Search Results
Your search for courses · during 26SP · meeting requirements for WR2 Writing Requirement 2 · returned 58 results
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AFST 225 Black Music, Resistance, and Liberation 6 credits
For every defining moment in black history, there is a song. Every genre of black music makes a statement not only about the specific historical epoch it was created but also about the people’s dreams. For black people, songs are a means of resistance to oppression and an expression of the will to live. Through the analysis of black music, this course will expose students to black people’s struggles, hopes, and aspirations, and also American history, race relations, and much more. The class will read insightful texts, listen to songs, watch films, and engage in animated discussions.
- Spring 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): One course that applies toward the Humanistic Inquiry requirement with a grade of C- or better.
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AFST 225.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Chielo Eze 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 330 1:15pm-3:00pm
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AFST 330 Black Europe 6 credits
This course examines the history and experiences of people of African descent and black cultures in Europe. Beginning with early contacts between Africa and Europe, we examine the migration and settlement of African people and culture, and the politics and meaning of their identities and presence in Europe. Adopting a comparative perspective, we consider how blackness has been constructed in various countries through popular culture, nationalism, immigration policy, and other social institutions. We further consider how religious, gender, and immigrant identities inform notions of blackness. We conclude by examining contemporary Black European social movements.
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AFST 330.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Daniel Williams 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 236 3:10pm-4:55pm
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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 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 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): AMST 115 with grade of C- or better.
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AMST 396.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Christopher Elias 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 301 1:15pm-3:00pm
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ARTH 120 Art and Archaeology of Ancient Egypt and West Asia 6 credits
This course will provide students with foundational knowledge in the art, architecture and archaeology of Egypt, East Africa, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Iran and Central Asia from the Neolithic through Late Antiquity (ca. 7,000 B.C.E. – 650 C.E.). Students will gain an understanding of the relationship between the visual material and the social, intellectual, political and religious contexts in which it developed and functioned. In this regard, students will also gain an understanding of the evolution of, and exchanges and differences among, the visual cultures of these time periods and regions. It will also expose them to the preconditions for contemporary geopolitics in the region.
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ARTH 120.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Johnathan Hardy 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WBoliou 161 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FBoliou 161 1:10pm-2:10pm
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ARTH 240 Art Since 1945 6 credits
Art from abstract expressionism to the present, with particular focus on issues such as the modernist artist-hero; the emergence of alternative or non-traditional media; the influence of the women’s movement and the gay/lesbian liberation movement on contemporary art; and postmodern theory and practice.
- Spring 2026
- IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): One Art History (ARTH) course with a grade of C- better.
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ARTH 240.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Vanessa Reubendale 🏫
- Size:25
- T, THBoliou 161 10:10am-11:55am
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ASST 285 Mapping Japan, the Real and the Imagined 6 credits
From ancient to present times, Japan drew and redrew its borders, shape, and culture, imagining its place in this world and beyond, its From ancient times to the present, Japan drew and redrew its borders, reimagining its cultural and racial identity, and its place in this world and beyond. This course is a cartographic exploration of this complex and contested history. Cosmological mandalas, hell images, travel brochures, and military maps bring to light Japan’s religious vision, cartographic imagination, and political ambition that dictated its geopolitical expansion and the displacement of minority peoples at home, defining its real and imagined boundaries. We will explore a variety of maps, focusing on those in Carleton’s unique library collection.
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ASST 285.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Asuka Sango 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 236 1:15pm-3:00pm
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CAMS 110 Introduction to Cinema and Media Studies 6 credits
This course introduces students to the basic terms, concepts and methods used in cinema studies and helps build critical skills for analyzing films, technologies, industries, styles and genres, narrative strategies and ideologies. Students will develop skills in critical viewing and careful writing via assignments such as a short response essay, a plot segmentation, a shot breakdown, and various narrative and stylistic analysis papers. Classroom discussion focuses on applying critical concepts to a wide range of films. Requirements include two screenings per week.
