ENROLL

Eddie E O'Byrn

This course examines the work of a major theorist in the Black intellectual tradition within the last seventy years. Students are invited to take a dedicated dive into primary scholarship by focusing on a figure such as bell hooks, Derrick Bell, Angela Davis, Charles Mills, Saidiya Hartman, Frank Wilderson, Maya Angelou, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and/or Cornel West. Students should expect an opportunity to examine primary scholarship and build analytical skills to trace themes and methods. This year's focus will be on ethical, social, and political theory of bell hooks (1952 - 2021).

Nancy Cho

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. We will study the stories of those 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. We will explore contemporary American Studies concerns like racial and class formation, the production of space and place, the consumption and circulation of culture, and transnational histories.

Sophomore Priority

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: AMST 115.WL0 (Synonym 61935)

Elizabeth McKinsey

The history of American culture has always been shaped by a dialectic between the local and the universal, the regional and the national. The particular geography and history of the Midwest (the prairie, the plains, the old Northwest, Native Americans and white adventurers, settlers and immigrants) have shaped its livelihoods, its identities, its meanings. Focusing on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this course will explore literature, art history, and the social and cultural history of the Midwest.

Extra Time Required

Richard Keiser

How does the American export of suburban living, gated communities, and broken-windows policing reshape place, identity and the socio-economic hierarchy?  We will also investigate how the commodification of the arts and the neoliberalization of education contribute to gentrification and other forms of spatial cleansing and rebranding. Required for juniors in the American Studies major.

Prerequisite: American Studies 115, 287 or instructor permission

Ross Elfline, Jessica Keating

An introduction to the art and architecture of various geographical areas around the world from the fifteenth century through the present. The course will provide foundational skills (tools of analysis and interpretation) as well as general, historical understanding. It will focus on a select number of major developments in a range of media and cultures, emphasizing the way that works of art function both as aesthetic and material objects and as cultural artifacts and forces. Issues include, for example, humanist and Reformation redefinitions of art in the Italian and Northern Renaissance, realism, modernity and tradition, the tension between self-expression and the art market, and the use of art for political purposes.

Daniel Hernandez

Grassland ecosystems cover one third of the Earth's surface and occur on every continent except Antarctica. Grasslands provide habitat for millions of species, play a major role in global carbon and nutrient cycles, and are the primary source of agricultural land, making them an important ecosystem both ecologically and economically. This course will utilize scientific literature to explore the environmental and biological characteristics of the world's grasslands from population dynamics to ecosystem processes. Topics include competition and succession, plant-animal interactions, carbon and nutrient cycling, the role of disturbances such as fire and land use change, and grassland management and restoration.

Prerequisite: Biology 125 and 126, and one of Biology 210, 238, 248, 321 or 352 and instructor permission

Waitlist Only.

Justin London

An interdisciplinary examination of issues concerning the mind and mental phenomena involved in the uniquely human activity of making and understanding music. The course will draw on psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, computer science, biology, and philosophy. Topics to be discussed include: the embodied cognition of rhythm; linguistic syntax and musical structure; mental representations of musical sound and action; musical learning and development; tone and beat deafness; and perfect pitch and neural plasticity.

Chico Zimmerman

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the early Greek epics for the classical world and the western literary tradition that emerged from that world. This course will study closely both the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as Hesiod’s Theogony, and then consider a range of works that draw upon these epics for their creator’s own purposes, including Virgil’s own epic, the Aeneid. By exploring the reception and influence of ancient epic, we will develop an appreciation for intertextuality and the dynamics of reading in general as it applies to generations of readers, including our own.

Jenny Bourne

Prerequisite: Economics 110 and 111

Jeff Snyder

Sophomore Priority

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: EDUC 110.WL0 (Synonym 62413)

George Shuffelton

This course is designed to demystify the practice of academic writing and to introduce students to the skills they’ll need to write effectively in a variety of academic disciplines and contexts. Students will learn how to respond to other authors’ claims, frame clear arguments of their own, structure essays to develop a clear logical flow, integrate outside sources into their writing, and improve their writing through revision. All sections will include a variety of readings, multiple writing assignments, and substantial feedback from the course instructor.

