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College Catalog 2017-2018 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Courses

 

Educational Studies
  

  • EDUC 225 - Education, Community and Cultural Survival in New Orleans

    This two-credit, intensive, week-long January term course focuses on the continued efforts of New Orleans to restructure and redefine itself post-Katrina amidst various educational, ecological, economic and political challenges. The course provides students with the essential critical, historical and cultural framework through which to interpret various site visits, civic engagement and conversations with local leaders, activists and scholars in New Orleans. The course also invites students into collaborative engagement with schools, neighborhoods and communities, encouraging them to become active participants in the challenging conversations that engage New Orleans and so many cities in North America and across the globe. S/SD/N grading only. Participation restricted to Bonner Scholars. (2 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 230 - Community Youth Development in Multicultural America

    Brofenbrenner’s bioecological model of human development suggests the critical importance of social contexts besides the classroom in supporting the healthy development of children and youth from diverse social and economic backgrounds. This course examines the multiple systems affecting the developmental process through course readings, meetings, and assignments, grounded in a field placement of the student’s choosing. Appropriate field placements will engage students in a variety of youth development capacities, including centers for research and program development, social service organizations, and agencies aimed at improving youth-oriented social policy. This course provides an opportunity to examine education more broadly defined, and to explore fields of youth development such as social work, counseling, athletics, youth leadership, and youth-centered research. Every spring. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 240 - Race, Culture, and Ethnicity in Education

    Cross-Listed as  AMST 240 
    This survey course will explore history, policy, and pedagogy as they relate to race, ethnicity, and culture as education. K-12 public education will be the primary focus with topics including desegregation, standardized testing, multi-cultural and ethnocentric pedagogy, the teacher’s role and experience, and significant historical events in education. The course will culminate by analyzing current trends and future expectations in education. Fall semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 250 - Building Trust: Education in Global Perspective

    This course examines the role of Education as global phenomena. The course encompasses a comparative view of education around the world, as well as its role in International Development. We take it further, by analysis and critique, to understand education as a force for change in an inter-dependent, globalized world. Specifically, we will examine ways in which policies and practice either enhance or diminish efforts towards change that is inclusive, just, sustainable and effective in relieveing suffering, while expanding potential and capacity in those affected by social change. We take the position that, in order to be effective, building trust becomes a key to connectivity between people, groups, organizations and ideas where education, development and change are theorized and practiced. We will construct possible education frameworks around the idea of building trust, by analyzing socio-cultural issues of power, voice, silence, and discourse. Fall semester. (4 credits) Every fall. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 260 - Critical Issues in Urban Education

    This course explores the peril and promise of urban public education in challenging times. Critical issues to be explored range from poverty and growing economic inequality, to challenges faced by recent immigrants and historically oppressed populations, to religious and political intolerance, to bullying and school violence, to school bureaucracy, administration and governance, to teacher unions and professional ethics, to urban education reform initiatives promoted by corporations, think tanks and foundations in contrast to those emerging in response to teacher/parent/student/community activism. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 265 - The Schools-to-Prison Pipeline

    Cross-Listed as AMST 265  
    This course offers an introductory exploration of the “school-to-prison pipeline,” a trend that funnels youth out of U.S. public schools and into the juvenile corrections system. We will study how this pipeline is the result of a confluence of historical, political, and cultural factors; first and foremost, how the pipeline acts as a manifestation of structural racism. We will look to frameworks of human rights, legal rights, and social justice organizing as models of articulating and resisting the pipeline. Prerequisite(s): AMST 101 , AMST 103 , or AMST 110   Alternate spring semesters. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 275 - Outdoor Environmental Education in Theory, Policy and Practice

    Cross-Listed as ENVI 275  
    This course provides an introduction to outdoor education as an opportunity to promote social justice and environmental sustainability in a globalized world.  Informed by relevant philosophical, psychological, cultural and political-economic frameworks, in addition to critical issues in public education policy and practice, we will explore interdisciplinary approaches to outdoor environmental education appropriate for students across the K-12 continuum.  We will utilize the Katharine Ordway Natural History Study Area (Ordway Field Station) as an outdoor classroom and will adapt curriculum from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and other outdoor education organizations to assist elementary school teachers and students in fulfilling Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards. Early in the semester, all students will participate in a weekend retreat at the Ordway Field Station. Weekly lab sessions will include field days during which course members design and implement educational experiences for elementary school children at Ordway, small group work days for preparing field day lesson plans, trips to local outdoor environmental education sites within the Twin Cities, and other experiential learning opportunities.  Weekly seminar sessions incorporating readings, reflective writing, and individual and small group projects complement the experiential aspects of the course. As the semester progresses, each course member will develop a curricular unit aimed at teaching an important environmental issue to diverse adolescents attending urban public schools.  The curricular unit is a significant undertaking that provides students with the opportunity to synthesize all aspects of the course material in a creative, pragmatic and integrative manner. Offered yearly. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 294 - Topics Course

    Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 330 - Philosophy of Education

    What is the nature and purpose of education? In what ways should educational institutions support, challenge, or transform predominant social values? What is ethical educational policy and practice? Such questions are considered in light of a variety of philosophic perspectives. Students will define a personal philosophy of education and assess its implications for current educational theory and practice, in addition to their own educational development. Spring semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 380 - Research Methods for Education and Advocacy

