Search Results
Your search for courses · during 2023-24 · meeting requirements for Humanistic Inquiry · returned 141 results
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AFST 113 Introduction to Africana Studies 6 credits
This course focuses on the histories, ideas, experiences, and dreams that have shaped the lives of people of African descent. Then and now perspectives will define our exploration of incarceration and freedom; migration and emigration; separatism versus integration; race and class; art and politics. Discussion topics and seminal ideas will be drawn from texts including the following: the anthology Call and Response (on key debates in Black studies); the historical memoir Lose Your Mother (chronicling a journey along the Atlantic slave route); a work of fiction Middle Passage (that tells a story of enslavement, revolt, and redemption).
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AFST 113.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Chielo Eze š« š¤
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 330 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 330 9:40am-10:40am
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AFST 215 Contemporary Theory in Black Studies 6 credits
This course examines the major theories of the Africana intellectual tradition. It introduces students to major concepts and socio-political thoughts that set the stage for Africana Studies as a discipline. With the knowledge of the historical contexts of the Black intellectual struggle and the accompanying cultural movements, students will examine the genealogy, debates and the future directions of Black Studies. Students are invited to take a dedicated dive into primary scholarship by focusing on foundational thinkers to be studied such as Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Frantz Fanon, Steve Biko, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks, among others.
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AFST 215.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Chielo Eze š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 236 1:15pm-3:00pm
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AMST 115 Introduction to American Studies 6 credits
This overview of the “interdisciplinary discipline” of American Studies will focus on the ways American Studies engages with and departs from other scholarly fields of inquiry. We will study the stories of those who have been marginalized in the social, political, cultural, and economic life of the United States due to their class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, citizenship, and level of ability. We will explore contemporary American Studies concerns like racial and class formation, the production of space and place, the consumption and circulation of culture, and transnational histories.
Sophomore Priority
- Fall 2023, Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies Writing Requirement
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AMST 115.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Christopher Elias š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WWeitz Center 133 11:10am-12:20pm
- FWeitz Center 133 12:00pm-1:00pm
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Sophomore Priority
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AMST 115.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Christopher Elias š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WWeitz Center 132 9:50am-11:00am
- FWeitz Center 132 9:40am-10:40am
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Sophomore Priority
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AMST 142 U.S. Latinx Identity and Representation: Cultures of Belonging 6 credits
Popular culture and mass media serve as key sites of identity formation. In this course we will examine U.S. Latinx identity formation by focusing on three case studies: Selena Quintanilla, the singer; telenovelas; and the Disney films Coco and Encanto. These case studies will help us explore how transnationalism, intergenerational knowledge and trauma, and civic and cultural belonging contribute to the shaping of U.S. Latinx collective identities. We will attend to the particular processes of production and reception as we study how audiences engage with cultural producers both in private and in public (notably on social media).
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AMST 142.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Adriana Estill š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WWeitz Center 132 11:10am-12:20pm
- FWeitz Center 132 12:00pm-1:00pm
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AMST 225 Beauty and Race in America 6 credits
In this class we consider the construction of American beauty historically, examining the way whiteness intersects with beauty to produce a dominant model that marginalizes women of color. We study how communities of color follow, refuse, or revise these beauty ideals through literature. We explore events like the beauty pageant, material culture such as cosmetics, places like the beauty salon, and body work like cosmetic surgery to understand how beauty is produced and negotiated.
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AMST 225.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Adriana Estill š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 236 10:10am-11:55am
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AMST 231 Contemporary Indigenous Activism 6 credits
Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island and the Pacific Islands are fighting to revitalize Indigenous languages, uphold tribal sovereignty, and combat violence against Indigenous women, among many other struggles. This course shines a light on contemporary Indigenous activism and investigates social justice through the lens of Indian Country, asking questions like: What tools are movements using to promote Indigenous resurgence? And what are the educational, gendered, environmental, linguistic, and religious struggles to which these movements respond? Students will acquire an understanding of contemporary Indigenous movements, the issues they address, and the responsibilities of non-Native people living on Indigenous lands.
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AMST 231.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Meredith McCoy š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 236 10:10am-11:55am
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AMST 260 Sexuality in American Film since 1945 3 credits
This five-week class uses feature-length films to examine debates around sexuality in the United States since the end of World War II. Designed to allow students to develop both a deeper understanding of modern American gender & sexual history as well as a fuller appreciation for film as a rich, historically-contingent artform. Explores a number of themes, including but not limited to: sexual identity, gender identity, censorship, racial politics and racism, class anxieties, cultural production, trans experiences, and representation. Will include films like Some Like it Hot (1959), The Graduate (1967), Philadelphia (1993), and Tangerine (2015).
2nd 5 weeks
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AMST 260.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Christopher Elias š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WHasenstab 109 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FHasenstab 109 2:20pm-3:20pm
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AMST 396 AIDS in America 6 credits
This junior seminar for AMST majors studies AIDS in America as a means of preparing students to write their own research papers. The AIDS crisis made deep impact on various areas of American society, resulting in a robust, interdisciplinary discourse about the pandemic’s origins, scope, impact, and legacy. We will utilize a variety of media, including poetry, music, memoir, fiction, oral history, film, visual art, performance art, and scholarship. Using the tools of inquiry encountered in this class and throughout their work in the major, students will then prepare an original research paper on a topic of their choice.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies Writing Requirement
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American Studies 115
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AMST 396.01 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Christopher Elias š« š¤
- Size:15
- M, WWeitz Center 132 11:10am-12:20pm
- FWeitz Center 132 12:00pm-1:00pm
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CCST 208 International Coffee and News 2 credits
Have you just returned from Asia, Africa, Europe, or South America? This course is an excellent way to keep in touch with the culture (and, when appropriate, the language) you left behind. Relying on magazines and newspapers around the world, students will discuss common topics and themes representing a wide array of regions. You may choose to read the press in the local language, or read English-language media about your region, meeting once each week for conversational exchange. (Language of conversation is English.)
- Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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Participation in an off-campus study program (Carleton or non-Carleton), substantial experience living abroad, or instructor permission.
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CCST 208.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Luciano Battaglini š« š¤
- Size:25
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- TRecreation Center 226 3:10pm-4:20pm
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CCST 208.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Laura Goering š« š¤
- Size:25
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- WLanguage & Dining Center 330 3:10pm-4:20pm
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CCST 398 The Global Panorama: A Capstone Workshop for European Studies and Cross-Cultural Studies 2 credits
The work of Cross-Cultural Studies and European Studies traverses many disciplines, often engaging with experiences that are difficult to capture in traditional formats. In this course students will create an ePortfolio that reflects, deepens, and narrates the various forms of experiences they have had at Carleton related to their minor, drawing on coursework and off-campus study, as well as such extracurricular activities as talks, service learning, internships and fellowships. Guided by readings and prompts, students will write a reflective essay articulating the coherence of the parts, describing both the process and the results of their pathway through the minor. Considered a capstone for CCST and EUST, but for anyone looking to thread together their experiences across culture. Course is taught as a workshop.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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CCST 398.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Paul Petzschmann š« š¤
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- TLeighton 426 1:15pm-3:00pm
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Cross-listed EUST 398
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CGSC 253 Philosophy of Cognitive Science 6 credits
A study of the central theories, methodological and philosophical issues and major competing paradigms regarding the nature of human cognition. Topics to be treated include: the history of cognitive science as a science, and the context through which we think about mental representations, intentionality, consciousness, the use and importance of language, nativism and externalism in the cognitive sciences, embodied cognition and the constitutive roles of culture and evolution in shaping cognitive processes.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Writing Requirement
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Cognitive Science 130 or instructor consent
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CGSC 253.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Jay McKinney š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THHulings 316 1:15pm-3:00pm
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CGSC 340 Phenomenology and Cognitive Science 6 credits
This course will provide an in-depth study of phenomenology, covering both its history and contemporary debates, and phenomenology-inspired research in cognitive science, psychology and neuroscience. Roughly half the course will be devoted to the history of phenomenology, setting the main views within their historical context and explaining how these views respond to the difficulties of their predecessors. The other half will discuss contemporary philosophical debates and scientific research involving phenomenological approaches.
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry
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Cognitive Science 130 required, 200-level Cognitive Science, Psychology or Philosophy course recommended
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CGSC 340.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:15
- T, THOlin 104 1:15pm-3:00pm
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CLAS 124 Roman Archaeology and Art 6 credits
The material worlds of the ancient Romans loom large in our cultural imagination. From the architecture of the state to visual narratives of propaganda, Roman influence is ubiquitous in monuments across the West. But what were the origins of these artistic trends? What makes a monument characteristically ‘Roman’? And how has this material culture been interpreted and understood over time? This course explores the art, architecture, and archaeology of the ancient Romans both in the city of Rome and across the Empire, and considers the ways in which Roman trends have also influenced modern cultures.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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CLAS 124.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 330 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 330 1:10pm-2:10pm
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CLAS 130 The Greek and Latin Roots of English 6 credits
We speak it every day on campus, and it is the second most common language on the planet, but where did English come from? While its basic grammar is Germanic, much of its vocabulary—probably around 60 percent—comes from Greek and Latin. This course explores the varied and fascinating contributions that these two languages have made to English, focusing on the basic building blocks of words—bases, prefixes, and suffixes—while also considering the many routes the Classical languages have taken to enter modern English. This course is suitable for students of science, linguistics, and literature, as well as language lovers generally.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Quantitative Reasoning Encounter
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CLAS 130.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Chico Zimmerman š« š¤
- Size:30
- M, WLanguage & Dining Center 104 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLanguage & Dining Center 104 2:20pm-3:20pm
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CLAS 165 Race: Antiquity and Its Legacy 6 credits
In this course we will explore how the Greeks and Romans conceptualized their own notions of racial difference, and also consider how these concepts have influenced later historical periods, including our own. In doing so, students will be able to identify the difference between the way ancient peoples and modern societies think about race and ethnicity, and demonstrate how contemporary discussions of these topics have been shaped by our encounters with antiquity.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Writing Requirement
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CLAS 165.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- T, THLanguage & Dining Center 205 3:10pm-4:55pm
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CLAS 200 Greece at a Crossroads: History, Landscape, and Material Culture 6 credits
This course provides a long-term view of the history, landscape, and material culture of Greece, from prehistory to the present day. While the monuments of ancient Greece are cultural touchstones, Greece has a remarkably diverse past, occupying a borderland between continents, empires, and cultures, both ancient and modern. Classroom study and on-site learning examine the wide range of sources that inform us about the Greek past (texts, archaeology, the environment), and focus especially on the stories told by places and things. Site visits in Athens and on trips throughout Greece highlight the importance of local and regional contexts in the “big histories” of the eastern Mediterranean.
Requires participation in OCS Program: Greece at a Crossroads: History, Landscape, and Material Culture
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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Participation in Greece at a Crossroads OCS programs
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CLAS 227 Athens, Sparta, and Persia 6 credits
Forged in the crucible of wars fought between cultures with diametrically opposed views on politics and society, the fifth century BC witnessed arts, philosophy, and science all flourish in thrilling new ways. The two radically different Greek states of Athens and Sparta first teamed up to defeat the invading Persian empire. While this shocking victory spurred their respective cultures to new heights, their political aspirations drove them to turn on each other and fight a series of wars over control of Greece–all the while with Persia waiting in the wings. We will study these events against the backdrop of the political, intellectual, and cultural achievements of Athens, Sparta and Persia, drawing on the rich body of literature and material culture from this period.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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CLAS 227.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Jake Morton š« š¤
- Size:30
- M, WLanguage & Dining Center 104 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLanguage & Dining Center 104 1:10pm-2:10pm
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CLAS 229 The Collapse of the Roman Republic 6 credits
The class will investigate the factors that led a Republican government that had lasted for 700 years to fall apart, leading to twenty years of civil war that only ended with the rise of a totalitarian dictatorship. We will look at the economic, social, military, and religious factors that played key roles in this dynamic political period. We will also trace the rise and influence of Roman warlords, politicians, and personalities and how they changed Roman politics and society. We will study many of the greatest characters in Roman history, as well as the lives of everyday Romans in this turbulent time.
