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Your search for courses · during 25FA · meeting requirements for HI, Humanistic Inquiry · returned 50 results
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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 215.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Chielo Eze 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 402 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
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AMST 115.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Christopher Elias 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 402 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 402 9:40am-10:40am
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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 231.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Meredith McCoy 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 330 1:15pm-3:00pm
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AMST 239 The Death Penalty: An American History 6 credits
A critical examination of the history of capital punishment in the United States, including its origins, development, and current status. Students will engage with broad questions and themes related to the death penalty, including its legal intricacies, religious implications, ethical components, racial and class dynamics, and political meanings. Multiple disciplinary lenses will be applied to a variety of texts, including history, journalism, memoir, court decisions, and documentary film.
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AMST 239.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Christopher Elias 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WWillis 114 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FWillis 114 1:10pm-2:10pm
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CCST 208 International Coffee and News 2 credits
Have you recently returned from studying or living abroad? This course is designed to help you keep in touch with the culture you left behind, while deepening your understanding of current issues across the globe. Relying on magazines and newspapers in the local language or in English-language media, students will discuss common topics and themes as they play out in the countries or regions where they have lived or studied. Conducted in English.
Recommended preparation: Participation in an off-campus study program (Carleton or non-Carleton), substantial experience living abroad, or instructor permission. Not recommended for first-year students.
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CCST 208.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Seth Peabody 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- WLanguage & Dining Center 335 3:10pm-4:20pm
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CHIN 258 Classical Chinese Thought: Wisdom and Advice from Ancient Masters 6 credits
Behind the skyscrapers and the modern technology of present-day China stand the ancient Chinese philosophers, whose influence penetrates every aspect of society. This course introduces the teachings of various foundational thinkers: Confucius, Mencius, Laozi, Sunzi, Zhuangzi, and Hanfeizi, who flourished from the fifth-second centuries B.C. Topics include kinship, friendship, self-improvement, freedom, the art of war, and the relationship between human beings and nature. Aiming to bring Chinese wisdom to the context of daily life, this course opens up new possibilities to better understand the self and the world. No knowledge of Chinese is required.
In translation
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CHIN 258.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Lei Yang 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLanguage & Dining Center 104 10:10am-11:55am
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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.
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CLAS 229.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Jake Morton 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLanguage & Dining Center 104 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLanguage & Dining Center 104 2:20pm-3:20pm
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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.
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EDUC 275 Inclusion or Refusal?: Educational Justice Models 6 credits
This era of local, state, and national pushback against policies and practices of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” provides us with an opportune moment to examine the possibilities and limitations of this framing as a pathway for educational justice. Drawing on critiques of liberal frameworks of educational equity by Indigenous scholars and scholars of color, this course will ask what educational justice might look like beyond representation and belonging, especially in higher educational institutions.
Recommended Preparation: One 100-level Educational Studies course.
Extra Time Required: There will likely be off-campus site visits to schools and/or engagement with relevant campus programming around the topic.
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EDUC 275.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Anita Chikkatur 🏫 👤
- Size:20
- T, THWillis 114 1:15pm-3:00pm
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ENTS 220 Sovereignty and Sustainability 6 credits
This course explores the legal, cultural, and environmental foundations of Tribal and Indigenous environmental stewardship and natural resource management. Students will examine the historical significance of treaties, Tribal sovereignty, and federal trust responsibility, as well as key laws that have shaped Tribal resource use. The evolution of Tribal co-management with federal and state agencies will be analyzed through case studies, highlighting challenges and successful partnerships. Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and Indigenous worldviews on land stewardship will complement critical discussions on climate change, environmental justice, and the ongoing balance between economic development and ecological sustainability in Tribal resource use.
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ENTS 220.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Roger Faust 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 426 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 426 9:40am-10:40am
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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. 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 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): FREN 204 with a grade of C- or better or received a score of 4 or better on the French Language and Culture AP exam or received a score of 6 or better on the French: Language B IB exam or received a score of 205 on the Carleton French Placement exam. .
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FREN 210.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Éva Pósfay 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- WLanguage & Dining Center 345 3:10pm-4:20pm
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GERM 225 The Alps: Heights (and Depths) of Modernity 6 credits
The Alps have been a focal point for developments of modernity: modern infrastructures supported the growth of tourism already in the 1800s. With the rise of nationalism, idealized notions of traditional alpine cultures were used as propaganda. Today, tensions have emerged between small alpine farms and “rewilding” efforts, and political discourses around these environmental tensions have intensified a perceived rural/urban divide. Throughout, the alpine environment, culture, and politics are deeply entangled. Students will analyze creative and nonfiction texts as well as numerical data that depict these developments, and then choose a course topic to pursue through independent research. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.
