May 17, 2024  
2014-2015 Academic Catalog 
    
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2014-2015 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Course Search

 
 

Technology Studies
  

  • TEC 232 - Human-Computer Interaction

    2 credits (Spring)
    CSC 232 .

    Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.

Theatre and Dance
  

  • THD 100 - Performance Laboratory

    1 or 2 credits (Fall and Spring)
    Guided participation, for major theatre and dance productions, in theatrical performance, choreography, assistant directing, stage managing, dramaturgy, or design and crew work on sets, lights, props, costumes, or makeup. Qualified students examine problems of production in the theatre while solving these problems in rehearsal and performance. May be repeated for credit.

    Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.
    Note: (A maximum of 8 practica credits may count toward graduation.) S/D/F only.
    Instructor: Staff
  

  • THD 104 - Dance Technique I

    2 credits (Fall and Spring)
    Beginning dance technique; the principles, terminology, basic history, developing a physical and kinesthetic understanding of concert dance techniques. Areas of emphasis include but are not limited to ballet or modern dance. Consult the Schedule of Courses for the specific area of emphasis each semester. May be repeated for credit.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Hurley
  

  • THD 111 - Introduction to Performance Studies

    4 credits (Fall or Spring)
    An examination of dramatic performance in its broadest cultural contexts. This foundational course is designed to encourage critical thinking about the inclusive field of performance and how it is created, including orality, festivals, living history museums, trials, political conventions, and sporting events. Students explore both texts and performance events to analyze “What makes an event performance?” and “How is performance made and understood?” Because knowledge is embodied as well as textualized, students will both write and perform components of their final class projects.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Note: Not offered every year.
    Instructor: Delmenico
  

  • THD 113 - Movement for the Performer

    4 credits (Fall)
    Practical exploration of movement and bodily-based trainings such as pilates, yoga, body-mind centering, and Bartenieff Fundamentals as preparation for performance. Studio-based exercises will investigate somatic and movement improvisation practices as an alternative means to theorize the relationship of mind to body and to develop greater physical awareness.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Staff
  

  • THD 115 - Theatrical Design and Technology

    4 credits (Fall and Spring)
    A hands-on, experiential introduction to the design elements of theatre and dance production. Topics include a history of Western theatre architecture and stage forms, scene painting, properties, lighting, sound, drafting, makeup, and costuming. Emphasis is placed upon the design and implementation of theatrical scenes from a variety of historic eras and the analysis of the ways in which the design elements influence performance style.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Thomas
  

  • THD 117 - Introduction to Acting

    4 credits (Fall and Spring)
    A practice-based exploration of the theories and techniques of acting. Using Stanislavksi’s seminal text An Actor Prepares as the foundation, students develop their skills at transforming dramatic texts from the page to the stage. The course culminates in publicly staged scenes.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Delmenico, Quintero
  

  • THD 201 - Dramatic Literature I

    4 credits (Fall)
    Cross-listed as: GLS 201 . Study of major works in Western dramatic literature to 1850, with reference to cultural contexts, interpretive problems, and dramatic theory, beginning with Aristotle’s Poetics. Includes plays and performances (in translation) of Greek tragedy and Aristophanic comedy, English medieval cycle plays, Machiavelli, Marlowe, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Tempest, Webster’s White Devil, Ben Jonson, Spanish Golden Age, Racine and Moliere, a Restoration comedy, the Brook Mahabharata, and Goethe’s Faust.

    Prerequisite: Second-year standing.
    Note: Plus-2 option available.
    Instructor: Mease, Delmenico
  

  • THD 202 - Dramatic Literature II

    4 credits (Spring)
    Cross-listed as: GLS 202 . Study of major works in Western dramatic literature from 1850 to the present, with reference to cultural contexts, interpretive problems, and dramatic theory. From the “classic moderns” of realism and naturalism through the Symbolists, Expressionists, Surrealists and Absurdists; dramatists and theorists include Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, Yeats, Synge, Shaw, Buechner, Kaiser, Artaud, Pirandello, Lorca, Brecht, Sartre, Genet, Beckett, Grotowski, Weiss, Pinter, Cixous, and Stoppard.

    Prerequisite: Second-year standing.
    Note: Plus-2 option available.
    Instructor: Mease
  

  • THD 203 - American Theatre

    4 credits (Fall or Spring)
    Cross-listed as: GLS 203 . A study of American theatre from the early 20th century to the present. Students examine a variety of different theatrical styles, ranging from plays by canonical authors (including O’Neill, Williams, Miller, Albee, Wilson, Mamet, and Shepard) to experimental works by artists who challenged the conventions of mainstream theatre (including Cage, Kaprow, Beck, Finley, and Wilson).

    Prerequisite: Second-year standing.
    Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
    Instructor: Quintero
  

  • THD 204 - Dance Technique II

    2 credits (Fall and Spring)
    Intermediate and advanced dance technique; physical and kinesthetic study involving more complex movement patterns and sequences, phrasing, musicality, and stylistic considerations. Areas of emphasis include but are not limited to ballet or modern dance. Consult the Schedule of Courses for the specific area of emphasis each semester. May be repeated for credit.

    Prerequisite: THD 104  or equivalent experience.
    Instructor: Hurley
  

  • THD 205 - Dance Ensemble

    2 credits (Fall and Spring)
    Qualified students rehearse as an ensemble for a final performance. In addition, students train in modern dance, yoga, pilates, and/or dance improvisation. The ensemble may focus its performance activities in a given year or semester on a special topic or theme, such as site-based dance, dance and community, or video dance. May be repeated for credit.

    Prerequisite: Acceptance by audition.
    Note: (A maximum of 8 practica credits may count toward graduation.) S/D/F only.
    Instructor: Staff
  

  • THD 210 - Contemporary Dance

    4 credits (Fall)
    A study of Western concert dance from the 19th century to the present. Studio-based exercises in modern dance technique and composition are combined with readings, video viewings, and lecture/discussion to provide a physical, conceptual, and historical understanding of dance as a performing art form.

    Prerequisite: Second-year standing.
    Note: Not offered every year.
    Instructor: Staff
  

  • THD 211 - Performance Studies: Traditions and Innovations

    4 credits (Spring)
    This course examines non-naturalistic forms of theatre and performance-making. It explores the work of foundational avant-garde director/theorists and performance practices that have developed since the 1960s, including performance art and community-based theatre. It also focuses on non-Western performances, including textual and nontextual practices, and the ways in which Western and non-Western theatre have intersected interculturally during the last century.