Sophomore Priority. Extra Time required for screenings
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CAMS 110.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Jay Beck 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WWeitz Center 133 9:50am-11:00am
- FWeitz Center 133 9:40am-10:40am
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Sophomore Priority.
Extra Time Required: For screenings
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CCST 230 Worlds of Jewish Memory 6 credits
Transmitting Jewish memory from one generation to the next has always been a treasured practice across the Jewish world. How have pivotal environments for Jews lived on in Jewish collective memory? How do they continue to speak through film, art, photography, music, architecture, museum/ memorial/ summer camp design, prayer, cuisine, and more? We'll compare dynamics of remembering and memorializing several Jewish worlds: ancient Egypt, medieval Spain, early modern Germany, pre- through post-Holocaust Europe and Russia, colonial into contemporary New York City, 1950s Algeria, and pre-State into contemporary Israel. Research projects can include family history explored through scholarship on cross-cultural memory.
CCST 230 is equivalent to MELA 230.
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CCST 230.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Stacy Beckwith 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLanguage & Dining Center 244 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLanguage & Dining Center 244 2:20pm-3:20pm
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CGSC 130 The Musical Mind 6 credits
An interdisciplinary examination of issues concerning the mind and mental phenomena involved in the uniquely human activity of making and understanding music. The course will draw on psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, computer science, biology, and philosophy. Topics to be discussed include: the embodied cognition of rhythm, linguistic syntax and musical structure, mental representations of musical sound and action, musical learning and development, tone and beat deafness, and perfect pitch and neural plasticity.
Sophomore Priority
- Spring 2026
- SI, Social Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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CGSC 130.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Justin London 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- M, WWeitz Center 230 9:50am-11:00am
- FWeitz Center 230 9:40am-10:40am
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EDUC 110 Introduction to Educational Studies 6 credits
This course will focus on education as a multidisciplinary field of study. We will explore the meanings of education within individual lives and institutional contexts, learn to critically examine the assumptions that writers, psychologists, sociologists and philosophers bring to the study of education, and read texts from a variety of disciplines. What has “education” meant in the past? What does “education” mean in contemporary American society? What might “education” mean to people with differing circumstances and perspectives? And what should “education” mean in the future? Open only to first-and second-year students.
Sophomore Priority section is available
- Spring 2026
- IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies SI, Social Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has Sophomore Priority.
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EDUC 110.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Jeff Snyder 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 305 10:10am-11:55am
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Sophomore Priority
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ENGL 109 The Craft of Academic Writing 6 credits
This course is designed to demystify the practice of academic writing and to introduce students to the skills they’ll need to write effectively in a variety of academic disciplines and contexts. Students will learn how to respond to other authors’ claims, frame clear arguments of their own, structure essays to develop a clear logical flow, integrate outside sources into their writing, and improve their writing through revision. All sections will include a variety of readings, multiple writing assignments, and substantial feedback from the course instructor.
- Spring 2026
- No Exploration WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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ENGL 109.02 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Bret Vukoder 🏫
- Size:15
- T, THLibrary 344 1:15pm-3:00pm
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ENGL 112 Introduction to the Novel 6 credits
This course explores the history and form of the British novel, tracing its development from a strange, sensational experiment in the eighteenth century to a dominant literary genre today. Among the questions that we will consider: What is a novel? What makes it such a popular form of entertainment? How does the novel participate in ongoing conversations about family, sex, class, race, and nation? How did a genre once considered a source of moral corruption become a legitimate literary form? Authors include: Daniel Defoe, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Bram Stoker, Virginia Woolf, and Jackie Kay.
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ENGL 115 The Art of Storytelling 6 credits
Jorge Luis Borges is quoted as saying that “unlike the novel, a short story may be, for all purposes, essential.” This course focuses attention primarily on the short story as an enduring form. We will read short stories drawn from different literary traditions and from various parts of the world. Stories to be read include those by Aksenov, Atwood, Beckett, Borges, Camus, Cheever, Cisneros, Farah, Fuentes, Gordimer, Ishiguro, Kundera, Mahfouz, Marquez, Moravia, Nabokov, Narayan, Pritchett, Rushdie, Trevor, Welty, and Xue.