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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CLAS 229.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Jake Morton š« š¤
- Size:30
- M, WLanguage & Dining Center 104 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLanguage & Dining Center 104 2:20pm-3:20pm
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CLAS 387 Expectasne Patronum? Magical Practice in the Greco-Roman World 6 credits
Although it often goes unnoticed in our appreciation of the classical world and its cultural practices, magic was a ubiquitous part of everyday life. From love charms, curses, and healing spells, to divination, alchemy and astronomy, everyone had to engage with magic and its potential to influence events. This course will serve as an introduction to the beliefs and the practices of magic in antiquity, as well as the scholarship that documents and theorizes them. Topics in the second half of the course will be driven by student interests as they develop research projects to present at the department Symposium.
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry
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At least two previous Classics courses or instructor consent
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CLAS 387.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Chico Zimmerman š« š¤
- Size:15
- T, THLibrary 344 1:15pm-3:00pm
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DGAH 110 Hacking the Humanities 6 credits
The digital world is infiltrating the academy and profoundly disrupting the arts and humanities, posing fundamental challenges to traditional models of university education, scholarly research, academic publication and creative production. This core course for the Digital Arts & Humanities minor introduces the key concepts, debates and technologies that shape DGAH, including text encoding, digital mapping (GIS), network analysis, data visualization, 3D imaging and basic programming languages. Students will learn to hack the humanities by making a collaborative, publishable DH project, while acquiring the skills and confidence necessary to actively participate in the digital world, both in college and beyond.
- Fall 2023, Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Quantitative Reasoning Encounter
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DGAH 110.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:30
- T, THCMC 110 10:10am-11:55am
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The digital world is infiltrating the academy and profoundly disrupting the arts and humanities, posing fundamental challenges to traditional models of university education, scholarly research, academic publication and creative production. This core course for the Digital Arts & Humanities minor introduces the key concepts, debates and technologies that shape DGAH, including text encoding, digital mapping (GIS), network analysis, data visualization, 3D imaging and basic programming languages. Students will learn to hack the humanities by making a collaborative, publishable DH project, while acquiring the skills and confidence necessary to actively participate in the digital world, both in college and beyond.
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DGAH 210 Spatial Humanities 6 credits
Spatial analysis is central to the digital humanities and a valuable methodology within history, literature, archaeology, anthropology, and many other disciplines. This course provides an introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the key concepts, debates, and technologies behind digital mapping in the humanities and social sciences. We will learn technical GIS skills that include visualizing, analyzing, and managing various types of spatial data, digitizing historical maps, interactive web mapping, and basic cartographic design. This course is open to all students, regardless of prior experience, and covers the fundamental skills needed to produce spatial humanities projects within any discipline.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Quantitative Reasoning Encounter
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DGAH 210.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- T, THCMC 110 10:10am-11:55am
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DGAH 264 Visualizing the Ancient City 6 credits
What makes a city, well, a city? This course examines urban society across different regions of the ancient world from the 2nd millennium BCE to 1st millennium CE. Taking a comparative approach to examples from the Mediterranean, Near East, Mesoamerica and China, we will reconstruct social, political, and topographic histories of urban space from a kaleidoscope of sources that include archaeological excavations, art & architecture, inscriptions, and literature. We will approach this source material using digital methods such as 3D modeling, GIS mapping, and digital storytelling to reconstruct both the physical environments and lived experiences of past cities.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry
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DGAH 264.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- T, THCMC 110 10:10am-11:55am
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ENTS 215 Environmental Ethics 6 credits
This course is an introduction to the central ethical debates in environmental policy and practice, as well as some of the major traditions of environmental thought. It investigates such questions as whether we can have moral duties towards animals, ecosystems, or future generations; what is the ethical basis for wilderness preservation; and what is the relationship between environmentalism and social justice. The Academic Civic Engagement aspect of the course for Spring 2024 will involve beaver monitoring in the Arb and participation in planning the BeaverFest campus and community event in May.
- Fall 2023, Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry
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ENTS 215.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WWillis 203 11:10am-12:20pm
- FWillis 203 12:00pm-1:00pm
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ENTS 215.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WWillis 203 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FWillis 203 2:20pm-3:20pm
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ENTS 249 Troubled Waters 6 credits
This course considers the contrast between the ways various religions conceive of water as sacred, and the fact that today’s intersecting environmental crises mean that drought, flooding, sea level rise, and lack of access to clean water and safe sanitation have made the human relationship with water more fraught and complex than ever before. We will look at specific situations of environmental injustice (including Flint, Michigan; Jackson, Mississippi; and the protests at Standing Rock) as well as reading more theoretical and theological takes on water, water justice, and water activism.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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ENTS 249.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WWillis 203 11:10am-12:20pm
- FWillis 203 12:00pm-1:00pm
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ENTS 307 Wilderness Field Studies: Grand Canyon 6 credits
This course is the second half of a two-course sequence focused on the study of wilderness in American society and culture. The course will begin with an Off-Campus Studies program at Grand Canyon National Park, where we will learn about the natural and human history of the Grand Canyon region, examine contemporary issues facing the park, meet with officials from the National Park Service and other local experts, conduct research, and experience the park through hiking and camping. The course will culminate in spring term with the completion and presentation of a major research project.
HIST 306 required previous winter term, Extra Time
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies Writing Requirement
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History 306 and Acceptance in Wilderness Studies at the Grand Canyon OCS program
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ENTS 307.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:George Vrtis š« š¤
- Size:12
- T, THLibrary 344 10:10am-11:55am
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ENTS 318 Trees, Forests, and Climate Justice 6 credits
Will planting one trillion trees save us from climate change? Will deforestation and wildfires doom us? This course will examine the ways that contemporary worries, hopes, and dreams about forests and the ways their fate is entangled with that of humanity are rooted not only in science and practical policy choices, but in the folklore, sacred stories, and great literature that have long shaped our engagement with “the deep dark woods.” The course is constructed as a multi-disciplinary approach to forests in the Anthropocene; each student will pursue an original, interdisciplinary research project leading to a ca. 25-page research paper.
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ENTS 318.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:15
- M, WWillis 203 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FWillis 203 2:20pm-3:20pm
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EUST 110 The Power of Place: Memory and Counter-Memory in the European City 6 credits
This team-taught interdisciplinary course explores the relationship between memory, place and power in Europe’s cities. It examines the practices through which individuals and groups imagine, negotiate and contest their past in public spaces through art, literature, film and architecture. The instructors will draw on their research and teaching experience in urban centers of Europe after a thorough introduction to the study of memory across different disciplines. Students will be challenged to think critically about larger questions regarding the possibility of national and local memories as the foundation of identity and pride but also of guilt and shame.
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EUST 290 Economics and European Studies Program: Studying Britain in Europe: from the Great War to Brexit 2 credits
This course provides guided readings for students on the Economics and European Studies OCS in Cambridge. The course introduces students to the study of European Institutions and their development in the context of major political events of the day. It also covers the different crises that led to the Union’s establishment after the experience of two World Wars, the post-war settlement, and Britain’s awkward relationship with the EU from Churchill to Brexit.
Participation in OCS Cambridge Program
- Winter 2024
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EUST 398 The Global Panorama: A Capstone Workshop for European Studies and Cross-Cultural Studies 2 credits
The work of Cross-Cultural Studies and European Studies traverses many disciplines, often engaging with experiences that are difficult to capture in traditional formats. In this course students will create an ePortfolio that reflects, deepens, and narrates the various forms of experiences they have had at Carleton related to their minor, drawing on coursework and off-campus study, as well as such extracurricular activities as talks, service learning, internships and fellowships. Guided by readings and prompts, students will write a reflective essay articulating the coherence of the parts, describing both the process and the results of their pathway through the minor. Considered a capstone for CCST and EUST, but for anyone looking to thread together their experiences across culture. Course is taught as a workshop.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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EUST 398.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Paul Petzschmann š« š¤
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- TLeighton 426 1:15pm-3:00pm
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Cross-listed with CCST 398
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FREN 208 French and Francophone Studies in Paris Program: Contemporary France: Cultures, Politics, Society 6 credits
This course seeks to deepen students’ knowledge of contemporary French culture through a pluridisciplinary approach, using multimedia (books, newspaper and magazine articles, videos, etc.) to generate discussion. It will also promote the practice of both oral and written French through exercises, debates, and oral presentations.
Requires participation in OCS Program: French and Francophone Studies in Paris
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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French 204 or equivalent
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FREN 210 Coffee and News 2 credits
Keep up your French while learning about current issues in France, as well as world issues from a French perspective. Class meets once a week for an hour. Requirements include reading specific sections of leading French newspapers, (Le Monde, Libération, etc.) on the internet, and then meeting once a week to exchange ideas over coffee with a small group of students.
Sophomore Priority
- Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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French 204 or instructor approval
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FREN 210.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Ćva PĆ³sfay š« š¤
- Size:15
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- WLanguage & Dining Center 335 3:10pm-4:20pm
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Sophomore Priority
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FREN 210.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Ćva PĆ³sfay š« š¤
- Size:15
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- WLanguage & Dining Center 335 3:10pm-4:20pm
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Sophomore Priority
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FREN 210.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Ćva PĆ³sfay š« š¤
- Size:15
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- WLanguage & Dining Center 330 3:10pm-4:20pm
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Sophomore Priority
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GERM 212 Contemporary Germany in Global Context 6 credits
Over the past few years, Germany has been touted as the new leader of Europe, or even of the “free world,” and at the same time has seen a surge of bitter political division within its borders. The Berlin Wall fell thirty years ago, yet tensions between East and West remain stark. Chancellor Angela Merkel implemented an open-arms policy toward refugees, yet the extremist AfD party has orchestrated a troubling rise to power based on xenophobic sentiments. And while Germany has emerged as a global environmental leader, it has simultaneously faced passionate protest from its own youth regarding failure to meet the challenges of climate change. In this class, we examine the complexities behind these seeming contradictions in contemporary Germany by analyzing diverse texts ranging from political speeches to poetry slams. Taught in German; advanced grammar review supports analytical tasks.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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German 204 or equivalent
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GERM 212.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WLibrary 344 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLibrary 344 12:00pm-1:00pm
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GERM 261 German Studies in Austria Program: Vienna Past and Present: The City as Text 6 credits
This class examines the history of Vienna and Austria (including the Austro-Hungarian Empire) through excursions to museums and memorials in the city. How are these histories memorialized in the structure of the city? What institutions make these histories visible? How do museums and memorials in Vienna construct historical narratives and who is left out from these narratives? Site visits and excursions in Vienna and beyond present opportunities for comparative analysis.
Requires participation in OCS Program: German Studies in Austria
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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Participation in German Studies in Austria Program
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GERM 262 German Studies in Austria Program: Cultural History of Food and Drink in Vienna 6 credits
What are the cultural, historical, environmental, social, and political forces that shape our experience with food and drink? This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to learning about the important food and drink culture in Vienna and Austria. Site visits to the city’s iconic markets, taverns, producers, breweries and cafés deepen understanding and language skills.