    Prerequisite: Any 100-level Theatre and Dance course.
    Note: Plus-2 option available.
    Instructor: Delmenico
  

  • THD 217 - Intermediate Acting

    4 credits (Fall or Spring)
    An intensive performance laboratory for students to explore different modes of performance and further develop and refine their acting skills. With an emphasis on psychological realism, students stage a series of individual and group performances designed to enhance their critical engagement of performance as both the subject and method of their study.

    Prerequisite: THD 117 .
    Note: Not offered every year.
    Instructor: Quintero
  

  • THD 225 - Choreography: Theory and Composition

    4 credits (Spring)
    A theoretical and practical investigation of dance composition and performance technique.

    Prerequisite: THD 104 , THD 113 , or any 200-level Theatre and Dance course.
    Note: Not offered every year.
    Instructor: Staff
  

  • THD 235 - Directing

    4 credits (Fall)
    A theoretical and practical investigation of the responsibilities and techniques of the director in the theatre. Classroom exercises are supplemented by readings addressing different theories of directing. The final project is the directing of a one-act play.

    Prerequisite: THD 117 .
    Note: Plus-2 option available.
    Instructor: Quintero
  

  • THD 240 - Design for Performance I

    4 credits (Fall)
    An exploration of the design fundamentals common to each facet of theatrical design: scenery, lighting, costumes, and makeup. Such elements as design procedure from conception to realization, research techniques and materials, period style, and design history are emphasized.

    Prerequisite: THD 115  or ART 111 .
    Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
    Instructor: Thomas
  

  • THD 245 - Lighting for the Stage

    4 credits (Fall)
    Introduces the student to the art of lighting design, process, and the practice of lighting the stage for the theatre, opera, dance, industrials, television, and video. Students develop the knowledge, vocabulary, and skills necessary to become a master electrician, assistant lighting designer, and beginning lighting designer.

    Prerequisite: THD 115  or THD 240 , or ART 111 .
    Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
    Instructor: Thomas
  

  • THD 303 - Studies in Drama I

    4 credits (Fall or Spring)
    Cross-listed as: GLS 303 . A seminar-style course in dramaturgy, focusing on a central topic in the history and theory prior to 1850. The course will emphasize the development of methodologies and research strategies useful for the theatre practitioner and the researcher. Past topics for this variable-content course have included Greek Drama, Theory of Comedy (Aristophanes to Stoppard), English Medieval and Renaissance Drama; Hamlet and Revenge Tragedy, Shakespeare’s Comedies and Tragedies. May be repeated once for credit when content changes. For current course content please see the variable topic course listing below or search the online live schedule of courses.

    Prerequisite: May vary depending on topic but can include 200-level coursework in English, foreign languages, Classics, History, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Anthropology, Art, Theatre or dramatic literature/criticism/theatre history.
    Note: Plus-2 option available.
    Instructor: Mease, Delmenico
  

  • THD 304 - Studies in Drama II

    4 credits (Fall or Spring)
    Cross-listed as: GLS 304 . A seminar-style course in dramaturgy, focusing on a central topic in the history and theory of theatre and performance. Studies in Drama II covers topics after 1850. The course will emphasize the development of methodologies and research strategies useful for the theatre practitioner and the researcher. Past topics for this variable-content course have included Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov; Beckett’s Prose and Plays; Beckett and the Theatre of the Absurd; British Drama since World War II; and Postcolonial Theatre. May be repeated once for credit when content changes. For current course content please see the variable topic course listing below or search the online live schedule of courses.

    Prerequisite: May vary depending on topic but can include 200-level coursework in English, foreign languages, Classics, History, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Anthropology, Art, Theatre or dramatic literature/criticism/theatre history.
    Note: Plus-2 option available.
    Instructor: Mease, Delmenico
  

  • THD 310 - Studies in Dance

    4 credits (Fall or Spring)
    A combined seminar and practice course for advanced study of a selected topic in dance or contemporary performance that will be detailed each time the course is offered (topics are announced in the Schedule of Courses). The course will employ a variety of materials and methods for advanced research in dance as a cultural, social, historical, and artistic phenomenon. Topics could include: Dance and Technology, Community and Performance; Dancing Gender and Sexuality; and The Choreography of Political Protest. May be repeated once for credit. For current course content please see the variable topic course listing below or search the online live schedule of courses.

    Prerequisite: Any 200-level Theatre and Dance course.
    Note: Not offered every year.
    Instructor: Staff
  

  • THD 311 - Studies in Performance

    4 credits (Fall or Spring)
    An advanced-level, variable-topic course that combines theoretical and historical study with practical investigation. Possible topics include adaptation and performance of literature or nonfiction and devised or community-based performance. Students will work as individuals or within groups to research, create, and present a final performance project.

    Prerequisite: THD 201 , THD 202 , THD 203 , THD 210 , or THD 211 .
    Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
    Instructor: Staff
  

  • THD 317 - Advanced Performance

    4 credits (Spring)
    This variable topic course focuses on classical and contemporary modes of performance. Possible areas of emphasis include Greek, Elizabethan, French neoclassic, contemporary docudrama theatre, Asian theatre, and performance art. Course emphasis is on scene study, performance, and directing. May be repeated when content changes.

    Prerequisite: THD 210 , THD 211 , THD 217 , or THD 235 .
    Note: Not offered every year.
    Instructor: Quintero
  

  • THD 340 - Design for Performance II

    4 credits (Fall)
    An in-depth exploration of designing for the stage, with the specific area of design (scenery, lighting, costumes) announced each time the course is offered. Emphasis is on script or dance “text” analysis and the evolution of design from first reading to first performance.

    Prerequisite: THD 240 .
    Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
    Instructor: Thomas

Variable Topics
  

  • ANT 104-01 - Anthropological Inquiries (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    What Makes Us Human? We can all classify “human” vs. “nonhuman” when we see one.  However, what are our criteria? Is it our physiology (e.g., bipedalism), our DNA (e.g., 26 chromosomes), our stuff (e.g., tools), our language (e.g., “mama”), our culture (e.g., religion)?  We will examine how anthropology addresses this issue and where the different anthropological approaches over-lap.  Students will conduct selected hands-on research addressing various aspects of the “what makes us human” question. 

