Search Results
Your search for courses · during 2025-26 · tagged with ACE Theoretical · returned 50 results
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AFST 100 Ethics and Human Rights in Africa 6 credits
Human rights in Africa, as in many parts of the world, are often very contentious. No one denies the need for human rights. What people contest is the form these rights take. This course will discuss human rights in Africa as ethical issues. It is important to engage human rights through the prism of ethics because we ought to think about how we relate to other humans and respect their dignity and the right to be who they are. The class will read insightful texts and engage in animated discussions of issues as they relate to Africa.
Held for new first year students
- Fall 2025
- AI/WR1, Argument & Inquiry/WR1 IS, International Studies
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Student is a member of the First Year First Term class level cohort. Students are only allowed to register for one A&I course at a time. If a student wishes to change the A&I course they are enrolled in they must DROP the enrolled course and then ADD the new course. Please see our Workday guides Drop or 'Late' Drop a Course and Register or Waitlist for a Course Directly from the Course Listing for more information.
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AFST 213 Race, Racism, and the Beloved Community in the US 6 credits
Race and racism played a significant role in the construction of the United States of America. But so did the quest for a more perfect union and the beloved community. This course introduces students to the complexity of racial ideology and the ways it privileges one group of people while placing others at a disadvantage. We shall examine the experiences of all racialized groups (Blacks, Asians, American Indians, Latinos) and how they resisted the injustice against them. Most importantly, we shall analyze how their quest for liberation brought America closer to its foundational ideal that all humans are created equal and are endowed with unalienable rights. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly. Students who have previously taken any AFST course should register for AFST 300; students who have not should register for AFST 213.
Not offered in 2025-26
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AFST 300 Race, Racism, and the Beloved Community in the US 6 credits
Race and racism played a significant role in the construction of the United States of America. But so did the quest for a more perfect union and the beloved community. This course introduces students to the complexity of racial ideology and the ways it privileges one group of people while placing others at a disadvantage. We shall examine the experiences of all racialized groups (Blacks, Asians, American Indians, Latinos) and how they resisted the injustice against them. Most importantly, we shall analyze how their quest for liberation brought America closer to its foundational ideal that all humans are created equal and are endowed with unalienable rights. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly. Students who have previously taken any AFST course should register for AFST 300; students who have not should register for AFST 213.
Not offered in 2025-26
- 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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AMST 263 Ethics of Indigenous Engagement 3 credits
This course explores ethical questions raised in academic civic engagement with Indigenous Nations, communities, and organizations. How might curricular, co-curricular, and institutional engagement proceed “in a good way”? How can we interrupt a history of extractive relationships between academic institutions and Native peoples? How should partnerships reflect Indigenous sovereignty and work from meaningful overlaps between academic and Indigenous priorities? What is the right relationship between scholarship and advocacy? How can Indigenous knowledges, values, and pedagogies reshape academic inquiry? These questions will be explored through case studies, conversations with Indigenous partners, and structured reflection on student's varied engagement experiences.
Not offered in 2025-26
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ARCN 211 Coercion and Exploitation: Material Histories of Labor 6 credits
What do antebellum plantations, Spanish missions, British colonies in Australia, mining camps in Latin America, and Roman estates all have in common? All are examples of unfair/unfree and forced labor in colonial and imperial settings. This class will review archaeological, archival, and ethnographic cases of past coerced and exploitative labor, and compare them with modern cases such as human trafficking, child slavery, bonded labor, and forced marriage. Case studies include the Andes under Inka and Spanish rule, North American and Caribbean plantations, British colonial Australia, and Dutch colonial Asia.
Not offered in 2025-26
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ARTH 262 Architectural Studies in Europe Program: Community-Engaged Design 3 credits
In recent years, architects and urban planners have increasingly moved away from the total-design methods that often typified the Modern Movement of architecture in which the master planner oversaw every aspect of design “from the teaspoon to the city.” In its place, many designers have engaged local resources and forms of knowledge rooted in communities as the basis for architecture and urban planning schemes. This course considers case studies in community-based design practices by looking at both the products of such labor as well as the distinct processes that empowered residents to refashion their own surroundings from the ground up.
Requires participation in OCS Program: Architectural Studies in Europe
Not offered in 2025-26
- IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis
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Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Architectural Studies in Europe program.