Requires participation in OCS Program: German Studies in Austria
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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Participation in German Studies in Austria program
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GWSS 212 Foundations of LGBTQ Studies 6 credits
This course introduces students to foundational interdisciplinary works in sexuality and gender studies, while focusing on the construction of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer identities in the United States. In exploring sexual and gender diversity throughout the term, this seminar highlights the complexity and variability of experiences of desire, identification, embodiment, self-definition, and community-building across different historical periods, and in relation to intersections of race, class, ethnicity, and other identities.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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GWSS 212.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Candace Moore š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 236 1:15pm-3:00pm
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GWSS 233 Feminist Cultural Studies 6 credits
Who does popular feminism speak for; what does it stand for? How are earlier feminist movements reimagined, remediated, and rebranded to make feminism “cool” or “empowering”? What gendered subjectivities, knowledges, and practices are constituted—and marginalized? How do new technologies, media, practices of everyday life, and self-representations contribute to the making and unmaking of feminist activism and social change? We use an interdisciplinary approach: scholarship in queer theory, affect theory, Marxism, media studies, cultural studies, and sociology alongside the ephemera of mass culture, to illuminate intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, religion, nationality, and ability and intersectionality’s role in creating new feminist theory and praxis.
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GWSS 233.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 402 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 402 2:20pm-3:20pm
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GWSS 243 Women’s and Gender Studies in Europe Program: Situated Feminisms: Socio-Political Systems and Gender Issues Across Europe 7-8 credits
This course examines the history and present of feminist and LGBTQ activisms across Western and East-Central Europe. We study the impact of the European colonial heritage on the lives of women and sexual/ethnic minorities across European communities, as well as the legacies of World War II, the Cold War, and the EU expansion into Eastern Europe. Reproductive rights, LGBTQ issues, “anti-genderism,” sex work, trafficking, and issues faced by ethnic minorities are among topics explored. These topics are addressed comparatively and historically, stressing their ‘situated’ nature and considering their divergent sociopolitical national frameworks.
OCS GEP GWSS Program in Europe
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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Acceptance into the WGST Europe OCS Program required
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GWSS 244 Women’s & Gender Studies in Europe Program: Cross-Cultural Feminist Methodologies 7-8 credits
This course explores the following questions: What is the relationship between methodology and knowledge claims in feminist research? How do language and narrative help shape experience? What are the power interests involved in keeping certain knowledges marginalized/subjugated? How do questions of gender and sexuality, of ethnicity and national location, figure in these debates? We will also pay close attention to questions arising from the hegemony of English as the global language of WGS as a discipline, and will reflect on what it means to move between different linguistic communities, with each being differently situated in the global power hierarchies.
OCS GEP GWSS Program in Europe
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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Acceptance into the WGST Europe OCS Program required
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GWSS 325 Women’s & Gender Studies in Europe Program: Continental Feminist, Queer, Trans* Theories 7-8 credits
Addressing the impact of Anglo-American influences in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, this course examines European, including East-Central European, approaches to key gender and sexuality topics. It raises questions about the transfer of feminist concepts across cultures and languages. Some of the themes explored include nationalism and gender/sexuality, gendered dimensions of Western and East-Central European racisms, the historical influence of psychoanalysis on Continental feminist theories, the implications of European feminisms in the history of colonialism, the biopolitics of gender, homonationalism, as well as Eastern European socialist/communist theories of women’s emancipation.
OCS GEP GWSS Program
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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Acceptance to WGST Europe OCS Program
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GWSS 334 Feminist Theory 6 credits
This seminar explores key feminist theoretical perspectives and debates, using a historical framework to situate these ideas in relationship to philosophical and political discourses produced during specific cultural moments. This seminar ultimately aims to interrogate the positionality of the theorists we study, considering the cultural privileges as well as vectors of marginalization that influence those viewpoints. We follow feminist thinkers as they propose, challenge, critique, subvert, and revise theoretical traditions of liberalism, Marxism, Socialism, radicalism, separatism, utopianism, multiculturalism, postmodernism, queerness, and post-colonialism. We ask: What gets counted as feminist theory? What gets left out?
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GWSS 334.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:15
- T, THCMC 319 10:10am-11:55am
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HIST 111 Uncharted Waters: The History of Society and the Sea 6 credits
This course introduces students to maritime history, marine environmental history, and issues in contemporary marine policy. While traditional histories have framed the sea as an empty space and obstacle to be traversed, or as a battleground, we will approach the ocean as a contact zone, a space of labor, and as the site of focused scientific research, thereby emphasizing human interaction with the oceans. We will examine how people have come to know, utilize, and govern the world’s oceans across time and space, and we will explore how this history informs contemporary issues in maritime law, governance, and ocean conservation.
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HIST 111.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Antony Adler š« š¤
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 402 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 402 12:00pm-1:00pm
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HIST 112 Freedom of Expression: A Global History 6 credits
Celebrated as the bedrock of democracy, freedom of expression is often seen as an American or western value. Yet the concept has a rich and global history. In this course we will track the long and turbulent history of freedom of expression from ancient Athens and medieval Islamic societies to the Enlightenment and the drive for censorship in totalitarian and colonial societies. Among the questions we will consider are: How have the parameters of free expression changed and developed over time? What is the relationship between free speech and political protest? How has free speech itself been weaponized? How does an understanding of the history of free speech help us think about the challenges of combating hatred and misinformation in today’s internet age?
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 112.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Amna Khalid š« š¤
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 402 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 402 12:00pm-1:00pm
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HIST 122 U.S. Women’s History to 1877 6 credits
Gender, race, and class shaped women’s participation in the arenas of work, family life, culture, and politics in the United States from the colonial period to the late nineteenth century. We will examine diverse women’s experiences of colonization, industrialization, slavery and Reconstruction, religion, sexuality and reproduction, and social reform. Readings will include both primary and secondary sources, as well as historiographic articles outlining major frameworks and debates in the field of women’s history.
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HIST 122.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Annette Igra š« š¤
- Size:30
- T, THLeighton 402 10:10am-11:55am
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HIST 123 U.S. Women’s History Since 1877 6 credits
In the twentieth century women participated in the redefinition of politics and the state, sexuality and family life, and work and leisure as the United States became a modern, largely urban society. We will explore how the dimensions of race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality shaped diverse women’s experiences of these historical changes. Topics will include: immigration, the expansion of the welfare system and the consumer economy, labor force segmentation and the world wars, and women’s activism in civil rights, labor, peace and feminist movements.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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HIST 123.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Annette Igra š« š¤
- Size:30
- T, THLeighton 330 1:15pm-3:00pm
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HIST 126 African American History II 6 credits
This course analyzes Black Freedom activism, its goals, and protagonists from Reconstruction until today. Topics include the evolution of racial segregation and its legal and de facto expressions in the South and across the nation, the Great Migration and Harlem Renaissance, Black activism in the New Deal era, the effects of World War II and the Cold War, mass activism in the 1950s and 1960s, white supremacist resistance against Black rights, Black Power activism and Black Internationalism, the “War on Drugs,” racialized welfare state reforms, and police brutality, the election of Barack Obama, and the path to #BlackLivesMatter today.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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HIST 126.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Rebecca Brueckmann š« š¤
- Size:30
- T, THLeighton 330 10:10am-11:55am
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HIST 127 Early Africa in the Global Context 6 credits
Africa is woefully misunderstood and stereotyped as inherently violent, poor, grossly corrupt, and uncivilized. In response to these misconceptions and misrepresentations, this survey studies the diverse communities and states which existed across Africa and were part of global networks before the nineteenth century. Broadly, it explores the roots of the global hierarchies of power which perpetuate this positioning of Africa as inferior to the West. We will analyze the representations of Africa and its histories and an understanding of how these representations shape our conscious and unconscious opinions about and perceptions of the continent, its people, and their cultures.
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 127.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 304 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 304 9:40am-10:40am
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HIST 136 The Global Middle Ages 6 credits
Encounter, interaction, and communication across space and between cultures are fundamental parts of the human story yet are often marginalized when we use national, regional, or religious frameworks to shape our study. In this course, we will center our investigation of the medieval time period (roughly 500-1500CE) on interactions among cultures and peoples across Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas. We will think comparatively about how peoples around the globe approached similar questions and problems and ask how a global approach helps improve our understanding of this dynamic and creative period. Extra time required for one field trip.
Extra time for one field trip
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HIST 139 Foundations of Modern Europe 6 credits
Witch hunts, religious reforms, economic transformation, global expansion… all of these phenomena exemplify the dynamic centuries c. 1500-1750, known as the early modern period in Europe. This course surveys the history of Western Europe from the Renaissance and Reformation through the era of the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment. We compare the development of states and societies across Western Europe in the larger context of expanding global trade and exchange with the Americas, Africa, South Asia and Japan.
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HIST 139.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Susannah Ottaway š« š¤
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 402 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 402 9:40am-10:40am
- FLeighton 301 9:40am-10:40am
- FLeighton 301 1:10pm-2:10pm
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HIST 152 History of Late Imperial China 6 credits
What historical elements made the Industrial Revolution possible? What are the enduring forces that have caused the divergent pathways that China and Europe took from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-seventeenth century? This course examines the prevailing attitudes of the people living in the Ming and Qing period towards technology and science that either facilitated or hindered the country’s preparation for industrialization. It will also consider salient value orientations that came to redefine existing social relations. Analyzing various primary sources (memorials, letters, diaries, travelogues, poems, eulogies, and maps), students will develop skills to frame key historical questions against broader historiographical contexts.
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HIST 152.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Seungjoo Yoon š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 301 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 301 12:00pm-1:00pm
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HIST 159 Age of Samurai 6 credits
Japan’s age of warriors is often compared to the Middle Ages. Sandwiched between the court society and the shogunate, the warrior population in Japan is often compared to the vassals in feudalism. This course examines the evolution of the samurai from the late twelfth to the seventeenth century, with the thematic focus on the evolving dynamics between violence and competing political regimes (monasteries, estate holders, opportunistic households, regencies, cloistered government). With analyses of many different types of primary sources (chronicles, poems, letters, diaries, travelogues, thanatologues, maps) students will develop critical skills to frame key historical questions against broader historiographical contexts.
