Henri Cole, a self-described “lyric poet,” is CMC’s Josephine Olp Weeks Professor of Literature. A finalist for the Pulitzer in 2004, Cole has earned several awards for his work, including the Jackson Prize, the Kingsley Tufts Award, the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lenore Marshall Award, and the Award of Merit Medal in Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The book: Cole’s 11th collection of poetry, Gravity and Center: Selected Sonnets, 1994-2022, compiles nearly 130 of his poems, which The New York Times Book Review described as “a hive of feeling, thinking activity … Cole’s sonnet is a form both economical and maximal, which, through both artifice and resistance to artifice, feels and makes you feel, thinks and makes you think.”
Minxin Pei is the Tom and Margot Pritzker ’72 Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow at CMC. His areas of expertise include China, comparative politics, the Pacific Rim, U.S.-Asia relations, and U.S.-China relations. He is also a non-resident senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. In 2019, he was the Library of Congress Chair on U.S.-China Relations.
The book: Pei’s fourth book, The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China, argues that the endurance of dictatorship in China owes less to facial recognition AI and GPS tracking than to the human resources of the surveillance state. In its review, The New York Times wrote: “In his fascinating, meticulously researched The Sentinel State, Pei focuses on how the Chinese government upgraded its surveillance capabilities to prevent another social movement like the one that inspired the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising.”
Lisa Koch, an Associate Professor of Government, specializes in international relations, focusing on international security, nuclear proliferation, and foreign policy. Since joining the CMC faculty in 2016, Koch has taught courses in international relations, American foreign policy, security studies, and the politics of nuclear weapons. She earned the 2023 Glenn R. Huntoon Award for Superior Teaching.
The book: Koch takes a global approach in her first book, Nuclear Decisions: Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs, to understand the politics and processes of nuclear proliferation. “My book is part of a larger research agenda investigating these important questions: ‘Why do states take such different paths to, and away from, nuclear weapons?’ and ‘What slows the spread of nuclear weapons?’” she said.
Alex Rajczi is the Deborah and Kenneth Novack ’67 Professor of Ethics and Leadership and George R. Roberts Fellow at CMC. He specializes in ethical theory, political philosophy, and applied ethics, with a focus on bioethics and the ethics of health care policy.
The book: Rajczi’s second book, The Art Experience: An Introduction to Philosophy and the Arts, explores three questions: “What makes something a work of art?”; “How should we experience art to get the most out of it?”; and “Once we understand art, how should we evaluate whether it is good or bad?” To illustrate, Rajczi cites concrete examples—from the paintings of Frida Kahlo, to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and the masks of the Nso people.
Thanks to a wide-ranging, interwoven curriculum taught by world-class faculty, Claremont McKenna College students are well-prepared for real-world situations that require ingenuity and adaptability. Here is a sample of four new and innovative courses offered at CMC during the spring semester.
Literature and AI
Radhika Koul
An Assistant Professor of Literature and a Mellon Emerging Scholar, Koul joined CMC in fall 2023. Koul’s course reflects her interdisciplinary work, which straddles contemporary research in neuroscience and artificial intelligence with the study of how literature works on the human mind. “This class is not about AI-generated literature or automated storytelling. It is about thinking about both literature and artificial intelligence as technologies that ‘re-cognize,’ and hence re-interpret, the world. … and probe how both literature and AI make sense of the world and what those processes yield,” she said.
The Senses
Lars Schmitz
One of the seven scientists and educators to join CMC’s Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences (KDIS) faculty in May 2023, Schmitz designed his course to provide an integrative perspective on the senses, applying concepts from cell biology, biochemistry, physics, genomics, ecology, and evolution. One of his intended learning outcomes is for students to write an effective research proposal. “Research is very important because it gives (students) something they can actively work on, immerse themselves in, and learn about discovery. I think that is the most valuable experience,” he said.
International Law
Jean-Pierre Murray
Murray joined the Government (International Relations) department as an assistant professor in fall 2023. His research and teaching interests include critical security studies, migration, human trafficking, Latin America and the Caribbean. In his course, Murray introduces core principles of international law, exploring contemporary issues and debates, and inviting students—through the lens of unfolding current events—to critically examine “whether and how international law remains relevant.”
History of Medicine in the U.S.
Tamara Venit-Shelton
Venit-Shelton, who teaches an upper-division “History of Medicine” research methods class, wanted to meet the need of CMC students who “seem increasingly interested in asking questions about medical science and society, public health, and inequalities.” She designed her new history course as an “introductory-level survey that exposed students to the major questions in the field and gave them practice with critical reading and writing about those questions in the context of American history,” she said. “My goal is to create a course that is both a foundation for students studying science, health economics, and public policy, and a gateway for students who will go on to more advanced course work in ‘History of Medicine’ and the medical humanities.”