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College Catalog 2019-2020 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Courses

 

Economics
  

  • ECON 622 - Internship

    Work that involves the student in practical off-campus experiences with business, government, and non-profit organizations. S/N grading only. While the department encourages students to undertake meaningful off-campus experiences, internship credits do not count among the eight minimum courses for the major. (Internships are considered like a ninth or tenth course.) Prerequisite(s): Two courses in economics and permission of instructor. Work with Internship Office. (2 Credits)
  

  • ECON 623 - Internship

    Work that involves the student in practical off-campus experiences with business, government, and non-profit organizations. S/N grading only. While the department encourages students to undertake meaningful off-campus experiences, internship credits do not count among the eight minimum courses for the major. (Internships are considered like a ninth or tenth course.) Prerequisite(s): Two courses in economics and permission of instructor. Work with Internship Office. (3 Credits)
  

  • ECON 624 - Internship

    Work that involves the student in practical off-campus experiences with business, government, and non-profit organizations. S/N grading only. While the department encourages students to undertake meaningful off-campus experiences, internship credits do not count among the eight minimum courses for the major. (Internships are considered like a ninth or tenth course.) Prerequisite(s): Two courses in economics and permission of instructor. Work with Internship Office. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 631 - Preceptorship

    Work in assisting faculty in the planning and teaching of a course and/or tutoring individual students. S/N grading only. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361 , ECON 371  and permission of instructor. Work with Academic Programs. Every semester. (1 Credits)
  

  • ECON 632 - Preceptorship

    Work in assisting faculty in the planning and teaching of a course and/or tutoring individual students. S/NC grading only. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361, ECON 371 and permission of instructor. Work with Academic Programs. Every semester. (2 Credits)
  

  • ECON 633 - Preceptorship

    Work in assisting faculty in the planning and teaching of a course and/or tutoring individual students. S/NC grading only. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361, ECON 371 and permission of instructor. Work with Academic Programs. Every semester. (3 Credits)
  

  • ECON 634 - Preceptorship

    Work in assisting faculty in the planning and teaching of a course and/or tutoring individual students. S/NC grading only. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361, ECON 371 and permission of instructor. Work with Academic Programs. Every semester. (4 Credits)

Educational Studies
  

  • EDUC 194 - Topics Course

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

  • EDUC 200 - Experiences in Education

    This course provides opportunities to explore, reflect upon and contribute to life in contemporary urban classrooms. Weekly internships will be arranged allowing students to work closely with teachers, educational support staff and diverse young people of varied ages (kindergarten, elementary, or secondary levels). A weekly seminar session, readings, reflective writing, and individual and small group projects complement the experiential aspects of the course. This course is offered as S/N grading only. (2 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 220 - Educational Psychology

    Cross-Listed as PSYC 220 
    An introduction to theory and research in educational psychology. Topics include learning theory, learner characteristics, intelligence, creativity, motivation, measurement and evaluation, and models of teaching appropriate for diverse learners from early childhood through young adulthood. Students are required to complete observations in classroom settings. Every semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • 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. Frequency: Every January. (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. Every fall. (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. (4 credits) (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. Every spring. (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 , 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. Every fall. (4 Credits)
  

  • EDUC 294 - Topics Course

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

  • EDUC 315 - Advanced Topics in Policy: US Education Politics and Policy

    Cross-Listed as POLI 315  
    This advanced research seminar explores the politics and policy of K-12 education in the United States. Several theoretical lenses are explored and competing perspectives are advanced. The workload will be intense, akin to a graduate level course. Students will compose a 20-25 page original research paper on an education topics of their choice. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing; previous coursework in American politics or public policy as well as research methods is recommended. Alternate spring semesters. (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. Every spring. (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. Every spring. (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. Every fall. (4 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. Every semester. (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/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/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/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/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 - Identities and Differences in U.S. Literature

    This course focuses on traditionally underrepresented or marginalized American literatures. Readings may cover a wide range of genres, such as novels, poetry, creative nonfiction, plays, and graphic narratives, in order to explore various identities and differences within a national context. The course will also provide an introduction to the methods of literary study, including close reading and literary analysis, both oral and written. Authors and texts assigned will vary by section and instructor. May be repeated once, with different subtitle. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 112 - Introduction to African American Literature