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ASST 130 Globalization & Local Responses in India Program: Tourism and Development in India 3 credits
This course will examine concepts and practices regarding socio-economic development in India, with a special focus on the role of tourism as part of the process of globalization. We will study the scholarly writings and debates around the varied agendas and ideologies concerning development, and analyze the different approaches to economic growth that have historically been dominant in India. As part of our learning process, we will visit numerous sites wherein economic development is being undertaken, including urban and rural locales as well as tourist and pilgrimage sites. This course will include scholarly readings, instructor and guest lectures, and require student presentations of their work.
OCS India Program
Not offered in 2025-26
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies
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Student has enrolled in the Carleton OCS India: Globalization and Local Responses program.
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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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CCST 275 I’m A Stranger Here Myself 6 credits
What do enculturation, tourism, culture shock, “going native,” haptics, cross-cultural adjustment, and third culture kids have in common? How do intercultural transitions shape identity? What is intercultural competence? This course explores theories about intercultural contact and tests their usefulness by applying them to the analysis of world literature, case studies, and the visual arts, and by employing students’ intercultural experiences as evidence. From individualized, self-reflective exercises to community-oriented group endeavors, our activities will promote new intercultural paradigms in the classroom and the wider community. Course designed for off-campus returnees, students who have lived abroad, or who have experienced being outsiders.
Not offered in 2025-26
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CLAS 116 Greek Drama in Performance 6 credits
What is drama? When and where were the first systematic theatrical performances put on? What can Athenian tragedies and comedies teach us about the classical world and today’s societies? This course will explore the always-relevant world of Ancient Greek theater, its history and development, through the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. We will decode the structure and content of Greek tragedies and comedies, ponder their place in the Athenian society and the modern world, and investigate the role of both ancient and contemporary productions in addressing critical questions on the construction and performance of individual and communal identities.
- Spring 2026
- LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis
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ECON 270 Economics of the Public Sector 6 credits
This course provides a theoretical and empirical examination of the government’s role in the U.S. economy. Emphasis is placed on policy analysis using the criteria of efficiency and equity. Topics include rationales for government intervention; analysis of alternative public expenditure programs from a partial and/or general equilibrium framework; the incidence of various types of taxes; models of collective choice; cost-benefit analysis; intergovernmental fiscal relations.
- Winter 2026
- QRE, Quantitative Reasoning SI, Social Inquiry
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): ECON 110 with a grade of C- or better or received a score of 5 on the Macroeconomics AP exam or received a ECON 110 requisite equivalency and ECON 111 with a grade of C- or better or received a score of 5 on the Microeconomics AP exam or received ECON 111 requisite equivalency OR has received a score of 6 or better on the Economics IB exam.
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EDUC 338 Multicultural Education 6 credits
This course focuses on the respect for human diversity, especially as these relate to various racial, cultural and economic groups, and to women. It includes lectures and discussions intended to aid students in relating to a wide variety of persons, cultures, and life styles.
Extra time
- Spring 2026
- IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies SI, Social Inquiry
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): One 100 or 200 level Educational Studies (EDUC) course with grade of C- or better.
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ENGL 228 Banned. Censored. Reviled. 6 credits
What makes a work of art dangerous? While present-day attacks on books, libraries, and schools feel unprecedented, writers and artists have always had to fight efforts to suppress their work, often at great personal and societal cost. We will study literature, films, graphic novels, images, music, and other materials that have been challenged and attacked as offensive, taboo, or transgressive, and also explore strategies of resistance to censorship.
Not offered in 2025-26
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ENGL 256 Excavating Histories: Archival Research Methods 6 credits
This course will introduce the fundamentals of working with special collections and archives, including ethical best practices and methods of research and interpretation. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, we will explore questions such as: What constitutes an archive? What motivates people to create and seek out archives? Whose lives and histories have been privileged in the cultivation of archives, and what is being done to address these disparities? What are the limits of archiving as a means of redress? Course work will include in-person visits to collections at Carleton and beyond, as well as research in digitized collections nationwide.
Extra Time Required: Off-campus site visits to meet with community partners.
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ENTS 180 Community Engagement and Qualitative Methods 6 credits
This course introduces students to community-engaged research and qualitative methods in environmental and social contexts. Students will examine principles of working with communities, ethical research practices, and the role of power, positionality, and cultural humility. Through exercises, workshops, and group projects, students will learn to collect, code, and analyze qualitative data from interviews, focus groups, and observations. The course emphasizes reflective practice and translating research findings into actionable outputs. By the end of the term, students will have the background to plan community-based research projects, critically evaluate existing studies, and understand the challenges and opportunities involved in ethical qualitative research.
