This course is a seminar on creativity in art, science, and technology. We discuss how these pursuits are jointly dependent on affective as well as cognitive elements in human nature. We study feeling and imagination in relation to principles of idealization, consummation, and the aesthetic values that give meaning to science and technology as well as literature and the other arts. Readings in philosophy, psychology, and literature are part of the course.

This course investigates theories and practices of feminist inquiry across a range of disciplines. Feminist research involves rethinking disciplinary assumptions and methodologies, developing new understandings of what counts as knowledge, seeking alternative ways of understanding the origins of problems/issues, formulating new ways of asking questions and redefining the relationship between subjects and objects of study.
What makes research distinctively feminist lies in the complex connections between epistemologies, methodologies and research methods. This course explores how these connections are formed in the traditional disciplines and raise questions about why they are inadequate and/or problematic for feminist inquiry and what, specifically, are the feminist critiques of these intersections.
This course is part of the Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies at MIT.

This course analyzes theories of gender and politics, especially ideologies of gender and their construction; definitions of public and private spheres; and gender issues in citizenship, the development of the welfare state, experiences of war and revolution, class formation, and the politics of sexuality.

This course analyzes theories of gender and politics, especially ideologies of gender and their construction. Also discussed are definitions of public and private spheres, gender issues in citizenship, the development of the welfare state, experiences of war and revolution, class formation, and the politics of sexuality.
Graduate students are expected to pursue the subject in greater depth through reading and individual research.

This course is intended to provide students with the fundamentals of fencing, including footwork, bladework, bouting and refereeing. It will allow students to develop the ability to analyze a fencing bout, and promotes creativity in applying acquired skills in a fencing bout.

The course provides students with (1) an introduction to the geologic history of western North America, with particular emphasis on our field camp location and (2) an introduction to both digital and traditional techniques of geological field study. The weather permitting, several weekend field exercises provide practical experience in preparation for Field Geology II (12.115). It presents introductory material on the regional geology of the locale of 12.115.

This seminar provides an overview of the field of international relations. Each week, a different approach to explaining international relations will be examined. By surveying major concepts and theories in the field, the seminar will also assist graduate students in preparing for the comprehensive examination and further study in the department’s more specialized offerings in international relations.

This course provides an introduction to the field of comparative politics. Readings include both classic and recent materials. Discussions include research design and research methods, in addition to topics such as political culture, social cleavages, the state, and democratic institutions. The emphasis on each issue depends in part on the interests of the students.

This course covers the fundamental driving forces for transport—chemical gradients, electrical interactions, and fluid flow—as applied to the biology and biophysics of molecules, cells, and tissues.

This course introduces the basic driving forces for electric current, fluid flow, and mass transport, plus their application to a variety of biological systems. Basic mathematical and engineering tools will be introduced, in the context of biology and physiology. Various electrokinetic phenomena are also considered as an example of coupled nature of chemical-electro-mechanical driving forces. Applications include transport in biological tissues and across membranes, manipulation of cells and biomolecules, and microfluidics.

This course concentrates on close analysis and criticism of a wide range of films, from the early silent period, classic Hollywood genres including musicals, thrillers and westerns, and European and Japanese art cinema. It explores the work of Griffith, Chaplin, Keaton, Capra, Hawks, Hitchcock, Altman, Renoir, DeSica, and Kurosawa. Through comparative reading of films from different eras and countries, students develop the skills to turn their in-depth analyses into interpretations and explore theoretical issues related to spectatorship.

This course examines problems in the philosophy of film as well as literature studied in relation to their making of myths. The readings and films that are discussed in this course draw upon classic myths of the western world. Emphasis is placed on meaning and technique as the basis of creative value in both media.

This course about financial technology, or FinTech, is for students wishing to explore the ways in which new technologies are disrupting the financial services industry—driving material change in business models, products, applications and customer user interface. Amongst the significant technological trends affecting financial services into the 2020’s, the class will explore AI, deep learning, blockchain technology and open APIs. Students will gain an understanding of the key technologies, market structure, participants, regulation and the dynamics of change being brought about by FinTech.

This course introduces the core theory of modern financial economics and financial management, with a focus on capital markets and investments. Topics include functions of capital markets and financial intermediaries, asset valuation, fixed-income securities, common stocks, capital budgeting, diversification and portfolio selection, equilibrium pricing of risky assets, the theory of efficient markets, and an introduction to derivatives and options.

The objective of this course is to learn the financial tools needed to make good business decisions. The course presents the basic insights of corporate finance theory, but emphasizes the application of theory to real business decisions. Each session involves class discussion, some centered on lectures and others around business cases.

This course provides students with a broad historical and social-scientific introduction to a central aspect of modern economic life: Finance. By drawing upon a variety of disciplinary perspectives from the humanities and social sciences, the course offers a multi-dimentional picture of finance, not only as an economic phenomenon, but as a political, cultural, intellectual, material, and technological one. The course offers an introduction to foundational financial concepts and technologies, and will help students understand finance as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. This course also provides students with the opportunity to improve skills in written communication, and to learn tools for historical analysis and textual interpretation.

This six-week summer course teaches basic concepts of corporate financial accounting and reporting. This information is widely used in making investment decisions, corporate and managerial performance assessment, and valuation of firms. Students perform economics-based analysis of accounting information from the viewpoint of the users of accounting information (especially senior managers) rather than the preparer (the accountant). This course is restricted to MIT Sloan Fellows in Innovation and Global Leadership.

Our goal is to help you develop a framework for understanding financial, managerial, and tax reports. The course goal is divided into five subordinate challenges that can help you organize the way you learn accounting:

The record keeping and reporting challenge
The computation challenge
The judgment challenge
The usage challenge
The search challenge

The course adopts a decision-maker perspective of accounting by emphasizing the relation between accounting data and the underlying economic events generating them. Restricted to first-year Sloan MBA students.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgment is hereby given to Professor G. Peter Wilson for his authorship of the following content in this course:

The Five Challenges (see Syllabus and Lecture 1)
“What Do Intel and Accountants Have in Common?” (see Lecture 1)
A Conceptual Framework for Financial Accounting (see Lecture 1)

This course is an introduction to the economic theories of financial crises. It focuses on amplification mechanisms that exacerbate crises, such as leverage, fire sales, bank runs, interconnections, and complexity. It also analyzes the different perspectives on the origins of crises, such as mistaken beliefs and moral hazard, and discusses the optimal regulation of the financial system. The course draws upon examples from financial crises around the world, especially the recent subprime financial crisis.
14.09 is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

Financial Management studies corporate finance and capital markets, emphasizing the financial aspects of managerial decisions. It touches on all areas of finance, including the valuation of real and financial assets, risk management and financial derivatives, the trade-off between risk and expected return, and corporate financing and dividend policy. The course draws heavily on empirical research to help guide managerial decisions.