New and Special Courses

Fall Semester 2008-2009

The courses whose descriptions appear here are either seminar courses, experimental courses, one-time offerings, or new courses recently added to the permanent offerings at the Naval Academy. Only courses that are a part of the regular offerings at the Naval Academy are listed in the Naval Academy Course Catalog.  Midshipmen intending to take any of these courses should be aware of how they will be credited in their majors. For information about this, consult with the department concerned or the listed instructor. This listing is not static and so should be consulted from time to time since the offerings may change.  Indeed, prior to the deadline for preregistration, the list is likely to change several times. 

Credits are listed next to the title as an ordered triple (R-L-C), where R is the number of weekly recitation-lecture hours, L is the number of weekly laboratory hours, and C is the number of credits.


EA485A Space Mission Analysis (3-0-3). This course develops a top-level, systems engineering approach to the analysis and design of a space mission. This course describes the relationships among the various elements of a space mission: subject, payload, orbit, spacecraft, launch, ground, communication, and mission operations, with an emphasis on the analysis and design of the payload and spacecraft bus. Prereq: EA204.


EE485A MEMS: Introduction to Microelectromechanical Systems (2-2-3). MEMS combine electrical and mechanical functionality on a single silicon chip.  In this course, students will learn microfabrication techniques and the physical principles of common MEMS devices.  Students will also work on a design project using the microfabrication laboratory. Prereq: EE241 or EE332 or EE334.


EN485M Shipboard Machinery and Systems (3-0-3). The goal of this course is to enhance the students’ understanding of how selected shipboard machinery and distributive systems impact the ship design process and the resulting ship. The characteristics of selected machinery and distributive systems will be discussed along with various design methodologies. The design and/or selection of specific shipboard components, satisfying appropriate requirements and constraints, will be undertaken through a series of design exercises. Prereq: 1/C ENA major.


FE485B History of the World Economy (3-0-3). Economic theory is used to analyze the evolution of the world economy; among topics considered are the Agricultural Revolution, Malthusian stagnation, colonialization, the Industrial Revolution, 18th and 19th century trade, and the Great Divergence. Prereq: FE210 or permission of chair.


FA485A Arabic Conversation and Composition (3-0-3). Offered in Arabic. This is a conversation and composition course designed to encourage students of Arabic to develop skill in spoken conversation on increasingly complex levels of discourse, and other forms of oral presentation and argument, as well as in-depth work on writing essays in Arabic. Students will read articles in Arabic as starting points for conversation and writing assignments. Prereq: FA202 and permission of chair.

FA485B Advanced Arabic Culture Studies (3-0-3). Offered in Arabic. This course will include readings from some of the most important texts of Arabic culture, including selections from the Qur’an, some samples of classical prose, poetry, short stories, and cultural critiques. This course will help students become familiar with the breadth of the cultural landscape in the Arab world, and invite the students to more in-depth study of specific regions and aspects of it. Assignments will include mid-length essays. Prereq: FA302.

FC485 Advanced Reading and Writing in Chinese (3-0-3). Offered in Chinese. The priority of this course is rapid and in-depth reading of formal written Chinese, with emphasis on accurate comprehension, expansion of vocabulary for reading sophisticated writings and expressing refined and complicated ideas, and on the development of the ability to process sentences with complex structure or unfamiliar constructions. Prereq: FC450 or FC460.

FC485E Introduction to the Chinese Language (3-0-3). Offered in English. This course, is a survey course introducing the general characteristics of the structure of Chinese, its dialects, and its writing system, as well as the history of the language, language acquisition issues, language planning, and language use in society. Prereq: HE111 or permission of chair.

FJ412 Advanced Japanese Communication Arts (3-0-3). Offered in Japanese. This course aims at further development of communication skills, particularly in listening and speaking. Reading and writing skills are integrated to reinforce the development of listening and speaking skills. Goals include: expressing the student’s own ideas on selected topics coherently and cohesively, listening for information to take notes, and improving practical ability to read and present extracted information in Japanese. Prereq: FJ202 or permission of chair.