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HIST 159.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Seungjoo Yoon š« š¤
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 202 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 202 12:00pm-1:00pm
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HIST 165 A Cultural History of the Modern Middle East 6 credits
This course provides a basic introduction to the modern history of the Middle East from the late eighteenth century to the present. We will focus on the enormous transformations the region has witnessed in this period, as a world of empires gave way one of nation-states and new political and cultural ideas reshaped the lives of its inhabitants. We will discuss the cultural and religious diversity of the region and its varied interactions with modernity. We will find that the history of Middle East is inextricably linked to that of its neighbors and broader currents of modern history. We will read both the works of historians and literary and political texts from the region itself.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 169 Colonial Latin America 6 credits
This course examines the formation of Iberian colonial societies in the Americas with a focus on the lives of “ordinary” people, and the ways scholars study their lived experience through the surviving historical record. How did indigenous people respond to the so-called Spanish conquest? How did their communities adapt to colonial pressures and demands? What roles did African slaves and their descendants play in the formation of colonial societies? How were racial identities understood, refashioned, or contested as these societies became ever more globalized and diverse? These and other questions will serve as the starting point for our study of the origins and formation of contemporary Latin America.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 169.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Andrew Fisher š« š¤
- Size:35
- M, WLeighton 303 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 303 1:10pm-2:10pm
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HIST 180 Modern Africa, 1800-Present 6 credits
This course is a general survey of modern sub-Saharan African history from the 19th century to today through primary and secondary sources and works of fiction. The course will challenge recurring colonial stereotypes of modern Africa and its peoples as inherently chaotic, unchanging, poor, diseased, corrupt and conflict-ridden. It starts with an overview of the cultural developments in Africa before 1800, including African slave systems and the Atlantic Slave Trade. It then turns to European conquest of Africa and the dynamics of colonial rule, following which we explore how the rising tide of African nationalism, in the form of liberation movements, ushered out colonialism. Finally, we examine the problems of independent African nations as they grapple with neo-colonialism, China’s presence in Africa and a changing global epidemiology in the face of HIV/AIDS and the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 180.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 402 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 402 1:10pm-2:10pm
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HIST 200 Historians for Hire 3 credits
Designed to give students experiences and skills in public history and history education, this three-credit course offers students a choice among projects connected to local organizations and some partners farther afield. Students will have the opportunity to develop skills connected to archiving, building online materials such as maps and websites, and learning historical methods like oral history interviews or exhibit design. Most projects involve close collaborations with local community organizations, allowing students to become more connected with organizations outside of Carleton.
Extra time
- Winter 2024, Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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HIST 200.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Susannah Ottaway š« š¤
- Size:15
- TLeighton 303 3:10pm-4:55pm
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HIST 200.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Susannah Ottaway š« š¤
- Size:15
- TLeighton 301 3:10pm-4:55pm
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HIST 202 Oral History Research Methods: Theory, Ethics, and Practice 6 credits
This course introduces oral history methods in historical research. Students will examine power and authority, personal and collective memory, trust, representation, and community benefit in oral history projects. This iteration of the course will emphasize scholarship from Indigenous Studies and Indigenous scholars whose work employs oral histories. Students will deepen and apply their learning through an Academic Civic Engagement partnership with a local Indigenous organization; please note that this course requires some travel to Minneapolis, which will be organized by the professor. While prior coursework in history, Indigenous Studies, or American Studies would be useful, it is not mandatory.
Extra time, 1-2 field trips to the Twin Cities to conduct interviews
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HIST 202.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Meredith McCoy š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 402 1:15pm-3:00pm
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HIST 203 American Indian Education 6 credits
This course introduces students to the history of settler education for Indigenous students. In the course, we will engage themes of resistance, assimilation, and educational violence through an investigation of nation-to-nation treaties, federal education legislation, court cases, student memoirs, film, fiction, and artwork. Case studies will illustrate student experiences in mission schools, boarding schools, and public schools between the 1600s and the present, asking how Native people have navigated the educational systems created for their assimilation and how schooling might function as a tool for Indigenous resurgence in the future.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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HIST 203.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Meredith McCoy š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THAnderson Hall 329 1:15pm-3:00pm
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HIST 205 American Environmental History 6 credits
Environmental concerns, conflicts, and change mark the course of American history, from the distant colonial past to our own day. This course will consider the nature of these eco-cultural developments, focusing on the complicated ways that human thought and perception, culture and society, and natural processes and biota have all combined to forge Americans’ changing relationship with the natural world. Topics will include Native American subsistence strategies, Euroamerican settlement, industrialization, urbanization, consumption, and the environmental movement. As we explore these issues, one of our overarching goals will be to develop an historical context for thinking deeply about contemporary environmental dilemmas.
- Winter 2024, Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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HIST 205.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:George Vrtis š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 236 1:15pm-3:00pm
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HIST 205.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:George Vrtis š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 426 1:15pm-3:00pm
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HIST 218 Black Women’s History 6 credits
This course focuses on the history of black women in the United States. The class will offer an overview of the lived experiences of women of African descent in this country from enslavement to the present. We will focus on themes of labor, reproduction, health, community, family, resistance, activism, etc., highlighting the diversity of black women’s experiences and the ways in which their lives have been shaped by the intersections of their race, gender, sexuality, and class.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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HIST 218.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Rebecca Brueckmann š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 330 3:10pm-4:55pm
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HIST 220 From Blackface to Blaxploitation: Black History and/in Film 6 credits
This course focuses on the representation of African American history in popular US-American movies. It will introduce students to the field of visual history, using cinema as a primary source. Through films from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the seminar will analyze African American history, (pop-)cultural depictions, and memory culture. We will discuss subjects, narrative arcs, stylistic choices, production design, performative and film industry practices, and historical receptions of movies. The topics include slavery, racial segregation and white supremacy, the Black Freedom Movement, controversies and conflicts in Black communities, Black LGBTQIA+ history, ghettoization and police brutality, Black feminism, and Afrofuturism.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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HIST 220.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Rebecca Brueckmann š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 426 10:10am-11:55am
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HIST 224 Disease, Health, and Healing in African History 6 credits
This interdisciplinary survey is structured around case studies of epidemics and pandemics from pre-colonial times to the present. It explores the history of disease, health, and healing in the context of changing economic, cultural, and political relations in Africa beginning in the 1800s. Broadly, this course addresses the bigger question of the coalescence of power, agency, race, gender, and environment around health and disease to today. We will also learn about the variety of interventions made by biomedicine in African history to provide students with perspectives on Africa’s place in the history of global health.
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 224.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 330 1:10pm-2:10pm
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HIST 226 U.S. Consumer Culture 6 credits
In the period after 1880, the growth of a mass consumer society recast issues of identity, gender, race, class, family, and political life. We will explore the development of consumer culture through such topics as advertising and mass media, the body and sexuality, consumerist politics in the labor movement, and the response to the Americanization of consumption abroad. We will read contemporary critics such as Thorstein Veblen, as well as historians engaged in weighing the possibilities of abundance against the growth of corporate power.
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HIST 226.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Annette Igra š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 202 3:10pm-4:55pm
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HIST 235 Making and Breaking Institutions: Structure, Culture, Corruption, and Reform in the Middle Ages 6 credits
From churches and monasteries to universities, guilds, governmental administrations, the medieval world was full of institutions. They emerged, by accident or design, to do particular kinds of work and to benefit particular persons or groups. These institutions faced hard questions like those we ask of our institutions today: How best to structure, distribute, and control power and authority? What is the place of the institution in the wider world? How is a collective identity and ethos achieved, maintained, or transformed? Where does corruption come from and how can institutions be reformed? This course will explore these questions through discussion of case studies and primary sources from the medieval world as well as theoretical studies of these topics.
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HIST 235.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:William North š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 304 8:30am-9:40am
- FLeighton 304 8:30am-9:30am
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HIST 236 The Worlds of Hildegard of Bingen 6 credits
Author, composer, artist, abbess, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) used words, images and sound to share unique mystical experiences with her community and the broader world. At the same time, developments in Christian-Jewish relations, church-state relations, and the arts made the Holy Roman Empire a dynamic environment for religious, cultural, and political innovation. Through close examination of Hildegard’s works (writings, images, and music) and her contemporaries informed by current scholarship, we will investigate this period of creativity, conflict, and possibility, especially for women. Extra time relates to a collaboration with the early music ensemble Sequentia and work with Carleton Special Collections.
Extra time relates to a collaboration with the early music ensemble Sequentia and work with Carleton Special Collections
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HIST 236.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:William North š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WWeitz Center 132 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FWeitz Center 132 2:20pm-3:20pm
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HIST 238 The Viking World 6 credits
In the popular imagination, Vikings are horn-helmeted, blood-thirsty pirates who raped and pillaged their way across medieval Europe. But the Norse did much more than loot, rape, and pillage; they cowed kings and fought for emperors, explored uncharted waters and settled the North Atlantic, and established new trade routes that revived European urban life. In this course, we will separate fact from fiction by critically examining primary source documents alongside archaeological, linguistic and place-name evidence. Students will share their insights with each other and the world through two major collaborative digital humanities projects over the course of the term.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 238.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Austin Mason š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLanguage & Dining Center 104 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLanguage & Dining Center 104 12:00pm-1:00pm
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HIST 240 Tsars and Serfs, Cossacks and Revolutionaries: The Empire that was Russia 6 credits
Nicholas II, the last Tsar-Emperor of Russia, ruled over an empire that stretched from the Baltic to the Pacific. Territorial expansion over three-and-a-half centuries had brought under Russian rule a vast empire of immense diversity. The empire’s subjects spoke a myriad languages, belonged to numerous religious communities, and related to the state in a wide variety of ways. Its artists produced some of the greatest literature and music of the nineteenth century and it offered fertile ground for ideologies of both conservative imperialism and radical revolution. This course surveys the panorama of this empire from its inception in the sixteenth century to its demise in the flames of World War I. Among the key analytical questions addressed are the following: How did the Russian Empire manage its diversity? How does Russia compare with other colonial empires? What understandings of political order legitimized it and how were they challenged?
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 240.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Adeeb Khalid š« š¤
- Size:30
- T, THLeighton 305 10:10am-11:55am
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HIST 242 Communism, Cold War, Collapse: Russia Since Stalin 6 credits
In this course we will explore the history of Russia and other former Soviet states in the period after the death of Stalin, exploring the workings of the communist system and the challenges it faced internally and internationally. We will investigate the nature of the late Soviet state and look at the different trajectories Russia and other post-Soviet states have followed since the end of the Soviet Union.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 242.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Adeeb Khalid š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 304 3:10pm-4:55pm
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HIST 243 The Peasants are Revolting! Society and Politics in the Making of Modern France 6 credits
Political propaganda of the French Revolutionary period tells a simple story of downtrodden peasants exploited by callous nobles, but what exactly was the relationship between the political transformations of France from the Renaissance through the French Revolution and the social, religious, and cultural tensions that characterized the era? This course explores the connections and conflicts between popular and elite culture as we survey French history from the sixteenth through early nineteenth centuries, making comparisons to social and political developments in other European countries along the way.
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HIST 252 Social Movements in Modern China 6 credits
Working with evidence is what allows historians to encounter past societies and people. What kind of evidence we have and our approaches to interpreting it shape the questions we can ask and the interpretations we can offer. This course will provide interested students with hands-on experience in working with various kinds of evidence and learning about the process of writing histories with a focus on the origins and developments of the Chinese Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976. Themes will include practices and reflections on personality formation, knowledge and power, class and nation, legitimatization of violence, and operations of memory.
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HIST 252.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Seungjoo Yoon š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 301 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 301 2:20pm-3:20pm
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HIST 260 The Making of the Modern Middle East 6 credits
A survey of major political and social developments from the fifteenth century to the beginning of World War I. Topics include: state and society, the military and bureaucracy, religious minorities (Jews and Christians), and women in premodern Muslim societies; the encounter with modernity.
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 260.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Adeeb Khalid š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 304 3:10pm-4:55pm
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HIST 264 A History of India Through Food 6 credits
Indian cuisine is today famed worldwide and known for its complex diversity. This course will explore food as a gateway through which to understand a broader history of society, economy and politics in the Indian subcontinent. An analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of food and spices, beginning in the ancient era and ending in contemporary times, will allow us to examine community formation, patterns of wealth distribution, and state-building strategies. We will look at topics including farming and the environment, medical and religious systems, culture, caste, and colonialism.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 264.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Brendan LaRocque š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 202 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 202 12:00pm-1:00pm
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HIST 277 The Other September 11th: History & Memory in Chile 6 credits
September 11, 2023 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the coup d’état that deposed the democratically elected government of socialist Salvador Allende and ushered in the seventeen-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Students will examine this era through published eyewitness accounts and testimony, oral history projects, documentary film, photography and music. The course covers the rise and fall of Allende’s government, life under both Unidad Popular and Pinochet, the 1980s protest movement against military rule, and the ongoing struggles and debates over human rights, justice, and collective memory.