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ENGL 160 Creative Writing 6 credits
You will work in several genres and forms, among them: traditional and experimental poetry, prose fiction, and creative nonfiction. In your writing you will explore the relationship between the self, the imagination, the word, and the world. In this practitioner’s guide to the creative writing process, we will examine writings from past and current authors, and your writings will be critiqued in a workshop setting and revised throughout the term.
Sophomore Priority
- Spring 2026
- ARP, Arts Practice WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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ENGL 214 Revenge Tragedy 3 credits
Madness, murder, conspiracy, poison, incest, rape, ghosts, and lots of blood: the fashion for revenge tragedy in Elizabethan and Jacobean England led to the creation of some of the most brilliant, violent, funny, and deeply strange plays in the history of the language. Authors may include Cary, Chapman, Ford, Marston, Middleton, Kyd, Tourneur, and Webster.
- First Five Weeks, Spring 2026
- IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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ENGL 218 The Gothic Spirit 6 credits
The eighteenth and early nineteenth century saw the rise of the Gothic, a genre populated by brooding hero-villains, vulnerable virgins, mad monks, ghosts, and monsters. In this course, we will examine the conventions and concerns of the Gothic, addressing its preoccupation with terror, transgression, sex, otherness, and the supernatural. As we situate this genre within its literary and historical context, we will consider its relationship to realism and Romanticism, and we will explore how it reflects the political and cultural anxieties of its age. Authors include Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Emily Bronte.
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ENGL 219 Global Shakespeare 3 credits
Shakespeare’s plays have been reimagined and repurposed all over the world, performed on seven continents, and translated into over 100 languages. The course explores how issues of globalization, nationalism, translation (both cultural and linguistic), and (de)colonization inform our understanding of these wonderfully varied adaptations and appropriations. We will examine the social, political, and aesthetic implications of a range of international stage, film, and literary versions as we consider how other cultures respond to the hegemonic original. No prior experience with Shakespeare is necessary.
Second 5 weeks
- Second Five Weeks, Spring 2026
- IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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ENGL 222 The Art of Jane Austen 6 credits
All of Jane Austen's fiction will be read; the works she did not complete or choose to publish during her lifetime will be studied in an attempt to understand the art of her mature comic masterpieces, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion.
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ENGL 223 American Transcendentalism 6 credits
Attempts to discern the nineteenth-century Zeitgeist come down, Emerson says, to a “practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live?” This interdisciplinary course will investigate the works of the American Transcendentalist movement in its restless discontent with the conventional, its eclectic search for better ways of thinking and living. We will engage major works of Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Whitman alongside documents of the scientific, religious, and political changes that shaped their era and provoked their responses.
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ENGL 248 Visions of California 6 credits
An interdisciplinary exploration of the ways in which California has been imagined in literature, art, film and popular culture from pre-contact to the present. We will explore the state both as a place (or rather, a mosaic of places) and as a continuing metaphor–whether of promise or disintegration–for the rest of the country. Authors read will include Muir, Steinbeck, Chandler, West, and Didion. Weekly film showings will include Sunset Boulevard, Chinatown and Blade Runner.
Extra Time required.
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ENGL 269 The Art of Time in Fiction
All stories are bounded by time: the time a narrative takes to unfold, from a single day to a century; the time between writing a story and the story’s events; the time it takes a reader to consume a narrative. In this course, we will ask, how does a writer choose the scope of their story? How do writers approach events that happened a week ago versus one hundred years ago? How does length impact a reader’s emotional experience? Students will write short imitations of published work as well as original stories, and read short stories, novels, and critical essays.
Recommended preparation: ENGL 160
- Spring 2026
- ARP, Arts Practice WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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ENGL 295 Critical Methods 6 credits
Required of students majoring in English, this course explores practical and theoretical issues in literary analysis and contemporary criticism.
Not open to first year students.
