ENROLL

Kao Kalia Yang

This course is an examination of the hidden/excluded/silenced narratives in American literature and culture. We will read books, watch films, and draw from community resources in our exploration of groups that have been marginalized from the mainstream. The course will center around the stories of communities such as the Hmong, the Karen, and the Eritreans, among others. Be prepared to engage in conversations about power, privilege, and the underlying structures that govern exposure and understanding.

Jessica Keating, Meghan Tierney

Kathleen Ryor

This course will survey art and architecture in China from its prehistoric beginnings to the end of the nineteenth century. It will examine various types of visual art forms within their social, political and cultural contexts. Major themes that will also be explored include: the role of ritual in the production and use of art, the relationship between the court and secular elite and art, and theories about creativity and expression.

Ken Abrams

This course will examine key developments in Czech visual art and architecture from the early medieval to the contemporary periods. Slide-based lectures will be supplemented by visits to representative monuments, art collections, and museums in Prague.

OCS Cross Cultural Psychology in Prague

Ross Elfline

Prerequisite: Any one term of art history

Ross Elfline

What does it mean to say that a work of art is “democratic?" For whom is art made? And who can lay claim to the title “artist?" These questions animate contemporary art production as artists grapple with the problems of broadening access to their works and making them more socially relevant. In this course we will consider the challenges involved in making art for a sometimes ill-defined “public.” Topics to be discussed include: activist performance art, feminism, public sculpture, the Culture Wars, queer visual culture, and the recent rise of social practice art.

Prerequisite: Any two Art History courses, or instructor permission

Extra Time Required

Carol Donelan

Extra Time Evening Screenings

Diane Nemec Ignashev

Film adaptations of pre-existing texts (from songs to novels) have been around almost as long as cinema itself, and the percent of film adaptations continues to grow. (Of the top two-thousand movies over the last twenty years fifty-one percent were adaptations.) In this course we will take a chronological journey through the history of film adaptations in a variety of film cultures, considering along the way the processes involved in translating narratives from words to visual media, and how the cinematic has come to shape the literary (reverse adaptation). Discussions and assignments will aim at both analysis and practice.

Extra Time Required

Jay Beck

Prerequisite: Cinema and Media Studies 296 required winter term

Extra Time Required

Shaohua Guo

This course introduces to students the essentials of classical Chinese through a close reading of authentic materials. A wide range of genres, including prose, poems, idioms, and short stories, will be introduced to enrich students’ understanding of various writing conventions and styles. The historical, cultural, and literary forces that shape these cultural works also will be examined.

Prerequisite: Chinese 206 or equivalent.

Kofi Owusu

Jeremy P DeAngelo

What remains of the beliefs of the pre-Christian Norse and Celts represent some of the stranger and more obscure elements of Western tradition. Preserved thanks to the literacy which was brought by the new religion that extinguished it, the mythology of the Irish, Welsh, and Icelanders left a legacy that reveals itself in surprising places in our modern world. This course studies works such as the Prose and Poetic Eddas, The Mabinogi, and The Táin to explore myths as the products of environment and culture and examine the problems of transmission inherent to Christian descriptions of pagan belief.

Constance Walker

Pierre Hecker

Crosslisted with ENGL 244

Cross-listed with ENGL 244.00

Gregory Hewett

Michael Kowalewski

Pierre Hecker

Crosslisted with ENGL 144

Peter Balaam

Prerequisite: One English Foundations course and one prior 6 credit English course

First Year Students Cannot Register

Arnab Chakladar

In this course we will study the majority of the oeuvre of Zadie Smith, a writer who stands at the intersections of a number of traditions of literary study as traditionally construed. All the novels will be read along with some short stories and much of her critical essays and other non-fiction work. We will read the growing body of criticism on her work as well and analyze the ongoing development of one of the major writers of our time.

Prerequisite: One ENGL foundations and another 6 credit English course

Susan Jaret McKinstry

"Does the world really present itself to perception in the form of well-made stories?" asks Hayden White, metahistoriographer. To try to answer that question, we will read contemporary narrative theory by critics from several disciplines and apply their theories to literary texts, films, and cultural objects such as graphic novels, television shows, advertisements, and music videos.

Prerequisite: One 6-credit foundations course plus one 6-credit English course or Cinema and Media Studies 210, 211, 214 or 243

Nancy Cho

This course examines the rich tradition of cultural critique that has helped to define American literature. What does it mean to write as a "dissenting American"? How are political debates shaped by genre and the writer's craft? Different historical moments will inform our readings of paired authors: Henry David Thoreau, Rebecca Harding Davis, Stephen Crane, Charles Chesnutt, John Okada, Ralph Ellison, Lorraine Hansberry, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Alice Childress, Audre Lord, Chay Yew, and Anna Deavere Smith. Students are expected to be careful readers of criticism as well as literature, and will do a major research paper.

