Apr 19, 2024  
College Catalog 2021-2022 
    
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College Catalog 2021-2022 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Courses

 

Economics
  

  • ECON 342 - Economics of Poverty in the US

    This course focuses on the economic aspects of poverty and inequality in the United States. The course utilizes economic theory and empirical research to analyze the determinants of, and potential strategies to overcome poverty and inequality. Topics include measurement and trends of poverty and inequality, labor markets, education, discrimination, residential segregation, and immigration. The course also investigates the role of public policy in fighting poverty and inequality. There is a required service learning component in this course. This course counts as a Group E elective.  Prerequisite(s): ECON 119  and one 200-level Economics course from Group E electives. C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Offered infrequently. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 353 - Managerial Accounting

    Planning is the key to business success. How do firms plan for the future? Setting objectives and budgets. Evaluating and rewarding employee performance. Controlling inventory, cash budgeting, and capital budgeting. Extensive use of case studies and group work. This course counts as a Group B elective. Prerequisite(s): ECON 113  (earned with C- or higher) or permission of instructor. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 354 - Deals

    Deals is a unique class. Nearly all class sessions are taught by former Macalester students, most of whom graduated with an Economics major. These guest professors generally share their post-Macalester career and educational journey with you, then spend more time talking about their current or most recent business venture (some might be nonprofit), and then focus on a particular transaction or “deal”.  Many of the presentations will be finance-oriented.  Students in Deals are evaluated in four ways, 1) by class participation, including class lunches or dinners with guest speakers, 2) by short write-ups of the guest speaker presentations, 3) by an exam, and, 4) by a research paper related to a topic raised by a guest speaker. This course counts as a Group B elective.   Prerequisite(s): ECON 113  and ECON 119 , plus one additional economics course. C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 356 - Capital Markets

    The structure, operation, regulation and economic role of financial markets and institutions; fundamental security analysis and present-value techniques; forecasts of earnings and analysis of yields on stocks and bonds; the portfolio theory and characteristic lines, betas and mutual-fund ratings; futures and options markets. This course counts as a Group E elective. Prerequisite(s): ECON 113  and ECON 119 . C- or higher required for all prerequisites. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 361 - Intermediate Microeconomic Analysis

    In microeconomics, we study how individuals make economic choices. We pose questions like: What influences consumers’ purchasing decisions? Will firms replace employees with machines if the minimum wage increases? How do concentrated markets (e.g., airlines, Amazon) affect consumers? If a firm can set different prices for different consumers, what set of prices will be optimal? How do risk and uncertainty affect investment decisions? What is the efficient amount of pollution? What role should governments play in providing resources for public goods like parks? In this course, we derive models of constrained choice to examine fundamental tradeoffs faced by individuals, firms, and governments when making economic decisions and to determine how such decisions influence market outcomes and well-being. This course counts as a Group E elective. Prerequisite(s): MATH 135  or MATH 137 , and one 200-level Economics course from Group E electives. Not open to first-year students except by permission of the instructor. C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Every semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 371 - Intermediate Macroeconomic Analysis

    This course will introduce students to microeconomics based, dynamic general equilibrium models of the aggregate economy. These models will be used to address the three main questions of macroeconomics: What causes long-term economic growth to vary over time and across countries? Which forces drive fluctuations in economic activity and inflation throughout the business cycle? What role, if any, do monetary and fiscal policy play in fostering economic growth and minimizing economic fluctuations? This is one of the four courses required for the economics major. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361  or permission of instructor. C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Every semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 381 - Introduction to Econometrics

    Econometrics is the theory and practice of analyzing economic data. We investigate and implement methods economists use to test theories, evaluate and establish causal inference, and conduct economic forecasts. Students learn to design, conduct, and evaluate empirical work in economics and other social sciences. We apply acquired skills through a final research project that integrates secondary research, economic theory, and econometric analysis. We take a “hands on” approach by practicing each week’s material in the Economics Department’s computer lab. This course counts as a Group E elective. Prerequisite(s):  ECON 361  and STAT 155 .  C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Every semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 394 - Topics Course

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

  • ECON 405 - Industrial Organization

    This course will extend beyond the conventional structure-conduct-performance framework of industrial organization to focus on the theoretical models that inform the discipline and their empirical applications. In particular, students will use microeconomics and game theory to study models of imperfect competition and understand the implications for consumer welfare. We will analyze firm behavior and strategic interactions such as price discrimination, predatory pricing, limit pricing and investment under different market structures. We will also discuss various public policies that affect the structure of markets and the behavior of firms, specifically regulation, deregulation and antitrust laws. This course counts as a Group E elective. It is a capstone course. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361  and ECON 381 , or permission of instructor. C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 421 - International Trade and Multinational Corporations