    Cross-Listed as AMST 112  
    An introduction to the study of an African American literary tradition. The focus or themes of the course, as well as authors and texts, will vary by semester and instructor, but all sections will emphasize the tradition’s major genres, such as slave narratives and slam poetry, and its major movements, such as the Harlem Renaissance and Afrofuturism. The course will also provide instruction in the methods of literary analysis, including reading closely and writing text-based argument. Consult the detailed course description in the English department or on the registrar’s web page for the content of individual sections. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 115 - Shakespeare

    This course will offer an introduction to Shakespeare’s work through a survey of his major plays in all genres (history, comedy, tragedy, and romance) plus selected sonnets. Texts and emphasis 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 intensive close reading in combination with examining the cultural and historical contexts in which plays are written and performed. 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 137 - Novel

    This introduction to the study of the novel pays special attention to the genre’s history and to the cultural and political significance of individual texts. Authors and texts will vary according to instructor, but all sections will consider the development of the novel across time, include a range of author identities and styles, and provide instruction in intensive close reading and literary analysis. 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

    This workshop-based course focuses on the development of skills for writing poetry, short fiction, and/or creative nonfiction through a close study of the techniques involved in these forms, analysis of model literary works, and frequent writing exercises that will be workshopped. 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 survey provides an introduction to the masterpieces of medieval and early modern literature, from Beowulf to Paradise Lost. What is old, middle, and early modern English? How does lyric formally (and thematically) differ from epic and romance? When did drama acquire its characteristic structure? In addition to these poetic considerations, we will explore the key controversies that roiled pre-modern cultures pertaining to race, gender, and religion. Readings will highlight the imagination, poetics, and politics of authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Margery Kempe, Christine de Pizan, William Shakespeare, Mary Sidney Herbert, and John Milton. 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 socio-political change. Readings will include prose fiction, drama, poetry, periodical essays, and philosophy from the period, as well as recent works of literary theory and criticism. Topics may include developments in poetics; the rise of the novel; the politics of satire; free-market economics; gender and sexuality; misogyny; sensibility; and libertinism. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 230 - Nineteenth-Century British Literature

    A study of literature’s place within cultural conversations in the period, emphasizing the diversity of forms circulating alongside the novel, such as poetry, autobiography, drama, political writing, and print journalism. Themes and issues vary by section but may include empire, class and economics, gender norms, politics and reform, education, science, nature, religion, or travel. All sections consider the work of a wide array of authors-from canonical writers such as the Brontes, Mill, Eliot, Dickens, Darwin, the Rossettis, Tennyson, or Wilde to more experimental authors, the voices of colonized subjects, essayists, and visual artists. Articles from widely-circulating nineteenth-century periodicals, in conjunction with current literary theory and criticism provide frameworks for intensive reading and writing about literary texts. 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  

    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. Occasionally offered. (4 Credits)
  

  • 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 263 - Muslim Women Writers

    Cross-Listed as INTL 263  and WGSS 263  
    Against the swirling backdrop of political discourses about women in the Islamic world, this course will engage with feminist and postcolonial debates through literary works by Muslim women writers. The course will begin with an exploration of key debates about women’s agency and freedom, the Islamic headscarf, and Qur’anic hermeneutics. With this in mind, we will turn to the fine details of literature and poetry by Muslim women. How do these authors constitute their worlds? How are gendered subjectivities constructed? And how do the gender politics of literary texts relate to the broader political and historical contexts from which they emerge? Themes will include an introduction to Muslim poetesses and Arabic poetic genres, the rise of the novel in the Arabic speaking world, and Muslim women’s literary production outside of the Middle East: from Senegal to South Asia, and beyond. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 265 - Literature and Human Rights

