ENROLL

Kevin A Wolfe

Ashley E Smith

Sophomore Priority.

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: AMST 115.WL0 (Synonym 44794)

Adriana Estill

Peter Balaam

Though evidently a crucial organizer of “American” experience and identities, religion remains paradoxical within US culture and, for some recent scholars, an undertheorized “invisible domain” in American Studies. Shoving off from familiar religious narratives of US origins, meaning, and destiny, we will consider alternatives grounded in three themes recurrent in historical experience and popular culture: captivity, violence, and prophetic authority. Early attention to major trends of American Studies scholarship will lead in the course’s second half to students’ production and public sharing of an extended research essay. Required for juniors in the American Studies major.

Prerequisite: American Studies major or instructor permission

Kathleen Ryor

This course will consist of a series of lectures focusing on topics such as Shintoism, Buddhism, architecture and environmental issues, etc. In addition to the lectures, there will be related field trips beyond those required for Art History 268.

OCS ARTH Kyoto Program

Mihaela Czobor-Lupp

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

Johannes M. Wietzke

Did the Greeks invent “science” as we know it, or has modern science blossomed into something wholly different from its ancient roots? How distinct are scientific and religious patterns of thinking? Who controls knowledge about nature, the cosmos, and the body, and what's the proper way to communicate it? Why should we trust “the experts,” ancient or modern, anyway? Pursuing these and other questions, this course introduces students to the strange and dynamic world of ancient science, from the earliest Presocratics to Roman-era authorities like Claudius Ptolemy. Students will not only learn about theories that dominated Western thinking for millennia, but also gain first-hand experience with ancient scientific methods.

Kathryn L Steed

The Classical Greek world, with its system of independent city-states, saw the development of unprecedented political structures and a flowering of art, literature, and philosophy, all in the midst of almost constant military conflict. The Greeks are credited with inventing tragedy, democracy, science, and rhetoric (among other things), but their history is both complex and contested. This course examines the period from 750 to 399 B.C.E. and addresses fundamental questions about the development of Greek political, military, and social systems; the conflict between common Greek and local identities; and how we can use limited sources to reconstruct the past.

Alessandra L Williams

This course will look at dance as a field in which bodies articulate a history of sexuality, nation, gender, and race. Students will survey a range of dance forms in the United States and indigenous communities of the Americas as well as the Caribbean, South Asia, and South Africa. Specific explorations will include classical Indian dance, Native American performance, jazz, contact improvisation, and Hip-Hop performance. Through reading comprehension, written reflections and analyses, classroom dialogue, and oral presentation work, we will outline dance history in terms of anti-colonial and civil rights movements from Modernism through Post-Modernism—that is, from the imperialism at the dawn of the twentieth century to current late-capitalism. Students will be introduced to interdisciplinary methodologies in dance studies by learning to: conduct dance analysis in their accounts for gesture and social context; theorize according to the intersection of multiple social categories; and write autoethnographies or critical inquiries into personal experience.

Jeremy P DeAngelo

This class teaches the history of the English language through the prism of sociolinguistics. Along with teaching phonology, the basics of Old and Middle English, and changes in morphology, pronunciation and vocabulary over time, the course will explore how language both shapes and is shaped by society. We will use the history of English as a vehicle for exploring issues of imperialism, class, and politics that arose throughout the language’s development. Along the way, students see how language plays an active role in both perpetuating and resolving communities’ thorniest social problems, in the past and in the present day.

Eva Posfay

This course seeks to deepen students' knowledge of contemporary French culture through a pluridisciplinary approach, using multimedia (books, newspaper and magazine articles, videos, etc.) to generate discussion. It will also promote the practice of both oral and written French through exercises, debates, and oral presentations.

Prerequisite: French 204 or equivalent

Requires participation in OCS Program: French and Francophone Studies in Paris

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 46603)

Ellen L Manovich

This course offers a survey of the American experience from the end of the Civil War through World War II. Although we will cover a large number of major historical developments--including Reconstruction, the Progressive movement, World War I, the Great Depression, the New Deal and World War II--the course will seek to emphasize the various beliefs, values, and understandings that informed Americans' choices throughout these periods. A particular theme will be individual Americans' varied personal experiences of historical trends and events. We will seek to understand the connections (and sometimes the disconnections) between the past and present.

Harry M Williams

David Tompkins

Janet Polasky

An exploration of women’s lives in Europe from 1700 to the present. We will focus on changes in women’s work before and after the industrial revolution, women as revolutionaries in 1789, 1848, and 1871, and campaigns for women’s rights. Why did Virginia Woolf say it was worse “perhaps” to be locked in than to be locked out? Why did Bertolt Brecht’s character known simply as "the mother" take up the flag of revolution in Russia in 1905? We will investigate these questions from the Early Modern era to the European Union through a variety of sources: philosophical treatises, novels, plays, and political tracts, as well as historical monographs.

Seungjoo Yoon

Amna Khalid

This is an introductory survey course; no prior knowledge of South Asian History required. The goal is to familiarize students with some of the key themes and debates in the historiography of modern India. Beginning with an overview of Mughal rule in India, the main focus of the course is the colonial period. The course ends with a discussion of 1947: the hour of independence as well as the creation of two new nation-states, India and Pakistan. Topics include Oriental Despotism, colonial rule, nationalism, communalism, gender, caste and race. 