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Bentley-Condit
  

  • ANT 104-02 - Anthropological Inquiries (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Community. This course considers the origin, development, and transformation of human social groups over time and space.  It begins with attention to early human ancestors and evolving relationships among social organization, subsistence strategies, and environmental conditions.  It then considers variation in forms and functions of social communities and the multiplicity of meanings communities have for kin, local, linguistic, ethnic, religious, national, and transnational groups and institutions.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: French
  

  • ANT 104-03 - Anthropological Inquiries (Spring)

    4 credits
    Being Human. What does it mean to be human?  How and why does the human experience vary across time and space?  In this class, we address these and other questions through anthropology’s 4-field approach:  archaeology, linguistic, cultural, and biological anthropology.  First, we examine human evolution and human biological variation.  Then, we address the ways in which human groups subsist and make sense of their worlds.  Finally, we examine some of the global issues that human societies face today.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Kulstad
  

  • ART 400-01 - Seminar in Art History (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Art and Theater in France, 1600-1900. This senior seminar for Art History majors studies the way that French visual artists represented theater and performance from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century. Working in a static medium, artists faced the challenge of translating the temporality of the dramatic performance and the aura of the performer into the language of art. Through our readings and discussion, we will identify the specifically visual language that artists created in order to represent the theater.

    Prerequisite: Junior or senior standing in art history concentration.
    Instructor: Knowles
  

  • BIO 150-01 - Intro to Biological Inquiry W/Lab (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    Prairie Restoration. As a way to explore how biologists ask questions and develop answers to them, this class will focus on the biological problems involved in the restoration of tallgrass prairies. It will be taught in “workshop” format at Grinnell College’s Conard Environmental Research Area (CERA), where we will use the college’s prairie and savanna restorations as our laboratory. Students will be required to formulate research questions based on readings of the scientific literature, design experimental or observational studies to test these hypotheses, and communicate the results of these studies after the conventions of professional biologists. Papers resulting from a substantial independent project will be published in the class journal, Tillers.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Brown
  

  • BIO 150-01 - Intro to Biological Inquiry W/Lab (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Biological Responses to Stress. In this course, we will investigate ways that biologists seek to understand how organisms can interact with their environment and change in response to varying environmental conditions. Since microbes are excellent model systems for biological inquiry, their response to stressful environments will be emphasized. Students will formulate hypotheses regarding stress responses, design and conduct experiments to test their hypotheses, and communicate the results of their experiments. The class will have three, one hour and fifty-minute meetings per week that combine lab, lecture, and discussion.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Gregg-Jolly
  

  • BIO 150-02 - Intro to Biological Inquiry W/Lab (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    Microbial Pathogenesis. In this course we will investigate strategic pathogenetic microorganisms use to colonize our food and thrive inside the human body. Topics addressed will include: the biology of bacteria and viruses, factors important for biofilm formation, how microorganisms become resistant to antibiotics, and how we protect our food and ourselves from microorganisms. Students will isolate and characterize microorganisms attached to vegetables by using standard microbial and basic molecular biology techniques. Based on critical reading of the literature, students will design and carry out independent research projects, analyze and report the results in scientific papers, posters and oral presentation. The class will have two, three hour meetings per week, which combine lecture, lab, and discussion.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Hinsa-Leasure
  

  • BIO 150-02 - Intro to Biological Inquiry W/Lab (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Cell Fate: Calvin or Hobbes? During the development of an embryo, how is the fate of a cell determined? How does a cell “know” it is supposed to become a nerve cell? Or part of the gut? How does it know its location within the embryo? To address these questions, we will examine the fate of cells during embryonic development, focusing primarily on the nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans. We will critically evaluate the primary literature, formulate hypotheses, carry out independent research projects using a variety of analytical tools, and report experimental results in scientific papers, posters, and oral presentations. The class is taught in a workshop format, with laboratories, discussions, and lectures integrated in each class period. 

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Praitis
  

  • BIO 150-03 - Intro to Biological Inquiry W/Lab (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Symmetry Breaking: Cells are not disorderly bags of molecules. On the contrary, all cells carefully distribute their contents asymmetrically in order to make certain parts of themselves distinct from other parts. Symmetry breaking is particularly evident during embryonic development when an embryo morphs from a sphere of cells into something with multiple axes (e.g. front-back). How do cells do this? Why do they spend so much energy breaking symmetry? It turns out that symmetry breaking is essential for many biological processes. In this course students will learn to use frog oocytes, eggs, and/or embryos in order to observe and explore symmetry breaking processes in living cells. Moreover, students will perform novel research related to this topic, which will involve developing a specific hypothesis, designing and performing experiments, and analyzing and sharing results.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Sandquist
  

  • BIO 150-03 & 04 - Intro to Biological Inquiry W/Lab (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    The Language of Neurons. In this course students will actively learn how biologists study the nervous system. Specifically, students will work as neuroscientists for a semester and will attempt to learn something novel about how nerve cells communicate with one another at chemical synapses. Students will present their findings at the end of the semester via both oral and written presentations. Papers resulting from a substantial independent project will be published in the class journal, Pioneering Neuroscience: The Grinnell Journal of Neurophysiology. Students with a strong background in high school physics will benefit most from this section of Biological Inquiry.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Lindgren/Rempel-Clower
  

  • BIO 150-04 - Intro to Biological Inquiry W/Lab (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Genes, Drugs and Toxins. The ways in which an organism responds to different drugs or toxins can be heavily influenced by its genetics. In this course, we will conduct research exploring the interplay between genetics, drugs, and toxins using the model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker’s yeast) and a related fungal species Candida albicans. We will investigate how well yeast is able to survive exposure to a variety of chemicals when it is carrying mutations in different genes. In the course of designing our experiments and analyzing our results, we will discuss the molecular biology behind the relationship between genes and drugs. We will also explore the implications of the interplay between genes, drugs and toxins to human biology, and discuss the medical, social and ethical implications of research in this field.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Burrack
  

  • CSC 151-01 & 02 - Functional Problem Solving w/lab (Media Scripting) (Fall and Spring)

    4 credits (Fall or Spring)
    In this section of CSC 151, we will ground our study of functional problem solving in media computation. In particular, we will explore mechanisms for representing, making, and manipulating images. We will consider a variety of models of images based on pixels, basic shapes, and objects that draw. The course will be taught using a workshop style: In most class sessions, students will work collaboratively on a series of problems. Includes formal laboratory work.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Rebelsky, Davis, Weinman
  

  • CSC 161-01 & 02 - Imperative Problem Solving & Data Structures (Robots) (Fall and Spring)

    4 credits (Fall and Spring)
    This section of CSC 161 will utilize robotics as an application domain in studying imperative problem solving, data representation, and memory management. Additional topics will include assertions and invariants, data abstraction, linked data structures, an introduction to the GNU/Linux operating system, and programming the low-level, imperative language C. The course will utilize a workshop style, in which students will frequently work collaboratively on a series of problems. Includes formal laboratory work.

