THE CATALYST: In 2008, English department professor Marianna Torgovnick and now-retired theater studies professor Michael Malone jointly launched this survey course to explore the role of movies in American cultural mythology. Seventy-five students enrolled in the first class; this year the student cap was set at 200. Elizabeth Landesberg M.F.A. ’13 is now the co-instructor.

At 6 o’clock in the morning there is just enough light cutting through the front entrance of the thatched home where Ernesto Ortiz, Axel Berky, and a nurse technician from the Peruvian Ministry of Health (MINSA) work alongside each other and ask questions listed on their clipboards. The home belongs to a Peruvian family that has consented to participate in one of the largest baseline health studies ever conducted in the Amazon.