Prerequisite: English 295 and one 300 level English course

Cathy Yandell

Incorporating the tools of film analysis, this course focuses on such questions as controversial historical moments, postcolonial culture, immigration, gender/ genre, and contemporary French society. It also attempts to answer the following questions: how does French cinema reflect, contradict, or create cultural norms? What in a particular historical moment incites the production of a particular film and catapults it to fame? In what ways does film provide another medium through which to “read” French culture?

Prerequisite: French 204 or equivalent

Extra Time required

Cathy Yandell

Incorporating the tools of film analysis, this course focuses on such questions as controversial historical moments, postcolonial culture, immigration, gender/ genre, and contemporary French society. It also attempts to answer the following questions: how does French cinema reflect, contradict, or create cultural norms? What in a particular historical moment incites the production of a particular film and catapults it to fame? In what ways does film provide another medium through which to “read” French culture?

Prerequisite: French 204 or equivalent

Extra Time required

Scott Carpenter

Prerequisite: One French course beyond French 204 or instructor permission

1st 5 weeks

Scott Carpenter

Prerequisite: One French course beyond French 204 or instructor permission

2nd 5 weeks

Sigi Leonhard

This class brings together diverse voices--journalists, philosophers, and political scientists, as well as authors and filmmakers--in order to trace Germany’s contested development to a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. Starting with the “guest worker” program of the 1960s to the ongoing refugee crisis, Germans have asked themselves “What is ‘deutsch’?” We will explore Germany’s rich history of negotiating national identity through public discourse, including topics such as German-Turkish relations, Jewish emigration after the Cold War, and the role of Islam in modern Germany. We will focus on refining students’ reading skills: We will survey works from a variety of genres, expand our vocabulary, and explore different layers of German writing through contextualization, translation, analysis and discussion. We will hone our reading strategies for works of fiction and non-fiction, discuss the pros and cons of various (online) dictionaries, and review relevant grammar topics.

Prerequisite: German 204 or equivalent

Noboru Tomonari

This course is a study of major works of modern fiction in Japan and their recent adaptations in manga. We will pay particular attention to cultural, aesthetic, and ideological aspects of Japanese literature in the twentieth century and to the relationship between the text, the author, and the society. We will also read their adaptations in manga. Manga has become the most popular literary medium during the last century and we will consider the relationship between modern Japanese literature and manga. This class requires no prior knowledge of Japanese language, literature, manga, or culture.

Extra Time Required

Ronald Rodman

An introduction to the materials of western tonal music, with an emphasis on harmonic structure and syntax. It also covers phrase structure, musical texture, and small musical forms, along with basic theoretical concepts and vocabulary. Student work involves readings, listening assignments, analytical exercises, and short composition projects.

Prerequisite: The ability to read music fluently in one clef

Megan E Sarno

A general overview of art music practices in the European tradition from the medieval period to the present. Students will encounter representative examples from the major style periods-Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern, and contemporary classical. Genres include chant, the madrigal, opera, symphony, and chamber music. Listening assignments introduce students to the music, and reading assignments explain relationships between music and politics, society, and the other arts. Ability to read music not required.  

Prerequisite: No prerequisite: the ability to read music is not necessary

Andy Flory

This course is an introduction to the history of rock music, emphasizing primarily the period between 1954 and the present. Mixing historical and cultural readings with intense listening, we will cover the vast repertoire of rock music and many other associated styles. We will focus on the sounds of the music, learning to distinguish a wide variety of genres, while also tracing the development and transformation of rock and pop styles. The lectures will use a wide variety of multimedia, including commercial audio and video, unpublished audio and video sources, print materials, and technological devices. Knowledge of a technical musical vocabulary and an ability to read music are not required for this course. 

Megan E Sarno

This course outlines the history of the musical from Tin Pan Alley, through the golden age of Broadway with Rodgers and Hammerstein, to the current sensation "Hamilton," passing through the works of Stephen Sondheim. We will study the development of this hybrid genre by considering musical elements such as form, instrumentation, and harmony as well as dramatic, choreographic, and staging components. Additionally, social questions such as the representation of women and minority cultures, as they concern the works themselves and their audiences, will guide our readings and class discussion. Ability to read music not required.

Anna Dotlibova

Prerequisite: Russian 205 or permission of the instructor

Jose Cerna-Bazan

Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or equivalent

Silvia Lopez

Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or equivalent

Becky Boling

In Translation

Humberto Huergo

Prerequisite: Spanish 205 or equivalent

Participation in Carleton OCS Madrid Program

Humberto Huergo

Prerequisite: Spanish 205 or above

Participation in Carleton OCS Madrid Program

Jose Cerna-Bazan

Prerequisite: Spanish 205

Roger K Bechtel