    Prerequisite: CSC 151 .
    Instructor: Walker
  

  • ENG 120-01 - Literary Analysis (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    In this course we will read travel writing by novelists, journalists, and explorers in different historical periods. Before the great upsurge in tourism in nineteenth-century Europe, travelers who ventured across the seas in search of trading opportunities or on journeys of exploration recounted tales of different people and their cultures. In our century, tourism has become one of the most important activities of the middle and upper-classes in the industrial world. The purpose of the course is to study the formal features of different literary genres from the eighteenth century to the present. We will begin with the poetic journeys of William Wordsworth, Alfred Tennyson, W.B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, and Derek Walcott, which range over continents, cultures, geographies, and postcolonial histories. Travel becomes a personal quest for identity in M. Scott Momaday’s “The Way to Rainy Mountain” and Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” We will study representations of Asia and Africa in National Geographic, one of the most popular of travel magazines today. If Jamaica Kincaid’s satirizes tourists in A Small Place, Amitav Ghosh re-directs us to the pleasures of travel as a way of recovering and rediscovering political and cultural histories of remote parts of our world in Dancing in Cambodia, At Large in Burma.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Kapila
  

  • ENG 120-01 & 03 - Literary Analysis (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    This course is an introduction to methods of literary analysis for poetry, short fiction, novels, and drama. We will begin with poetry, working on developing a vocabulary for discussion and interpretation of poetry, and focusing on imagery, sound, themes, rhyme and meter, and other elements. The middle units of the course will be devoted to close readings of short fiction and one novel, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, and we will conclude with a consideration of some of the most important elements of drama via Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Barlow
  

  • ENG 120-02 - Literary Analysis (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    In this course, we will practice and implement several analytical methodologies for explicating texts. These texts will represent a set of unsolved literary problems, about which there is no definitive critical consensus. Together, we will establish and differentiate our critical positions through collaborative annotation, historicist research, formal analysis, and applications of theory. By the end of the semester, you will have a basic set of reliable tools for working on poetry, fiction, and film, a series of four completed implementations of a selection of these tools, and a prospectus toward an extensive research project in literary analysis.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Shanafelt
  

  • ENG 120-02 & 03 - Literary Analysis (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    This is a critical reading, writing, and thinking course designed to introduce students to literary works in a number of genres while developing their skills of critical analysis. We will start by looking at critical and theoretical approaches to a single novel and then turn to short fiction, poetry, and drama, building on what we have learned while focusing on genre-specific vocabulary and strategies of interpretation. Graded assignments will include short writing assignments and three papers.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: C. Jacobson
  

  • ENG 120-04 - Literary Analysis (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    Students in this section will explore methods of analyzing novels, short fiction, films, and poetry. We will begin with a unit that involves reading a novel to use as a touchstone while exploring a range of critical and theoretical approaches. The course will then examine literature that embodies traditionally formal as well as experimental strategies in poetry, film, and other modes. We will discuss the ways authors craft their works, and we will develop strategies for analyzing those choices in academic papers. Graded assignments will include frequent short writing assignments and longer papers.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Simpson
  

  • ENG 120-04 - Literary Analysis (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    This is a critical reading, writing, and thinking course designed to introduce students to literary works in a number of genres while developing their skills of critical analysis. We will start by looking at critical and theoretical approaches to a single novel and then turn to short fiction, poetry, and drama, building on what we have learned while focusing on genre-specific vocabulary and strategies of interpretation. Graded assignments will include short writing assignments and three papers.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: C. Jacobson
  

  • ENG 120-05 - Literary Analysis (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    In this section of Literary Analysis, you will develop the tools required to read and critique poetry and prose written in English. Besides mastering the basics of the “close reading,” you will analyze texts through the lens of critical theory to develop a rich and nuanced vocabulary for discussing literature. We will explore the notion of canon formation and consider how African American writers “signify” upon “master narratives.” Specifically, we will read works by Wanda Coleman, George C. Wolfe, Octavia Butler, and Kyle Baker-to name a few-to understand how race and gender impact black texts, if they impact them at all.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Benjamin
  

  • ENG 121-01 - Introduction to Shakespeare (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    This course will help students develop foundational tools for literary analysis by focusing on the poems and plays of William Shakespeare. As we read these Renaissance texts, we will consider the ways in which modern literary theory can open up new ways of exploring meaning and signification within literary works. We will also discuss Shakespeare’s status as a cultural icon, the relationship between theatrical production and the printed page, and the ways in which generic classification affects our response to particular plays.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Arner
  

  • ENG 121-01 & 02 - Introduction to Shakespeare (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    No description available at this time.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Staff
  

  • ENG 210-01 - Studies in Genre (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    The Gothic Novel. In this course, we will examine developments in the history of the Gothic novel from Horace Walpole’s novella The Castle of Otranto (1764) to Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (1898). Along the way, we will read fiction that explores the potential for Gothic terror in the supernatural, in the law, in science, in religion, in love, and in psychological disorders. Although the Gothic novel explicitly tells stories of strange or unnatural occurrences, it is a genre authors use to exploit and analyze real-world anxieties about various instantiations of modernity, including religious and racial diversity, economic and political shifts, non-normative gender and sexuality, and even (self-reflexively) the immoral influence of fiction on young readers. During the semester, you will write a comparative essay, a review of relevant literary criticism, and one longer research project forming a historicist or theoretical argument. There will also be a few short oral presentations. Authors will include Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew G. Lewis, William Godwin, Charles Brockden Brown, Emily Brontë, Florence Marryat, Marie Corelli, and Henry James.

    Prerequisite: ENG 120  or ENG 121  for majors; for non-majors, ENG 120  or ENG 121  or any course in the study of literature in another language department.
    Instructor: Shanafelt
  

  • ENG 223-01 - The Tradition of English Literature I (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    No description available at this time.

    Prerequisite: ENG 120  or ENG 121  for majors; for non-majors, ENG 120  or ENG 121  or any course in the study of literature in another language department.
    Instructor: Staff
  

  • ENG 224-01 - The Tradition of English Literature II (Fall)

    4 credits
    This course will explore the aesthetic progression of representation in British prose and poetry from the Restoration to the end of the nineteenth century, including works by Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, William Blake, Jane Austen, Emily Brontë and Oscar Wilde. Through these texts, we will discuss several of the major religious, economic, and moral debates of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and their relationship to the development of new literary styles and strategies by British authors. We will be particularly concerned with representations of religion, sexuality and gender, race and national identity, consumerism and money, and sentimental love, each of which undergoes substantial transformation across this period. Students will write a short analytical paper and a review of an article in literary criticism, as well as a longer research paper that will build on this earlier work. There will also be a final exam in which students will be able to demonstrate engagement with the aesthetic history outlined in the course.