- Spring 2026
- LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): One English Foundations including (100) course with a grade of C- or better or received a score of 5 on the English Literature and Composition AP exam or received a grade of 6 or better on the English Language A: Literature IB exam AND 6 credits from English courses (100-399) not including Independent Studies and Comps with a grade of C- or better.
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ENGL 359 Contemporary World Literature 6 credits
Our focus is on contemporary writers. Specifically, we will privilege genre-bending fiction published within the last two decades in which we encounter a continuum, not a line of demarcation, between us and them, insider and outsider, here and there, then and now, femaleness and maleness, North and South, the local and the global. Authors to be read include Zinzi Clemmons, Teju Cole, Esi Edugyan, Mohsin Hamid, Tommy Orange, Zadie Smith, and Colson Whitehead.
- Spring 2026
- IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): One English Foundations including (100) course with a grade of C- or better or received a score of 5 on the English Literature and Composition AP exam or received a grade of 6 or better on the English Language A: Literature IB exam AND 6 credits from English courses (100-399) not including Independent Studies and Comps with a grade of C- or better.
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ENGL 370 Advanced Fiction Workshop 6 credits
An advanced course in the writing of fiction. Students will write two to three short stories which will be read and critiqued by the class. In addition to writing, students will read and discuss short story collections by contemporary masters of the genre, asking questions about what it means for a writer to have an artistic project and encouraging students to think about their own aims as fiction writers.
Recommended preparation: ENGL 270
Repeatable: This course is repeatable with instructor permission.
- Spring 2026
- ARP, Arts Practice WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): ENGL 160 or ENGL 161 or ENGL 263 or ENGL 265 or ENGL 270 or ENGL 271 or ENGL 273 or CAMS 271 or CAMS 278 or CAMS 279 or CCST 270 or THEA 246 with a grade of C- or better.
Students who have previously taken ENGL 370 must request a prerequisite override from the instructor.
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ENGL 395 The Romantic Mode 6 credits
In literary study, Romanticism is frequently presented as an historical period, an era beginning in the aftermath of the French Revolution and coming to an end in the development of 19th-C realism and 20th-C. modernism. Following recent Marxist reconfigurations, in this Advanced Seminar we will construe Romanticism as a mode of thought and expression released from period and never having come to an end at all. An interdisciplinary, international, and anti-capitalist approach to the topic with contributions from philosophy, painting, music, and politics, and with primary sources of literary art drawn from Shakespeare to the present.
Repeatable: Course is repeatable provided the topics are different.
- Spring 2026
- LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student must have completed any of the following course(s): ENGL 295 and one 300 level ENGL course with grade of C- or better.
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GERM 150 German Music and Culture from Mozart to Rammstein 6 credits
What is “German”? Why are certain figures considered German and other identities are excluded–and how might we critically reconsider these categories through a study of “German” music? In this course, we survey significant developments in German-language culture, broadly defined, from the 1600s to the twenty-first century. Taught in English.
In Translation
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GERM 150.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Juliane Schicker 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- T, THWeitz Center 230 1:15pm-3:00pm
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GWSS 398 Transnational Feminist & Queer Activism 6 credits
This course focuses on transnational feminist, queer and trans activism in an era of neoliberal globalization, militarism and religious fundamentalism. We will learn about theories of collective action, the pitfalls of global sisterhood and homonationalism and pedagogies for crossing a variety of borders. We will explore case studies of how feminist, queer and trans activists have collaborated, built networks, mobilized resources and coalitions for collective action, in addition to the obstacles and constraints they have encountered and surmounted in their search for gender and sexual justice.
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GWSS 398.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Meera Sehgal 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 301 10:10am-11:55am
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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 136.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Victoria Morse 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 304 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 304 2:20pm-3:20pm
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HIST 244 The Enlightenment and Its Legacies 6 credits
The Enlightenment: praised for its role in promoting human rights, condemned for its role in underwriting colonialism; lauded for its cosmopolitanism, despised for its Eurocentrism… how should we understand the cultural and intellectual history of the Enlightenment, and what are its legacies? This course starts by examining essential Enlightenment texts by philosophes such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau, and then the second half of the term focuses on unpacking the Enlightenment’s entanglements with modern ideas around topics such as religion, race, sex, gender, colonialism etc.
