school of social science - Hampshire College

center, a battered women's shelter, or a preventive health
project to assisting a youth group with a drama or video
project, or designing a computer program to meet the needs
of a community organization. Students who have these aspects
of the CSSP in their divisional work receive a certificate of
completion that can be included in their transcript.
COMPUTER STUDIES
Computer systems are now important parts of most of
our lives. From machines that keep records and do calculations
to others which play movies and control missiles,
computers play an enormous social and economic role in
modern society. Advances in the science of computation also
make it possible to ask questions in new ways. and thus open
up a variety of fascinating and important areas whose very
nature is transformed by computational techniques and insights.
At Hampshire, faculty and student work in computer
studies is centered in two areas: artificial intelligence and
digital multimedia production. Foundational course work in
computer science and mathematics enable Hampshire
students to undertake upper-division work in a variety of
computer-related areas at Hampshire and in the Five Colleges.
Faculty and students also address issues related to the use of
computing and related technology in this country and in the
Third World. Students interested in Computer Studies should
contact Richard Muller at extension 5687.
Computing facilities at Hampshire include a variety of
centrally located systems and w.idely dispersed workstations
and personal computers. Public computing laboratories are
located in Cole Science Center, the Library, and Simmons
Hall. These are linked by data networks to each other, and to
other campuses in the area. Campus systems are accessible by
data link from student rooms and by modem at off-campus
locations. Members of the Hampshire community have access
to campus, Five College, and worldwide information sources.
The college uses equipment from a variety of manufacturers.
Students at Hampshire can purchase personal computers
through the college at deeply discounted prices; for compatibility
with existing college facilities, those bringing their own
machines to campus are advised to bring either an Apple
Macintosh or an IBM MS-DOS/Windows system.
CULTURAL STUDIES
Cultural Studies is an inter-School program focusing on
the definition, production. and interpretation of culture.
Breaking with the traditional dichotomies of high and low
culture, art and criticism. history and textuality, technology
and culture, theory and practice, Cultural Studies takes
cultural processes, practices and artifacts as its objects of
study. This program is committed to an understanding of
culture as a broad and radically diverse process, a constitutive
human activity involving the various modes or representations
within which meaning is constructed and historically transformed.
By attending to variable dimensions of culture,
Cultural Studies emphasizes the increasingly international and
cross-cultural character of knowledge and cultural production.
Faculty members of the program from the disciplines of
art history, theatre, philosophy, history, video, music,
literature, media studies, and politics offer core courses,
seminars. and public colloquia. For more information contact
Walid Ra'ad at ext. 5618.
67
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES PROGRAM
The Environmental Studies Program encourages students
to probe the workings of ecological systems and the relationship
between nature and human culture. This undertaking is
inherently multidisciplinary. Students work with more than
fifteen faculty. based in the natural and social sciences,
communications, and the humanides, to shape individual
concentrations. The resources available within the Five
College consortium provide a remarkable array of learning
opportunities, expertise, and specialized knowledge in both
the scientific and social dimensions of environmental studies.
Faculty research and students' studies lead to work in
such areas as natural resource conservation, biodiversity,
marine ecology, population dynamics, the humanly built
environment, First and Third World development impacts,
appropriate technology, sustainable agriculture, political
activism, land· USe policy, nature writing, and environmental
history, ethics, and law. Methods of inquiry are grounded in a
commitment [0 critical questioning and hands-on problem
solving. In the Hampshire College spirit that "to know is not
enough," both students and faculty are engaged in a variety of
projects and organizations addressing a wide spectrum of
local, national, and global environmental concerns.
The Environmental Studies Program aids students in
coordinating on-site field research. international internships,
and team approaches to problem solving. Students take a
central role in forming the program's yearly agenda of
seminars, presentations of individual research, guest speakers.
films, and newsletter communications. For more information
contact Steven Roof in the School of Natural Science or
Robert Rakoff in the School of Social Science, or visit the
program's web site from the Hampshire College home page.
FEMINIST STUDIES
The Feminist Studies Program aims to raise critical
feminist questions about established traditions and to open
new areas of research and speculation. With its roots in the
feminist movement. feminist studies seeks not only to
interpret women's experience but to change women's condition.
We are committed to acknowledging the diversity of
women's lives and to incorporating challenges based on race,
class, and sexuality into our program. Faculty in all four
Schools of the college contribute to planning and teaching
courses in economics, psychology. history, law. science,
theatre. literature. visual arts, and communications. Through
programmatic ties and shared perspectives, we strive to
dissolve the disciplinary boundaries that separate us and to
pose questions that reach beyond these boundaries.
The Feminist Studies Program encourages women
students to think and plan for their distinctive needs during
their undergraduate careers, and for the special challenges they
will confront as women after graduation. We emphasize
future possibilities in women's public and private lives.
Students can concentrate in feminist studies or they can
incorporate feminist studies into concentrations in any of the
four Schools. Feminist Studies courses are available at all three
divisional levels.
A core group of interested students and faculty sponsor
lectures, workshops. and performances by feminist scholars,