    This course provides opportunities for students to engage with research methods that promote inclusive, egalitarian, exploratory social inquiry aimed at enriching the quality of learning and life in schools and civic spaces. Pedagogical in addition to formal research applications are addressed, as are implications for development and change on personal to organizational to societal levels. Ethical dimensions of engaging children and youth, in schools and community settings, as research participants and as researchers, are also carefully considered. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 390 - Teaching and Learning in Urban Schools

     This course builds on prior learning in Educational Studies to deepen understanding of both the challenge and potential of teaching in urban schools. Focal topics include exploration of “best practices” for teaching children and youth in poverty, special needs students, and English Language Learners, including the impact of cultural, economic, and family structures on their school experience. We will consider the evaluation, placement, appropriate accommodations, and methods of instruction and assessment for diverse urban students possessing a broad range of academic interests and aptitudes and varied forms of exceptionality. The course is grounded in a field experience (30 hour minimum) engaging students in learning from and contributing to a local urban classroom at the grade level/subject matter area of their choice. The course culminates in the design of a curricular unit that reflects instruction aimed at higher order cognition and holistic child development. Course reserved for Educational Studies majors (Teaching/Learning Emphasis). Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor. Fall semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 392 - Topics Course

    Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing. (2 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 394 - Topics Course

    Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 460 - Education and Social Change

    This course explores the question: How can we educate to promote change toward more just, compassionate, and sustainable approaches to living and learning in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world? We will consider contemporary barriers to and opportunities for systemic, progressive education reform and civic renewal on local, national and international levels. We will then work both individually and collectively, on campus and in the community, to analyze specific social issues and reform strategies in addition to conceptualizing plans for principled social action. Prerequisite(s): Permission of department chair. Fall semester, an additional section will be offered in the Spring as needed. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 494 - Topics Course

    Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 601 - Tutorial

    Closely supervised individual or very small group study intended to provide opportunities for guided exploration of advanced topics. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (1 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 602 - Tutorial

    Closely supervised individual or very small group study intended to provide opportunities for guided exploration of advanced topics. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (2 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 603 - Tutorial

    Closely supervised individual or very small group study intended to provide opportunities for guided exploration of advanced topics. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (3 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 604 - Tutorial

    Closely supervised individual or very small group study intended to provide opportunities for guided exploration of advanced topics. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 611 - Independent Project

    Advanced study in a specific area of educational inquiry. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (1 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 612 - Independent Project

    Advanced study in a specific area of educational inquiry. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (2 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 613 - Independent Project

    Advanced study in a specific area of educational inquiry. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (3 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 614 - Independent Project

    Advanced study in a specific area of educational inquiry. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 621 - Internship

    Exploration of issues in educational inquiry and advocacy through engagement in carefully designed service learning opportunities. S/SD/N grading only. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor. Work with Internship Office. (1 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 622 - Internship

    Exploration of issues in educational inquiry and advocacy through engagement in carefully designed service learning opportunities. S/SD/N grading only. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor. Work with Internship Office. (2 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 623 - Internship

    Exploration of issues in educational inquiry and advocacy through engagement in carefully designed service learning opportunities. S/SD/N grading only. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor. Work with Internship Office. (3 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 624 - Internship

    Exploration of issues in educational inquiry and advocacy through engagement in carefully designed service learning opportunities. S/SD/N grading only. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor. Work with Internship Office. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 631 - Preceptorship

    Opportunities for students to assume selected teaching roles and responsibilities in carefully supervised course contexts. Prerequisite(s): Demonstrated proficiency in the area of study and permission of instructor. Work with Academic Programs. (1 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 632 - Preceptorship

    Opportunities for students to assume selected teaching roles and responsibilities in carefully supervised course contexts. Prerequisite(s): Demonstrated proficiency in the area of study and permission of instructor. Work with Academic Programs. (2 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 633 - Preceptorship

    Opportunities for students to assume selected teaching roles and responsibilities in carefully supervised course contexts. Prerequisite(s): Demonstrated proficiency in the area of study and permission of instructor. Work with Academic Programs. (3 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 634 - Preceptorship

    Opportunities for students to assume selected teaching roles and responsibilities in carefully supervised course contexts. Prerequisite(s): Demonstrated proficiency in the area of study and permission of instructor. Work with Academic Programs. (4 Credits)

English
  

  • ENGL 101 - College Writing

    Instruction and practice for writing in college. This course does not satisfy the requirements for the English major or minor. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 105 - American Voices

    American literature contains a greater variety of voices than most other national literatures. Each section of this course explores some aspect of that wide range of voices and may include the writing of women, of minority groups, or of various sub-groups from the dominant literary culture. Consult the detailed course descriptions in the English department or on its web page for the content of individual sections. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 115 - Shakespeare

    This course will offer an introduction to his work through a wide-ranging survey of his major plays in all categories (history, comedy, tragedy, and romance) plus maybe some poetry. Texts and topics will vary. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 125 - Studies in Literature

