ENROLL

Elizabeth McKinsey

Focusing on the early nineteenth century struggle to create an American nation and a national culture, we will look at the ways Americans adopted and adapted European ideas, particularly the aesthetic idea of the Sublime, in their attempt to come to terms with the conquest of the new land and its native inhabitants and with the nature of their national enterprise. Writers Irving, Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, and Dickinson and painters Cole, Bierstadt, Church, Kensett, and Lane will be included. Major themes will include attitudes towards landscape and settlement, a distinctively American character, the nature and utility of art, and ideas of American empire.

Ross Elfline

Candace Moore

This course offers a historical survey of American television from the late 1940s to today, focusing on early television and the classical network era. Taking a cultural approach to the subject, this course examines shifts in television portrayals, genres, narrative structures, and aesthetics in relation to social and cultural trends as well as changing industrial practices. Reading television programs from the past eight decades critically, we interrogate various representations of consumerism, class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, lifestyle, and nation in the smaller screen while also tracing issues surrounding broadcasting policy, censorship, sponsorship, business, and programming.

Extra Time Required

Kofi Owusu

Elizabeth McKinsey

Michael Kowalewski

Michael Kowalewski

An in-depth study of the Carleton Miscellany, a nationally renowned literary quarterly once described as “the nation’s most delightful magazine.” Published at the college for two decades, from 1960-1980, the Miscellany featured the work of a dozen Pulitzer Prize winning authors and that of numerous Carleton faculty. The magazine had a cosmopolitan, international perspective but also reflected its origins in a small, leafy Midwestern college town. We will explore the significance of the Miscellany in the context of the history of “little magazines.” The class will include a variety of student research assignments, some of them from the Carleton archives. 

Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course

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.

Annette Igra

Was the Progressive Era progressive? It was a period of social reform, labor activism, and woman suffrage, but also of Jim Crow, corporate capitalism, and U.S. imperialism. These are among the topics that can be explored in research papers on this contradictory era. We will begin by reading a brief text that surveys the major subject areas and relevant historiography of the period. The course will center on the writing of a 25-30 page based on primary research, which will be read and critiqued by members of the seminar. 

Ronald Rodman

This course explores the history and development of film music along with theories of how music contributes to the meaning of moving images and narrative scenes. The primary focus of the course will be on film music in the U.S., but notable film scores from Europe and Asia will also be discussed. The film music history covers historical periods from the pre-cinematic Vaudeville era through the postmodern films of the early twenty-first century. Cross-cutting this chronological history will be discussion of film musicals as a separate genre. Ability to read music not required.

Extra Time Required

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. 

Michael McNally

This course explores the contentious place of religion in American public life. What roles do religious organizations and religious motivations play in the public arenas of electoral politics, policy-making, schools, courts, social service delivery, media, and marketplace? What roles ought they play? In a pluralistic society, how are Americans to balance diverse moral positions with our shared civic life? Engaging the insights of sociologists of religion, legal scholars, ethicists, political theorists, and cultural critics this course will refine the language with which we address such broad questions. Students will apply those insights to focused critical analyses of issues they choose.