Does not fulfill a curricular exploration

Sun Yung Shin

Horror is a speculative genre of literature with ancient roots in storytelling. Contemporary horror finds source material in centuries-old religious narratives, medieval folklore, historical events, contemporary urban legends, and real-life crimes and violence. Horror has always been full of metaphors for society’s deepest fears and anxieties; studying and writing horror can yield limitless insight and inspiration for imagining different futures. How do writers use atmosphere, characterization, symbols, allusions, suspense, etc. to hold our attention and produce “horror” toward some larger thematic end? In this course, students will read, analyze, discuss, and write about various literary fictional texts that could fall under the rubric of “horror” and practice creative writing in this capacious and rebellious genre. Authors may include Lesley Arimah, Neil Gaiman, Shirley Jackson, Han Kang, and Victor LaValle. 

Kofi Owusu

Peter Balaam

An exploration of drama approached as literature and in performance. New digital resources enable us to take world-class productions from the National Theatre and elsewhere as our texts. Drawing examples both globally and across time, we will consider plays and recent productions in their historical and cultural contexts. Students will develop critical vocabularies, debate interpretations, and hone their interpretive and rhetorical skills in writing reviews and essays.

Arnab Chakladar

Indiana Jones has a pedigree. In this class we will encounter some of his ancestors in stories, novels and comic books from the early decades of the twentieth century. The wilds of Afghanistan, the African forest, a prehistoric world in Patagonia, the opium dens of mysterious exotic London--these will be but some of our stops as we examine the structure and ideology and lasting legacy of the imperial adventure tale. Authors we will read include Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rudyard Kipling and H. Rider Haggard.

Peter Balaam

Jessica Leiman

The eighteenth and early nineteenth century saw the rise of the Gothic, a genre populated by brooding hero-villains, vulnerable virgins, mad monks, ghosts, and monsters. In this course, we will examine the conventions and concerns of the Gothic, addressing its preoccupation with terror, transgression, sex, otherness, and the supernatural. As we situate this genre within its literary and historical context, we will consider its relationship to realism and Romanticism, and we will explore how it reflects the political and cultural anxieties of its age. Authors include Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Emily Bronte.

Sun Yung Shin

Social justice is fairness as it manifests in society, but who gets to determine what fairness looks, sounds, feels like? The self-described Black Canadian poet Dionne Brand says that she doesn’t write toward justice because that doesn’t exist, but that she writes against tyranny. If we use that framework, how does that change our own writing and our own notions of justice in our or any time? What is the role of literary writing, especially fiction, the essay, and poetry in the collective and individual quest to understand and build conditions that could yield increased potential for social justice? In this course, students will read, analyze, discuss, and write about various texts that might be considered to be against myriad tyrannies, if not necessarily toward social justice. Authors may include Octavia Butler, Phillip Metres, Toni Morrison, Myung Mi Kim, and M. NourbeSe Philipe.

Arnab Chakladar

George Cusack

This writing-rich course will address techniques for designing an extended research project and using that research to write in a variety of genres. Students will begin the term by designing an overall research topic in an area of their interests (not necessarily limited to literary studies or the humanities). Over the course of the term, students will research this topic independently while the class examines how different audiences and purposes determine the ways that writers use evidence, organize information, and convey their ideas. Writing assignments throughout the term will draw on students’ research and may include project proposals, literature reviews, blog posts, op-ed pieces, and posters.

Sophomore Priority

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: ENGL 266.WL0 (Synonym 62992)

Gregory Hewett

This workshop offers you ways of developing poetic craft, voice, and vision in a small-group setting. Your poetry and individual expression is the heart and soul of the course. Through intensive writing and revision of poems written in a variety of styles and forms, you will create a significant portfolio. 