Recommended Preparation: Student has completed at least one German course at the 210-219 level.
Taught in German.
- Fall 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies QRE, Quantitative Reasoning
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): GERM 204 with a grade of C- or better or received a score of 4 or better on the German Language and Culture AP exam or received a score of 6 or better on the German: Language B IB exam or received a score of 205 on the Carleton German Placement exam.
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GERM 225.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Seth Peabody 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLibrary 344 10:10am-11:55am
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GERM 325 The Alps: Heights (and Depths) of Modernity 6 credits
The Alps have been a focal point for developments of modernity: modern infrastructures supported the growth of tourism already in the 1800s. With the rise of nationalism, idealized notions of traditional alpine cultures were used as propaganda. Today, tensions have emerged between small alpine farms and “rewilding” efforts, and political discourses around these environmental tensions have intensified a perceived rural/urban divide. Throughout, the alpine environment, culture, and politics are deeply entangled. Students will analyze creative and nonfiction texts as well as numerical data that depict these developments, and then choose a course topic to pursue through independent research. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.
Recommended Preparation: Student has completed at least one German course at the 210-219 level.
Taught in German.
- Fall 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies QRE, Quantitative Reasoning
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): GERM 204 with a grade of C- or better or received a score of 4 or better on the German Language and Culture AP exam or received a score of 6 or better on the German: Language B IB exam or received a score of 205 on the Carleton German Placement exam.
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GERM 325.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Seth Peabody 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLibrary 344 10:10am-11:55am
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GWSS 225 Women’s and Gender Studies in Europe Program: Gender and the Biopolitics of Health across Europe
This course investigates the concept of biopolitics and applies intersectional feminist theories to examine how European states control the biological aspects of human life, including birth, health, mortality, and sexuality. It examines how health serves as a domain of power, shaping the lives and well-being of individuals and populations while reinforcing disparities based on race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability. Analyzing the biopolitics of health across different Western and East Central European political systems, case studies include medicalized childbirth, forced sterilization, immigration policies, and LGBT rights. Critical theories of gender, sexuality, and race are central to the course’s analysis. This course is offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.
Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Women's and Gender Studies in Europe program.
Students register either for GWSS 225 or 325. Students without previous Gender Studies course should register for GWSS 225 unless they obtain permission from the instructor. Students who have completed a 100- or 200-level Gender Studies course may choose to register for either GWSS 225 or 325.
- Fall 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies
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Student has enrolled in any of the following course(s): Any Carleton OCS course or Non-Carleton OCS course with a grade of C- or better.
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GWSS 225.07 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Iveta Jusová 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- Credits:7 – 8
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Requires Participation in Women's Studies GEP program. Students register either for GWSS 225 or 325. Students without previous Gender Studies course should register for GWSS 225 unless they obtain permission from the instructor. Students who have completed a 100- or 200-level Gender Studies course may choose to register for either GWSS 225 or 325.
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GWSS 265 Black Feminist Thought 6 credits
This seminar offers students an opportunity to engage closely with key concepts, figures, and arguments in the Black Feminist intellectual tradition. We will focus primarily on texts by key figures/scholars from the Americas/Caribbean—in order to situate Black Feminisms within a transnational feminist context. We will take a historical approach, starting in the 19th century and work our way to more contemporary figures and texts throughout the term. Some of the key figures we will examine are Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, Angela Y. Davis, Sylvia Wynter, Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Patricia Hill Collins. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.
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GWSS 325 Women’s & Gender Studies in Europe Program: Gender and the Biopolitics of Health across Europe
This course investigates the concept of biopolitics and applies intersectional feminist theories to examine how European states control the biological aspects of human life, including birth, health, mortality, and sexuality. It examines how health serves as a domain of power, shaping the lives and well-being of individuals and populations while reinforcing disparities based on race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability. Analyzing the biopolitics of health across different Western and East Central European political systems, case studies include medicalized childbirth, forced sterilization, immigration policies, and LGBT rights. Critical theories of gender, sexuality, and race are central to the course’s analysis. This course is offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.
Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Women's and Gender Studies in Europe program.
Students register either for GWSS 225 or GWSS 325. Those who have not taken a previous Gender Studies course should register for GWSS 225, unless they obtain permission from the instructor. Students who have completed a 100- or 200- level Gender studies course, may choose to register for either GWSS 325 or GWSS 225.