    Prerequisite: ENG 120  or ENG 121  for majors; for non-majors, ENG 120  or ENG 121  or any course in the study of literature in another language department.
    Instructor: Shanafelt
  

  • ENG 225-01 - Introduction to Postcolonial Literatures (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    An introduction to postcolonial literatures and theory from the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia, and the Pacific.

    Prerequisite: ENG 120  or ENG 121  for majors; for non-majors, ENG 120  or ENG 121  or any course in the study of literature in another language department.
    Instructor: Kapila
  

  • ENG 226-01 - Tradition of English Literature III (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    This course takes its readings mainly from three areas: major authors of British and Irish Modernism (Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce); the tradition of Irish drama in writers such as Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, and Martin McDonagh; and contemporary British writers such as Ian McEwan and Zadie Smith. Class discussions will engage a wide range of topics, from matters of literary technique and style to issues of race, sexuality, and postcolonial studies.

    Prerequisite: ENG 120   or ENG 121  for majors; for non-majors, ENG 120  or ENG 121  or any course in the study of literature in another language department.
    Instructor: Simpson
  

  • ENG 228-01 - American Literary Traditions II (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Study of American literature from 1830 to 1893; may include such authors as Emerson, Melville, Whitman, Dickinson, Twain, James, Chopin, Chesnutt, and Zitkala-Sa. Features works from a variety of genres including fiction, poetry, nonfiction prose, and drama.

    Prerequisite: ENG 120  or ENG 121  for majors; for non-majors, ENG 120  or ENG 121  or any course in the study of literature in another language department.
    Instructor: Benjamin
  

  • ENG 229-01 - The Tradition of African American Literature (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    A survey of African American literature from its beginnings to the present, this course will prompt you to consider: What is African American literature? Is it, as Kenneth Warren asserts in What Was African American Literature, “of rather recent vintage” or is the “tradition” as scholars are apt to call it, characterized by particular motifs, modalities, and metaphors? Traditions in African American Literature will use Warren’s slim yet substantial text to trace the literary legacy contemporary black writers have inherited/write to/write against and map the Afro-futurist trajectories of black writers in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. An exciting and dynamic class filled with passionate debate, majors and non-majors alike will benefit from a wide range of assignments geared toward fostering clear writing, persuasive speaking, and critical thinking.

    Prerequisite: ENG 120  or ENG 121  for majors; for non-majors, ENG 120  or ENG 121  or any course in the study of literature in another language department.
    Instructor: Benjamin
  

  • ENG 232-01 - Traditions of Ethnic American Literature (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    This survey course examines how a variety of American writers negotiate the contradictions, ambiguities and anxieties embedded in questions of American national identity at the intersection of race and citizenship. We will read fiction, poetry, plays, and essays by 20th-century and contemporary American authors who identify with African American, Asian American, Native American, Jewish, Latino and Chicano heritages, amongst others. Reading texts within and against their specific cultural and historical contexts, we will explore how these writers use literary form and language as a way to articulate alternative histories of the nation, national identity, and belonging. Readings will include major works by James Baldwin, Maxine Hong Kingston, Philip Roth, Louise Erdrich, Amiri Baraka, Yusef Komunyakaa, Li-Young Lee, Anna Deveare Smith, David Henry Hwang, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Junot Diaz.

    Prerequisite: ENG 120  or ENG 121  for majors; for non-majors, ENG 120  or ENG 121  or any course in the study of literature in another language.
    Instructor: Phan
  

  • ENG 314-01 - Milton (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    This course is an intensive study of Milton’s poetry and prose. Our understanding of Milton’s career will be shaped by a single hypothesis: Milton radically transformed every poetic form he encountered because he was a masterful writer in prose. Milton’s career as a poet was interrupted by a major political event - the English Civil War - during which he wrote fiercely polemical pamphlets in prose. As a result, Milton was the first poet in the English tradition to take prose seriously as a model for poetry, and he critiqued the constraints of formal poetic versification as a type of political oppression binding the English language in shackles. We will first read Milton’s initial efforts to master the traditional range of poetic forms in his early lyric. We will then analyze the polemical prose tracts to identify how Milton harnessed the resources of classical rhetoric and oratory to develop a prose form unique to the English language. Finally, we will study how Milton’s career as a masterful prose stylist defined the aesthetic force of his major epics, Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes, and how these texts argue that the stylistic choices one makes in language determine the possibility of political freedom and free will. We will conclude the class by testing a second hypothesis: given Paradise Lost’s debt to Milton’s prose style, his epic is the first English novel. A note on method: this course will use close reading in conjunction with computational methods (primarily natural language processing software) to test experimental hypotheses against Milton’s entire prose corpus. We will think about why different, or analogous, arguments emerge from the different methods.

    Prerequisite: ENG 223  or ENG 273 .
    Instructor: Lee
  

  • ENG 325-01 - Studies in Ethnic American Literatures (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    In this seminar we will explore the multicultural and multilingual heritage of ethnic American literature. Particular attention will be paid to how linguistically diverse texts connect to various formulations of ethnic identity. We will investigate literary works that use linguistic practices such as code-switching, bilingualism, pidgin, and translation. How might these and other formal strategies help us complicate and challenge binary conceptions of the relationship between “the Ethnic” and “the American” as categories? We will attempt to put critical race theory into conversation with translation theory, as both offer a rich critical vocabulary for thinking about questions of difference, origins, authenticity, betrayal, and subversion. Writers will likely include: James Baldwin, Maxine Hong Kingston, Richard Rodriguez, Gloria Anzuldua, Aleksandr Hemon, Leslie Marmon Silko, Eva Hoffman, Linh Dinh, Cathy Park Hong, Eduardo C. Corral, amongst others. For the final project, students will have the option of writing a longer research paper related to the course theme or producing their own translation of a literary work, accompanied by a critical introduction.

    Prerequisite: ENG 227 , ENG 228 , ENG 229 , ENG 231 , ENG 232 , or ENG 273 .
    Instructor: Phan
  

  • ENG 327-01 - The Romantics (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    Literature of Excess: Gothicism and Romanticism. This course will examine ways intersections between two literary movements that are usually treated separately: the rise of the gothic novel and the development of British Romanticism. Primary readings will include orks of gothic fiction by authors such as Horace Walpole, Matthew Lewis, Ann Radcliffe, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and James Hogg, as well as works by major Romantic writers such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Jane Austen, John Keats, and Lord Byron. Assignments will include responses, a midterm paper, an annotated bibliography, and a research paper.

