ENROLL

Christopher Elias

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. A particular emphasis will be placed on the stories of individuals 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. Students will engage with a variety of media, including academic scholarship, works of fiction, journalism, film, poetry, art, material culture, advertising, and music as they practice reading and writing about cultural artifacts from a critical perspective. Texts will include work by Diane Arbus, James Baldwin, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Kendrick Lamar, Spike Lee, Jackson Pollock, Mae Ngai, and Bruce Springsteen.

Sophomore Priority.

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: AMST 115.WL0 (Synonym 47795)

Christopher Elias

This course explores the relationship between gossip, the news media, and American politics. How have falsehoods and misinformation influenced American politics? How has gossip journalism impacted political journalism, and vice-versa? What is the relationship between the mass media and the “truth”? How has propaganda circulated in the United States and played a role in public discourse? Just how free and fair is the American press? Our chronological examination will address topics and events such as yellow journalism, the birth of celebrity culture, the rise of gossip magazines, McCarthyism, the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, the role of the 24-hour news cycle, the Clinton impeachment, Steven Colbert’s concept of “truthiness,” and the rise of “fake news.” Though our focus will be on the long twentieth century, we will also look more deeply into the American past to help contextualize recent developments. We will investigate the underbelly of the American news media, trace the circulation of information (especially information that some would prefer to keep secret), and scrutinize the creation of political personas. The course will prioritize classroom discussion and writing assignments. Students will also perform a critical analysis of how current supermarket tabloids and gossip blogs report on American politics.

Sudharshan D Seneviratne

This course examines the ideological bases and modalities of ordering the past by pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial societies. We will study how ancient material culture, written and oral traditions, and a range of other symbols of cultural pasts were and are being used in the construction or destruction of histories. We focus especially on issues of heritage ethics and museum presentation, as well as non-parochial knowledge dissemination as a source of conflict resolution and inclusive peace education. Case studies will be drawn from Australasia, South Asia, West Asia, Africa, Nazi Germany, Post-Communist Europe, and North and South America.

Luciano Battaglini

Prerequisite: Students must have participated in an off-campus study program (Carleton or non-Carleton)

Shane Auerbach, Diane Nemec Ignashev, Cherif Keita,

The world has been shaped by colonialism and imperialism. But neither ism is monolithic. Colonizers had differing goals, differing conceptualizations/justifications of their roles. The experiences of the colonized were equally heterogeneous. We look at four specific modules, each one taught by an instructor with unique expertise on the topic, to try to perceive these isms from a variety of angles, both through different disciplines and different case studies. What similarities can we find between the colonial experiences? What differences? How do academic disciplines confront these isms? What is postcolonialism? And what can we learn from these historical hegemonies to contribute to our understanding of modern hegemony?

Sarah E Craft

Kimberly Smith

William North

Arising over a period of two medieval centuries, the gothic cathedrals of Europe symbolize at once faith, political and economic power, local identity, and technological and artistic achievement. Later generations commemorated them in literature and art, destroyed them in their political and religious zeal, and restored them (and continue to restore them) out of different sort of political zeal as well as a sense of duty and opportunity to preserve a national and European cultural inheritance and tourist treasure. In this course, we seek to understand the cathedral and its enduring legacy in Europe, and especially in France, from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives and using a variety of media and sources. 

Cathy Yandell

Keep up your French while learning about current issues in France, as well as world issues from a French perspective. Class meets once a week for an hour. Requirements include reading specific sections of leading French newspapers, (Le Monde, Libération, etc.) on the internet, and then meeting once a week to exchange ideas over coffee with a small group of students.

Prerequisite: French 204 or equivalent

Sophomore Priority

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: FREN 210.WL0 (Synonym 49628)

Annette Igra

Gender, race, and class shaped women's participation in the arenas of work, family life, culture, and politics in the United States from the colonial period to the late nineteenth century. We will examine diverse women's experiences of colonization, industrialization, slavery and Reconstruction, religion, sexuality and reproduction, and social reform. Readings will include both primary and secondary sources, as well as historiographic articles outlining major frameworks and debates in the field of women's history.

Luis A Herran Avila

This course provides an introduction to the rugged and highly contentious political and cultural history of Latin America--U.S. relations, from the era of Atlantic revolutions to the present. With a critical lens, we examine the forms and limits of U.S. imperial domination and coercion, as well as different strategies of collaboration, negotiation, and resistance devised by Latin Americans, from nineteenth century U.S. expansionism, to the challenges of the Mexican, Cuban and Nicaraguan Revolutions, to U.S. support for dictatorial regimes, and the evolution of neoliberal globalization, as well as recent disputes in the realms of the economy and migration.

William North

This course examines the nature, theory, and functions of religious images in Byzantium and surrounding regions (Armenia, Coptic Egypt, Ethiopia, the Slavic world, and the Latin West) as well as the perspectives of those who criticized them. Special attention will be paid to debates over the nature of icon veneration within Byzantine society itself and across religious boundaries; the role of images in the cult of saints; and the role of icons in the formation of religious, social, and political identities. Projects in this class will support a special exhibition in Winter 2018. History 203 winter term 2018 will require History 202 Fall 2017.