- Fall 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies
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Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Women's and Gender Studies in Europe program.
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GWSS 325.07 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Iveta Jusová 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- Credits:7 – 8
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Acceptance in OCS Women's & Gender Studies in Europe Program. Students register either for GWSS 225 or GWSS 325. Those who have not taken a previous Gender Studies course should register for GWSS 225, unless they obtain permission from the instructor. Students who have completed a 100- or 200- level Gender studies course, may choose to register for either GWSS 325 or GWSS 225.”
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GWSS 365 Black Feminist Thought 6 credits
This seminar offers students an opportunity to engage closely with key concepts, figures, and arguments in the Black Feminist intellectual tradition. We will focus primarily on texts by key figures/scholars from the Americas/Caribbean—in order to situate Black Feminisms within a transnational feminist context. We will take a historical approach, starting in the 19th century and work our way to more contemporary figures and texts throughout the term. Some of the key figures we will examine are Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, Angela Y. Davis, Sylvia Wynter, Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Patricia Hill Collins. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.
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HIST 137 Early Medieval Worlds in Transformation 6 credits
In this course we will explore a variety of distinct but interconnected worlds that existed between ca.300 and ca.1050. We will interrogate primary sources, especially written and visual materials, as they bear witness to people forming and transforming political, social, religious, and cultural values, ideas and structures. We will work to understand how communities adapt to new conditions and challenges while maintaining links with and repurposing the lifeways, ideas, and material cultures of the past. We will watch as new and different groups and institutions come to power, and how the existing peoples and structures respond and change. Projects in this course will build capacity to interpret difficult primary documents, formulate research questions, and build arguments that combine rigor and humane sympathy.
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HIST 137.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:William North 🏫 👤
- Size:35
- M, WLeighton 304 8:30am-9:40am
- FLeighton 304 8:30am-9:30am
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HIST 141 Europe in the Twentieth Century 6 credits
This course explores developments in European history in a global context from the final decade of the nineteenth century through to the present. We will focus on the impact of nationalism, war, and revolution on the everyday experiences of women and men, and also look more broadly on the chaotic economic, political, social, and cultural life of the period. Of particular interest will be the rise of fascism and communism, and the challenge to Western-style liberal democracy, followed by the Cold War and communism's collapse near the end of the century.
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HIST 141.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:David Tompkins 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 304 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 304 9:40am-10:40am
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HIST 145 History of Computing in England Program: World War II History 6 credits
This course will consider the broad context of World War II, from the British perspective. Topics will include a variety of aspects of the British experience both at home and abroad, including military, political, and social; the course will include a number of excursions to relevant sites, including the Churchill War Rooms, Bletchley Park, and buildings damaged or destroyed in the Blitz.
Participation in OCS History of Computing in England program.
- Fall 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies
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Acceptance in the Carleton OCS History of Computing in England program.
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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.
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HIST 169.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Andrew Fisher 🏫 👤
- Size:35
- M, WLeighton 236 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 236 1:10pm-2:10pm
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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.
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HIST 205.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:George Vrtis 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 426 8:15am-10:00am
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HIST 214 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. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.
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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 226.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Annette Igra 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 330 3:10pm-4:55pm
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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?
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HIST 240.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Adeeb Khalid 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- T, THLeighton 304 3:10pm-4:55pm
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HIST 250 Modern Germany 6 credits
This course offers a comprehensive examination of German history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will look at the German-speaking peoples of Central Europe through the prism of politics, society, culture, and the economy. Through a range of readings, we will grapple with the many complex and contentious issues that have made German history such an interesting area of intellectual inquiry.
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HIST 250.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:David Tompkins 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 402 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 402 1:10pm-2:10pm
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HIST 255 Carleton in the Archives: Carleton in China 6 credits
What stories do pictures and voices tell? What roles did Carleton people play in the making of the twentieth century China during WWII, the Chinese Civil War, and the Communist revolution? What are the reflux effects of select Carls’ experiences in China under transformation? How do Carls project their voices and images to their audiences? The Gould Library Archives Carleton-in-China Collection consists of photographs, film footage, field reports, interviews, and public lectures. Students will be introduced to a wide range of visual and aural methods (e.g., oral history, deep mapping) to help complete a research paper based on their archival work. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.
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HIST 255.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Seungjoo Yoon 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 402 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 402 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.
