streamlined I and II—each section is limited to 16 students for pedagogical purposes. Pre-registered students have priority. Continuing students get first priority, followed, in order, by students in 21G.076, declared concentrators and minors, sophomores, freshmen, juniors, seniors, and graduate students. Pre-registered students who did not show up for the first two days of class without warning will be eliminated. Students beginning their studies of Chinese language at MIT above the elementary level must contact the Chinese instructors for a placement test. No auditors allowed.

This subject is the first semester of four that forms an introduction to modern standard Chinese, commonly called Mandarin, the language with the largest number of native speakers in the world. It is the official language of Mainland China and Taiwan, and one of the official languages of Singapore. The course presupposes no prior background in the language. Course objectives are to master Mandarin pronunciation, including the recognition and writing of Pinyin romanization, basic reading and writing skills (around 150 characters in the traditional character set or the simplified set), and to develop the ability to participate in simple, practical conversations on everyday topics. The relationship between Chinese language and culture and the sociolinguistically appropriate use of language will be stressed throughout. Typical class format will include performance of memorized basic conversations, drills, questions and discussion, and various types of communicative exercises.

This course, along with 21G.108 / 158 offered in the spring, form the elementary level of the streamlined sequence, which is for students who have some basic conversational skills gained, typically, from growing up in a Chinese speaking environment, but lack a corresponding level of literacy. The focus of the course is on learning standard everyday usage, on reading in both full and simplified characters, and on writing. This course, along with 21G.108 / 158 offered in the spring, are conducted entirely in Chinese.

Together with 21G.103 Chinese III, this course forms the intermediate level of what constitutes a four-term foundation in Mandarin. Upon completion of Chinese III and IV, students should be able to speak Chinese with fluency on everyday topics, reach a literacy level of 750 characters (approximately 1200 common words written in both traditional and simplified characters), read materials written in simple standard written Chinese, and produce both orally and in writing short compositions on everyday topics. Throughout the course we will address issues of how cultural differences inform and are informed by different linguistic contexts and practices.

This is the second semester of the intermediate level sequence intended for students whose conversational ability exceeds their reading and writing skills. Focus is on reading and writing, as well as broadening conversational skills and control of standard pronunciation, for students with background in conversational Chinese. Lab work is required. On completing this course, students should be able to speak the language with standard pronunciation, to converse with some fluency on everyday topics, as well as on some specialized topics, to read edited, as well as authentic texts, in simplified or traditional characters with suitable fluency, and to be able to write composition on certain topics. The class consists of a combination of practice, reading, discussion, dictation, composition and feedback, net exploration via the web, and presentation. This course is conducted in Mandarin.

This course provides an introduction to the major popular music cultures of the Chinese-speaking world. We will consider a wide variety of genres, from Shanghainese shidaiqu to Cantopop to Taiwanese rap, with the goal of listening beyond the notion of a monolithic “Chinese popular music” to something more dynamic, multivocal, and translocal. We will ask: What, if anything, is so “Chinese” about Chinese popular music? How does popular music participate in the formation of identities for artists and audiences in these areas? How does it enable the articulation of diverging social and political values while also facilitating meaningful connections among disparate communities? We will approach these questions through a diverse array of source materials, including sound recordings, music videos, films, and online multimedia.

This course is the continuation of 21G.105. It is designed to further help students develop sophisticated conversational, reading and writing skills by combining traditional textbook material with their own explorations of Chinese speaking societies, using the human, literary, and electronic resources available at MIT and in the Boston area. Some special features of Chinese society, its culture, its customs and habits, its history, and the psychology of its people are introduced. The class consists of reading, discussion, composition, network exploration, and conversational practice. The course is conducted in Mandarin.

This course is a sequel to 21G.113 Chinese V (Streamlined). It is designed to further help students develop sophisticated conversational, reading and writing skills by combining authentic reading and audio-visual material with their own explorations of Chinese speaking societies, using the human, literary, and electronic resources available at MIT, in the Boston area and on the web. Some special features of Chinese societies, cultures and customs will be introduced. The class consists of readings, discussion, student presentations and network exploration. The course is conducted in Mandarin.

This course is the continuation of 21G.104/108. It is designed to further help students develop sophisticated conversational, reading and writing skills by combining traditional textbook material with their own explorations of Chinese speaking societies, using the human, literary, and electronic resources available at in the Boston area. Some of special features of Chinese society, its culture, its customs and habits, its history, and the psychology of its people are be introduced. The class consists of reading, discussion, composition, network exploration, and conversational practice. The course is conducted in Mandarin.

6.002 is designed to serve as a first course in an undergraduate electrical engineering (EE), or electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) curriculum. At MIT, 6.002 is in the core of department subjects required for all undergraduates in EECS.
The course introduces the fundamentals of the lumped circuit abstraction. Topics covered include: resistive elements and networks; independent and dependent sources; switches and MOS transistors; digital abstraction; amplifiers; energy storage elements; dynamics of first- and second-order networks; design in the time and frequency domains; and analog and digital circuits and applications. Design and lab exercises are also significant components of the course. 6.002 is worth 4 Engineering Design Points. The 6.002 content was created collaboratively by Profs. Anant Agarwal and Jeffrey H. Lang.
The course uses the required textbook Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits. Agarwal, Anant, and Jeffrey H. Lang. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Elsevier, July 2005. ISBN: 9781558607354.