    A writing-intensive course in traditional and non-traditional literatures, each section of which will have a different focus, topic, or approach; recent offerings have examined the short story, major women writers, new international writing, and the literary Gothic. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 135 - Poetry

    An introduction to the study of poetry. Topics and methods vary, but all sections emphasize techniques of close reading, critical inquiry, and engaged communication fundamental to the discipline of literary studies. Consult the detailed course description in the English department or in its web page for the content of individual courses and sections. Offered every year.  (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 136 - Drama

    An introduction to the study of drama. Topics and methods vary, but all sections emphasize techniques of close reading, critical inquiry, and engaged communication fundamental to the discipline of literary studies. Consult the detailed course description in the English department or on its web page for the content of individual courses and sections.   Offered every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 137 - Novel

    An introduction to the study of novel. Topics and methods vary, but all sections emphasize techniques of close reading, critical inquiry, and engaged communication fundamental to the discipline of literary studies. Consult the detailed course description in the English department or on its web page for the content of individual courses and sections. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 150 - Introduction to Creative Writing

    The focus of this course is on the development of skills for writing poetry and short fiction through a close study of the techniques involved in these forms, analysis of model literary works, and frequent writing exercises. This course must be completed at Macalester as a PREREQUISITE for the further study of creative writing at Macalester. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 194 - Topics Course

    Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 200 - Major Medieval and Renaissance British Writers

    This course surveys selections from major works of three writers foundational to the literature of the British Isles and other literatures in English: the late-medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer, the Renaissance poet Edmund Spenser, and the 17th century writer John Milton. Study of selections from The Canterbury Tales, The Faerie Queene , and Paradise Lost will highlight the formative role of these writers for later explorations of gender, the religious imagination, politics and ideas of liberty, and the historical emergence of a specifically poetic history. Offered alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 208 - Literary Publishing

    This course approaches the dynamic field of publishing, from acquisitions of literary titles to their entrance into the marketplace, from the writer’s hands to the editor’s desk to the reader’s library. With explorations into the history of the book, new technologies, and the vibrant literary scene in the Twin Cities and beyond, this course illuminates the complex realities of how literature meets our culture. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 210 - Film Studies

    This course will focus on different topics from year to year. Possible topics include Great Directors, Russian Film, French Film, Film and Ideology, Literature and Film, and Images of Black Women in Hollywood Films. Please consult the specific course description in the English department. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 212 - Introduction to Literary Theory

    An introduction to the key movements in literary theory, such as structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, Marxism, new historicism, feminism, gender studies, queer theory, Black and diaspora studies, critical race theory, Black feminist theory, postcolonial studies, posthumanism, and ecocriticism. The course will cover primary texts by thinkers such as Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Gayatri Spivak, Michel Foucault, Audre Lorde, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Barbara Smith, Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, Katherine Hayles, and Judith Butler, and will emphasize their common engagement with questions of language, textuality, and power. Occasionally (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 220 - Eighteenth-Century British Literature

    A study of British literature from the restoration of the British monarchy in 1660 to the revolutionary turn of the nineteenth century, emphasizing relationships between literary language and the continuing experience of modern life. Readings will include prose fiction, drama, poetry, periodical essays, and philosophy from the period, supplemented as necessary by late-modern material. Topics may include the eighteenth-century literary history of, e.g., description and other poetic figures; free-market economics, sensibility, and other ethical systems; gender and personal identity; and modern forms of feeling. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 230 - Nineteenth-Century British Literature

    A study of literature’s dynamic interaction with historical change in the period that has been called the “Pax Britannica” (“British Peace”), but also “The Age of Revolution,” “The Age of Capital,” “The Age of Democracy,” and “The Age of Empire.” Emphais on the diversity of forms emerging alongside the novel; poetry, drama, policital writing, and print journalism. Authors may include Wordsworth, Coleridge, the Shelleys (P.B. and Mary), Godwin, Keats, Byron, Tennyson, Arnold, Rossetti, the Brontes (Charlotte and Emily), Swinburne, Hopkins, Pater, Carlyle, Mill, and Marx. Novelists may include those listed under ENGL 331. Articles and manifestos from Blackwood’s, The Westminster Review, The Saturday Review, and Household Words.. Particular themes vary. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 240 - Twentieth Century British Literature

    A study of works of British and Irish fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction prose from 1900 to the present. Along with novelists such as those enumerated under ENGL 341 below, this course treats selected poets such as W. B. Yeats, W. H. Auden, Stevie Smith, and Philip Larkin, playwrights from the Irish National Theater at the beginning of the century (Lady Gregory, Sean O’Casey, J. M. Synge) through Samuel Beckett to current dramatists such as Michael Frayn or Tom Stoppard, and non-fiction commentary from Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, and others. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 245 - Nabokov

    Cross-Listed as RUSS 245  
    The scandal surrounding Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel about the nymphet Lolita finally made him a hugely successful celebrity, allowing him to retire from teaching at Cornell University and move to Switzerland to devote himself to fiction, translation, criticism and lepidoptery. This was only one of the many metamorphoses Nabokov underwent while in exile, moving from Russia to the Crimea, Cambridge UK, Berlin, Paris, Cambridge MA, Ithaca, Hollywood, and finally Montreux. Members of the Russian nobility, the Nabokovs lost everything with the 1917 Revolution except for their immense cultural capital, which Nabokov transformed into a tremendously productive career as a writer, critic, translator and scholar in Russian, French, and English. This course examines both the Russian (in translation) and English novels. A merciful defier of national, linguistic, cultural and theoretical categories, Nabokov remains paradoxically elusive and monumental, a thrilling and exasperating genius. Alternate spring semesters. (4 Credits)