    Prerequisite: ENG 224 .
    Instructor: Simpson
  

  • ENG 329-01 - Studies in African American Literature (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    This course examines how black women’s literature and feminist scholarship illuminates the impasse between how black women see themselves and how they are seen. Bearers of the burden of representation and experts in the politics of respectability, black women writers and black feminist critics often address-either implicitly or explicitly-the stereotypical portrayals of black womanhood that misrecognize black women or render them invisible. To better grasp the applicability of this longstanding history within a contemporary context, we will read Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, alongside representative reviews of the novel and film, to reveal the troping of black women’s bodies, voices, and stories as a mechanism for advancing social fantasies of racial harmony. Specifically, we will: examine how Stockett, a white woman, represents black women, their voices and thoughts; delineate how her portrayals compare to the black female protagonists figured in texts by black women writers; and distinguish between how Skeeter views “the help” and how black women literary scholars, historians, and cultural critics view themselves and the black women they study.

    Prerequisite: ENG 225 , ENG 227 , ENG 228 , ENG 229 , ENG 231 , ENG 232  or ENG 273 .
  

  • ENG 330-01 - Studies in American Prose I (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    A central author of the American Renaissance, Herman Melville is best known for Moby Dick, his novel of whale hunting. “I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb,” he wrote to Nathaniel Hawthorne upon its publication. We will read this epic novel, along with The Confidence Man and Billy Budd. We will also read some of Melville’s short fiction: “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and “Benito Cereno,” for example. We will conclude with Battle Pieces, a collection of poems about the Civil War. As we read these texts, we will try to situate Melville in his own time and, just as important, in literary history.

    Prerequisite: ENG 227 , ENG 228 , ENG 229 , ENG 231 , ENG 232 , or ENG 273 .
    Instructor: Savarese
  

  • ENG 332-01 - The Victorians (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Going to Town: Urbanization and Victorian Literature. Massive and rapid migration to still-developing urban centers during the Victorian period led to decaying rural areas and catastrophically congested cities. Industrialization affected all facets of nineteenth-century life, and we’ll explore a number of them, focusing on class and gender dynamics during this period.  We will read a variety of works of fiction and nonfiction including Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, (1852-53) Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South (1855), Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor (1861-62).

    Prerequisite: ENG 224  or ENG 225 .
    Instructor: C. Jacobson
  

  • ENG 349-01 - Medieval Literature (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    Cross-listed as: GLS 349-01 . Grappling with Beowulf.  This seminar will undertake an extensive study of Beowulf by considering how its historical and literary context can be coupled with modern theory to help us appreciate its complexity. The course will survey Old English and Norse literature, including poems, riddles, and sagas, as well historical and religious writings that both reflect and shape the social world of Anglo-Saxon England. All of the readings will be in modern English translations, but we will spend some time discussing features of the Old English language. In addition to studying Beowulf’s sources, we will also consider its legacy and influence, and the course will conclude with a unit on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

    Prerequisite: ENG 223 .
    Instructor: Arner
  

  • ENG 360-01 - Seminar in Postcolonial Literature (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    This course explores the phenomenon of nationalism in literature from South Africa, Nigeria, New Zealand, and India. How have writers from these countries articulated a national imaginary? Now often understood to be a somewhat pejorative and outdated concept, associated with military chauvinism or aggression, nationalism marked the first wave of anti-imperial literature. We will study current critiques of this concept in postcolonial literature, and also examine the literary and historical genealogy of concepts such as “civilization,” “the primitive,” and “modernity” which are all associated with the nation. Which groups of people feel oppressed and excluded from the nation? In what ways does the concept of the nation have continuing theoretical and material significance? These are some of the questions we will study in the essays and novels of Salman Rushdie, Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, J. M Coetzee, Mahasweta Devi, Witi Ihimeara, Alan Duff, We will also read critical essays by, among others, Ben Anderson, Partha Chatterjee, and Anthony Appiah. The objectives of the course are to explore postcolonial fiction in relation to theoretical concepts inherited from disciplines such as anthropology and history about subjects, nations, and narrative forms. We will also study the relationship between the postcolonial novel and postmodern fiction.

    Prerequisite: ENG 224 , ENG 225 , ENG 226 , or ENG 229 .
    Instructor: Kapila
  

  • ENV 495-01 - Senior Seminar on Tropical America (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    The course explores the geography, natural history, human ecology, colonial environmental history and contemporary environmental issues of tropical America (Central America, South America and the West Indies). We’ll begin with Amaz”nia (the most complex biome ever to have existed in the 3.5 billion year history of life on Earth): various theories regarding the evolution, maintenance and patterns of Amazonian biodiversity; the biological exploration of the Amazon River Valley; environmentally benign development (such as extractive reserves and the search for medicinal plants) vs. malignant development (the TransAmaz”nica, cattle ranching and gold extraction). Other regions to be discussed are: the Andean Cordillera, the coastal deserts, savanna (pampas/llanos) and the Greater and Lesser Antilles. We will examine the relationship between El Ni¤o and famine in northeastern Brazil vs. floods and erosion in northwestern South America; demography over the past 1,500 years (including the effects of the European contact); the condition of indigenous tribes; women’s rights and reproductive self-determination (with emphasis in Catholic countries). Readings are from contemporary literature. Two lectures per week. 

    Prerequisite: Senior status and permission of instructor.
    Instructor: Campbell
  

  • FRN 350-01 - Advanced Topics in Literature & Civilization (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Representing the Body in Contemporary Literature and Film. Conducted in French. Examines representations of the body in novels and films from diverse areas of the French-speaking world. Explores topics such as sexuality, gender roles, inter-generational relations, migration, illness, aging, love, war, masculinity and femininity, and cultural constructions of the body. Works studied may include Vénus noire, Une affaire de femmes, Amour, Chaos, Moolaadé, Les intouchables, Satin rouge, Ce pays dont je meurs, Les muscles, and La femme sans tête.

    Prerequisite: FRN 312  or FRN 313 .
    Instructor: Ireland
  

  • GLS 281-01 - Major Russian Writers: Dostoevsky (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    See RUS 281-01 .

    Note: Plus-2 available in Russian.
  

  • GLS 281-01 - Major Russian Writers: Nabokov (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    See RUS 281-01 .

    Note: Plus-2 option available in Russian.
  

  • GLS 304-01 - Studies in Drama II: Ibsen/Strindberg/Chekhov (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    See THD 304-01 .
  

  • GLS 349-01 - Medieval Literature (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    Cross-listed as: See ENG 349-01 .