FJ425 Media Studies in Japanese (3-0-3). This course teaches advanced reading and writing techniques by analyzing newspaper articles, periodicals, TV news and documentaries. The lectures include applied translation strategies and techniques. Prereq: FJ202 or permission of chair.

FL285 Intercultural Communication (3-0-3). Offered in English. This course explores the concept of cross-cultural competency and communication by utilizing a very hands-on approach. Involved in this course are readings in the theories such as cultural competency and the nature of prejudice and its impact on communication. Beyond the readings, students will engage in group discussions, cross-cultural simulation games, role plays and critical incidents in order to develop and practice skills and abilities that enhance sincere and effective communication across differences. Prereq: HE112 or permission of chair.

FL485 Language Contact and Conflict (3-0-3). Offered in English. This interdisciplinary course examines the process of language contact in the modern world, assessing the role language issues play in social, political, and military conflict. Midshipmen will gain understanding of the dynamics of language contact and examine case studies focusing on language conflict and language policies in multi-ethnolingual societies. Prereq: HE112 or permission of chair.


FP485C Comparative Criminal Justice (3-0-3). This course introduces students to the issues and complexities of the societal problem of crime and its corresponding remedies. As crime moves across borders, becoming transnational and global, it is important to consider the variety of ways that government systems cope with crime. Students will analyze the criminal justice systems of a variety of countries from arrest to punishment and remittance back into society. Comparing cultures offers new insights, fresh theories, and changes of innovative perspectives. Since globalization has intensified contact between cultures more than ever, students will consider policies both domestically and around the world as criminals and crime take on a new face in the 21st century. Prereq: FP130.


HE360 Shakespeare on the Screen (3-0-3). [Professor Anne Marie Drew] We will study the ways in which film directors shape our understanding of particular scenes in Shakespeare. While we will view some complete films, we will keep our main focus on singular moments and interactions, even a singular word. For example, we will compare the tomb death scenes in both the Zeffirelli and Luhrmann ROMEO AND JULIET. We will study the closet scene in the Olivier, Gibson, Branagh, and Hawke HAMLET. We'll view some Russian cartoon versions of the plays. Throughout we will discover the ways in which the director owns our experience of the plays, through the use of such elements as camera angle and music and textual adaptation. Students will keep a log of their impressions and observations about each film. There will be a midterm, final and brief course paper. Prereq: HE112.

HE461 Before They Were Modern: British Art and Literature of the Fin de Siecle (3-0-3).
[
Professor Michelle Allen-Emerson] What do Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Dorian Gray, and Dr. Jekyll have in common? They are all characters of the British "fin de siecle," that period of literary and cultural history, from roughly 1880-1900, when Victorian certainties were giving way to modernist ambiguities. At this moment of beginnings and endings, we see the emergence of new literary forms and figures, new sciences and technologies, and new debates about race and gender; yet fears of decline and decay, on the national and individual levels, also pervaded the culture. The course will address these issues in the context of writings by Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Rider Haggard, Olive Schreiner, Arthur Conan Doyle, and George Bernard Shaw, as well as in the context of visual art by Aubrey Beardsley, William Morris, and James McNeill Whistler. Prereq: one 300-level English course and permission of the chair.

HE463 The Devils Party: Milton, Blake, and Pullman
[Professor Temple Cone] "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hate, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it," wrote William Blake of his poetic forebear, John Milton. Following Blake's lead, we will examine Milton's PARADISE LOST as an implicitly Romantic poem concerned with various forms of political, creative, spiritual, and personal rebellion, and we will turn to Blake's poetic works, including SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE and THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL, as guides along the way. Key topics will include artistic, political, and religious rebellion; the conventions of epic poetry; Sin and the Fall of Man; the concept of the Imagination; Milton's cosmology; and the nature of prophecy. Finally, we will turn to Phillip Pullman's trilogy of science fiction novels, HIS DARK MATERIALS, exploring their literary and religious elements, their exploration of modern cosmology and theoretical physics, and their synthesis of Milton's and Blake's majestic and profoundly human visions of existence. Prereq: one 300-level English course and permission of the chair.