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 277.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Andrew Fisher š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 202 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 202 1:10pm-2:10pm
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HIST 278 The Aztecs and Their World 6 credits
Come explore the world of feathered serpents, smoking mirrors, flower songs, and water mountains! This course examines from multiple disciplinary perspectives the Nahuatl-speaking people of central Mexico under both Aztec and early Spanish rule (spanning approximately the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries). Students will gain experience working with a range of sources produced by Nahua authors, scribes, and artists, including ritual calendars, imperial tribute records, dynastic annals, and translated documents. The College’s rich collection of Mesoamerican codex facsimiles will play a prominent role in our investigation. No prior knowledge is required or expected.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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HIST 278.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Andrew Fisher š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WWillis 204 9:50am-11:00am
- FWillis 204 9:40am-10:40am
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HIST 282 History, Culture, and Commerce Africa and Arabia Program: African Diaspora in Arabia 6 credits
This course offers a broad historical overview of African men’s and women’s experiences as religious, political, and military leaders, as merchants and poets, and in agricultural and maritime industries in Arabia. Situated in Zanzibar and in various Gulf societies, the course will examine long standing historical, cultural, and commercial exchanges between Africa and the Gulf from medieval times to the present day. The course will question the ideologies that assume that Africa and Arabia represent racial and cultural difference.
Requires participation in OCS Program: History, Culture, and Commerce: Africa and Arabia
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies Quantitative Reasoning Encounter Writing Requirement
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100 or 200 level Africana Studies or History course and participation in OCS program
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HIST 282.07 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
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HIST 283 History, Culture, and Commerce Africa and Arabia Program: Thinking Historically in the Present 2 credits
This course explores how people in the countries associated with the Africa-Arabia program use notions of the past, heritage, and culture to forge national identities. It involves foundational reading material based on available field trips and experts. Students also will be tested on knowledge that they amass from a range of sources by the end of the first week of the term. These sources include lectures, museums, and local archives. Students will demonstrate this knowledge during presentations before an audience of their peers and scholars, heritage practitioners, and staff from institutional partners.
Requires participation in OCS Program: History, Culture, and Commerce: Africa and Arabia
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies Writing Requirement
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Participation in OCS Program
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HIST 283.07 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- Grading:S/CR/NC
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HIST 284 History, Culture, and Commerce Africa and Arabia Program: Heritage in Africa and Arabia 4 credits
Through lectures, readings, and visits to museums and archaeological and other heritage sites, this course examines the rich cultural heritage of East Africa and Arabia. Students will investigate a range of sites, reflecting on the deep and enduring connections between Africa’s and Arabia’s historical trading systems and cultures. The course also examines the influence of various European powers.
Requires participation in OCS Program: History, Culture, and Commerce: Africa and Arabia
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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100 or 200 level Africana Studies or History course and participation in OCS program
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HIST 284.07 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
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HIST 285 History, Culture, and Commerce Africa and Arabia Program: Critical Historical Research 6 credits
This course focuses on ethnographic research and writing with an emphasis on the practice of fieldwork. Students will conduct group research projects that include actively guiding and evaluating the work of their peers. The content of these projects will include maritime activities, health, music, economics, and heritage. Students will learn the benefits and challenges of examining oral tradition, oral history, poetry, visual art, material culture, and embodied practice. Service or experiential learning is another major point of emphasis. Students will develop their ability to question their knowledge, method, evidence, interpretation, experience, ethics, and power.
Requires participation in OCS Program: History, Culture, and Commerce: Africa and Arabia
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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100 or 200 level Africana Studies or History course and participation in OCS program
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HIST 285.07 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
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HIST 286 Ecology and Society in African History 6 credits
Scholarship about the multiple arenas in which colonialism wrought wide-ranging ecological transformations in Africa captures imagination. Through the lens of ‘history from below’ approach, this course interrogates African environmental history across pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial temporal spaces. It pays particular attention to how Africans’ indigenous knowledge and practices of natural resource access have been in perpetual conflict with neo-protectionist conservationist policies that threaten Africans’ bio-cultural heritage today. Themes to be addressed include African ideas about landscape, culture-nature relationality, sustainable natural resource utilization, disease ecologies, gender and the environment, resource-based conflicts, climate change, ecological imperialism, and negotiations for environmental justice.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry
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HIST 286.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 330 9:40am-10:40am
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HIST 287 From Alchemy to the Atom Bomb: The Scientific Revolution and the Making of the Modern World 6 credits
This course examines the growth of modern science since the Renaissance with an emphasis on the Scientific Revolution, the development of scientific methodology, and the emergence of new scientific disciplines. How might a history of science focused on scientific networks operating within society, rather than on individual scientists, change our understanding of “genius,” “progress,” and “scientific impartiality?” We will consider a range of scientific developments, treating science both as a body of knowledge and as a set of practices, and will gauge the extent to which our knowledge of the natural world is tied to who, when, and where such knowledge has been produced and circulated.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Writing Requirement
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HIST 287.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Antony Adler š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 236 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 236 1:10pm-2:10pm
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HIST 298 Junior Colloquium 6 credits
In the junior year, majors must take this six-credit reading and discussion course taught each year by different members of the department faculty. The course is also required for the History minor. The general purpose of History 298 is to help students reach a more sophisticated understanding of the nature of history as a discipline and of the approaches and methods of historians. A major who is considering off-campus study in the junior year should consult with their adviser on when to take History 298.
Required for History majors and minors
- Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry
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At least two six credit courses in History (excluding HIST 100 and Independents) at Carleton.
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HIST 298.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Serena Zabin š« š¤
- Size:18
- M, WLeighton 202 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 202 9:40am-10:40am
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HIST 298.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Andrew Fisher š« š¤
- Size:18
- M, WLeighton 202 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 202 9:40am-10:40am
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HIST 298.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Amna Khalid š« š¤
- Size:18
- M, WLeighton 304 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 304 2:20pm-3:20pm
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HIST 302 Creatures and Cultures: The History of Animals and Society 6 credits
How have animals shaped human societies and cultures, and how have humans in turn influenced the lives of animals? We will examine several historical contexts, cultures, and regions to gain a global understanding of the complexities of human-animal interactions. Other historical topics may include the ethical and political implications of these relationships as well as the impact on human societies and the environment of animal husbandry, wildlife conservation, and the display of exotic animals. Students will write a 25- to 30-page paper based on primary research and will read and critique each other’s papers.
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HIST 306 American Wilderness 6 credits
To many Americans, wild lands are among the nation’s most treasured places. Yellowstone, Yosemite, Mount Rainier, Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon – the names alone stir the heart, the mind, and the imagination. But where do those thoughts and feelings come from, and how have they both reflected and shaped American culture, society, and nature over the last three centuries? These are the central issues and questions that we will pursue in this seminar and in its companion course, ENTS 307 Wilderness Field Studies: Grand Canyon (which includes an Off-Campus Studies program at Grand Canyon National Park).
Spring Break OCS Program Course. ENTS 307 required for Spring Term registration.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies Writing Requirement
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Acceptance in Wilderness Studies at the Grand Canyon OCS program. History 205 is recommended but not required.
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HIST 306.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:George Vrtis š« š¤
- Size:12
- T, THLibrary 344 10:10am-11:55am
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HIST 315 America’s Founding 6 credits
This course is part of an off-campus winter break program that includes two linked courses in the fall and winter. The creation and establishment of the United States was a contested and uncertain event stretched over more than half a century. For whom, for what, and how was the United States created? In what ways do the conflicts and contradictions of the nation’s eighteenth-century founding shape today’s America? We will examine how the nation originated in violent civil war and in political documents that simultaneously offered glorious promises and a “covenant with death.” Our nuanced understanding of the American Revolution and Early Republic will underpin our ability to tell these stories to the wider public.
Participation in OCS History Winter Break Program
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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One previous history course
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HIST 315.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Serena Zabin š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 426 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 426 1:10pm-2:10pm
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HIST 316 Presenting America’s Founding 6 credits
This course is the second half of a two-course sequence focused on the study of the founding of the United States in American public life. The course will begin with a two-week off-campus study program during winter break in Washington, D.C and Boston, where we will visit world-class museums and historical societies, meet with museum professionals, and learn about the goals and challenges of history museums, the secrets to successful exhibitions, and the work of museum curators and directors. The course will culminate in the winter term with the completion of an exhibit created in conjunction with one of the museums located on Boston’s Freedom Trail.
Participation in Winter Break History Program
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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History 315
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HIST 316.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Serena Zabin š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 236 8:15am-10:00am
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HIST 334 Voyages of Understanding 6 credits
This seminar will examine the phenomenon of travel across historical periods and around the globe. We will look at motivations for travel; ideas about place, space, and geography; travel as site of encounter and conflict with peoples of different religions, ethnicities, and cultures; the effect of travel on individual and group identity; and representations of travel, cultural contact, and geography in texts, maps, and images. We will work on key research skills, and each student will carry out an original research project leading to a ca. 25-page research paper.
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HIST 334.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Victoria Morse š« š¤
- Size:15
- M, WLibrary 344 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLibrary 344 2:20pm-3:20pm
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Applies to multiple history fields. Consult the instructor.
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HIST 335 Finding Ireland’s Past 6 credits
How do historians find and use evidence of Ireland’s history? Starting with an exploration of castle archaeology and digital reconstruction, and ending with a unit on folklore and oral history collections from the early twentieth century, the first half of the course takes students through a series of themes and events in Irish history. During the second half of the course, students will pursue independent research topics to practice skills in historical methods, and will complete either a seminar paper or a digital project.
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HIST 335.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Susannah Ottaway š« š¤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 330 10:10am-11:55am
- T, THLeighton 202 10:10am-11:55am
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HIST 398 Advanced Historical Writing 6 credits
This course is designed to support majors in developing advanced skills in historical research and writing. Through a combination of class discussion, small group work, and one-on-one interactions with the professor, majors learn the process of constructing sophisticated, well-documented, and well-written historical arguments within the context of an extended project of their own design. They also learn and practice strategies for engaging critically with contemporary scholarship and effective techniques of peer review and the oral presentation of research. Concurrent enrollment in History 400 required. By permission of the instructor only.
HIST 400 required.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Writing Requirement
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HIST 398.01 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Annette Igra š« š¤
- Size:15
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- T, THLeighton 202 10:10am-11:55am
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HIST 398.02 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Serena Zabin š« š¤
- Size:15
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- T, THLeighton 202 3:10pm-4:55pm
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IDSC 251 Windows on the Good Life 2 credits
Human beings are always and everywhere challenged by the question: What should I do to spend my mortal time well? One way to approach this ultimate challenge is to explore some of the great cultural products of our civilization–works that are a delight to read for their wisdom and artfulness. This series of two-credit courses will explore a philosophical dialogue of Plato in the fall, a work from the Bible in the winter, and a pair of plays by Shakespeare in the spring. The course can be repeated for credit throughout the year and in subsequent years.
- Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry
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IDSC 251.01 Fall 2023
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- MHasenstab 105 8:00pm-9:45pm
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IDSC 251.02 Fall 2023
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- MHasenstab 105 3:10pm-4:45pm
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IDSC 251.01 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Laurence Cooper š« š¤ · Staff
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- MHasenstab 105 8:00pm-9:45pm
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IDSC 251.02 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Laurence Cooper š« š¤ · Staff
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- MHasenstab 105 3:10pm-4:45pm
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IDSC 251.01 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Laurence Cooper š« š¤ · Staff
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- WHasenstab 105 8:00pm-9:45pm
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IDSC 251.02 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Laurence Cooper š« š¤ · Staff
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- WHasenstab 105 3:10pm-4:45pm
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IDSC 285 Ethics of Civic Engagement 3 credits
This course explores vexing ethical questions raised in academic civic engagement practice. With structured reflection on students’ varied civic engagement experiences and a group project aligned with the instructor’s work, students will consider questions arising from asymmetries of power, the relationships between scholarship and advocacy, scholarly and community knowledges, empathy with others and a student’s own moral commitments, and practices of civic engagement and community organizing. Offered biennially by rotating faculty, course themes will vary accordingly. The 2023 theme is Indigenous engagement in Minnesota.
Extra time with community partner, flexibly scheduled
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IDSC 285.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Michael McNally š« š¤
- Size:25
- THLeighton 330 3:15pm-4:55pm
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LATN 235 The Bacchanalian Affair 6 credits
In 186 BC stories of wild and debauched secret religious rites being celebrated under cover of night sparked panic in Rome, which led to a brutal state suppression of the cult. Was this a crackdown on impious behavior or political oppression? Over the course of the term we will translate three sources of evidence to determine what actually happened: the Roman historian Livy’s scintillating and outrageous account of this conspiracy; works by the Roman comedic playwright Plautus that might have shaped Livy’s storytelling; and the Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus, a detailed inscription found in southern Italy discussing the new laws Rome passed to suppress the cult.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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LATN 235.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Jake Morton š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLibrary 305 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLibrary 305 12:00pm-1:00pm
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LTAM 398 Latin American Forum 2 credits
This colloquium will explore specific issues or works in Latin American Studies through discussion of a common reading, public presentation, project, and/or performance that constitute the annual Latin American Forum. Students will be required to attend two meetings during the term to discuss the common reading or other material and must attend, without exception. All events of the Forum which take place during fourth week of spring term (on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning). A short integrative essay or report will be required at the end of the term. Intended as capstone for the Latin American Studies minor.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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PHIL 114 Philosophy of Love and Sex 6 credits
This course is an examination of theories and attitudes concerning love and sexuality that have been prevalent in the Western world. We will explore philosophical and theological conceptions of sex and love and ethical issues related to these topics (including monogamy, same-sex marriage, cultural differences, pornography, and consent.) The course will focus on contemporary U.S. beliefs and practices examined through the lens of the different beliefs and practices concerning intimacy within the cultures of the U.S. The lens of gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation will be ongoing themes of the class and included in all topics.
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry
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PHIL 114.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Cynthia Marrero-Ramos š« š¤
- Size:30
- T, THLeighton 330 1:15pm-3:00pm
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PHIL 116 Sensation, Induction, Abduction, Deduction, Seduction 6 credits
In every academic discipline, we make theories and argue for and against them. This is as true of theology as of geology (and as true of phys ed as of physics). What are the resources we have available to us in making these arguments? It’s tempting to split the terrain into (i) raw data, and (ii) rules of right reasoning for processing the data. The most obvious source of raw data is sense experience, and the most obvious candidates for modes of right reasoning are deduction, induction, and abduction. Some philosophers, however, think that sense perception is only one of several sources of raw data (perhaps we also have a faculty of pure intuition or maybe a moral sense), and others have doubted that we have any source of raw data at all. As for the modes of “right” reasoning, Hume famously worried about our (in)ability to justify induction, and others have had similar worries about abduction and even deduction. Can more be said on behalf of our most strongly held beliefs and belief-forming practices than simply that we find them seductive—that we are attracted to them; that they resonate with us? In this course, we’ll use some classic historical and contemporary philosophical texts to help us explore these and related issues.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Writing Requirement
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PHIL 116.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Jason Decker š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 304 3:10pm-4:55pm
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PHIL 119 Meaning of Life 6 credits
Does life have a meaning? To answer this, we will first inquire into more basic questions about agency that provide a foundation for our topic: Is everything fated? Is fate compatible with free will? Is happiness in our control? After developing your ideas on the answers to those questions, we will turn to various approaches to meaning in life, both those that affirm meaning and deny it. We will cover, for example, approaches to the meaning of life grounded in narrative, divinity, creativity, and more.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Writing Requirement
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PHIL 123 Topics in Medical Ethics 6 credits
This course examines a variety of topics in medical ethics. We begin with a unit on pandemic ethics: Who should get ventilators when there aren’t enough for everyone? Do medical providers have a duty to treat during a pandemic? We then turn to the question “When is someone dead?” and consider how different answers to that question affect arguments over organ procurement. Our third unit is on the place of race, and racial judgments, in medicine. Is there a place for racial judgments in medicine? Finally, we turn to the question of how to think about decision making in a clinical context: what values are at play? And how should we think about disagreements between clinicians and patients? What about disagreements between patient’s past wishes and their current wishes? Not open to students who have taken Philosophy 222.
Sophomore Priority, not open to students what have taken Philosophy 222.
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PHIL 123.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Daniel Groll š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 236 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 236 2:20pm-3:20pm
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Sophomore Priority
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PHIL 124 Friendship 6 credits
What is friendship? Are there different types of friendships? What makes a friendship good? While this course will familiarize you with a variety of scholarly views on friendship from both historically canonical and contemporary sources, our main goal is to become more reflective about our lived experience of friendship here and now.
- Winter 2024, Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies Writing Requirement
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PHIL 124.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Allison Murphy š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 304 10:10am-11:55am
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PHIL 124.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Allison Murphy š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 304 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 304 1:10pm-2:10pm
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PHIL 213 Ethics 6 credits
How should we live? This is the fundamental question for the study of ethics. This course looks at classic and contemporary answers to the fundamental question from Socrates to Kant to modern day thinkers. Along the way, we consider slightly (but only slightly) more tractable questions such as: What reason is there to be moral? Is there such a thing as moral knowledge (and if so, how do we get it)? What are the fundamental principles of right and wrong (if there are any at all)? Is morality objective?
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry Writing Requirement
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PHIL 213.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Daniel Groll š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WHasenstab 105 9:50am-11:00am
- FHasenstab 105 9:40am-10:40am
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PHIL 217 Reason in Context: Limitations and Possibilities 6 credits
Our reflection on significant human questions is often (perhaps always) embedded within a larger set of cultural or personal theoretical commitments. Such embeddedness suggests our reflection cannot achieve the standard of objectivity characteristic of a traditional ideal of rationality. Is this realization to be welcomed insofar as it weakens traditional dogmatic claims to truth and the associated implication that certain views or frameworks are superior to others? Or, in spite of the unmooring of the philosophical tradition from set criteria, do we still find ourselves committed to some ordering of rank and, if so, how do we make sense of this? In this course we’ll examine these questions as they arise in the writings of Nietzsche, Heidegger and other continental philosophers. We will devote part of the course to the ancient sources (Plato and Aristotle) with whom the continental philosophers are in conversation.
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry Writing Requirement
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PHIL 217.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Allison Murphy š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 303 10:10am-11:55am
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PHIL 221 Philosophy of Law 6 credits
This course provides students with an opportunity to engage actively in a discussion of theoretical questions about law. We will consider the nature of law as it is presented by natural law theory, legal positivism and legal realism. Then we will deal with responsibility and punishment, and challenges to the idea of the primacy of individual rights from legal paternalism and moralism. We will next inquire into the explanations of why individuals should obey the law, and conditions under which civil disobedience is justified. Finally, we will discuss issues raised by feminist legal theory and some theories of minority rights.
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PHIL 221.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Anna Moltchanova š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 236 3:10pm-4:55pm
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PHIL 223 Philosophy of Language 6 credits
In this course we will look at how philosophers have tried to understand language and its connection with human thought and communication. The course will be split into two parts: Semantics and Pragmatics. In the first part, we’ll look at general features of linguistic expressions like meaning and reference. In the second part, we’ll look at the various ways in which speakers use language. Topics to be considered in the second part include speech acts, implicature, and presupposition.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Writing Requirement
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PHIL 223.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Jason Decker š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 236 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 236 12:00pm-1:00pm
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PHIL 232 Social and Political Philosophy 6 credits
We will study several prominent late twentieth century philosophers writing about social and political justice and representing a variety of views, such as liberalism, socialism, libertarianism, communitarianism, feminism and post-modernism. The following are some of the authors we will read: John Rawls, Gerald Cohen, Robert Nozick, Charles Taylor, Iris Marion Young, Seyla Benhabib, Jurgen Habermas, Jean-Francois Lyotard.
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PHIL 232.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Anna Moltchanova š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 236 3:10pm-4:55pm
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PHIL 257 Feminist Philosophy 6 credits
This course provides a survey of contemporary issues in feminist philosophy and theories of gender. We will cover intersectional theory, narrative theory, and feminist theories of embodiment. We will attempt to answer the following kinds of questions in this course: How does feminism interact with nationalism? How do categories of gender, sex, sexuality, race, nationality, and class affect our willingness to attribute knowledge or epistemic authority to others? How do we know our sexual orientation? What is oppression? Should gender impact custody decisions? How does the criminal justice system reinforce structures of oppression?
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PHIL 257.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Hope Sample š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 236 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 236 12:00pm-1:00pm
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PHIL 260 Philosophy of Race 6 credits
What is race? How do we define racism? How have philosophers defined race historically? What does it mean to examine race philosophically? US history, culture, and politics are haunted by the specters of race, racism, and slavery. Ideas about race and racism permeate nearly all aspects our lives evidenced by the mainstream media’s obsession with questions like: Does racism still exist? Should critical race theory be taught in schools? Do “Black Lives” or “All Lives” matter? In this course, we will investigate the ways in which ideas about race and racism in the US have been and are continuously re-defined for the sake of preserving white supremacy and white-supremacist institutions.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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PHIL 260.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Cynthia Marrero-Ramos š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 202 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 202 1:10pm-2:10pm
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PHIL 261 The Individual and the Political Community 6 credits
Are human beings by nature atomic units or oriented towards community? What does the difference amount to, and why does it matter for our understanding of the ways in which political communities come into existence and are maintained? In this course we will explore these and related questions while reading two foundational works in political theory, Plato’s Republic and Hobbes’s Leviathan, as well as several related contemporary pieces.
Not open to students who have taken PHIL 113 Individual and Community
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PHIL 261.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Allison Murphy š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLibrary 344 9:50am-11:00am
- FLibrary 344 9:40am-10:40am
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PHIL 270 Ancient Greek Philosophy 6 credits
Is there a key to a happy and successful human life? If so, how do you acquire it? Plato and Aristotle thought the key was virtue and that your chances of obtaining it depend on the sort of life you lead. We’ll read texts from these authors that became foundational for the later history of philosophy, including the Apology, Gorgias, Symposium, and the Nicomachean Ethics, while situating the ancient understanding of virtue in the context of larger questions of metaphysics (the nature of being), psychology, and ethics.
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PHIL 270.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Allison Murphy š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 304 1:15pm-3:00pm
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PHIL 272 Early Modern Philosophy: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Philosophy 6 credits
This seventeenth and eighteenth century philosophy course is not limited to any geographic region: it is open to Indigenous philosophical traditions as well as those of Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. On the metaphysical side, we will cover topics such as time and space, freedom, and divinity. Ethical issues that we will cover include, but are not limited to, moral responsibility, virtue, suffering, and the good life. Further, we will cover epistemic issues concerning belief, perception, and knowledge.