    Curricular Change: Course renumbered from 366 to 245, effective spring 2018
  

  • ENGL 260 - Science Fiction: From Matrix Baby Cannibals to Brave New Worlds

    In the past fifty years, science fiction has emerged as the primary cultural form for thinking about human extinction: climate catastrophe and natural disasters, plagues that empty continents, and species suicide through war. But science fiction has also emerged as the primary cultural form for imagining a near boundless future through technological progress: artificial superintelligence, cybernetic enhancement of the human, and the possibility of utopian political order. Facing such disorienting and unfathomable changes, science fiction seeks with frantic energy to understand what it means to be a human and to live a meaningful life. Why are we here? What are we to become? How will the promises of technology, or the lethal threats of scarcity, change what it means to be a thinking, feeling human? In this course we will examine works of science fiction as complex aesthetic achievements, as philosophical inquiries into the nature of being and time, and as theoretical examinations of the nature of human cognition. We will engage in intensive readings of contemporary texts, including works by Ted Chiang, Lidia Yuknavitch, Philip K. Dick, Margaret Atwood, Octavia Bulter, Stanislaw Lem, Kazuo Ishiguro, and others. A companion film series will include the Matrix and other films in the genre Offered yearly. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 262 - Studies in Literature and the Natural World

    Cross-Listed as ENVI 262 
    A course studying the ways that literary writing develops thought and feeling about nature and our part in it. In a particular term, the course might address, for example, nature poetry from Milton to Frost; literature and the agrarian; gendered representations of nature; literary figures of relationship among humans and other kinds; nature, reason, and the passions; literatures of matter and of life; time, flux, and change in literary and science writing. Offered yearly. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 265 - Justice

    In this course we will examine texts by, about, and for workers for social justice. Our method will be interdisciplinary. With an eye toward aesthetics, we will examine novels and plays that have at their center protagonists who have been called to realize a vision of the just society or, more desperately, to stand alone against seemingly inevitable assaults upon human dignity. We will at the same time examine philosophical and sociological accounts of political action, including works that evaluate the effectiveness of different individual and organizational strategies for social change. Central issues may include obedience and disobedience, economic justice, eco-activism, globalization, human rights, gender, race, and the question of personal vocation-that is, how do we bring together our ethical commitments and our working lives? Central figures will range from Sophocles to Naomi Klein, Zola to James Baldwin. Students will be provided extensive opportunities for service and experiential learning in local organizations committed to social justice. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 272 - Love and Madness in Nineteenth Century American Literature

    Our common vocabulary of love presents it as a force that strikes and knocks down its victims. It comes like a fever and it disables cognition. Lovers “fall,” they are “smitten,” “head over heels,” “crazy” for each other. Love is both mania and obsession, both a euphoria that alters one’s view of the world as a whole and an exclusion of the whole world, a radical narrowing of our normally capacious imaginative and perceptual faculties down to the simplest and smallest of human frames: a face, or the sound of a voice. For American authors of the 18th and 19th century, love and madness were twinned sites of altered consciousness that represented the radical “others” of Enlightenment reason, psychic parallels to and extensions of the wilds of the New World and the uncontrollable crowds and freedoms of the new democracy. This course will examine love and madness from multiple perspectives, including the Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment, gender and sexuality, the American Gothic, violence, and sin. Authors will range from Benjamin Franklin and the Marquis de Sade to Edgar Allan Poe and Kate Chopin. (4 credits)  (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 273 - American Literature 1900-1945

    America in the first half of the twentieth century seemed to be infatuated with the future-with skyscrapers and automobiles, Hollywood cinema and big business. But in an age that also saw the struggle of Progressivism, the Great Depression, and two foreign wars, many voices called attention to the dark side of success. This course will include such authors as Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Willa Cather, Dorothy Parker, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes, Walker Evans and James Agee, Eugene O’Neill, and Dashiell Hammett. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 274 - American Literature 1945-Present

    The complacent malaise of the Cold War, the turmoil of Vietnam and the Sixties, and the postmodern fascination with computers and visual culture-all of these have had radical consequences for the American literary form. While questioning boundaries between high and low culture, image and reality, and identity and difference, recent American writers work against a pervasive sense of fragmentation to imagine new relations between community and personal desire. The course will consider authors such as Vladimir Nabokov, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Ralph Ellison, Walker Percy, John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich, Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, Robert Stone, Thomas Pynchon, John Guare, Raymond Carver, Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Sandra Cisneros, Art Spiegelman, and Neal Stephenson. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 275 - African American Literature to 1900