- Winter 2026
- SI, Social Inquiry
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ENTS 249 Troubled Waters 6 credits
This course considers the contrast between the ways various religions conceive of water as sacred, and the fact that today’s intersecting environmental crises mean that drought, flooding, sea level rise, and lack of access to clean water and safe sanitation have made the human relationship with water more fraught and complex than ever before. We will look at specific situations of environmental injustice (including Flint, Michigan; Jackson, Mississippi; and the protests at Standing Rock) as well as reading more theoretical and theological takes on water, water justice, and water activism.
Not offered in 2025-26
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ENTS 313 Conscious Nature: Towards and Anthropology of Non-Human Beings 6 credits
The core of anthropological thought has been organized around the assumption that the production of complex cultural systems is reserved to the domain of the human experience. While scholars have contested this assumption for years, there is an emerging body of scholarship that proposes expanding our understandings of culture, and the ability to produce meaning in the world, to include non-human beings (e.g. plants, wildlife, micro-organisms, mountains). This course explores ethnographic works in this field and contextualizes insights within contemporary conversations pertaining to our relationship with nature, public health, and social justice movements that emerge within decolonized frameworks.
Recommended preparation: SOAN 110 or SOAN 111.
Not offered in 2025-26
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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.
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.
- 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 244 Women’s & Gender Studies in Europe Program: Ethics and Politics of Cross-Cultural Research
This course explores the following questions: What are the ethics and politics of cross-cultural research? What is the relationship between methodology and knowledge claims in feminist research? What are the power interests involved in keeping certain knowledges marginalized/subjugated? How do questions of gender and sexuality, of ethnicity and national location, figure in these debates? We will also pay close attention to questions arising from the hegemony of English as the global language of WGS as a discipline, and will reflect on what it means to move between different linguistic communities, with each being differently situated in the global power hierarchies.
Acceptance in OCS Women's & Gender Studies in Europe Program
- Fall 2025
- IS, International Studies SI, Social Inquiry
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Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Women's and Gender Studies in Europe program.
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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 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.”
- 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 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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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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HIST 154 Social Movements in Postwar Japan 6 credits
This course tackles an evolving meaning of democracy and sovereignty in postwar Japan shaped by the transformative power of its social movements. We will place the anti-nuclear movement and anti-base struggles of the 1950s, the protest movements against revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty of the 1960s, and environmentalist movements against the U.S. Cold War projects in Asia to see how they intersect with the worldwide “New Left” movements of the 1960s. Topics include student activism, labor unionism, Marxist movements, and gangsterism (yakuza). Students will engage with political art, photographs, manga, films, reportage, memoirs, autobiographies, interview records, novels, and detective stories.
Not offered in 2025-26
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HIST 216 History Beyond the Walls 6 credits
This course will examine the world of history outside the walls of academia. Looking at secondary-school education, museums, and public policy, we will explore the ways in which both general and specialized publics learn and think about history. A central component of the course will be a civic engagement project.
Extra Time Required.
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HIST 220 From Blackface to Blaxploitation: Black History and/in Film 6 credits
This course focuses on the representation of African American history in popular US-American movies. It will introduce students to the field of visual history, using cinema as a primary source. Through films from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the seminar will analyze African American history, (pop-)cultural depictions, and memory culture. We will discuss subjects, narrative arcs, stylistic choices, production design, performative and film industry practices, and historical receptions of movies. The topics include slavery, racial segregation and white supremacy, the Black Freedom Movement, controversies and conflicts in Black communities, Black LGBTQIA+ history, ghettoization and police brutality, Black feminism, and Afrofuturism.
Extra time
Not offered in 2025-26
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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 233 The Byzantine World and Its Neighbors 750-ca. 1453 6 credits
The Byzantine world (eighth-fifteenth centuries) was a zone of fascinating tensions, exchanges, and encounters. Through a wide variety of written and visual evidence, we will examine key features of its history and culture: the nature of government; piety and religious controversy; art and music; the evolving relations with the Latin West, Armenia, the Slavic North and West, and the Dar al-Islam (the Abbasids and Seljuk and Ottoman Turks); gender; economic life; and social relations.Extra Time for special events and a group project (ecumenical council).
Extra Time for special events and a group project (ecumenical council).
Not offered in 2025-26
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HIST 235 Making and Breaking Institutions: Structure, Culture, Corruption, and Reform in the Middle Ages 6 credits
From churches and monasteries to universities, guilds, governmental administrations, the medieval world was full of institutions. They emerged, by accident or design, to do particular kinds of work and to benefit particular persons or groups. These institutions faced hard questions like those we ask of our institutions today: How best to structure, distribute, and control power and authority? What is the place of the institution in the wider world? How is a collective identity and ethos achieved, maintained, or transformed? Where does corruption come from and how can institutions be reformed? This course will explore these questions through discussion of case studies and primary sources from the medieval world as well as theoretical studies of these topics.