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HIST 244.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Susannah Ottaway 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 202 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 202 1:10pm-2:10pm
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HIST 272 The Mexican Revolution: History, Myth and Art 6 credits
The Mexican Revolution was the twentieth-century’s first major social and political upheaval and a watershed moment in Latin American history. This course examines the factors that precipitated the conflict, as well as its main domestic and international dimensions. It explores how an official myth of “The Revolution” was created and contested by the Mexican state, artists, intellectuals, and peasants through the means of education, murals, photography, protest, commemorations, and shrines. The mythification of martyred agrarian leader and rebel chieftain Emiliano Zapata will be examined. Students will work with the College’s collection of Mexican silkscreen posters created in commemoration of the ninetieth anniversary of Zapata’s assassination in 1919.
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HIST 272.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Andrew Fisher 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 202 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 202 12:00pm-1:00pm
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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 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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HIST 287.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Antony Adler 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 236 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 236 9:40am-10:40am
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HIST 314 Crime and Punishment: Early American Legal History 6 credits
In this advanced seminar, you will learn to research and write a compelling microhistory about early America (1607-1860) through legal documents such as depositions, complaints, accusations, confessions, and laws themselves. The archives of American law are rich with evidence about a diverse array of people, events, and places; your 20- to 25-page paper, based on your original research, will have many topics from which to draw. The seminar will include common readings with a variety of approaches to legal history as well as extensive peer review.
Recommended Preparation: At least one US History course and/or HIST 298.
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HIST 314.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Serena Zabin 🏫 👤
- Size:20
- T, THLeighton 202 1:15pm-3:00pm
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HIST 341 The Russian Revolution and its Global Legacies 6 credits
The Russian revolution of 1917 was one of the seminal events of the twentieth century. It transformed much beyond Russia itself. This course will take stock of the event and its legacy. What was the Russian revolution? What was its place in the history of revolutions? How did it impact the world? How was it seen by those who made it and those who witnessed it? How have these evaluations changed over time? What sense can we make of it in the year of its centenary? The revolution was both an inspiration (to many revolutionary and national-liberation movements) and used as a tale of caution and admonition (by adversaries of the Soviet Union). The readings will put the Russian revolution in the broadest perspective of the twentieth century and its contested evaluations, from within the Soviet Union and beyond, from its immediate aftermath, through World War II, the Cold War, to the post-Soviet period. The course is aimed at all students interested in the history of the twentieth century and of the idea of the revolution.
X-list FRST 341
- Spring 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): One Modern European History course (with tag HIST Early Modern Europe) with a grade of C- or better.
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HIST 341.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Adeeb Khalid 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 202 10:10am-11:55am
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MEST 110 Introduction to the Middle East 6 credits
In this introduction to Middle East Studies, we will embark on an interdisciplinary exploration of a region that spans from Central Asia to North Africa. We will study the Middle East as a multilingual, multireligious, multicultural space that, because of its unique cultural geography connecting peoples and governments from Africa, Asia, and Europe, has developed distinguishing characteristics over time. We will build familiarity with the diversity of this region and explain its multiple cultural and sociopolitical crossroads through analysis of storytelling, food, music, religious practices, governments, economies and more.
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MEST 110.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Kambiz GhaneaBassiri 🏫 👤 · Summer Forester 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- T, THHasenstab 105 1:15pm-3:00pm
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MUSC 126 America’s Music 6 credits
A survey of American music with particular attention to the interaction of the folk, popular, and classical realms. No musical experience required.