    Multinational corporations are a primary driver of the rapid globalization of the world economy that we have witnessed in the past couple of decades. This course is comprised of two primary elements: 1) a theoretical component that introduces the more advanced theories of international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) and 2) an applied component that discusses the role of multinational corporations and exporters in shaping globalization. The theories developed in this class expose students to the current paradigm in the international trade and FDI literatures focused on heterogeneous firm-level analysis. These derivations provide a sound platform from which to evaluate the causes and consequences of international trade and FDI and provide a natural transition for contemplating the role of exporting firms and multinational corporations in shaping globalization. Throughout this applied component of the course, we will examine issues, such as the role of productivity and diversity in entering foreign markets, the labor market effects in home and host countries, the correlation with economic development and inequality, convergence or polarization of global cultures, and issues related to international trade policy and transportation. This course counts as a Group E elective. It is a capstone course. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361 , ECON 371  and ECON 381 , all earned with a minimum grade of C-. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 426 - International Economic Development

    This course will apply the tools of economic analysis to gain an understanding of economic development problems and their solutions. Patterns of economic development in an historical and dynamic context will be examined. The central role of agriculture and the problem of technological change in agriculture will also be examined. Other topics will include neo-classical growth models, domestic and international economic policies, international trade, foreign aid, external debt, technology transfer, rural-urban migration and income distribution. This course counts as a Group E elective. It is a capstone course. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361 , ECON 371 , and ECON 381 . C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 431 - Economics of Public Policy

    By taking this course, students will learn to interpret and conduct technical economic analysis of public policies. Students will apply their knowledge of micro- and macroeconomic theory and econometrics to study the economics of controversial and important policies. Sample policy areas might include climate change, illegal drugs, health care, anti-poverty programs, affirmative action, income inequality, income redistribution via the tax system, public transit, immigration, education, gun control, and minimum or living-wage laws. While the course usually focuses on examples from the United States, it presents tools and frameworks that are applicable in any context. The course grade will be based on group and individual presentations and policy briefs relating to specific policies, at least one exam, homework sets, and a capstone-level research project. The project consists of a policy, econometric, or theoretical analysis of a public policy chosen by the student. This course counts as a Group E elective. It is a capstone course. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361 , ECON 371 , and ECON 381 . C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 442 - Labor Economics

    This course uses theoretical and empirical research to examine the economics of work from both the point of view of the firm and the worker. Economic tools will be used to analyze some of the important issues relevant to labor economics, such as labor force participation, the division of labor within the household, occupational choice, investments in education, minimum wage legislation, wage elasticities, employment-hours tradeoff, labor market discrimination, unions, and job search.  This course counts as a Group E elective. Prerequisite(s):   ECON 361 , ECON 371 , and ECON 381 . C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Offered every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 444 - Honors Seminar

    An honors seminar to enhance the senior capstone requirement. This course counts as a Group E elective. It is a capstone course. Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor required. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 457 - Finance

    This course concentrates on developing and applying economic principles to the decision making process of the firm. Typically the course is taught from the viewpoint of the financial manager of a firm (profit or non-profit). Traditional corporate finance topics will be covered, including: cash flow management, sources of capital, capital budgeting, cost of capital, and financial structure. Recent theoretical developments in the capital asset pricing model and portfolio theory also will be examined. Actual case studies of financial decision making often are included in the course.  This course counts as a Group E elective. Prerequisite(s): ECON 113 , ECON 361  and ECON 381 . C- or higher required for all prerequisites. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 472 - Quantitative Macroeconomic Analysis

    This course provides a formal, hands-on exposition of modern macroeconomic theory using dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. Three lecture hours and one and a half lab hours per week. This course counts as a Group E elective. It is a capstone course. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361  and ECON 371  and MATH 137 , or permission of instructor. C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 481 - Advanced Econometrics

    This course will introduce advanced topics in applied econometrics. Among other topics, it will examine limited dependent variable models, vector autoregression and advanced time series techniques, simultaneous equations models and the econometrics of panel data estimation. Although the emphasis will be on applied work, the course will also examine the underlying mathematical structure of these estimation methods. This course counts as a Group E elective. It is a capstone course. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361 , ECON 371 , ECON 381  and MATH 135  or MATH 137  and MATH 236 , or permission of instructor. C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Alternate years. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 485 - Empirical Finance

    This class concentrates on applying econometric techniques and computer programming to empirically test major financial theories. The econometric techniques used in the class include but is not restricted to OLS, GLS, GMM, Maximum Likelihood method, Nonparametric method, panel data models (random effect model, fixed effect model, pooled regression, etc.), time series models (VAR, ARMA, ARMAX, GARCH, etc.). Main programming language used in the class is Matlab, while R and STATA may also be used occasionally. Major finance topics tested in the class include market efficiency, portfolio theory, stock selection models, market microstructure, anomalies in the financial markets, calendar effects, etc.  This course counts as a Group E elective and the capstone requirement. Prerequisite(s): ECON 356  and ECON 381 , MATH 135  (or MATH 137 ) and MATH 236 . C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Offered every other year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 490 - Behavioral and Experimental Economics