Prerequisite: One prior 6 credit English course

Pierre Hecker

The course focuses on the relationship between literature and material culture during the Tudor and Stuart dynasties. This era of violence, plague, war, superstition, imperial expansion, and the slave trade also saw a flourishing of writing, science, technology, music, architecture, and the visual arts. Studying the literary works, theaters, historical sites, and artifacts of the period, students will explore what life was like in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

Prerequisite: Participation in OCS London Program

Requires participation in OCS Program: Living London

Pierre Hecker

Students will attend productions of both classic and contemporary plays in London and Stratford-on-Avon and do related reading. Class discussions will focus on dramatic genres and themes, dramaturgy, acting styles, and design. Guest speakers may include actors, critics, and directors. Students will take backstage tours, keep a theater journal, and work on theater criticism and reviews.

Requires participation in OCS Program: Living London

George Shuffelton

As readers, we rarely consider the technologies, practices, and transactions that deliver us our texts. This course introduces students to the material study of writing, manuscripts, books, printing, and digital media. It attends to the processes of copying, revision, editing, and circulation; familiarizes students with the disciplines of descriptive bibliography, paleography, and textual criticism; and introduces the principles of editing, in both print and electronic media. It offers hands-on practice in most of these areas.

Adriana Estill

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

Not open to first year students.

Susan Jaret McKinstry

Puzzled about nineteenth century novels, Henry James asks, 'But what do such large loose baggy monsters with their queer elements of the accidental and the arbitrary, artistically mean?'' (“Preface,” The Tragic Muse). What, indeed? Practicing close reading, surface reading, and distant reading, we will examine the prose, design, and illustrations of Victorian editions, and ask how big data might help us define and interpret the nineteenth century novel. Authors might include George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, E.M. Forster, Lewis Carroll.

Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course or instructor consent

Michael Kowalewski

An intensive study of the novels and short fiction of William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The course will focus on the ethos of experimentation and the "homemade" quality of these innovative stylists who shaped the course of American modernism. Works read will be primarily from the twenties and thirties and will include The Sound and the Fury, In Our Time, Light in August, The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and Go Down, Moses.

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

Gregory Smith

An advanced course in the writing of fiction. Students will write three to four short stories or novel chapters which will be read and critiqued by the class. 

Prerequisite: English 160, 161, 263, 265, 270, 271, 273, Cinema and Media Studies 271, 278, 279, Cross Cultural Studies 270 or Theater 246

Pierre Hecker

The course focuses on the relationship between literature and material culture during the Tudor and Stuart dynasties. This era of violence, plague, war, superstition, imperial expansion, and the slave trade also saw a flourishing of writing, science, technology, music, architecture, and the visual arts. Studying the literary works, theaters, historical sites, and artifacts of the period, students will explore what life was like in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one other 6 credit English course or permission of instructor

For students pariticipating in OCS London Program

George Vrtis

This course is the second half of a two-course sequence focused on the study of wilderness in American society and culture. The course will begin with an Off-Campus Studies program at Grand Canyon National Park, where we will learn about the natural and human history of the Grand Canyon region, examine contemporary issues facing the park, meet with officials from the National Park Service and other local experts, conduct research, and experience the park through hiking and camping. The course will culminate in spring term with the completion and presentation of a major research project.

Prerequisite: History 306 and Acceptance in Wilderness Studies at the Grand Canyon OCS program

HIST 306 required previous winter term, Extra Time Required

Chloe Fandel

An introduction to geology emphasizing the physical basis of systems of interest to environmentalists, ecologists, and policy makers. Field trips and laboratories included.

Prerequisite: Not open to students who have taken another Geology 100-level course

Held for first year students

Waitlist for Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors: GEOL 120.WL3 (Synonym 61756)

Clint Cowan

Fossils: their anatomy and classification, evolution, and ecology. Special emphasis on the paleobiology of marine invertebrates. Field trips and laboratories included.

Prerequisite: 100-level Geology course or an introductory Biology course, or instructor permission

Clint Cowan

Fossils: their anatomy and classification, evolution, and ecology. Special emphasis on the paleobiology of marine invertebrates. Field trips and laboratories included.