    Cross-Listed as AMST 275  
    This course will trace the development of an African American literary tradition from the end of the eighteenth century to the turn of the twentieth century, from authors such as Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano to Frances Harper and Charles Chesnutt. The course will investigate the longstanding project of writing an African American self as both a literary and a political subject, and it will consider texts from multiple genres-such as lyric poetry, protest poetry, slave narratives, spirituals, folktales, personal correspondence, essays, short stories, autobiographies, novels, transcribed oral addresses, and literary criticism and theory. Prerequisite(s): A 100-level English course other than ENGL 101  or ENGL 150 : ENGL 105 , ENGL 110 , ENGL 115 , ENGL 125 , ENGL 135 , ENGL 136 , ENGL 137 , ENGL 138 . Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 276 - African American Literature 1900 to Present

    This course will trace the development of an African American literary and cultural tradition from the turn of the century to the present, from writers such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Pauline Hopkins to Walter Mosley and Toni Morrison. It will examine the ways that modern and contemporary African American writers and artists have explored political, social, racial, and aesthetic issues in a variety of genres-including autobiographies, poetry, novels, blues songs, photographs, short stories, plays essays, film, visual art, and literary and cultural criticism. Among the many topics the course will consider are: the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration, the Black Arts Movement, and the current flourishing of African American arts and letters and cinema. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 277 - Angels and Demons of the American Renaissance (1835-1880)

    As the United states lurched toward murderous civil war, a group of passionate, visionary, and bizarre artists set out to discover the soul of America. From 1850 to 1855, in one of the most astonishing creative convergences in literary history, the artists of what would come to be known as the American Renaissance wrote stories and poems that would enlighten, thrill, and terrify generations of readers. With aesthetic wonder and philosophical insight, they revealed both the angels and demons of human nature, inventing a uniquely American spiritual movement of unprecedented optimism at the same time that they damned it all to hell. Their works were spiritual and blasphemous, elegant and profance, beatific and pornographic, irreverently comic and heart-wrenchingly sentimental. Everything that was written in America after this period would, in one way or another, have to come to terms with the brilliant and disturbing achievements of this small cluster of artists. In this course we will read texts by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. Offered yearly. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 280 - Crafts of Writing: Poetry

    This course will focus in a variety of ways on the development of skills for writing poetry, building on the work done in ENGL 150. Depending on the instructor, it may approach the creative process through, for example, writing from models (traditional and contemporary), formal exercises (using both traditional and contemporary forms), or working with the poetry sequence (or other methodology selected by the instructor: see department postings for details). It will involve extensive readings and discussion of poetry in addition to regular poetry writing assignments. The course may be conducted to some extent in workshop format; the emphasis will be on continuing to develop writing skills. Course may be taken twice for credit, so long as it is with a different instructor. Prerequisite(s):   taken at Macalester. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 281 - Crafts of Writing: Fiction

    This course will focus in a variety of ways on the development of skills for writing fiction, building on the work done in ENGL 150. Depending on the instructor, it may approach the creative process through, for example, writing from models of the short story (both classic and contemporary), working with the technical components of fiction (e.g., plot, setting, structure, characterization), or developing linked stories or longer fictions (or other methodology selected by the instructor: see department postings for details). It will involve extensive readings and discussion of fiction in addition to regular fiction writing assignments. The course may be conducted to some extent in workshop format; the emphasis will be on continuing to develop writing skills. Course may be taken twice for credit, so long as it is with a different instructor. Prerequisite(s):   taken at Macalester. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 282 - The Crafts of Writing: Creative Nonfiction

    This course will focus in a variety of ways on the development of skills for writing nonfiction, building on the work done in ENGL 120. Depending on the instructor, it may approach the creative process through, for example, translating personal experience into autobiography or memoir, or developing the essay form, the opinion piece, the journalistic report or a variety of other forms. It will involve extensive readings and discussion of nonfiction in addition to regular nonfiction writing assignments. The course may be conducted to some extent in workshop format; the emphasis will be on continuing to develop writing skills. Course may be taken twice for credit, so long as it is with a different instructor. Prerequisite(s):   taken at Macalester. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 283 - The Crafts of Writing: Scriptwriting

    This course will focus in a variety of ways on the development of skills for writing plays. The emphasis will be on written dialogue and dramatic action, with the aim of producing brief scripts. There will be extensive readings and discussion of published and unpublished plays in addition to regular writing assignments. The course may be conducted to some extent in workshop format; the emphasis will be on continuing to develop writing skills. Prerequisite(s):   taken at Macalester. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 284 - The Crafts of Writing: Screenwriting

    This course will focus in a variety of ways on the development of skills for writing screenplays, building on the work done in ENGL 120. The emphasis will be on narrative films, with the objective of writing a feature-length screenplay during the semester. There will be extensive readings and discussion of published and unpublished screenplays in addition to regular writing assignments. The course may be conducted to some extent in workshop format; the emphasis will be on continuing to develop writing skills. Prerequisite(s):   taken at Macalester. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 285 - Playwriting and Textual Analysis

    Cross-Listed as THDA 242  
    Students will read a variety of plays that exemplify structural and genric concerns of writing for live performance: tragedy; comedy; the courtroom drama; farce; experimental, others. Students will elaborate their own interests in these forms through a series of time-bound conventions: the 3-minute, 10-minute and ultimately one-act form. In-class exercises and prompts, and small-group workshopping and reading will challenge writers’ development. A mid-term and final playreading series will allow students to hear their work read in a supportive public setting. Offered alternate spring semesters. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 286 - Narrative Journalism