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MUSC 126.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Andy Flory 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- M, WWeitz Center M215 9:50am-11:00am
- FWeitz Center M215 9:40am-10:40am
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MUSC 204 Theory II: Musical Structures 6 credits
An investigation into the nature of musical sounds and the way they are combined to form rhythms, melodies, harmonies, and form. Topics include the nature of musical pitch, the structure of musical scales and their influence on melody, what gives rise to a sense of tonality, the complexity of rhythmic patterns, and the architecture of musical form. Student work includes building a musical instrument, programming a drum machine, writing computer code to create harmonies and timbres, and an extended music analysis project using empirical methods.
- Spring 2026
- LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): MUSC 110 with grade of C- or better.
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MUSC 204.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Jeremy Tatar 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WWeitz Center 230 8:30am-9:40am
- FWeitz Center 230 8:30am-9:30am
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PHIL 111 Bullshit: How To Spot It and Protect Yourself 6 credits
Bullshit is all around us. A potent mix of lies, half-truths, clickbait, AI-generated content, and half-baked reasoning makes it difficult to separate truths from falsehoods. We’ll categorize different kinds of bullshit and study the strategies bullshit artists use to confuse and deceive us. We’ll learn how to distinguish good and bad reasoning–and the psychological mechanisms that trick even trained scientists and philosophers into being snookered by poor reasoning. That knowledge will help us devise strategies to protect our communities from misinformation and determine whether politicians, AI, and professors are giving us good reasons to believe their claims–or just bullshitting us.
- Spring 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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PHIL 111.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Andrew Knoll 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WWillis 211 11:10am-12:20pm
- FWillis 211 12:00pm-1:00pm
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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 221.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Anna Moltchanova 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 426 3:10pm-4:55pm
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PHIL 225 Philosophy of Mind 6 credits
What is the relationship between the mind and the brain? Are they identical? Or is there mental “stuff” in addition to physical stuff? Or perhaps some physical stuff has irreducibly mental properties? These, and related questions, are explored by philosophers under the heading of “the mind-body problem.” In this course, we will start with these questions, looking at classical and contemporary defenses of both materialism and dualism. This investigation will lead us to other important questions such as: What is the nature of mental representation, what is consciousness, and could a robot have conscious states and mental representations?
- Spring 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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PHIL 225.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Jason Decker 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 305 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 305 2:20pm-3:20pm
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PHIL 272 Early Modern Philosophy: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Philosophy 6 credits
Our inquiry into seventeenth and eighteenth century philosophy 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. We will cover selections from Anton Wilhelm Amo, Mulla Sadra, Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz, Im Yunjidang, Isaac Newton, Baruch Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, and more. The topics include, but are not limited to, the mind body distinction, divinity, love, freedom, virtue, and the good life. The final paper project for this course asks you to creatively connect philosophical concepts, themes, or problems from different units of the course.
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PHIL 272.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Hope Sample 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THWeitz Center 233 10:10am-11:55am
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PHIL 276 Existentialism and Literature 6 credits
Against the background of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of secularism, the spread of mass consumption and technocracy, and the devastation of war, the question of the human being’s place in the world became increasingly pressing. ‘Existentialism’ became the term associated with intellectuals and artists who grappled with questions of authenticity, freedom, and our responsibilities to others, all while seeking new forms of meaning and value that were not rooted in traditional sources of authority. We’ll read texts that give voice to modernity’s social upheaval and alienation as well as works of philosophy and literature that responded to this predicament. Authors include Kafka, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus, and Viktor Frankl.
- Spring 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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PHIL 276.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Allison Murphy 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 305 1:15pm-3:00pm
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PHIL 320 Surviving Death 6 credits
“Death is the great leveler; if the good and the bad [person] alike go down into oblivion, if there is nothing about reality itself that shores up this basic moral difference between their lives, say by providing what the good deserve, then the distinction between the good and the bad is less important. So goodness is less important.” This is the challenge Mark Johnston articulates and aims to answer in his book Surviving Death, where he argues, “with no recourse to any supernatural means”, that a good person “quite literally survives death.” We will make our way through Johnston’s book, which covers copious ground in general metaphysics, the metaphysics of personal identity, and ethics.
Students must also register for PHIL 321.
- Spring 2026
- 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.