    Cross-Listed as PSYC 490  
    This course surveys recent developments in behavioral economics and considers applications in labor economics, macroeconomics, finance, public finance, consumer choice, and other areas. Our goal is to draw on recent work in cognitive and evolutionary psychology to better understand human behavior and incorporate these insights into neoclassical reasoning and modeling. This course counts towards the capstone.  This course counts as a Group E elective. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361  and ECON 371 . C- or higher required for all prerequisites. Offered every year. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 494 - Topics Course

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

  • ECON 611 - Independent Project

    Further study in fields of special interest. Readings, conferences, field work, reports. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361, ECON 371 and permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (1 Credits)
  

  • ECON 612 - Independent Project

    Further study in fields of special interest. Readings, conferences, field work, reports. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361, ECON 371 and permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (2 Credits)
  

  • ECON 613 - Independent Project

    Further study in fields of special interest. Readings, conferences, field work, reports. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361, ECON 371 and permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (3 Credits)
  

  • ECON 614 - Independent Project

    Further study in fields of special interest. Readings, conferences, field work, reports. Prerequisite(s): ECON 361, ECON 371 and permission of instructor and department chair. Every semester. (4 Credits)
  

  • ECON 621 - 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. (1 Credits)
  

  • 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 202 - Pedagogies of Enlightenment

    Across time and cultures, philosophers, educators and social reform advocates have engaged pedagogies of enlightenment to broaden horizons, heighten awareness, deepen understanding and inspire principled action, even in the darkest of times. In this 2-credit, largely experiential course, we will explore and reflect on a wide range of holistic approaches to teaching and learning-drawing from John Dewey, Paulo Freire, Rudolph Steiner and Maria Montessori in addition to Taoist, Buddhist, and indigenous educators-and then consider opportunities for principled application in contemporary educational settings. Throughout the semester we will also learn fundamentals of Tai Chi and qigong. S/N grading only. Fall semester 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 251 - Cramming for the Exam: Education in Chinese Literature and History

    Cross-Listed as ASIA 251  and CHIN 251  
    China is known for its grueling examination culture. How did this culture evolve? This course examines the imperial civil service examination system, the benchmark of social and political success in imperial China. We will read the core texts of the Confucian curriculum - the Four Books and the Five Classics -  to examine the values these texts promoted. We will also study frustrated scholars’ fictional accounts of the unfairness of the exam system, Europeans’ praise of it as a model meritocracy, and women’s struggles to participate in a system that explicitly excluded them. The course invites reflection on contemporary educational practices, and culminates in a recreation of the civil service exam. Offered occasionally. (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 140 - Once Upon a Crime

    This course serves as an introduction to law and literature. How does literature shape law and vice versa? How does literature help us to better understand the human desire for revenge, retribution, confession, witnessing, judgment, remorse, and forgiveness? Readings will come from a variety of literary traditions and periods: fairy tales, early modern drama, essays, short stories, film, and literary and legal theory. This course counts as a foundation course for the English major. This course also counts for the Legal Studies Concentration. Alternate years. (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 225 - Musical Fictions

    Cross-Listed as MUSI 225  
    From E. M. Forster’s Lucy Honeychurch, who “entered into a more solid world when she opened the piano,” to James Baldwin’s Sonny, who “moved in an atmosphere which wasn’t like theirs at all,” fictional musicians encounter trouble when negotiating the conflicting realms of art and society. Experts in one kind of expression, they fail in others. What draws these characters to music? What does it offer them? What is its value to us? In the musical novel and short story, we encounter music as an agent of violence, of consolation, of transcendence and redemption as well as damnation. We witness empathy through music, but we also learn that shared feeling can be both beautiful and dangerous, that music unites and divides. This course combines the close reading of literary texts (as well as works of literary theory and musicology) with the examination of the musical contexts that inform and inspire them. We will explore, for example, the relationship between Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Unconsoled and Richard Wagner’s music drama Parsifal. We will talk about syncopation in “jazz” by Charles Mingus and Toni Morrison. We will watch Marguerite Duras and Katherine Mansfield turn innocuous music lessons into spaces of wretchedness. We will try to understand what David Mitchell’s young composer Robert Frobisher means when he says, “One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn’t, the wolves and blizzards would be at one’s throat all the sooner.” Alternate years. (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 235 - A Kafkaesque Century

    Cross-Listed as GERM 365  
    What does the internationally (mis)used word “kafkaesque” actually mean? This course approaches Kafka’s work both as a case for literary analysis and as one that offers insights into modernism. In one way or another, Kafka sheds light on massive industrialization, bureaucratization, the commodification of art, the destabilization of patriarchy, and the development of technology and media, as well as on the question: what is literature itself. In addition to a selection of Kafka’s fiction, we shall read Crumb and Mairowitz’s graphic version of Kafka’s life and work, allowing students to produce their own graphic group project. Taught in English, with an optional German component for those who want to have the course count toward their German-taught courses. In this case, students must do the reading and writing assignments and oral presentations in German. Offered alternate spring semesters. (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)
 

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