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HIST 301 Indigenous Histories at Carleton 6 credits
Carleton’s new campus land acknowledgement affirms that this is Dakota land, but how did Carleton come to be here? What are the histories of Indigenous faculty, students, and staff at Carleton? In this course, students will investigate Indigenous histories on our campus by conducting original research about how Carleton acquired its landbase, its historic relationships to Dakota and Anishinaabeg people, histories of on-campus activism, the shifting demographics of Native students on campus, and the histories of Indigenous faculty and staff, among others. Students will situate these histories within the broader context of federal Indian policies and Indigenous resistance.
Not offered in 2025-26
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IDSC 285 Ethics of Civic Engagement 3 credits
This course explores vexing ethical questions raised in academic civic engagement practice. With structured reflection on students’ varied civic engagement experiences and a group project aligned with the instructor’s work, students will consider questions arising from asymmetries of power, the relationships between scholarship and advocacy, scholarly and community knowledges, empathy with others and a student’s own moral commitments, and practices of civic engagement and community organizing. Offered biennially by rotating faculty, course themes will vary accordingly. The 2023 theme is Indigenous engagement in Minnesota.
Extra time with community partner, flexibly scheduled
Not offered in 2025-26
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JAPN 206 Japanese in Cultural Context 6 credits
This course advances students’ proficiency in the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing in Japanese. The course also integrates elements of traditional Japanese civilization and modern Japanese society, emphasizing cultural understanding and situationally appropriate language use.
- Spring 2026
- LP Language Requirement No Exploration
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): JAPN 205 with a grade of C- or better or received a score of 206 on the Carleton Japanese Placement exam.
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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 242 Tango: More Than a Dance 6 credits
This course explores the Argentine tango as a lens into over 100 years of global and cultural change. Tango is much more than a dance; It represents important moments related to migration, sexuality, nationalism, tourism, appropriation, and of course, music. We will trace its history from working-class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires to its adoption by Parisians in the early 20th century, to the worldwide phenomenon that we know it as today. You’ll have the opportunity to play tango charts in class and engage with tango communities in Minnesota. A working knowledge of western music notation is helpful, though not required.
Extra Time Required: Students will have the opportunity to attend tango music/dance events in the Twin Cities, which typically occur in the evening hours. However, there will always be an alternative assignment for students who have evening conflicts or wish to not leave campus.
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PHIL 119 Meaning of Life 6 credits
Does life have a meaning? To answer this, we will explore various cross-cultural approaches to the meaning of life, both those that affirm meaning and deny it. We will cover, for example, approaches to the meaning of life grounded in divinity, creativity, striving, and more. We will also inquire into related questions about agency: Is fate compatible with meaning in life? Is meaning distinct from happiness? Is meaning a moralized concept? In addition, there will be room for student choice of topics.
Not offered in 2025-26
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PHIL 203 Bias, Belief, Community, Emotion 6 credits
What is important to individuals, how they see themselves and others, and the kind of projects they pursue are shaped by traditional and moral frameworks they didn’t choose. Individual selves are encumbered by their social environments and, in this sense, always ‘biased’, but some forms of bias are pernicious because they produce patterns of inter and intra-group domination and oppression. We will explore various forms of intersubjectivity and its asymmetries through readings in social ontology and social epistemology that theorize the construction of group and individual beliefs and identities in the context of the social world they engender.
Extra time
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PHIL 219 American Pragmatism 6 credits
The class is a survey of this distinctly North American tradition, which understands knowing the world as inseparable from exercising one’s agency within it. We will especially focus on the tradition’s directedness towards various dimensions of social improvement and the notion that philosophy is a tool in the realization of an inclusive American democracy.
Not offered in 2025-26
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PHIL 304 Decolonial Feminisms 6 credits
This course familiarizes students with major issues and debates within the emerging field of decolonial feminist philosophy. We will start by considering some of the historical, geopolitical, and theoretical underpinnings from which decolonial feminisms emerged. We will then investigate core concepts and problems pertaining to decolonial feminisms as a critical methodology and as a practice to build solidarity between and across anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-sexist, anti-capitalist schools of thought and/or political coalitions. We will pay particular attention to Latina feminist philosopher María Lugones and her development of the “colonial modern gender system” and her articulation of “decolonial feminism.” Recommended preparation: One prior course in Philosophy or a relevant area of studies.