- PHIL 321: Surviving Death: Writing Lab
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PHIL 320.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Jason Decker 🏫 👤 · Daniel Groll 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- M, WLeighton 303 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 303 9:40am-10:40am
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POSC 120 Democracy and Dictatorship 6 credits
An introduction to the array of different democratic and authoritarian political institutions in both developing and developed countries. We will also explore key issues in contemporary politics in countries around the world, such as nationalism and independence movements, revolution, regime change, state-making, and social movements.
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POSC 120.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Alfred Montero 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- M, WHasenstab 002 9:50am-11:00am
- FHasenstab 002 9:40am-10:40am
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POSC 230 Methods of Political Research 6 credits
An introduction to research method, research design, and the analysis of political data. The course is intended to introduce students to the fundamentals of scientific inquiry as they are employed in the discipline. The course will consider the philosophy of scientific research generally, the philosophy of social science research, theory building and theory testing, the components of applied (quantitative and qualitative) research across the major sub-fields of political science, and basic methodological tools. Intended for majors only.
- Spring 2026
- QRE, Quantitative Reasoning SI, Social Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): STAT 120 or STAT 230 or STAT 250 or PSYC 200 or SOAN 239 with a grade of C- or better or received a score of 4 or better on the Statistics AP exam.
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POSC 230.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Ryan Dawkins 🏫 👤
- Size:18
- T, THWeitz Center 235 10:10am-11:55am
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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 352.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THHasenstab 109 1:15pm-3:00pm
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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 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Chumie Juni 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 426 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 426 9:40am-10:40am
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RELG 120 Judaism: Text, History, Practice 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 120.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Chumie Juni 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- M, WLeighton 330 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 330 1:10pm-2:10pm
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RELG 155 Hinduism: An Introduction 6 credits
Hinduism is the world’s third-largest religion (or, as some prefer, “way of life”), with about 1.2 billion followers. It is also one of its oldest, with roots dating back at least 3500 years. “Hinduism,” however, is a loosely defined, even contested term, designating the wide variety of beliefs and practices of the majority of the people of South Asia. This survey course introduces students to this great variety, including social structures (such as the caste system), rituals and scriptures, mythologies and epics, philosophies, life practices, politics, poetry, sex, gender, Bollywood, and—lest we forget—some 330 million gods and goddesses.
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RELG 155.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Kristin Bloomer 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- T, THLanguage & Dining Center 104 10:10am-11:55am
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RELG 225 Faith and Doubt in the Modern World 6 credits
Is religion an illusion we create to explain what we don’t understand? An elaborate means to justify the violence we commit? A way to hold onto meaning in the face of radical doubt? This course explores how Western theologians and philosophers have grappled with the loss of traditional religious beliefs and categories. What is the appropriate response to losing one's religion? It turns out that few abandon it altogether, but instead find new ways of naming the sacred, whether in relation to existential courage, aesthetic experience, moral hope, prophetic insight, or passionate love.
- Spring 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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RELG 225.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Lori Pearson 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 402 1:15pm-3:00pm
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RELG 251 African American Religious History 6 credits
African American religions are a mix of African, European, and indigenous American influences. The unique social, political, and economic concerns of Black people shape their spiritualities in intricate and surprising ways. This course explores the history of African American religions through a consideration of historical works, historiographical debates, and hermeneutical trends. Readings survey themes of race, gender, reproduction, natal alienation, and political struggle in African American religious experiences through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Course assignments introduce students to the practice of method and theory in the historical study of religion by emphasizing how historiography informs narrations of the past.