    This course is an introduction to the study of literature and human rights. We will seek to better understand the contemporary norms and practices of human rights by examining its deep historical contexts, and by considering the philosophical and religious debates that continue to shape human rights theory and practice. We will also examine theories of trauma and torture, personal accounts of human rights and humanitarian fieldwork, representational ethics, and studies of human rights in film and media. We will scrutinize relevant literary texts as works of art, as case studies in human rights, and as models for understanding how words can change the world, whether in the form of human rights reports and newspaper accounts or of poems and novels. We will seek to better understand how spectators of suffering develop (or fail to develop) empathy for distant persons or for persons considered alien by also examining how they can so palpably feel for the dreams, desires, and dignity of fictional persons. In The Defense of Poesy Sir Philip Sidney describes the tyrant, Alexander Pheraeus, “from whose eyes a tragedy well-made and represented drew abundance of tears; who without all pity had murdered infinite numbers, and some of his own blood, so as he that was not ashamed to make matters for tragedies, yet could not resist the sweet violence of a tragedy.” What is the line that separates those who are merely moved from those who are moved to act? When does the story become real enough to change you? Our list of authors will span the range of intellectual and ethical endeavor, from ancient Greek plays and philosophy to contemporary US literature. 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. This course fulfills the 18th/19th century literature requirement for the English major. (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. 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 US tottered on the brink of its bloody Civil War, a small group of strange and visionary artists started a revolution. During the span of just five years, in one of history’s most astonishing creative convergences, the most elegant, profane, unhinged, heart-wrenching, and  influential works of US literature were published. Emerson, Hawthorne, Stowe, Thoreau, Douglass, Melville, Dickinson, Whitman, and Jacobs - together these artists produced a canon of literature that revealed both the demons and angels of our histories and futures. They invented a spiritual movement of unprecedented optimism at the same time that they despaired over what they had become. Everything that was written in the US afterwards would have to come to terms with the brilliant and disturbing achievements of this cluster of outsiders, mystics, and heroes. In this course we will read the landmark texts of this era from literary, historical, and philosophical perspectives. Every year. (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 advanced workshop course focuses 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. Course may be taken twice for credit, so long as it is with a different instructor, with the approval of the Chair. Prerequisite(s):   taken at Macalester. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 282 - The Crafts of Writing: Creative Nonfiction

    This advanced workshop course focuses in a variety of ways on the development of skills for writing creative nonfiction, building on the work done in ENGL 150 . Depending on the instructor, it may approach the creative process through, for example, translating lived experience into the personal essay, or developing narrative journalism, the lyric essay, or a variety of other forms. It will involve extensive readings and discussion of nonfiction in addition to regular nonfiction writing assignments. Course may be taken twice for credit, so long as it is with a different instructor, with the approval of the Chair. 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 - Introduction to Playwriting and Textual Analysis

    Cross-Listed as THDA 242  
    This class introduces the fundamentals of playwriting by exposing students to a wide variety of plays and a series of writing exercises. They will read new and contemporary plays that employ different storytelling techniques (i.e. structure, character arcs, staging elements, etc.), embrace the unlimited possibilities of theatricality, and exemplify why we write for the stage. Students will develop a “playwriting toolkit” as they explore their artistic interests following the conventions of time-bound pieces: the 1-minute, 5-minute, 10-minute, and ultimately one-act form. In-class exercises and prompts, and small-group workshopping and reading will challenge each writer’s development. A mid-term and final play reading series of one-acts will allow students to hear their work 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

    Advance study of six or so plays by Shakespeare, with special attention to his development of stage and poetic technique. Plays and the ensuing discussion may focus on particular critical topics, for example Shakespeare and law, Shakespeare and science, gender, race, and identity in Shakespeare, and Shakespeare and film. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level ENGL course. Offered yearly. (4 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 313 - Literature in the Age of Shakespeare

     Study of early modern literature (poetry, drama, and prose) by Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Philip Sidney, Mary Sidney Herbert, Ben Jonson, Francis Bacon, Elizabeth Cary, Mary Wroth, and other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers. Discussion and analysis will focus on the inventiveness of form and the relationship between text and historical context. 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 the novel, considering developments in the form including realism, sensationalism, the domestic novel, the adventure romance, the detective tale, the marriage plot, the social problem novel, and the gothic. Questions of genre and form will be considered, as well as the social and political circumstances that individual novels address: the expansion of empire, codification of gender ideology, hierarchies of power, relationship of humans to the environment, global politics, religious crises, family structures, labor markets, and technologies of travel and communication. Novelists may include Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Braddon, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Bram Stoker, H. Rider Haggard, and Oscar Wilde. Secondary readings include literary scholarship and additional nineteenth-century documents for cultural contexts, including works by more marginalized voices. 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): Junior standing or permission of instructor, and at least one intermediate-level Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies course. (4 Credits)
  

  • 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. Prerequisite(s): 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. This course fulfills the U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major. (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): On prior English course numbered in the 100s (excluding 101 or 150), plus one literature course at the 200- or 300- level. Capstone courses are intended to be a culminating experience for the major. Students without Senior status will need instructor permission to enroll. 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. Prerequisite(s): One prior English course numbered in the 100s (excluding 101 or 150), plus one literature course at the 200- or 300- level. Capstone courses are intended to be a culminating experience for the major. Students without Senior status will need instructor permission to enroll. 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 required. Capstone courses are intended to be a culminating experience for the major. 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 611 - 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. (1 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 612 - 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. (2 Credits)
  

  • ENGL 613 - 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. (3 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)
 

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