Not offered in 2025-26
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PHIL 324 The Self 6 credits
When one is told, “Take good care of yourself!” the reflexive ‘yourself’ refers to both the object and agent of care. What is it, this ‘self’, and how do you take good care of it? This course will discuss historical and contemporary answers to these questions, as well as the related notions of identity, personhood, agency, and self-knowledge. Moreover, some philosophical traditions deny the existence of the self; in their account of living well, what is experiencing the living? Or, if we understand the self as relational, does one need to take care of others to take care of oneself? Finally, if one’s self is socially constructed, how do we change society to avoid its possible disfiguring influences on the self and to enable every self’s flourishing?
Not offered in 2025-26
- 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 100, 200 or 300 level PHIL course NOT including Independent Studies with a grade of C- or better.
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POSC 204 Media and Electoral Politics: 2024 United States Election 6 credits
Our analysis of media influences on politics will draw from three fields of study: political psychology, political behavior and participation, and public opinion. Students will conduct a study of the effects of campaign ads and news using our multi-year data set of content analyzed election ads and news. We study a variety of quantitative and qualitative research methods to learn how political communication affects U.S. elections.
Not offered in 2025-26
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POSC 243 Women’s & Gender Studies in Europe Program: Socio-Political Systems and Gender Issues Across Europe
This course examines the role of activism centered on gender, race, sexuality, and disability in shaping political life across the Netherlands, Germany, and the Czech Republic. While the main emphasis is on current activism and politics, discussions are anchored in relevant historical contexts. Students investigate the impact of Europe’s colonial heritage on minorities, the ongoing legacies of World War II, the Cold War, and the EU expansion into Eastern Europe. Topics include reproductive rights, LGBT politics, homonationalism, “anti-genderism,” sex work, immigration, challenges faced by women of color and Jewish people in Europe, the legacy of state socialism in Eastern Europe.
- Fall 2025
- IS, International Studies SI, Social Inquiry
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Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Women's and Gender Studies in Europe program.
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POSC 288 Politics and Public Policy in Washington, D.C., Program: Global Politics & Pub Policy in Washington DC 6 credits
Students will participate in a seminar centered around meetings with experts in areas of global politics and policy. Over the course of the term they will collaborate in groups to produce a presentation exploring the political dimensions of public policy with a focus on how problem identification, institutional capacity, and stakeholder interests combine to shape policy options.
Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Politics and Public Policy in Washington, D.C. program.
Not offered in 2025-26
- IS, International Studies SI, Social Inquiry
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Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Politics and Public Policy in Washington, D.C. program AND student has completed any of the following course(s): STAT 120 or any other STATs course with a grade of C- or better.
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POSC 289 Politics and Public Policy in Washington, D.C., Program: Politics & Public Policy in Washington DC 3 – 6 credits
Students will participate in a seminar centered around meetings with experts in areas of U.S. politics and policy. Over the course of the term they will collaborate in groups to produce a presentation exploring the political dimensions of public policy with a focus on how problem identification, institutional capacity, and stakeholder interests combine to shape policy options.
Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Politics and Public Policy in Washington, D.C. program.
Not offered in 2025-26
- IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies SI, Social Inquiry
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Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Politics and Public Policy in Washington, D.C. program AND student has completed any of the following course(s): STAT 120 or any other STATs course with a grade of C- or better.
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POSC 372 Mansions and Shantytowns: Politics of The Spaces We Live in 6 credits
This course explores theories about spaces/places and investigates the impact of our physical environment on a broad range of social and political issues. We will look at how parks, monuments, residential communities, and other features of our cities and towns are made, who makes them, and in turn, their effects on our daily lives. Students will engage with important contemporary issues such as residential segregation, public space management, protest policing, etc. Most of the course will focus on urban politics, with a brief foray into rural issues. The goal of this course is to encourage students to think about everyday environmental features in a more systematic and theoretic manner and design social scientific inquiries into spatial issues.
Not offered in 2025-26
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RELG 220 Justice and Responsibility 6 credits
How have religious thinkers understood the demands of justice, the work of love, and the relation of both to power and politics? Is resistance or compromise the most appropriate way to bring justice to human relations? How should the ideals of faith inform questions about political authority, struggles for equality, and engagement with difference? This course draws on Christian theology, African American religious thought, and Jewish thought to explore a range of questions about ethics and social change. Along the way, we encounter diverse models of human selfhood, moral obligation, and the role of religion in public life.