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RELG 251.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Jorge Banuelos 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 402 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 402 1:10pm-2:10pm
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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 266.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Kambiz GhaneaBassiri 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLibrary 344 10:10am-11:55am
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RELG 287 Many Marys 6 credits
Christianity, by its very name, focuses on Jesus. This course shifts the focus to Mary, his mother: her various manifestations and her contributions to the myriad experiences of peoples around the world. Race, gender, class, and feminist and liberation theologies come into play as Mary presents as: the Mother of God; queen of heaven; a Black madonna; a Mestiza madonna; an exceptional woman with her own chapter in the Qur'an; various goddesses in Haitian Vodoun, Hinduism, and Buddhism; a tattoo on the backs of U.S. prisoners–and so on. In addition to considering Miriam (her Jewish name) as she appears in literature, art, apparition, and ritual practice around the world, we will also consider Mary Magdalene, her foil, who appears in popular discourse from the Gnostic gospels to The Da Vinci Code.
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RELG 287.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Kristin Bloomer 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 402 3:10pm-4:55pm
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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.
X-List WMST 322
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RELG 322.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Sonja Anderson 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- M, WLeighton 303 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 303 2:20pm-3:20pm
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SOAN 240 Methods of Social Research 6 credits
When sociologists and anthropologists conduct their research, how do they know which method to choose? What assumptions guide their decision? What challenges might they encounter? What are their ethical obligations? In this course, we'll explore a diverse range of methods, from in-depth interviews to large-scale surveys and participant observation fieldwork. Students will also learn how to craft feasible research questions, select the right method, collect and analyze data, and communicate research methods effectively. This course is an essential foundation for SOAN majors, equipping students with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in their comps experience.
- Spring 2026
- QRE, Quantitative Reasoning SI, Social Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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First-year students are ineligible to enroll. Student must have completed one 200- or 300-level SOAN course, along with, (i) either SOAN 110 or SOAN 111 with a grade of C- or better, AND (ii) STAT 120 or STAT 250 with a grade of C- or better, or received a score of 4 or better on the Statistics AP exam.
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SOAN 240.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Annette Nierobisz 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WWeitz Center 230 11:10am-12:20pm
- FWeitz Center 230 12:00pm-1:00pm
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SOAN 256 Africa: Representation and Conflict 6 credits
Pairing classics in Africanist anthropology with contemporary re-studies, we explore changes in African societies and in the questions anthropologists have posed about them. We address issues of representation and self-presentation in written ethnographies as well as in African portrait photography. We then turn from the visual to the invisible realm of African witchcraft. Initiation rituals, war, and migration place selfhood and belonging back in this-world contexts. In-depth case studies include, among others: the Cameroon Grassfields, the Bemba of Zambia, and the Nuer of South Sudan.
The department strongly recommends that Sociology/Anthropology 110 or 111 be taken prior to enrolling in courses numbered 200 or above.
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SOAN 256.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 236 10:10am-11:55am
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SOAN 395 Ethnography of Reproduction 6 credits
Using ethnographies, this seminar explores the meanings of reproductive beliefs and practices in comparative perspective, particularly the relation between human and social reproduction. It focuses on (but is not limited to) ethnographic examples from the United States/Canada and from sub-Saharan Africa (societies with relatively low fertility and high utilization of technology and societies with mostly high fertility and low utilization of technology). Topics examined include pregnancy and birth as rites of passage and sites of racialization; abortion; biological vs. social motherhood; maternal morality; stratified reproduction in reproductive technologies and care work; love and sexual economies.
Expected preparation: Sociology/Anthropology 110 or SOAN 111 or GWSS 110, and an additional SOAN course, or instructor permission.
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SOAN 395.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THLibrary 305 1:15pm-3:00pm
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THEA 225 Theater History and Theory 6 credits
Throughout history, theatrical performance has been both a reflection of cultural values and a platform for envisioning social change. In this course, students will examine the theatre of the people: popular theatre, theatre that directly engages with the community in which it lives, and theatre that is woven into the rituals of the culture. This includes ancient Greek tragedy, medieval cycle plays, Yoruban Egungun Masquerade, commedia dell’arte, Japanese Kabuki, Elizabethan theatre, and American popular and grassroots performance. Class sessions will combine lecture, discussion, and performances of historical texts.
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THEA 225.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty:Jeanne Willcoxon 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WWeitz Center 231 11:10am-12:20pm
- FWeitz Center 231 12:00pm-1:00pm
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