    This creative nonfiction course will focus on the basic elements of narrative journalism. Students will conduct interviews and research to create powerful stories that may be print, audio, and/or web-based. Every other year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 294 - Topics Course

    Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 304 - Medieval Heroic Narrative

    This course studies the heroic storytelling traditions of the medieval British Isles and Scandinavia. We read poems, tales, myths, and non-fiction of these far northwestern European archipelagos, locating their traditions in migrations and conquests of tribes across Asia and Europe. The course deploys gender theory, narrative theory, and history to explore formations of masculinity and femininity, heroic ethos, gender politics in stories of magic, marvels, enchantment and disenchantment. Works may include: the Scandinavian Volsung Saga and the Saga of King Hrolf Kraki; the Irish legends Sweeney Astray and The Tain ; the Welsh Mabinogion ; the English Beowulf , The Dream of the Rood , Old English riddles, translated excerpts from Bede and from the Iais of Marie de France, Sir Orfeo , The Wedding of Sir Gawain & Dame Ragnelle , Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , excerpts from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain and from Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level ENGL course. Offered in alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 308 - Literature and Sexuality

    Cross-Listed as WGSS 308 
    This course examines ways in which literary works have represented desire and sexuality. It looks at how constructions of sexuality have defined and classified persons; at how those definitions and classes change; and at how they affect and create literary forms and traditions. Contemporary gay and lesbian writing, and the developing field of queer theory, will always form part, but rarely all, of the course. Poets, novelists, playwrights, memoirists and filmmakers may include Shakespeare, Donne, Tennyson, Whitman, Dickinson, or Henry James; Wilde, Hall, Stein, Lawrence, or Woolf; Nabokov, Tennessee Williams, Frank O’Hara, Baldwin, or Philip Roth; Cukor, Hitchcock, Julien, Frears, or Kureishi; White, Rich, Kushner, Monette, Lorde, Allison, Cruse, Morris, Winterson, Hemphill, or Bidart. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level ENGL course. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 310 - Shakespeare Studies

    Close study of half a dozen plays of Shakespeare, with special attention to his development of resources from performance arts and poetry into a powerful form that would come to engage the likes of Bertolt Brecht and other avant-garde theatre artists. Plays will be selected by critical interests and topics, for example gender and race in Shakespeare; masculinity in the Roman plays; the problem of character; Shakespeare and mythology; Shakespeare and later women writers; intercultural Shakespeare; the tragic and the comic. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level ENGL course. Offered yearly. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 313 - Literature in the Age of Shakespeare

    Study of major works of the English Renaissance by Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, and other poets and dramatists, with special attention to the work done by categories of gender, sexuality, and class in the period’s explorations of literary and dramatic genres. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level ENGL course. Offered alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 315 - Milton

    A study of that pivotal poet in British literary history, John Milton, through Paradise Lost and his lyric and narrative verse. Topics may include Milton’s arguments on liberty, gender, justice, religious issues, and his central role for later writers, thinkers, and movements from the 18th century to the present. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level ENGL course. Offered occasionally. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 331 - Nineteenth-Century British Novel

    An advanced course on aspects of novel form developed and possibly perfected in the nineteenth century. Formal achievements in realism, sensationalism, the domestic novel, the adventure romance, the detective tale, the marriage plot, and the gothic will be analyzed in light of the social and political changes they emerged to address: the rise of nationalism, the expansion of empire, the codification of gender ideology, the invention of the modern human being. Novelists may include Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, William Godwin, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Braddon, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Bram Stoker, H. Rider Haggard, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Oscar Wilde. Criticism introduced as appropriate. Particular themes vary. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level ENGL course. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 341 - 20th Century British Novel

    Fiction from a range of British and Irish novelists, including authors from the early part of the century such as E.M. Forster, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Elizabeth Bowen, along with more recent writers such as Iris Murdoch, Martin Amis, Anita Brookner, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jeanette Winterson, and Julian Barnes. Works will be considered both in their historical contexts and as examples of the evolving form of the novel itself. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level ENGL course. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 350 - 20th Century Poetry

    An analysis of twentieth century poetry from modernists W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Robert Frost through major midcentury poets such as Elizabeth Bishop and Langston Hughes, to contemporary writers such as Adrienne Rich, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, John Ashbery and C. D. Wright. This course will stress close analytical reading of individual poems. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level ENGL course. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 362 - Gendered, Feminist, and Womanist Writings

    Cross-Listed as WGSS 310 
    This course investigates how women’s writing from different parts of the world (Asian, English, African-American, to name a few) convey visions of the present and future, of the real and the imagined, beliefs about masculinity and femininity, race and nation, socialist and capitalist philosophies, (post) modernity, the environment (ecotopia), and various technologies including cybernetics. Topics may change based on instructor. Prerequisite(s): One prior English course numbered in the 100s. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 366 - Nabokov

    Cross-Listed as RUSS 366  

    There is a risk in studying Vladimir Nabokov, as those who have can attest. At first, you find he is an author who understands the simple pleasures of the novel. He crafts wondrously strange stories-often detective stories-in language often so arresting you may find yourself wanting to read passages aloud to passers-by. Then, you may discover within the novel little hints, here and there, of a hidden structure of motifs. The hints are in the synaesthetic colors of sound, in the patterns on the wings of butterflies, in the tremble of first love, in shadows and reflections, in the etymologies of words. Soon the reader has become a detective as well, linking the recurring motifs, finding clues are everywhere. By then it is too late. The risk in studying Nabokov is that you may not see the world the same way again.