Not offered in 2025-26
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RELG 233 Gender and Power in the Catholic Church 6 credits
How does power flow and concentrate in the Catholic Church? What are the gendered aspects of the Church’s structure, history, and theology? Through readings, discussions, and analysis of current media, students will develop the ability to critically and empathetically interpret issues of gender, sexuality, and power in the Catholic Church, especially as these issues appear in official Vatican texts. Topics include: God, suffering, sacraments, salvation, damnation, celibacy, homosexuality, the family, saints, the ordination of women as priests, feminist theologies, canon law, the censuring of “heretical” theologians, Catholic hospital policy, and the clerical sex abuse crisis.
Not offered in 2025-26
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SOAN 225 Social Movements 6 credits
How is it that in specific historical moments ordinary people come together and undertake collective struggles for justice in social movements such as Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Standing Rock, immigrant, and LGBTQ rights? How have these movements theorized oppression, and what has been their vision for liberation? What collective change strategies have they proposed and what obstacles have they faced? We will explore specific case studies and use major sociological perspectives theorizing the emergence of movements, repertoires of protest, collective identity formation, frame alignment, and resource mobilization. We will foreground the intersectionality of gender, sexuality, race, and class in these movements.
Not offered in 2025-26
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SOAN 310 Sociology of Mass Incarceration 6 credits
Since the 1980s, the United States criminal justice system has embarked on a social experiment we now call, “mass incarceration.” The outcome – unprecedented rates of imprisonment, particularly in BIPOC communities – has had devastating consequences for individuals, families, neighborhoods, and American society. This course explores the causes and consequences of mass incarceration. Potential topics include: race, class, gender, and age in the prison system; the impacts of incarceration on children and intimate partners who get left behind; punishment strategies such as solitary confinement and the death penalty; the lucrative business of the prison industrial complex; and the promise of prison abolition. The department strongly recommends that Sociology/Anthropology 110 or 111 be taken prior to enrolling in courses numbered 200 or above.
Not offered in 2025-26
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SOAN 313 Conscious Nature: Towards and Anthropology of Non-Human Beings 6 credits
The core of anthropological thought has been organized around the assumption that the production of complex cultural systems is reserved to the domain of the human experience. While scholars have contested this assumption for years, there is an emerging body of scholarship that proposes expanding our understandings of culture, and the ability to produce meaning in the world, to include non-human beings (e.g. plants, wildlife, micro-organisms, mountains). This course explores ethnographic works in this field and contextualizes insights within contemporary conversations pertaining to our relationship with nature, public health, and social justice movements that emerge within decolonized frameworks.
Recommended preparation: SOAN 110 or SOAN 111.
Not offered in 2025-26
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SPAN 320 Death and Dying Under Capitalism: An Ecological and Humanistic Perspective 6 credits
Within the capitalist system, the concept of dying well (Ars moriendi) has progressively lost its collective sense and meaning, relegated instead to the realm of individual responsibility. Simultaneously, the notion of a dignified death has ceased to be an inalienable right for all individuals, becoming contingent upon inherited privileges and access to private resources. Death, transformed into a taboo, coexists with an apocalyptic culture and a state of eco-anxiety stemming from ecological crises and the looming extinction of numerous species, potentially including humans. Some of our guiding questions will be: What implications does dying under capitalist conditions entail? Can cultural representation do more than merely comply with, comment or oppose these scenarios? Our exploration will encompass a diverse array of texts, films, and workshops featuring various guest speakers.
- Spring 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): One SPAN course numbered 205 or higher excluding Independent Studies with a grade of C- or better.
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SPAN 369 The Carnival Trail: Carnival Literature in Latin America 6 credits
Carnivals are frequently associated with colourful crowds, merrymaking and excess. But what role do carnivals play in the construction of national and collective identities? We will try to answer this and other questions focusing on films, paintings, and literary texts from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that represent some of the most popular carnivals in Latin America: Candombe (Uruguay), Yawar Fiesta (Peru), Blacks and Whites (Colombia), Oruro (Bolivia), and Rio (Brazil). We will analyze them from an interdisciplinary perspective that includes literary criticism, anthropology, and history. Students will engage with debates about nation, popular culture, modernity/modernization, and intangible cultural heritage.
Not offered in 2025-26
- IS, International Studies SI, Social Inquiry
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Student has completed any of the following course(s): One SPAN course numbered 205 or higher excluding Independent Studies with a grade of C- or better. Not open to students that have taken SPAN 250.