Prerequisite: 100-level Geology course or an introductory Biology course, or instructor permission

Bereket Haileab

The main goal of this course is to introduce and tie together the several diverse disciplines that must be brought to bear on hydrogeochemical problems today. This course will explore: principles of geochemistry, applications of chemical thermodynamics to geologic problems, mineral solubility, stability diagrams, chemical aspects of sedimentary rocks, geochemical tracers, radiogenic isotopes and principles of stable isotope fractionation. Laboratories included.

Prerequisite: Chemistry 123 or permission of the instructor

Juliane Schicker

In this course, we will explore literature and art of German-speaking countries around the topics of gender and sex(uality). We will focus on the years between 1880 and 1920, but also venture into more recent times. What was the image of men and women at the time and how did these images change or remain the same? How did science factor into these images? What was/is considered “normal” when it comes to sex(uality) and gender, and what German-speaking voices have been pushing against those norms? How did these voices use literature and art to reflect or criticize such norms? Texts and class discussions will be in English. 

In Translation

Meera Sehgal

In this course we will examine whether there are feminist and/or queer ways of knowing, the criteria by which knowledge is classified as feminist and the various methods used by feminist and queer scholars to produce this knowledge. Some questions that will occupy us are: How do we know what we know? Who does research? Does it matter who the researcher is? How does the social location (race, class, gender, sexuality) of the researcher affect research? Who is the research for? What is the relationship between knowledge, power and social justice? While answering these questions, we will consider how different feminist and queer studies researchers have dealt with them.

Jayne A Swift

How did sex get into public schools? How did sexual practice and desire become an object of scientific inquiry? Why has sex education been a site for repeated social conflicts, and what do those conflicts tell us about gender, racial, and economic inequality in the United States? This course is for everyone who has ever questioned the official and unofficial curriculum of sex education. The course provides a cultural and intellectual history of sex education and instruction within the geographic region of the United States. Throughout we will examine the complex relationship between sexual knowledge, pedagogy, and systems of power.

William North

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 will be required for special events and a group project (ecumenical council).

Extra Time Required

Thabiti Willis

This course offers a broad historical overview of African men's and women's experiences as religious, political, and military leaders, as merchants and poets, and in agricultural and maritime industries in Arabia. Situated primarily in Bahrain, with travel to Oman, the course will examine longstanding historical, cultural, and commercial exchanges between Africa and the Gulf from medieval times to the present day. The course will question the ideologies that assume that Africa and Arabia represent racial and cultural difference.

Prerequisite: 100 or 200 level Africana Studies or History course and participation on OCS program

Requires participation in OCS Program: History, Culture, and Commerce: Africa and Arabia

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.

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

Brooke Okazaki

Pure pleasure or pure torture? Opera is said to be both. This course is an introduction to opera based on its 400-year history from 1600 to the present. Over the term, we will explore several topics including how music conveys characters’ feelings, singers and the allure of the voice, race, gender, and opera, opera in film, and the experience of live performance. We will deal with a wide variety of pieces and investigate the social and cultural functions of opera via creative research assignments. No previous musical experience necessary.

Prerequisite: None, ability to read music is not necessary

Sarah N Lahasky

In the last fifty years, governments and transnational entities such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have increasingly called to safeguard cultural practices and historic buildings around the world. Through trial and error, social scientists and policymakers have realized that such cultural heritage preservation programs come with unforeseen consequences, especially regarding musical performance and the communities that practice such traditions. This course is divided into two sections. First, we will concentrate on case studies from around the world, considering the advantages, detriments, and best practices for recognizing and celebrating music as heritage. We will debate questions such as: What is heritage? How can something ephemeral such as music be ‘conserved’ for generations to come? What role does the West play in shaping musical practices around the world, and for who do we want to ‘save’ the music? Who makes decisions of what music should or should not be safeguarded, and what are the implications for local practitioners? Second, we will explore music festivals and other music heritage projects specifically in Minnesota. Learning from the mistakes of the past, the course will culminate with a collaborative class project that will contribute to a sensitive yet productive endeavor to document oral histories of musicians, or plan a festival/performance on campus that highlights musical life in and around Northfield.