    Instructor: Arner
  

  • GWS 495-01 - Senior Seminar

    4 credits (Spring)
    Where Are We Now? Current Scholarship in GWSS. In this senior seminar, we will read a wide range of recent texts within Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies (GWSS) to assess both the current state of the field of GWSS and the current socio-political realities that the field has attempted to critically respond to and address.  We will examine how the field of GWSS has changed since its origins in the late 1960s, focusing in particular on the field’s theories, methodologies, and institutional location(s), as well as discuss how the field has interacted with contemporary social justice movements.  Students will develop their own projects within the field, building on their previous study and (inter)disciplinary interests in GWSS, culminating in a substantial research paper which will be presented publicly at the end of the semester.

    Prerequisite: GWS-111, 249 and Senior Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies major.
    Instructor: Henry
  

  • HIS 100-01 - Making History (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    After the Great War. This course provides an introduction to issues of historical causation, argumentation, and evidence, by exploring the impact of the First World War (1914-18) on the political, social, and cultural institutions of Europe and the wider world, and using the current centenary of the war to consider its legacy. After introductory units on historical methods and the experience of the war, we will investigate how European citizens and subjects attempted to reconstruct, reinvent, and make sense of “a world undone.” Topics will include cultural memory and modernism; gender and the “New Woman”; the rise of Nazism; internationalism and the League of Nations; colonialism and nationalism.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Prevost
  

  • HIS 100-01 - Making History: Cold War America (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    This course provides an introduction to issues of historical causation, argumentation, and evidence through the lens of the American Cold War era. We will explore the cultural and social history of the United States from the 1940s through the 1980s, paying close attention to the moments in which foreign and domestic politics shaped the daily lives of Americans. We also will consider the historical methods used by scholars to conduct research and write about the past. We will work with primary and secondary sources as well as films and music in order to develop the skills necessary to analyze historical scholarship.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Lewis
  

  • HIS 100-02 - Making History: Revolutionary Europe (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    This course provides an introduction to issues of historical causation, argumentation, and evidence through the lens of European revolutions between the late eighteenth century and the early twentieth. After introductory units on historical methods and the phenomenon of revolution itself, we examine the French Revolution, the Revolutions of 1848-49, and the Russian Revolution as both profoundly local and decidedly transnational events. We work closely with primary sources and consider the political, social, cultural, intellectual, and psychological ramifications of these dramatic ruptures for their participants and subsequent generations.

    Prerequisite: None
    Instructor: Maynard
  

  • HIS 100-02 & 03 - Making History (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    Europe under the Great Dictators. This course provides an introduction to issues of historical causation, argumentation, and evidence, through the lens of two of the most repressive dictators in all of world history–Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. After an introductory unit on historical methods, we will use a variety of primary and secondary texts to investigate the workings of the Nazi and Stalinist dictatorships, examining subjects like everyday life in a dictatorship, the personal role of Hitler and Stalin in determining state policy, the use of state terror and the secret police, the rise of the leader cult, the origins of the Holocaust, and the nature of Stalin’s Great Purges. 

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Cohn
  

  • HIS 320-01 - Nature and the New Deal (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    This seminar examines the central role that environmental issues played in the era of the New Deal. Students will explore how a generation of policy-makers, intellectuals, and artists came to see a fundamental connection between the economic crisis of the “Great Depression” and the environmental crisis of the “Dirty Thirties” (manifest in a series of epic droughts, dust-storms, floods, forest fires, and collapsing farms). The course readings will focus on a variety of iconic programs that embodied the New Deal’s environmental vision of rebuilding society through innovative programs in conservation and public outreach. Students will design their own research projects that examine in greater detail some aspect of environmental policy or thought during this era.

    Prerequisite: HIS 100  and HIS 220 . With permission, students may substitute HIS-220 with relevant coursework in Environmental Studies or Policy Studies.
    Instructor: Guenther
  

  • HIS 322-01 - Sex & Sexuality in American History (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    This seminar investigates the history of sex and sexuality in the United States, from the colonial era through the twentieth century. We will identify changes, contradictions, and continuities in sexual ideals as well as the even more complicated realities of Americans’ sexual experiences. We will discuss the invention of heterosexualities and same-sex sexualities, as well as the laws, policies, and traditions that shape them. Students will write in-depth research papers on some aspect of American sexual history.

    Prerequisite: HIS 100  and HIS 222  or GWS 111 .
    Instructor: Lewis
  

  • HIS 325-01 - American Indian Reservations (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    This course examines the history of American Indian reservations from the late-nineteenth century to the present. The common readings will introduce students to the origins and major historical problems of reservation history, especially the tricky task of defining the relationship between American Indian reservations and the United States. Specifically, we will examine the end of treaty-making between the United States and Indian tribes, allotment of Indian land, federal assimilation programs, boarding schools, the meaning of U.S. citizenship for Native peoples, and the opportunities and challenges of casinos.

    Prerequisite: HIS 100  and any 200-level history course.
    Instructor: Lacson
  

  • HIS 329-01 - Latin America and the U.S. (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    As the saying goes, Latin America lies too far from God and too close to the United States. This proximity has affected Latin American economics, demographics, culture, and politics. The seminar will begin with common readings. This year those common readings will focus on US attempts–both official and unofficial–to democratize and modernize the region. Students will then write a research paper using primary documents. These papers could focus on any one of a number of issues that were central to US-Latin American relations such as hemispheric security, economic affairs, democracy, and socialism. A reading knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese is helpful but not required.

    Prerequisite: HIS 100  and HIS 201  or HIS 202 .
    Instructor: Silva
  

  • HIS 331-01 - Making Knowledge in Early Modern Europe (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    A knowledge explosion took place in Europe between 1450 and 1700. Its powder keg was stocked with newly recovered ancient texts, with stories from Europeans’ encounters with the New World, and with the results of the observation and experimental interrogations of nature. Independent research projects will examine the effects of the media revolution-the development of print culture-which ignited and sustained the blast of this “information age” in Europe and beyond.

    Prerequisite: HIS 100  and HIS 233 , HIS 234 , HIS 235 , or HIS 295-03 . With permission, students may substitute HIS 233, 234, 235, 295 with relevant coursework in classics, renaissance, or early modern studies.
    Instructor: Pollnitz
  

  • HIS 336-01 - The European Metropolis (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    This seminar takes as its starting point the explosion of large cities in Europe from the mid-nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries. As the narrative goes, parallel political and economic revolutions made possible-–even inevitable-–the blossoming of entirely new spaces characterized by unprecedented population density and diversity, radical shifts in architecture and infrastructure, and vertiginous social and cultural developments. We examine this phenomenon by concentrating upon the ways in which artists and intellectuals in London, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin (and occasionally elsewhere) grappled with the idea and the experience of the metropolis. Our investigations include political developments, social theory, the visual arts, film, literature, architecture, consumer culture, and music. Among the myriad of qualities and tensions inherent in the modern urban experience, we consider community and alienation, the fluidity of the self, spectacle and entertainment, disease and criminality, gender, and class.