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HIST 261 Partition Imagined: 1947 in Literature, Art & Film 3 credits
British departure from the Indian subcontinent led to the creation of two new nation-states, India and Pakistan, sparking one of the greatest migrations in history. Millions perished en route. Those who survived were scarred for life. Only fiction writers of the time had the courage to narrate the horrors of partition. Since then literary, artistic and cinematic treatments of this conclusive moment in Indian history have shaped collective memories of 1947. This course explores how artistic representations of partition intersect with official narratives. Open to all students; an excellent complement for students enrolled in HIST 262: Borders Drawn in Blood.
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HIST 261.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Amna Khalid 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- TLeighton 402 3:10pm-4:55pm
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HIST 262 Borders Drawn in Blood: The Partition of Modern India 6 credits
India’s independence in 1947 was marred by its bloody partition into two nation states. Neighbors turned on each other, millions were rendered homeless and without kin, and gendered violence became rampant, all in the name of religion. Political accounts of Partition are plentiful, but how did ordinary people experience it? Centering the accounts of people who lived through Partition, this course explores how divisions and differences calcified, giving birth to national and religious narratives that obscure histories of intersecting identities. With right wing Hindu nationalism ascendant in India and Islamic nationalism in Pakistan on the rise, Partition alas is not over.
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HIST 262.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Amna Khalid 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 426 10:10am-11:55am
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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 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): Two 6 credit History courses excluding HIST 100, Independent Study and Comps with a grade of C- or better.
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HIST 298.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Rebecca Brueckmann 🏫 👤
- Size:18
- T, THLeighton 202 10:10am-11:55am
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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. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.
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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 archaeological methods, 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 public history project.
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HIST 335.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Susannah Ottaway 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 202 1:15pm-3:00pm
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HIST 338 Digital History, Public Heritage & Deep Mapping 6 credits
How do new methods of digital humanities and collaborative public history change our understanding of space and place? This hands-on research seminar will seek answers through a deep mapping of the long history of Northfield, Minnesota, before and after its most well-known era of the late nineteenth-century. Deep mapping is as much archaeology as it is cartography, plumbing the depths of a particular place to explore its diversity through time. Students will be introduced to major theories of space and place as well as their application through technologies such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), 3D modeling, and video game engines. We will mount a major research project working with the National Register of Historic Places, in collaboration with specialists in public history and community partners.
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HIST 338.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Austin Mason 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THWeitz Center 138 10:10am-11:55am
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HIST 355 Carleton in the Archives: Carleton in China 6 credits
What stories do pictures and voices tell? What roles did Carleton people play in the making of the twentieth century China during WWII, the Chinese Civil War, and the Communist revolution? What are the reflux effects of select Carls’ experiences in China under transformation? How do Carls project their voices and images to their audiences? The Gould Library Archives Carleton-in-China Collection consists of photographs, film footage, field reports, interviews, and public lectures. Students will be introduced to a wide range of visual and aural methods (e.g., oral history, deep mapping) to help complete a research paper based on their archival work. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.
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HIST 355.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Seungjoo Yoon 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- M, WLeighton 402 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 402 2:20pm-3:20pm
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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 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry
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IDSC 251.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- MHasenstab 105 3:10pm-4:55pm
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IDSC 251.02 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- MHasenstab 105 8:00pm-9:45pm
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PHIL 112 Intelligence, Agency and Autonomous Machines 6 credits
What exactly is artificial intelligence (AI)? We will engage this question by reading foundational texts in the philosophy of AI to clarify what things in the world are, or should be, classified as “AI”. This foundation will help us think about what it might mean to be autonomous, intelligent, or agential. We will consider some of the conditions that might lead us to believe certain technologies are (or could be) moral agents or moral patients, and whether (or to what extent) these conditions bear on the AI systems of the present and those of the future.
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PHIL 112.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Jessie Hall 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 304 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 304 12:00pm-1:00pm
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PHIL 218 Virtue Ethics 6 credits
What is a good human life? Who is a good person? From the time of Plato and Aristotle onwards, many philosophers have thought about these questions in terms of two central ideas. Virtues, such as justice or courage, make us a certain type of person (they give us a certain character). Wisdom enables us to make good judgments about how to act. How do virtue and wisdom work together to produce a good human life? Is a good life the same as a happy life? We will reflect on these and related questions as we read texts from Alasdair MacIntyre, Philippa Foot, and other significant thinkers in the contemporary virtue ethics tradition. We will also consider the application of virtue ethics to specific areas, such as environmental ethics, as well as the parallels between Western virtue ethics and the tradition of Confucianism in ancient China.