HE503 Edmund Waller and the Seventeenth-Century World (3-0-3).
[Professor Michael P. Parker] This seminar will explore seventeenth-century English literature using the poetry of Edmund Waller as a port of embarkation. A leading poet and politician, Waller was a pivotal cultural figure as well, one whose career spanned the entire century. Contemporaries hailed Waller for ushering in a "new Augustan age" in English literature through his refinement of the heroic couplet and new style of classical allusion. The intimate of the leading writers, artists, and philosophers of the century, he also set the fashion for popular innovations: he was the person who introduced daily tea-drinking into English life. This seminar will investigate literary and cultural topics such as love and courtship, life in the country house, the Civil Wars, the Great Fire and rebuilding of London, colonial enterprises, religious experience, and death as seen through the eyes of Waller and contemporaries such as Donne, Jonson, Herrick, Marvell, Pepys, Hobbes, Descartes, Evelyn, Rochester, and Dryden. Students will examine the art, architecture, and music of the period through in-class lectures and field trips. Prereq: 1/c Honors English majors only. Coreq: HE521.

HE521 Honors Supplement (1-0-1).
Focused study of a topic generated in HE503. Prereq: 1/c English Honors majors only. Coreq: HE503.


HH215A Asia in a Global Context (3-0-3).  This course, offered for the first time next semester, is designed to provide an alternative to HH215 “The West in a Global Context.” It introduces students to pre-modern Asian civilization, including China, India, Japan and Southeast Asia. This course traces the dynamic manifestations of cultural, political, military and intellectual patterns, and examines them through a global perspective. Topics include Asian ways of war, as embodied in the Chinese art of war, the Mongol campaigns, Japanese samurai, and Buddhist and Hindu warrior kings. Moreover, students will encounter ancient Asian sages and their ethical ruminations not only in their own regard, but also in comparison with their counterparts in other world traditions including Classical, Judeo-Christian and Islamic cultures. The course fulfills the graduation requirement listed on matrices as “HH2XY”

HH367F Culture, War and Society in Traditional China. 3-0-3. [Professor M. Yu] This course engages midshipmen in the salient aspects of Chinese history from the time of Confucius and Sun Zi (Sun Tsu) to the Opium War of 1840. It traces the cultural, intellectual and military evolution of Chinese society from the Warring States, through Pax Sinica of Han and Tang, to the mighty yet fragile Ming and Qing empires of the recent centuries. Prereq: HH215; coreq: HH216.

HH462 Thomas Jefferson: A Critical Appraisal (3-0-3). [Prof. L. Kamoie] Thomas Jefferson continues to hold the imagination, admiration, and respect of American citizens. At the same time, he has also become a symbol of hypocrisy and racism. This course, one of the capstone seminars for the history major, focuses on the public and private writings of Jefferson himself, the scholarly interpretations of his life and work, and the legacy of his thoughts and experiences for modern Americans. Prereq: 1/C HHS majors.

HH486 Russian Society and History in Film (3-0-3). [Prof T. Sanders] Because of censorship and the native artistic tradition, film played a very important role in Soviet and Russian history. This course will use films to examine the depiction of key moments and individuals in modern Russian and Soviet history (the Revolution and Civil War, Stalinism, World War II, the post-Stalinist era, Gorbachev’s reforms, the Russo-Chechen War, and the post-Soviet criminal underground). Brief background readings and introductory lectures will set up the films, which will be the main focus of the course. Written work will consist of short “reflection” essays on the way each of the main topics was treated in the films. No prereq. Coreq: HH216.