George Vrtis

Serena Zabin

This course will examine the social, political, and cultural history of the period 1783-1830 with special consideration of the framing and ratification of the U.S. Constitution and the new nation’s transnational connections, especially to France and Haiti. Other topics include partisan conflict, political culture, nation-building, the American character, and domestic life. We will also consider the contemporary interest in this period in both politics and musical theater. Some previous knowledge of American history assumed.

Annette Igra

David Tompkins

Berlin is the center of a transnational space that is German, European and global. This course will examine Berlin's complicated history and culture through its monuments, museums, and other sites of commemoration. Using Berlin as our text, we will gain insights into the significant historical events that shaped the society and culture of Germany's capital city. On visits to nearby cities, such as Vienna and Warsaw, we will also discuss developments in Germany and Europe more generally.

Prerequisite: Enrollment in OCS program

Participation in Carleton OCS Berlin Program

Adeeb Khalid

Amna Khalid

At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947 India and Pakistan, two new nation states emerged from the shadow of British colonialism. This course focuses on the political trajectories of these two rival siblings and looks at the ways in which both states use the other to forge antagonistic and belligerent nations. While this is a survey course it is not a comprehensive overview of the history of the two countries. Instead it covers some of the more significant moments of rupture and violence in the political history of the two states. The first two-thirds of the course offers a top-down, macro overview of these events and processes whereas the last third examines the ways in which people experienced these developments. We use the lens of gender to see how the physical body, especially the body of the woman, is central to the process of nation building. We will consider how women’s bodies become sites of contestation and how they are disciplined and policed by the postcolonial state(s).

Thabiti Willis

This course examines the causes, features, and consequences of wars across two critical phases of African history, colonial and post-colonial. It covers four cases studies from modern Central, East, and West Africa: the Congo (first under the rule of King Leopold and later the Belgian colonial government), Tanganyika (under German colonial rule), Nigeria (during the first republic through the civil war), and Uganda (under the rule of Idi Amin). Students will learn how certain memories or interpretations of events are narrated, fashioned, truncated, contested, forgotten, or silenced. Students also will learn how different historical actors participated in and experienced war.

Serena Zabin

Required for History majors and minors

Adeeb Khalid

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.

Prerequisite: One course in Modern European History or instructor consent

Laurence Cooper, Alan Rubenstein

Laurence Cooper, Alan Rubenstein

Allison Murphy

Are human beings radically individual and atomic by nature, political animals, or something else? However we answer that question, what difference does it make for our understanding of the ways in which larger political communities come into existence and are maintained? In this course we will explore these questions through the work of three foundational political theorists: Plato, Hobbes, and Rousseau.

Claire M Griffin

How should we live? This is the fundamental question for the study of ethics. This course looks at classic and contemporary answers to the fundamental question from Socrates to Kant to modern day thinkers. Along the way, we consider slightly (but only slightly) more tractable questions such as: What reason is there to be moral? Is there such a thing as moral knowledge (and if so, how do we get it)? What are the fundamental principles of right and wrong (if there are any at all)? Is morality objective?

Claire M Griffin

Who am I? What kind of world do I live in? What kind of life is possible or desirable for me? While these questions have been part of philosophy since its inception, there may be particular epistemic and ethical dilemmas of knowing ourselves as modern and post-modern subjects. Both theoretical and practical challenges to self-knowledge have emerged in the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Psychoanalysis, sociology, and evolutionary science have made us question whether there is an essential self to be known and, if so, whether we could have access to it. Historical events, including the world wars and the increased industrialization, bureaucratization, and secularization of western societies have made reckoning with finitude and alienation central to any project of self-knowledge. In this course we will consider the challenges to self-knowledge posed by life in the modern world, and ‘authenticity’ and ‘irony’ as two prominent responses to this fundamental self-estrangement.

Allison Murphy

This course will center on a close reading of two texts, Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, both of which address what is arguably the core concern in the ancient ethical tradition: the relationship between the morally good life and the happy life. In keeping with the ancient tendency to resist a sharp divide between the private and political spheres, we will examine the significance of Plato and Aristotle’s reflections on the good human life both for the individual and for the broader community.

Mihaela Czobor-Lupp

Mihaela Czobor-Lupp

Kristin Bloomer

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.

Mara G Block

Passions, pleasures, ecstasies, and desires bear on religion and sexuality alike, but intersections and tensions between these two domains are complicated. This course wagers that bringing the hotly contested categories “queer” and “religion” together will illuminate the diverse range of bodies, activities, and identities that inhabit both. The course explores religion and sexuality in Modern Western thought, erotic elements in religious texts and art, and novels and narratives of religious belief and practice in queer lives. The course combines concrete cases with theoretical tools that queer and feminist scholars have used to analyze religious and sexual communities, bodies, and identities.

Sonja Anderson

Besides humans, animals, and gods, what other beings populate the cosmos? Where do evil, sin, and suffering come from? What can be done about them, and can their existence be justified philosophically? This course explores the problem of evil through an exploration of angels and demons in Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman traditions from antiquity to the present, with a focus on late antiquity. Special attention will be given to the bodies of angels and demons: Are they gendered? Where do they dwell? What do they know, and what can they do to humans? This course will also consider modern articulations of systemic, historical injustice.

Kristin Bloomer

Meryl Puetz-Lauer