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PHIL 218.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Allison Murphy 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLibrary 305 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLibrary 305 1:10pm-2:10pm
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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 270.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Allison Murphy 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 330 9:40am-10:40am
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PHIL 274 Existentialism 6 credits
We will consider the emergence and development of major themes of existentialism in the works of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, as well as “classical” existentialists such as Heidegger, Sartre and De Beauvoir. We will discuss key issues put forward by the existentialist movement, such as “the question of being” and human historicity, freedom and responsibility and look at how different authors analyzed the nature and ambitions of the Self and diverse aspects of subjectivity.
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PHIL 274.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Anna Moltchanova 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 426 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 426 2:20pm-3:20pm
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PHIL 319 Self-Knowledge 6 credits
Inscribed above the entry of Apollo’s temple at Delphi is the imperative “Know Thyself!” But what does it mean to know yourself and how do you go about acquiring such knowledge? Is it fundamentally the same as coming to know other people? Or is self-knowledge fundamentally different – both in terms of content and how we come to acquire it – from other kinds of knowledge (including knowledge of other people)? Finally, how does self knowledge relate to questions about agency? Can it sometimes be rational to decide to do something that one's self-knowledge suggests one is unlikely to succeed in doing? This course will explore all these issues by reading Richard Moran’s Authority and Estrangement and/or Barislav Marusic’s Evidence and Agency: Norms of Belief for Promising and Resolving.
- Fall 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): One Philosophy course excluding Independent Studies or Directed Research courses with a grade of C- or better.
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PHIL 319.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Jason Decker 🏫 👤 · Daniel Groll 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THHasenstab 105 10:10am-11:55am
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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.
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POSC 160.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Mihaela Czobor-Lupp 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- T, THWeitz Center 233 1:15pm-3:00pm
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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.
- Fall 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry
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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.
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RELG 110.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Lori Pearson 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 330 12:00pm-1:00pm
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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 122.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Kambiz GhaneaBassiri 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 301 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 301 1:10pm-2:10pm
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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 153.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Asuka Sango 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 426 1:15pm-3:00pm
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RELG 213 Religion, Medicine, and Healing 6 credits
How do religion and medicine approach the healing of disease and distress? Are religion and medicine complementary or do they conflict? Is medicine a more evolved form of religion, shorn of superstition and pseudoscience? This course explores religious and cultural models of health and techniques for achieving it, from ancient Greece to Christian monasteries to modern mindfulness and self-care programs. We will consider ethical quandaries about death, bodily suffering, mental illness, miraculous cures, and individual agency, all the while seeking to avoid simplistic narratives of rationality and irrationality.
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RELG 213.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Sonja Anderson 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 236 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 236 9:40am-10:40am
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RELG 243 Native American Religious Freedom 6 credits
This course explores historical and legal contexts in which Native Americans have practiced their religions in the United States. Making reference to the cultural background of Native traditions, and the history of First Amendment law, the course explores landmark court cases in Sacred Lands, Peyotism, free exercise in prisons, and sacralized traditional practices (whaling, fishing, hunting) and critically examines the conceptual framework of “religion” as it has been applied to the practice of Native American traditions. Service projects will integrate academic learning and student involvement in matters of particular concern to contemporary native communities.
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RELG 243.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Michael McNally 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 330 10:10am-11:55am
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RELG 372 Sensory Cultures of Religion 6 credits
What makes a sound noise to someone and God's self-disclosure to another? What makes a statue a decorated stone to someone and a living deity to another? Are these distinctions rooted in faith or in people’s sensory experiences in different cultures? Together, we will explore such questions by inquiring into how sensory experiences and religious beliefs relate to one another. The course is designed as a practicum in which students will learn to develop sensory histories of objects and to practice exhibiting religious objects in museums or elsewhere for public understanding.
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SOAN 320 The Anthropology of the End of the World 6 credits
We live on a planet marked by ruin, devastation, and destruction—conditions associated with the concept of the Anthropocene, a geological era that recognizes the inescapable consequences of human activity on the planet. This course examines these consequences through the lens of environmental anthropology to explore various socio-cultural strategies implemented by societies around the world. Themes explored include notions of unpredictability, precarity, resilience, and survivance as avenues for understanding the impacts of profound environmental change, as well as new opportunities for place-making, community, and sustainable futures.
Recommended preparation: Introductory courses in SOAN or ENTS.
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SOAN 320.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty:Constanza Ocampo-Raeder 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 236 10:10am-11:55am
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