Jason Decker

Daniel Groll

This course examines a variety of topics in medical ethics. We begin with a unit on pandemic ethics: Who should get ventilators when there aren't enough for everyone? Do medical providers have a duty to treat during a pandemic? We then turn to the question "When is someone dead?" and consider how different answers to that question affect arguments over organ procurement. Our third unit is on the place of race, and racial judgments, in medicine. Is there a place for racial judgments in medicine? Finally, we turn to the question of how to think about decision making in a clinical context: what values are at play? And how should we think about disagreements between clinicians and patients? What about disagreements between patient's past wishes and their current wishes? Not open to students who have taken Philosophy 222.

Sophomore Priority, not open to students what have taken Philosophy 222.

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: PHIL 123.WL0 (Synonym 60406)

Allison Murphy

What is a good human life? Who is a good person? From the time of Plato and Aristotle onwards, many philosophers have thought about these questions in terms of two central ideas. Virtues, such as justice or courage, make us a certain type of person (they give us a certain character). Wisdom enables us to make good judgments about how to act. How do virtue and wisdom work together to produce a good human life? Is a good life the same as a happy life? We will reflect on these and related questions as we read texts from Alasdair MacIntyre, Philippa Foot, and other significant thinkers in the contemporary virtue ethics tradition. We will also consider the application of virtue ethics to specific areas, such as environmental ethics, as well as the parallels between Western virtue ethics and the tradition of Confucianism in ancient China.

Anna Moltchanova

Anna Moltchanova

This course will consider various philosophical views on the nature of love and friendship. It will focus on both the history of philosophical thinking about these notions from Plato and Aristotle to the twentieth century and a variety of contemporary views on the meaning of love and friendship that derive their insight from the most recent studies of emotion, agency, action, rationality, moral value, and motivation. We will also look at the variations in the understanding of love and friendship among the members of the same culture and across cultures.

Eddie E O'Byrn

The struggle of freedom against forms of alienation is both a historical and contemporary characteristic of Black/African-American philosophy. In this course we will explore how a variety of Black/African-American philosophers theorize these concepts. The aim of the course is to both offer resources for familiarizing students with African-American philosophers and develop an appreciation for critical philosophical voices in the Black intellectual tradition. The course will range from slave narratives, reconstruction, and civil rights to contemporary prison abolitionism, intersectionality, and afro-pessimism. The texts of the course will include: Angela Davis’ Lectures on Liberation, Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells Southern Horrors, George Yancy’s African-American Philosophers 17 Conversations, and Afro-Pessimism: An Introduction. As well as select articles from historical and contemporary Black/African-American philosophers.

Douglas B Marshall

This course offers an introduction to major aspects of European theories of being and knowledge during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Key topics to be examined include:  the distinction between the mind and the body; the existence and nature of God; the relationship between cause and effect; the scope and nature of human knowledge. We will place a special emphasis on understanding the philosophical thought of René Descartes, Anne Conway, G. W. Leibniz, and David Hume. Two themes will recur throughout the course: first, the evolving relationships between philosophy and the sciences of the period; second, the philosophical contributions of women in the early modern era.

Huan Gao

Sophomore Priority

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: POSC 120.WL0 (Synonym 62516)

Brian F Harrison

Mihaela Czobor-Lupp

Greg Marfleet

Prerequisite: Statistics 120, 230, 250, (formerly Mathematics 215, 245, 275), AP Statistics (score of 4 or 5) or Psychology 200/201 or Sociology/Anthropology 239

Huan Gao

Tocqueville once remarked, “if men who live in democratic countries did not acquire the practice of associating with each other in ordinary life, civilization itself would be in peril.” Today, our lives are affected by a wide spectrum of these associations of ordinary life from the Catholic Church, to international NGOs like Greenpeace, to mundane neighborhood groups. This course investigates whether these organizations can help solve some of the most pressing global challenges like climate change, inequality, and epidemics. We will engage classic literature about civil society, study contemporary organizations and movements, and think critically about their political, social and economic impact.