William North

Through site visits, on-site projects, and readings, this course explores the ways in which people in Italy from late antiquity through the thirteenth century sought to communicate political, religious, and civic messages through combinations of words, images, objects, and structures. What are the "arts of power and piety" and when and why are they used? How do people use spaces and images to educate, to challenge, to honor, to remember, or to forget? How can materials create and transmit meaning and order? How do people combine creativity and tradition to maintain and enrich the worlds they inhabit?

OCS Rome Program

George Vrtis

Victoria Morse

Prerequisite: Enrollment in OCS program

OCS Rome Program

William North, Victoria Morse

This course examines travel as an occasion for investigation, encounter, and reflection and as an opportunity to document and communicate these observations of people and place. Through select readings drawn from a range of disciplines and genres, travel accounts, and ongoing discussion of their own travel experiences, students will seek better to understand the traveler as observer and recorder of other peoples and places. The course will also examine the nature of public memory and commemoration and the role of travelers as audiences for sites of memory. As part of the course, students will maintain their own travel journals, prepare several reflections, and contribute to the Program Blog.

Prerequisite: Enrollment in OCS program

OCS Rome Program

Janet Polasky

Students in this course will investigate social conflicts, political struggles, and protest movements from the Age of Revolution, 1776-1848 ranging over four continents. We will read pamphlets from the Dutch Patriot Revolution, eye witness accounts of slave insurrections in the Caribbean, novels and plays describing/provoking changes in families on both sides of the Atlantic, and newspaper articles written by Karl Marx. We will compare histories of revolutions on both sides of the Atlantic, including the newest research on West Africa and Latin America.

Ellen L Manovich

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.

Prerequisite: One History course, first year students require instructor permission

Extra Time Required

Austin Mason

David Tompkins

Seungjoo Yoon

Amna Khalid

Thabiti Willis

This course explores the nature of Christian mission in West, Central, and East Africa and its complex encounters with practitioners of Islam, other Christian sects, and indigenous religious traditions in modern Africa. Using scholarship and primary sources such as oral traditions, missionary writings, vernacular publications, newspapers, and ethnographic fieldnotes, we will focus on understanding religious encounter in a variety of case studies: the Akan in the Gold Coast (Ghana), the Hausa in Nigeria, the Bantu in Zambia, and the Maasai in Tanzania as well as Atlantic-Creoles in Angola and the Kongo.

Antony Adler

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.

Annette Igra

Laurence Cooper, Alan Rubenstein

Laurence Cooper, Alan Rubenstein

Jorge Brioso

Justin E Kuster

In this course we explore the interrelations between questions concerning God’s existence, the nature of the mind, and the human condition. We begin by evaluating arguments for and against God’s existence. This will give us a basis upon which to consider Descartes’ arguments in the Meditations. We then turn to contemporary objections to Descartes’ claim that the mind is an immaterial thing. If the mind is a material thing, what does that tell us about the human condition? Do humans have free wills and moral responsibilities? Are our lives meaningful? Is death a bad thing and if so, for whom?

Anna Moltchanova

Prerequisite: 100-level Philosophy course or instructor permission

Daniel Groll

Children are naturally curious. They want to know about the world and their place in it. In other words, children are naturally philosophical. This course is about helping children explore and develop their nascent philosophical abilities via children's literature. To that end, the bulk of this course is devoted to preparing for, and then making, visits to a first grade class at Greenvale Park Elementary School in Northfield. Along the way, we'll explore the philosophy that can be found in all kinds of kids' books and learn about presenting complicated ideas in simpler form. In consultation with the instructor, this course will count toward either the Practical/Value requirement or the Theoretical requirement in the Philosophy Major for students who elect to write a final research paper.

Prerequisite: Previous Philosophy course

Extra time T or TH mornings in May

Anna Moltchanova

Douglas B Marshall

Laurence Cooper

Mihaela Czobor-Lupp

Mihaela Czobor-Lupp

Sonja Anderson

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.

Michael McNally

Asuka Sango

Sonja Anderson

Since antiquity, the Hebrew Bible has been read through various lenses and made meaningful to communities of readers through a range of interpretive methodologies and techniques. In this introductory class, we will survey different genres of literature found in the Hebrew Bible and consider how interpreters, classical and modern, have read the text and found it relevant in their lives. We will also examine how the Bible as a bounded text came to be, and how it has inspired devotion, critiques, political and social movements. Requires no previous knowledge and will use sources in translation.

Kristin Bloomer

This class will immerse students in the study of yoga from its first textual representations to its current practice around the world. Transnationally, yoga has been unyoked from religion. But the Sanskrit root yuj means to “add,” “join,” or “unite”—and in Indian philosophy and practice it was: a method of devotion; a way to “yoke” the body/mind; a means to unite with Ultimate Reality; a form of concentration and meditation. We will concentrate on texts dating back thousands of years, from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras to the Bhagavad Gita—and popular texts of today. Come prepared to wear loose clothing.

Shana Sippy

Whether seen on TV screens or in history books, the horror of war, genocide, terrorism, communal violence, and land disputes often prompts the question: is religion the problem? Conversely, one may point to the peaceful aspirations and non-violent social movements that have been led by religious leaders, and motivated by religious philosophies and impulses and ask: can religion be the solution? This course will explore the complex, and sometimes paradoxical roles religious ideas, practices, communities, and leaders play in both the perpetuation and cessation of violence. Case studies will be drawn from Hindu, Muslim, and Jewish conflicts in recent history.

Kristin Bloomer

Annette Igra

Sophomore Priority

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: WGST 110.WL0 (Synonym 45407)

Shana Sippy