NL485A Physiological Psychology (3-0-3). [CAPT Petrillo, USN (MSC)] This course will examine the biological and neurophysiological foundations of human and animal behavior. Emphasis is on central nervous system mechanisms that mediate processes such as learning and memory, language, intelligence, sleep and arousal, reproduction, and human mental disorders. Prereq: NL200 or NL211 or NL312 plus any SB course.

NP485A Advanced Topics in Philosophy: Philosophy of the Mind (3-0-3). [Prof. L. Lengbeyer] This course will explore The Divided Mind. Is a person’s mind an integrated, unified whole? Or is it typical to find disconnections or partitions within, or between, the different systems that make up the mind: beliefs (including intuitions, concepts, images), desires, values, emotions, choices? If such disjunctions do exist, what are the practical, moral, and theoretical implications? Is such internal mental division always irrational and problematic, or sometimes advantageous? How should we handle it in practice? Come take a hard look at what's going on in your head! Prereq: None.


SA367 Introduction to Mathematical Modeling (3-0-3). This course exposes students to the world of operations research through the use of spreadsheets. Cases studied come from the fields of optimization, probability and statistics, stochastic modeling, simulation and data analysis. Prereq: SM219, SM239 or SM230.

SA430 Naval Logistics (3-0-3). Topics to be covered include reliability, operational availability, inventory control, the defense transportation system, Joint and Naval Operational Logistics including Strategic Mobility (getting the troops and equipment to the fight), planning, and doctrine. Grading will be based on individual exams, individual quizzes, and group projects or presentations. In their projects, students will identify a problem, develop a model, and present a feasible solution. Project selection will allow students to use techniques learned in other courses whether prerequisites to this course or not. Calculators and spreadsheets will be used. Prereq: SM239 or SM230.


SC485B OrganoMetallic Chemistry and Catalysis(3-0-3). The use of transition-metal catalysts to construct strong C-C, C-N, and C-O bonds in a variety of compounds has had an enormous impact on the pharmaceutical, polymer, and fuel industries in recent years. This course will provide an inorganic, metallocentric survey of organometallic chemistry. The topics to be discussed include the synthesis and properties of organometallic reagents, as well as the reaction conditions, mechanistic pathways and importance of these transition-metal complexes in a wide-range of synthetic pathways and industrial reactions. Prereq: SC226 and SC356.

SC485E CBRNE: Chemical, Biological, Radiological/Nuclear & Explosives Events (3-0-3).
CBRN events refer to the uncontrolled release of chemicals, biological agents or radioactive contamination into the environment or explosions that cause widespread damage. The number of nations and non-national terrorist and criminal organizations capable of developing, possessing and deploying CBRNE weapons is steadily increasing. Since September 11, 2001, there has been renewed concern about domestic and foreign CBRN events. This course will focus on the basics of key biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear and high yield explosives including discussions of the physiological consequences of exposure, prophylactic and post-exposure treatment options, production, weaponization/dissemination and current and future technologies for the detection of agents. Prereq: SC112.


SI485H Cryptography and Network Security (2-2-3). This course introduces the principles of cryptography with applications to network security. Topics include symmetric encryption, the Data Encryption Standard, the Advanced Encryption Standard, public key cryptography, the RSA Algorithm, key management, message authentication, digital signature, authentication protocols, email security, IP security and web security. Coreq: IC322 or EE464.

SI485I Modeling and Simulation using Games (2-2-3). This course will focus on the application of discrete and continuous event system simulation and modeling of real world problems in a game context. Students will learn to simplify complex problems using probability, logic, and statistical analysis. Prereq: (IC210 or SI204) and (SM242 or SM230).


SM321 Calculus of Variations (3-0-3). The course will survey introductory topics and emphasize classical applications requiring only calculus. Topics covered will include: optimization, formulating variational problems, the Euler-Lagrange equation, constrained problems, extremal surfaces, optimal control. Even a modestly prepared student can develop strong understanding of the subject from practice with the calculations. Prereq: SM233 or knowledge of MATLAB.