    Nabokov’s life is itself remarkable. He was born into Russian nobility, but fled with his family to Western Europe after the 1917 Revolution. His father took a bullet intended for another. After his education in England, Nabokov moved to Berlin, and then to Paris, where advancing Nazi troops triggered another flight, this time to the United States. He was not only an accomplished poet, novelist, and translator, but also a lepidopterist. Nabokov found and conveyed both the precision of poetry and the excitement of discovery in his art, scientific work, and life.

    In this course, we will read a representative selection of both his Russian (in translation) and English language novels, including Lolita and Pale Fire, two of the finest novels of the twentieth century. We will explore various aspects of Nabokov’s life and art in order to arrive at a fuller understanding of how cultural synthesis inspires artistic creation. Alternate years, spring semester. (4 Credits)

    Curricular Change: Course number effective for fall 2017 only; renumbered to 245 for spring 2018
  

  • ENGL 367 - Postcolonial Theory

    Cross-Listed as INTL 367  
    Traces the development of theoretical accounts of culture, politics and identity in Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean and related lands since the 1947-1991 decolonizations. Readings include Fanon, Said, Walcott, Ngugi and many others, and extend to gender, literature, the U.S., and the post-Soviet sphere. The course bridges cultural representational, and political theory. Prior internationalist and/or theoretical coursework strongly recommended. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 377 - Native American Literature

    A study of fiction and poetry by American Indian writers, among them N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Silko, James Welch, Louise Erdrich, Gerald Vizenor. Prerequisite(s): One prior English course numbered in the 100s. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 380 - Topics in African-American Literature

    Cross-Listed as AMST 380 
    This course will explore African American cultural production and, depending on the instructor, may focus on a particular genre (e.g. novels, short stories, drama, poetry, detective fiction, speculative fiction), or a particular theme (e.g. The Protest Tradition, Black Feminist Writings), or on a particular period (e.g. the 1820s-1860s, the Harlem Renaissance, the 1950s), or on a particular author or authors (e.g. Douglass, Du Bois, Baldwin, Wideman, Morrison, Parks). Prerequisite(s): One prior English course numbered in the 100s. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 384 - Langston Hughes: Global Writer

    Cross-Listed as INTL 384  and AMST 384 
    The great African American writer Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is best known as the poet laureate of the Harlem Renaissance. But his career was vaster still. He was a Soviet screenwriter, Spanish Civil War journalist, African literary anthologist, humorist, playwright, translator, social critic, writer of over 10,000 letters, and much more. This course engages Hughes’s full career, bridging race and global issues, politics and art, and makes use of little-known archival materials. No prerequisites. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 386 - From Literature to Film: Studies in Adaptation

    From its earliest days, film has drawn on literature for subject matter and modes of narration. Adaptations of literary sources have formed a significant part of all movies made in the west. This course will study the problems of adapting literature to film, dealing with the representations of time and space in both forms, as well as the differences in developing character and structuring narratives. The course will consider a novel, short story or play each week along with its cinematic counterpart. Prerequisite(s): One prior English course numbered in the 100s. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 394 - Topics Course

    Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing. Prerequisite(s): One prior English course numbered in the 100s. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 400 - Seminar: Special Topics in Literary Studies

    A study of a particular topic of interest to students of literature in English. Students will read widely in relevant materials and produce a significant final project. Prerequisite(s): One prior English course numbered in the 100s. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 401 - Projects in Literary Research

    This capstone course for the Literature Path is the culminating academic experience of the major. The course consists of three interlocking objectives. The first goal is to provide students with the opportunity to develop an original research project that reflects their deepest aesthetic interests and ethical commitments. Working closely with a faculty member and a small group of peers, students will develop projects that display rigorous literary scholarship and methodological inventiveness. The second goal is to provide instruction in advanced methods of research by studying influential critical approaches from the early twentieth century to the present. Specific theories and methods will be determined in consultation with the instructor. Past courses have emphasized psychoanalysis, post-Marxist criticism, gender, queer, and feminist theory, phenomenology, critical race theory, black feminist theory, post-colonial criticism, poetics, law and human rights, and aesthetics. The final goal is to train students to become advocates of their research agenda. Students will learn to lecture and lead discussion on relevant readings and to share their research with the wider intellectual community in a form that reflects the spirit of the project. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 406 - Projects in Creative Writing

    This seminar will provide a workshop environment for advanced students with clearly defined projects in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, drama or a combination of genres. The seminar will center initially on a group of shared readings about the creative process and then turn to the work produced by class members. Through the presentation of new and revised work, and the critiquing of work-in-progress, each student will develop a significant body of writing as well as the critical skills necessary to analyze the work of others. Course may be repeated for credit if the topic is different. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 494 - Topics Course

    Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing. Prerequisite(s): One prior English course numbered in the 100s. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 614 - Independent Project

    Production of original work, either scholarly or creative, of substantial length, which may develop out of previous course work. Prerequisite(s): Application through department chair. Sufficient preparation, demonstrated ability, and permission of instructor. Every semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 621 - Internship

    Work in practical (usually off-campus) experiences that explore potential careers, apply an English major’s skills, or make a substantive addition to the student’s knowledge of literary issues. Prerequisite(s): Sufficient preparation and permission of instructor. Work with Internship Office. Every semester. (1 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 622 - Internship

    Work in practical (usually off-campus) experiences that explore potential careers, apply an English major’s skills, or make a substantive addition to the student’s knowledge of literary issues. Prerequisite(s): Sufficient preparation and permission of instructor. Work with Internship Office. Every semester. (2 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 623 - Internship

    Work in practical (usually off-campus) experiences that explore potential careers, apply an English major’s skills, or make a substantive addition to the student’s knowledge of literary issues. Prerequisite(s): Sufficient preparation and permission of instructor. Work with Internship Office. Every semester. (3 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 624 - Internship

    Work in practical (usually off-campus) experiences that explore potential careers, apply an English major’s skills, or make a substantive addition to the student’s knowledge of literary issues. Prerequisite(s): Sufficient preparation and permission of instructor. Work with Internship Office. Every semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 634 - Preceptorship

    Work assisting a faculty member in planning and teaching a course. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor. Work with Academic Programs. Every semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 641 - Honors Independent

    Independent research, writing, or other preparation leading to the culmination of the senior honors project. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (1 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 642 - Honors Independent

    Independent research, writing, or other preparation leading to the culmination of the senior honors project. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (2 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 643 - Honors Independent

    Independent research, writing, or other preparation leading to the culmination of the senior honors project. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (3 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 644 - Honors Independent

    Independent research, writing, or other preparation leading to the culmination of the senior honors project. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (4 Credits)

Environmental Studies
  

  • ENVI 120 - Environmental Geology

    Cross-Listed as GEOG 120  and GEOL 120  
    The physical environment has begun to show signs of our earth’s expanding population and the increasing need for natural resources. Geologic materials such as soil, water, and bedrock, and geologic processes such as earthquakes, volcanic activity, and running water often pose constraints on land use. This course is designed to introduce students to the relationship between humans and their geologic environment: the earth. We will focus on understanding the processes that shape the surface of the earth, and how these processes affect human activity. We will use current scientific methods to collect and analyze data. Topics include surface-water dynamics and flooding, groundwater and groundwater contamination, pollution and waste management, landslides, volcanic and earthquake hazards, and global climate change. Format: three hour block per week of local field excursions, lectures, and/or laboratory exercises; evaluation will be based on project reports and homework/classroom assignments, and one exam (final). Offered occasionally. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENVI 130 - Science of Renewable Energy

    Cross-Listed as  
    This is a course on the current status of the most promising alternative and renewable energy options from a primarily scientific and technological perspective. Current methods of electricity generation and transportation energy sources will be briefly reviewed (fossil fuels, nuclear fission, and hydroelectric), including discussion of their limitations and environmental consequences. The focus of the course will be on understanding the scientific basis of alternative and renewable energy sources, and their promise and technological challenges for wide scale implementation. Biofuels, wind, photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, hydrogen, nuclear fusion, and geothermal will be considered in depth.  (4 Credits)
  

  • ENVI 133 - Environmental Science

    This course provides basic scientific knowledge and understanding of how our world works from an environmental perspective. Topics covered include: basic principles of ecosystem function; biodiversity and its conservation; human population growth; water resources and management; water, air and soil pollution; climate change; energy resources, and sustainability. The course has a required 3 hour lab section. Spring semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENVI 140 - The Earth’s Climate System

    The Earth’s climate system is complex and dynamic, and yet understanding this system is crucial in order to address concerns about anthropogenic influences on climate. In this course, we examine the basic physical and chemical processes that control the modern climate system, including the role of incoming solar radiation, the greenhouse effect, ocean and atmospheric circulation, and El Nino. We also look critically at the methods and archives used to reconstruct climate in the past, such as ice cores, marine and lake sediments, and cave deposits. We explore the possible effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions on modern and future climate by critically examining the models used in climate prediction, and discuss the challenges of modeling such a complex system. Although this course is taught from a primarily scientific perspective, it includes frequent discussions of the roles policy and economics play in the current dialogue on global climate change. Offered yearly. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENVI 144 - Lakes, Streams and Rivers

    Cross-Listed as BIOL 144 .
    Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, is also home to numerous streams and rivers. In this course we will examine the nature of these aquatic ecosystems; exploring their ecology, geology and chemistry. We will also investigate human impacts through such practices as agriculture, urbanization and industrialization, on these important ecosystems. Students will complete projects exploring various aspects of local waterbodies, especially the Mississippi, Minnesota, and St. Croix Rivers. Offered occasionally. (4 Credits)
 

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