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PHIL 272.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Hope Sample š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WWeitz Center 230 11:10am-12:20pm
- FWeitz Center 230 12:00pm-1:00pm
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PHIL 297 Kantās Philosophy of Mind 6 credits
Kant’s contributions to philosophy of mind cover a diverse array of aspects of consciousness and have deeply influenced the history of philosophy of mind. His phenomenological reflections on the perception of space and time and the basic categories through which we judge inspired subsequent Kantian philosophers and even contemporary debates about the role of concepts in perception. Further, Kant’s account of judgments of beauty and the sublime provide essential background for contemporary aesthetics. Finally, Kant’s universal law formulation of his central moral principle provides an innovative way to understand moral decision making in terms of collective rationality.
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PHIL 297.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Hope Sample š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 236 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 236 2:20pm-3:20pm
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PHIL 304 Decolonial Feminisms 6 credits
This course familiarizes students with major issues and debates within the emerging field of decolonial feminist philosophy. We will start by considering some of the historical, geopolitical, and theoretical underpinnings from which decolonial feminisms emerged. We will then investigate core concepts and problems pertaining to decolonial feminisms as a critical methodology and as a practice to build solidarity between and across anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-sexist, anti-capitalist schools of thought and/or political coalitions. We will pay particular attention to Latina feminist philosopher María Lugones and her development of the “colonial modern gender system” and her articulation of “decolonial feminism.”
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies
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One prior course in Philosophy or a relevant area of studies or permission of the instructor.
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PHIL 304.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Cynthia Marrero-Ramos š« š¤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 330 1:15pm-3:00pm
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PHIL 338 Philosophy East and West 6 credits
This course will cover philosophical themes within seventeenth and eighteenth century Eastern and Western philosophical traditions and put them in conversation with one another. Some examples of topics that may be covered include, but are not limited to, the following: nature, divinity, knowledge, virtue, animal ethics, philosophy of mind, change, and education. Further, we will analyze methodological issues of translation. We will also evaluate problems for comparative work such as incommensurability, anachronism, ideological imperialism, ethnocentrism, and more. The aim of this course is to gain a contextual understanding of these philosophical traditions to promote the creation of new dialogues.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies Writing Requirement
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One Prior course in Philosophy
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POSC 160 Political Philosophy 6 credits
Introduction to ancient and modern political philosophy. We will investigate several fundamentally different approaches to the basic questions of politics–questions concerning the character of political life, the possibilities and limits of politics, justice, and the good society–and the philosophic presuppositions (concerning human nature and human flourishing) that underlie these, and all, political questions.
- Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Writing Requirement
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POSC 160.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Paul Petzschmann š« š¤
- Size:30
- M, WHasenstab 105 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FHasenstab 105 1:10pm-2:10pm
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POSC 160.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Paul Petzschmann š« š¤
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 426 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 426 9:40am-10:40am
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POSC 160.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Laurence Cooper š« š¤
- Size:30
- T, THHasenstab 109 10:10am-11:55am
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POSC 232 PS Lab: Political Philosophy and the Art of Reading 3 credits
Political philosophy inquires into basic matters that most of us take for granted: what is good and bad? what is just and unjust? and why? These inquiries can threaten, or be perceived as threatening, our most dearly held beliefs and all that rests on these beliefs. Political philosophers have often employed arts of writing aimed at veiling their most radical thoughts from all but their most careful and persistent readers. In this course we will study these arts of writing and the arts of reading that they demand of us. We will learn not only about various methods and techniques but also about a philosophic education.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry
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POSC 232.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Laurence Cooper š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THHasenstab 109 3:10pm-4:55pm
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POSC 250 Kings, Tyrants, Philosophers: Plato’s Republic 6 credits
In this course we will read Plato’s Republic, perhaps the greatest and surely the most important work of political philosophy ever written. What are the deepest needs and the most powerful longings of human nature? Can they be fulfilled, and, if so, how? What are the deepest needs of society, and can they be fulfilled? What is the relation between individual happiness and societal well-being? Are they compatible or in conflict with one another? And where they are in conflict, what does justice require that we do? The Republic explores these questions in an imaginative and unforgettable way.
Crosslisted with POSC 350
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry
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POSC 250.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Laurence Cooper š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THHasenstab 109 1:15pm-3:00pm
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POSC 254 Freedom, Excellence, Happiness: Aristotle’s Ethics 6 credits
What does it mean to be morally excellent? To be politically excellent? To be intellectually and spiritually excellent? Are these things mutually compatible? Do they lie within the reach of everyone? And what is the relation between excellence and pleasure? Between excellence and happiness? Aristotle addresses these questions in intricate and illuminating detail in the Nicomachean Ethics, which we will study in this course. The Ethics is more accessible than some of Aristotle’s other works. But it is also a multifaceted and multi-layered book, and one that reveals more to those who study it with care.
Cross-listed with POSC 354
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry
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POSC 352 Political Theory of Alexis de Tocqueville 6 credits
This course will be devoted to close study of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, which has plausibly been described as the best book ever written about democracy and the best book every written about America. Tocqueville uncovers the myriad ways in which equality, including especially the passion for equality, determines the character and the possibilities of modern humanity. Tocqueville thereby provides a political education that is also an education toward self-knowledge.
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POSC 352.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Barbara Allen š« š¤
- Size:15
- T, THHasenstab 109 10:10am-11:55am
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RELG 110 Understanding Religion 6 credits
How can we best understand the role of religion in the world today, and how should we interpret the meaning of religious traditions–their texts and practices–in history and culture? This class takes an exciting tour through selected themes and puzzles related to the fascinating and diverse expressions of religion throughout the world. From politics and pop culture, to religious philosophies and spiritual practices, to rituals, scriptures, gender, religious authority, and more, students will explore how these issues emerge in a variety of religions, places, and historical moments in the U.S. and across the globe.
- Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Intercultural Domestic Studies Writing Requirement
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RELG 110.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Lori Pearson š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 236 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 236 9:40am-10:40am
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RELG 110.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Michael McNally š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 305 10:10am-11:55am
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RELG 110.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Sonja Anderson š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 330 12:00pm-1:00pm
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RELG 120 Introduction to Judaism 6 credits
What is Judaism? Who are Jewish people? What are Jewish texts, practices, ideas? What ripples have Jewish people, texts, practices, and ideas caused beyond their sphere? These questions will animate our study as we touch on specific points in over three millennia of history. We will immerse ourselves in Jewish texts, historic events, and cultural moments, trying to understand them on their own terms. At the same time, we will analyze them using key concepts such as ‘tradition,’ ‘culture,’ ‘power,’ and ‘diaspora.’ We will explore how ‘Jewishness’ has been constructed by different stakeholders, each claiming the authority to define it.
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RELG 120.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 236 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 236 9:40am-10:40am
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RELG 122 Introduction to Islam 6 credits
This course is a general introduction to Islam as a prophetic religious tradition. It explores the different ways Muslims have interpreted and put into practice the prophetic message of Muhammad through analyses of varying theological, legal, political, mystical, and literary writings as well as through Muslims’ lived histories. These analyses aim for students to develop a framework for explaining the sources and vocabularies through which historically specific human experiences and understandings of the world have been signified as Islamic. The course will focus primarily on the early and modern periods of Islamic history.
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RELG 122.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Kambiz GhaneaBassiri š« š¤
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 402 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 402 9:40am-10:40am
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RELG 140 Religion and American Culture 6 credits
This course explores the colorful, contested history of religion in American culture. While surveying the main contours of religion in the United States from the colonial era to the present, the course concentrates on a series of historical moments that reveal tensions between a quest for a (Protestant) American consensus and an abiding religious and cultural pluralism.
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RELG 140.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Michael McNally š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 402 1:15pm-3:00pm
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RELG 152 Religions in Japanese Culture 6 credits
An introduction to the major religious traditions of Japan, from earliest times to the present. Combining thematic and historical approaches, this course will scrutinize both defining characteristics of, and interactions among, various religious traditions, including worship of the kami (local deities), Buddhism, shamanistic practices, Christianity, and new religious movements. We also will discuss issues crucial in the study of religion, such as the relation between religion and violence, gender, modernity, nationalism and war.
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RELG 152.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Asuka Sango š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 426 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 426 2:20pm-3:20pm
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RELG 153 Introduction to Buddhism 6 credits
This course offers a survey of Buddhism from its inception in India some 2500 years ago to the present. We first address fundamental Buddhist ideas and practices, then their elaboration in the Mahayana and tantric movements, which emerged in the first millennium CE in India. We also consider the diffusion of Buddhism throughout Asia and to the West. Attention will be given to both continuity and diversity within Buddhism–to its commonalities and transformations in specific historical and cultural settings. We also will address philosophical, social, political, and ethical problems that are debated among Buddhists and scholars of Buddhism today.
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RELG 153.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Asuka Sango š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 236 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 236 9:40am-10:40am
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RELG 162 Jesus, the Bible, and Christian Beginnings 6 credits
Who was Jesus? What’s in the Bible? How did Christianity begin? This course is an introduction to the ancient Jewish texts that became the Christian New Testament, as well as other texts that did not make it into the Bible. We will take a historical approach, situating this literature within the Roman Empire of the first century, and we will also learn about how modern readers have interpreted it. Along the way, we will pay special attention to two topics of enduring political debate: (1) Whether the Bible supports oppression or liberation and (2) What the Bible says about gender and sexuality.
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RELG 162.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Sonja Anderson š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 330 12:00pm-1:00pm
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RELG 212 Black Religious Thought 6 credits
Although Black thinkers are well-known for discussing religion, the relationship between Blackness and religious thought is ambiguous. Much like religion can be understood in numerous ways, so does “Black” carry several meanings. In this course, we will investigate this ambiguity by unpacking how Black thinkers have expanded upon, reimagined, and rejected various forms of religious practices, beliefs, and institutions. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which these engagements are shaped by thinkers’ identification with, definition of, and politics surrounding Blackness and the African diaspora. The syllabus may include Baldwin, Hurston, Malcolm X, and Cone.
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RELG 212.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 304 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 304 1:10pm-2:10pm
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RELG 214 Irish Studies In Ireland Program: Sacred Place & Pilgrimage in Ireland 6 credits
Encounters with the sacred on the landscape present a through line of Irish religion: pre-Christian, Christian, and post-Christian. Holy mountains, islands, stones, and wells materialize the sacred and organize the practices of lived religion. Such places are also charged sites of historical memory, colonization, and resistance. Long wellsprings of Irish cultural nationalism, they now capture spiritual imaginations of global seekers of earth-based spirituality. Through readings, field visits, and walking several pilgrimage routes, this course explores narratives and practices of sacred places, engages the blurry boundary between the sacred/secular entailed in pilgrimage, and queries the modern romance with “Celtic Spirituality.”
Pariticipation in Ireland Program
- Summer 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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Participation in Ireland Program
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RELG 216 Irish Studies in Ireland Program: Becoming Ireland: Nature, Culture, and Religion in Irish History 3 credits
The past is a strong presence in Ireland. People live with Iron Age tombs and medieval sculptures in their backyards. Modern identities are negotiated through memories of Ireland becoming Celtic, or Christian, or colonized. Understanding modern traditions about these changes requires investigation of how such features of “being Irish” played out long ago. This course explores foundations of modern Ireland though an archaeological tour of key moments in ancient Ireland, with emphasis on changes in sacred landscapes from period to period. The course involves readings, material culture studies, and experience at archaeological sites, including active excavations.