SM463 Error-Correcting Codes (3-0-3). Topics included are: maximum size of a “good” code, introduction to finite fields, vector spaces over finite fields, linear codes, encoding, decoding, dual code, check matrix, syndrome decoding, Hamming codes, cyclic codes, weight enumerators. Prereq: SM261.

SM463A Matrix Analysis (3-0-3). This course continues SM261 (Matrix Theory) in the direction of SM331 (Real Analysis I) rather than in the direction of SM461 (Linear Algebra). After a brief review of SM261, we will study complex matrices as linear operators on a Hilbert space. In particular, we will define the operator norm of a matrix and then prove the important structure theorems for complex matrices (Spectral Theorem for normal matrices and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) for general matrices) and investigate how the structure of a matrix is affected by small perturbations. Then we will study the celebrated QR algorithm, by which the even values of a matrix can be computed quickly and accurately. Finally, we will show applications of the SVD to image compression and information retrieval (search engines). Students will be expected to complete both written and MATLAB assignments. There will be midterm tests and a final examination. Prereq: SM233, SM261, and SM331 or SM331H.

SM439 Design of samples and experiments (3-0-3). First statistics courses, e.g. SM239 and SM339, generally assume that the data are already in hand. SM439 in the fall of 2007 will investigate statistical sampling and design of experiments. These topics are concerned with how data are obtained. The importance of this topic is that statistical analysis cannot correct bad data. Sampling design issues are often associated with problems in economics and political science. For example, polling for political elections and public policy decisions often make use of advanced sampling designs to efficiently improve accuracy and confidence. On the other hand, statistical experimental designs are often used by physical scientists and engineers to make efficient use of limited and costly resources. Prereq: SM339 or permission of chair.


SO482B Seminar in Tactical Oceanography (1-0-1). Oceanographic and bathymetric factors in the battle space play a significant role in mission planning and execution. The natural environment is an important consideration in the decision-making process regarding the timing of military operations and the employment of weapons, platforms, and tactics. This seminar provides an overview of oceanographic and bathymetric variability and the potential impact of surface and subsurface features on naval operations. (Will be redesignated as SO381). Prereq: None.

SO482A Seminar in Aviation Meteorology (1-0-1). Weather is a crucial element in flight operations, affecting both aircraft performance and safety. This seminar will provide an overview of meteorological factors that impact flight operations, with particular emphasis on weather hazards and weather products that can assist the pilot with these hazards. Students who have selected naval aviation for their warfare specialty will be given first preference for this course. (Will be redesignated as SO381). Prereq: None.

SO262 Physical Geography (3-0-3). The physical environment influences natural resources, human culture, national security, and military operations. This course examines the basic scientific principles of physical geography, and how location on earth influences climate, landforms, soils, and natural vegetation. We will study the processes at work, the features created, and their spatial distributions. We will use satellite imagery and geographical information systems to look at case studies around the world and examine the wide range of natural environments. For more information, consult www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/so286/so286_physical_geography.htm. This course may count as a free elective. Prereq: None.


SP481E Survey of Spectrometric Techniques (0-2-1). This lab course introduces techniques spanning the electromagnetic spectrum as well as acoustic and particle spectrometry. Production and detection of the signals used and the kinds of information that can be gleaned from each technique are analyzed. Prereq: SP324

SP485A The Physics of Motorsports (3-0-3). The Physics of Motorsports is an elective course open to all majors.  Students will apply general physics and calculus to the technical aspects of motorsports with a focus on parameters that affect performance.  Topics will include using real world torque data to estimate accelerations, as well as 0 to 60 mph and quarter-mile times.  Students will study authentic road course data, compare them to the results of tire and suspension modeling and explore the physics of high performance driving.  There will be weekly student presentations on topics of interest and the course will culminate in group projects and presentations. Prereq: SP211.


Go to descriptions of all courses.