This course’s aims are two-fold:

to offer students the theoretical and practical tools to understand how and why cities become torn by ethnic, religious, racial, nationalist, and/or other forms of identity that end up leading to conflict, violence, inequality, and social injustice; and
to use this knowledge and insight in the search for solutions

As preparation, students will be required to become familiar with social and political theories of the city and the nation and their relationship to each other. They also will focus on the ways that racial, ethnic, religious, nationalist or other identities grow and manifest themselves in cities or other territorial levels of determination (including the regional or transnational). In the search for remedies, students will be encouraged to consider a variety of policymaking or design points of entry, ranging from the political- institutional (e.g. forms of democratic participation and citizenship) to spatial, infrastructural, and technological interventions.

Citizen participation is everywhere. Invoking it has become de rigueur when discussing cities and regions in the developing world. From the World Bank to the World Social Forum, the virtues of participation are extolled: From its capacity to “deepen democracy” to its ability to improve governance, there is no shortage to the benefits it can bring. While it is clear that participation cannot possibly “do” all that is claimed, it is also clear that citizen participation cannot be dismissed, and that there must be something to it. Figuring out what that something is — whether it is identifying the types of participation or the contexts in which it happens that bring about desirable outcomes — is the goal of the class.

Do you want to think about ways to help solve New Orleans’ problems? CityScope is a project-based introduction to the contemporary city. “Problem solving in complex (urban) environments” is different than “solving complex problems.” As a member of a team, you will learn to assess scenarios for the purpose of formulating social, economic and design strategies to provide humane and sustainable solutions. A visit to New Orleans is planned for spring break 2007.

This class is intended to introduce students to understandings of the city generated from both social science literature and the field of urban design. The first part of the course examines literature on the history and theory of the city. Among other factors, it pays special attention to the larger territorial settings in which cities emerged and developed (ranging from the global to the national to the regional context) and how these affected the nature, character, and functioning of cities and the lives of their inhabitants. The remaining weeks focus more explicitly on the theory and practice of design visions for the city, the latter in both utopian and realized form. One of our aims will be to assess the conditions under which a variety of design visions were conceived, and to assess them in terms of the varying patterns of territorial “nestedness” (local, regional, national, imperial, and global) examined in the first part of the course. Another will be to encourage students to think about the future prospects of cities (in terms of territorial context or other political functions and social aims) and to offer design visions that might reflect these new dynamics.

Using film as a lens to explore and interpret various aspects of the urban experience in both the U.S. and abroad, this course presents a survey of important developments in urbanism from 1900 to the present day, including changes in technology, bureaucracy, and industrialization; immigration and national identity; race, class, gender, and economic inequality; politics, conformity, and urban anomie; and planning, development, private property, displacement, sprawl, environmental degradation, and suburbanization.

This course investigates the relationship between urban architecture and political, social, and cultural history of Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. It surveys and analyzes archeological and literary evidence, including the sanctuary of Athena on the Acropolis, the Agora, Greek houses, the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, plays of Sophocles and Aristophanes, and the panhellenic sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia.

This course introduces undergraduate planning students to the role of the planner in researching issues in cities both in the United States and abroad. This course is a practical, hands-on workshop that challenges students to research, write and present their ideas on two different cities: A U.S. City (preferably somewhere close) and Copenhagen. Students will be equipped to:

select and research a thesis topic,
work professionally with faculty and other experts on the topic of their choice, and
research, write and present.

City to City, as a class, will jump into the complexity of planning in New Orleans, a post-disaster city. City-to-City will ask how a post-disaster city grapple with its ideas of identity, what it is, who it represents, and how it projects its sense of self to residences, businesses, tourists, and to the outside world. In considering its people, how do city planners think about who lives where and why? At the same time, how can city planners celebrate a city’s history and its culture and how can these elements be woven into reconstruction? Students will travel from Cambridge to New Orleans over Spring Break to meet and consult with their alumni clients, and continue to work on projects.

This course is a service-learning, project-based studio course that focuses on collaborative design of civic media. Students will work in diverse teams with community partners to create civic media projects grounded in real-world community needs. This course covers co-design and lean UX methods, and best practices for including communities in iterative stages of project ideation, design, prototyping, testing, launch, and stewardship. Students should have an interest in collaboration with community-based organizations.

The Civic Media Codesign Studio is a project-based studio course in collaborative design of civic media. Students work with a range of organizations to create civic media projects grounded in real-world community needs. It covers theory and practice of codesign, including methods for community participation in iterative stages of project ideation, design, prototyping, testing, launch, and stewardship. This semester, the course will focus on building systems of collaboration between municipal government and local care networks to facilitate effective cocreation of policy.