Participation in OCS Ireland Program
- Summer 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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RELG 222 Trauma, Loss, Memory: Holocaust and Genocide 6 credits
Building on the legacy of Holocaust memory and commemoration, this course considers how different losses touch and, in the process, illuminate each other in their similarities and in their differences. It asks questions about what it means to do justice to these legacies. Students will read works by James Young on monuments and memorials, Marianne Hirsch on postmemory, Michael Rothberg on multidirectional memory, and Svetlana Boym on diasporic intimacy and the possibility of connection after traumatic loss. Students will be encouraged to consider a range of texts and legacies of trauma and loss placing them in conversation with course readings.
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RELG 222.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 301 1:15pm-3:00pm
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RELG 231 From Luther to Kierkegaard 6 credits
Martin Luther and the Reformation have often been understood as crucial factors in the rise of “modernity.” Yet, the Reformation was also a medieval event, and Luther was certainly a product of the late Middle Ages. This class focuses on the theology of the Protestant Reformation, and traces its legacy in the modern world. We read Luther, Calvin, and Anabaptists, exploring debates over politics, church authority, scripture, faith, and salvation. We then trace the appropriation of these ideas by modern thinkers, who draw upon the perceived individualism of the Reformers in their interpretations of religious experience, despair, freedom, and secularization.
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RELG 231.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Lori Pearson š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 301 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 301 1:10pm-2:10pm
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RELG 233 Gender and Power in the Catholic Church 6 credits
How does power flow and concentrate in the Catholic Church? What are the gendered aspects of the Church’s structure, history, and theology? Through readings, discussions, and analysis of current media, students will develop the ability to critically and empathetically interpret issues of gender, sexuality, and power in the Catholic Church, especially as these issues appear in official Vatican texts. Topics include: God, suffering, sacraments, salvation, damnation, celibacy, homosexuality, the family, saints, the ordination of women as priests, feminist theologies, canon law, the censuring of “heretical” theologians, Catholic hospital policy, and the clerical sex abuse crisis.
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RELG 233.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Sonja Anderson š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 330 2:20pm-3:20pm
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RELG 234 Angels, Demons, and Evil 6 credits
Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad things happen, period? Could angels and demons have something to do with it? This course asks how cosmology—an account of how the universe is put together and the different entities that inhabit it—can be an answer to the problem of evil and injustice. We will start with a historical investigation of the demonology and angelology of ancient pagan, Jewish, and Christian texts and then move into modern practices such as exorcism and magical realist literature. Along the way, we will keep asking how these systems justify the existence of evil and provide programs for dealing with it.
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RELG 234.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Sonja Anderson š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 330 2:20pm-3:20pm
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RELG 235 Religion and Identity in the Medieval Middle East 6 credits
This course explores the emergence and formation of Islam as a faith in the medieval Middle East (sixth-eleventh centuries) and its impact on social relations and identities in the complex and evolving cultural and religious communities that populated this multifaceted region. Through close reading and discussion of primary sources (in translation) (Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Armenian, Persian, Greek, and Latin) and scholarship, we will situate the development of Islam in the context of religious and social change in this period and to understand Islam’s role in the transformation of life in the region.
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RELG 235.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Kambiz GhaneaBassiri š« š¤ · William North š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 304 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 304 1:10pm-2:10pm
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RELG 236 Black Love: Religious, Political, and Cultural Discussions 6 credits
In 2021, the passing of Black feminist bell hooks led the scholarly journal Women’s Studies Quarterly (WSQ) to publish a special issue on Black love: hooks’ expertise. As is often the case in discussions of Blackness and love, the issue included many allusions to the divine and suggested some ties between race, love, and religion. Drawing inspiration from WSQ, this class will investigate the role religion, spirituality, and belief play in conversations about Blackness, love, and their intersection. The syllabus will include an array of academic essays, personal reflections, and creative works, including those by Lorde, Hartman, and Wonder.
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RELG 236.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 303 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 303 2:20pm-3:20pm
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RELG 237 Yoga: Religion, History, Practice 6 credits
Historically, yoga’s roots can be traced as far back as 1500 BCE. As for “religion,” in the modern period, yoga has largely been unyoked from it. But the Sanskrit root yuj means to “add,” “join,” or “unite”—and in Indian philosophy and practice it has long been: a method of devotion; a way to “yoke” the body/mind; a means to unite with Ultimate Reality; a form of concentration and meditation. Over time, it has been medicalized into a form of public health. This course will concentrate on texts, images, and cultures old and new. Come prepared to wear loose clothing!
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RELG 237.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Kristin Bloomer š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THWeitz Center 136 1:15pm-3:00pm
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RELG 239 Religion & American Landscape 6 credits
The American landscape is rich in sacred places. The religious imaginations, practices, and beliefs of its diverse inhabitants have shaped that landscape and been shaped by it. This course explores ways of imagining relationships between land, community, and the sacred, the mapping of religious traditions onto American land and cityscapes, and theories of sacred space and spatial practices. Topics include religious place-making practices of Indigenous, Latinx, and African Americans, as well as those of Euro-American communities from Puritans, Mormons, immigrant farmers.
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RELG 239.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Michael McNally š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 301 10:10am-11:55am
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RELG 266 Modern Islamic Thought 6 credits
Through close reading of primary sources, this course examines how some of the most influential Muslim thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the Middle East and South Asia conceptualized God and the ideal God-human relationship to address such pressing questions as: How should religion relate to modern technological and scientific advancements? Can Islam serve as an ideology to counter European colonialism? Can Islam become the basis for the formation of social and political life under a nation-state, or does it demand a transnational political collectivity of its own? What would a modern Islamic economy look like?
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RELG 267 Black Testimony: Art, Literature, Philosophy 6 credits
Throughout Black history, testimony–a discourse in which an individual uses personal stories to convey ideas of broader meaning–has played an essential role in Black religion, politics, and daily life. In this course, we will identify the significance, history, and particularities of Black people’s testimonies, and outline their presence and potential today. Remaining mindful of testimony’s religious dimensions will include particular attention to the role of religion and spirituality in the assigned materials. The syllabus may include testimonial art by Romare Bearden and Kenrick Lamar, writings by Angela Davis and Frederick Douglass, and films by Barry Jenkins.
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RELG 267.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty: Staff
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 202 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 202 1:10pm-2:10pm
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RELG 289 Global Religions in Minnesota 6 credits
Somali Muslims in Rice County? Hindus in Maple Grove? Hmong shamans in St. Paul hospitals? Sun Dances in Pipestone? In light of globalization, the religious landscape of Minnesota, like America more broadly, has become more visibly diverse. Lake Wobegon stereotypes aside, Minnesota has always been characterized by some diversity but the realities of immigration, dispossession, dislocation, economics, and technology have made religious diversity more pressing in its implications for every arena of civic and cultural life. This course bridges theoretical knowledge with engaged field research focused on how Midwestern contexts shape global religious communities and how these communities challenge and transform Minnesota.
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RELG 289.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Michael McNally š« š¤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 303 1:15pm-3:00pm
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RELG 300 Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion 6 credits
What, exactly, is religion and what conditions of modernity have made it urgent to articulate such a question in the first place? Why does religion exert such force in human society and history? Is it an opiate of the masses or an illusion laden with human wish-fulfillment? Is it a social glue? A subjective experience of the sacred? Is it simply a universalized Protestant Christianity in disguise, useful in understanding, and colonizing, the non-Christian world? This seminar, for junior majors and advanced majors from related fields, explores generative theories from anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary studies, and the history of religions.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry
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RELG 300.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Lori Pearson š« š¤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 301 10:10am-11:55am
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RELG 322 Apocalypse How? 6 credits
When will the world end, and how? What’s wrong with the world that makes its destruction necessary or inevitable? Are visions of “The End” a form of resistance literature, aimed at oppressive systems? Or do they come from paranoid minds disconnected from reality? This seminar explores apocalyptic thought, which in its basic form is about unmasking the deceptions of the given world by revealing the secret workings of the universe. We begin with ancient Jewish and Christian apocalypses and move into modern religious and “secular” visions of cosmic collapse, including doomsday cults, slave revolts, UFO religions, and Evangelical fantasies about armageddon in the Middle East. We will also create a giant handwritten manuscript of the book of Revelation using calligraphy pens, paint, and gold leaf.
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RELG 322.00 Fall 2023
- Faculty:Sonja Anderson š« š¤
- Size:15
- M, WLeighton 303 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 303 12:00pm-1:00pm
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RELG 379 Material Religion 6 credits
While many people associate religions with spirituality and transcendence, religious beliefs and practices have always been mediated through objects, sensory experiences, bodies, and spaces. Broadly speaking these constitute the material dimensions of religion. This course will first introduce students to the major theoretical and methodological issues involved in the study of material religion. Students will then be asked to put what they have learned to practice by developing a research project around a religious thing or some other material aspect of religion.
- Spring 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry Writing Requirement
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RELG 379.00 Spring 2024
- Faculty:Kambiz GhaneaBassiri š« š¤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 303 10:10am-11:55am
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RELG 399 Senior Research Seminar 6 credits
This seminar will acquaint students with research tools in various fields of religious studies, provide an opportunity to present and discuss research work in progress, hone writing skills, and improve oral presentation techniques.
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry
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Religion 300 and acceptance of proposal for senior integrative exercise and instructor permission.
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RELG 399.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Kristin Bloomer š« š¤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 303 10:10am-11:55am
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RUSS 263 Madness and Madmen in Russian Culture 6 credits
This course explores the theme of madness in Russian literature and arts from the medieval period to the present. Madness is a basic but controversial aspect of world culture that has preoccupied Russian minds since medieval times. It is reflected in numerous stories, plays, paintings, films, and operas, as well as in medical, political, and philosophical essays. Madness has been treated by great Russian authors and artists not only as a medical or psychological matter, but also as a metaphysical one, touching the deepest levels of human consciousness, encompassing problems of suffering, imagination, history, sex, social and world order, evil, retribution, death, and the afterlife. Taught in English. No knowledge of Russian is required.
In translation
- Winter 2024
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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RUSS 263.00 Winter 2024
- Faculty:Victoria Thorstensson š« š¤
- Size:25
- M, WWeitz Center 136 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FWeitz Center 136 2:20pm-3:20pm
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SPAN 213 Spanish Studies in Madrid Program: Pragmatics and Conversation in Context 2 credits
Pragmatics studies the relationship between language and context. Learning conversational skills in a second language requires students to linguistically adapt to a range of contexts, hence the field of pragmatics provides an ideal theoretical framework for a conversation class. For example, students learn about essential cultural and linguistic differences between English and Spanish with regard to conversational styles, politeness and verbal interaction in general.
Requires participation in OCS Program: Spanish Studies in Madrid
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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Spanish 205
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SPAN 230 Spanish Studies in Madrid Program: Urban Transformation and Cultural Tensions in a Global City 6 credits
This course proposes an exploration of Madrid in a historical perspective to track those tensions between the persistence of the city and the pulsion of modernity, between the local traditions and peculiarities and the influences arriving as an effect of globalization. In this journey we will study the transformation of Madrid from Middle Ages to the present, focusing on the struggles and strategies of the community adapting to the new circumstances. In more general terms, we will understand Madrid’s way of life, the problems and particularities of its community, and as well as an introduction to the threats to urban society in a global world.
Requires participation in OCS Program: Spanish Studies in Madrid
- Fall 2023
- Humanistic Inquiry International Studies
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Spanish 205 and participation in Madrid Program