Extra Time Required

Brian F Harrison

The advancement of LGBTQ rights in the United States has experienced unprecedented success over the last twenty years, shifting public attitudes and legal protections for LGBTQ Americans. This course provides a discussion of LGBTQ history and in-depth analysis of how LGBTQ policy victories were achieved, including background on the strategies and tactics used to generate results. We will take a critical look at such milestones and examine what they mean for the entire LGBTQ population, including queer people of color, transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals, the disabled, and the economically disadvantaged.

Tun Myint

Extra Time Required

Julia Strand

PSYC 220 required

Julia Strand

PSYC 220 required

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.

Caleb S Hendrickson

Kambiz GhaneaBassiri

This course is a general introduction to Islam as a prophetic religious tradition. It explores the different ways Muslims have interpreted and put into practice the prophetic message of Muhammad through analyses of varying theological, legal, political, mystical, and literary writings as well as through Muslims’ lived histories. These analyses aim for students to develop a framework for explaining the sources and vocabularies through which historically specific human experiences and understandings of the world have been signified as Islamic. The course will focus primarily on the early and modern periods of Islamic history.

Sonja Anderson

How do religion and medicine approach the healing of disease and distress? Are religion and medicine complementary or do they conflict? Is medicine a more evolved form of religion, shorn of superstition and pseudoscience? This course explores religious and cultural models of health and techniques for achieving it, from ancient Greece to Christian monasteries to modern mindfulness and self-care programs. We will consider ethical quandaries about death, bodily suffering, mental illness, miraculous cures, and individual agency, all the while seeking to avoid simplistic narratives of rationality and irrationality.

Chumie Juni

The concept of law plays a central role in religion, and the concept of religion plays a central role in law. We often use the word ‘law’ to describe obligatory religious practices. But is that ‘law,’ as compared with state law? Legal systems in the U.S. and Europe make laws that protect religious people, and that protect governments from religion. But what does ‘religion’ mean in a legal context? And how do implicit notions of religious law affect how judges deal with religion? We will explore these questions using sources drawn from contemporary religions and recent legal disputes.

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.

Asuka Sango

This course explores the history of samurai since the emergence of warrior class in medieval times, to the modern developments of samurai ethics as the icon of Japanese national identity. Focusing on its connection with Japanese religion and culture, we will investigate the origins of the purported samurai ideals of loyalty, honor, self-sacrifice, and death. In addition to regular class sessions, there will be a weekly kyudo (Japanese archery) practice on Wednesday evening (7-9 pm), which will enable students to study samurai history in context through gaining first-hand experience in the ritualized practice of kyudo.

Extra Time Required

Kambiz GhaneaBassiri

This course examines the history of Islam in America from the colonial period to the present. It contextualizes American Islam at the cross section of American religious history and modern Islamic history. While primarily focused on the politics of race and religion in America, the course also explores the influence of comparative theology and religious studies on conceptions of religious diversity; the relationship between race, religion and ideas of progress; the role of Islam in the civil rights movement and in nationalist movements in Muslim-majority societies; and the rise of militant Islam as a matter of global concern.

Kristin Bloomer

Annette Nierobisz

The American employment landscape continues to shift rapidly. In this course, we explore how social statuses such as gender, race, social class, age, and disability impact different types of workers who find themselves also challenged by work overload, new technologies, downsizing, and an unstable economy that mandates a reconsideration of retirement goals. Both ethnographic and statistical accounts inform our study of the academic field called, “Sociology of Work, Occupations, and Organizations.” While reviewing course material you will concurrently investigate a career of personal interest, learning what your “dream job” encompasses and how it functions in the contemporary world.

Liz Raleigh

The course is concerned with social scientific inquiry and explanation, particularly with reference to sociology and anthropology. Topics covered include research design, data collection, and analysis of data. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are considered. Students will demonstrate their knowledge by developing a research proposal that is implementable.

Prerequisite: Sociology/Anthropology 110 or 111; Sociology/Anthropology 239, Mathematics 215 or Statistics 120

Constanza Ocampo-Raeder

Prerequisite: The department strongly recommends that Sociology/Anthropology 110 or 111 be taken prior to enrolling in courses numbered 200 or above