    Prerequisite: HIS 100  and HIS 236 , HIS 237 , HIS 238 , HIS 239 , or HIS 241 .
    Instructor: Maynard
  

  • HIS 373-01 - Chimerica: History of Special Relationship (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    This seminar will address the history behind China and America’s tumultuous - and increasingly symbiotic - bilateral relationship by examining American/Chinese interactions over the course of the 20th century. After reviewing the rich historiography on international, economic, and intercultural contact between these two Pacific states, we will turn to mapping out a collaborative research agenda based on available resources at Grinnell and surrounding libraries and archives. Students will then write individual research papers focused on some aspect of China-U.S. relations, with an eye toward explaining how contemporary patterns have been anticipated by historical interaction. Our penultimate goals will thus include: 1) extensive drafting and re-writing of a substantive, paper-length work of original research, and 2) developing an understanding of U.S.-China relations which accounts for the multiple levels of exchange, meaning, and past precedent at work in shaping our global present.

    Prerequisite: Any 100-level history course and any 200-level course on East Asian history or United States History.
    Instructor: Johnson
  

  • MAT 444-01 - Senior Seminar - Experimental Mathematics (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    The pure mathematican has traditionally solved problems by “paper and pencil.” While the use of computers has changed our world in many respects, this has not (with few exceptions) come back to help mathematicians in their research. This course will show how computers can be used to solve a variety of problems from calculus, linear algebra, combinatorics, analysis, and other areas. The common thread is using the computer for discovery, not just calculations. Students will master a computer algebra system, learn some recently developed algorithmic tools, and work on a research project. The course is intended for anyone interested in seeing how computers can be used to solve problems in pure mathematics. Recommended for those considering graduate school in mathematics. Previous experience with a computer algebra system is not required.

    Prerequisite: MAT 316 . MAT 321  recommended.
    Instructor: Chamberland
  

  • MUS 201-01 - Topics in Music & Culture: Music and Mind (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    This course explores the rapidly growing field of music perception and cognition. In light of the advances in cognitive science and music theory, we will examine perceptual and cognitive foundations of how humans perceive, understand, and create music. Topics to be covered include evolutionary origins of music, music and emotion, musical learning and development, music and the brain, the perception and cognition of music structure, and the processes involved in composition, improvisation, and performance. (Each participant in this course shall lead a discussion on a topic of her or his choice, probably related to the paper/presentation required at the end of the semester.)

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Cha
  

  • MUS 201-01 - Topics in Music and Culture: Theory and Method in Ethnomusicology (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    This course introduces students to the discipline of ethnomusicology. We focus on the dominant theoretical orientations of contemporary ethnomusicologists, the history of ethnomusicology as an academic discipline, and the nature and methodology of fieldwork. Emphasis is placed on what it is that ethnomusicologists do by addressing fieldwork techniques, contemporary social theory, and the nature of ethnographic representation.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Perman
  

  • MUS 201-02 - Topics in Music and Culture: Music, Capitalism, and Consumption (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Particularly since the rise of Romantic aesthetic philosophy and ideology during the late 18th century, high art has been discursively positioned as diametrically oppositional to commercial concerns. In large part because of this discursive opposition, however, the course, we will examine the ways in which music and musicians operated along side, within, and against the capitalist system of commercial categories of art and commerce have interacted in complex and intriguing ways. In this exchange. We will consider the trajectory of the art-commerce dialectic from the 1760s to the present, and discuss its manifestations in what is commonly called the Western culture of consumption.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Staff
  

  • MUS 202-01 - Topics in American Music: Popular Music (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    This course examines the confluence of popular music, culture, and society in North America from 1890 to present. The class is primarily organized around genre - itself a key concept in popular music studies - moving from late 19th-Century minstrelsy through blues, country, rock and roll, punk, and contemporary hip hop. As we explore the musical development of each genre, we will use music as a means to begin to unravel the web of racialized, gendered, sexualized, and class-based relationships that have characterized North American culture through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Staff
  

  • MUS 202-02 - Topics in American Music: Sound Material, Sound Art (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    This interdisciplinary studio course explores sound as an artistic medium. Through a series of creative prompts, the course investigates the unique opportunities and challenges that this “immaterial material” affords. From musique concrète to investigations of the boundaries between noise, silence, and music, we will explore how diverse historical movements and moments have shaped the relatively new and necessarily broad contemporary field described as ‘sound art’.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Instructor: Staff
  

  • PHI 392-01 - Advanced Studies in Anglo-American Philosophy: Davidson (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    In this seminar we will investigate the views of the contemporary American philosopher, Donald Davidson, on meaning, interpretation, knowledge, action and mind. The course will divide into three sections: the first will fill in Davidson’s philosophical background in Quine and Tarski and examine his theory of meaning paying particular attention to the following questions: whether a Tarski-style theory of truth can do service as a theory of meaning, how such a theory can be empirically tested, and whether it can provide an adequate semantic representation of natural language. The second considers the supposed anti-sceptical epistemological consequences of his theory of meaning. The third will be concerned with his conception of the relation between reasons and causes for action and his theory of ‘anomalous monism’ in the philosophy of mind.

    Prerequisite: PHI 253 , PHI 256 , PHI 257 , or PHI 258 .
    Instructor: Fennell
  

  • PHI 394-01 - Advanced Studies in Theories of Value: Arendt (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Hannah Arendt is arguably one of the most important political theorists of the twentieth century. Her work defies easy comprehension or categorization, and while it is unquestionably original and illuminating, at times it is confusing and, some contend, even contradictory. In this class we will consider some of the most significant of Arendt’s writings. We will consider her accounts of totalitarianism, violence, power, freedom, and action. Beginning with her doctoral essay on St. Augustine, we will work our way through some of the texts that made her famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) including “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, “The Human Condition”, and “Eichmann in Jerusalem” as well as some of her most important essays. We will then turn to critics of Arendt and conclude the semester by reading Elizabeth Young-Breuhl’s recent book, Why Arendt Matters.

    Prerequisite: Third-year standing and two of the following: PHI 234 , PHI 235 , PHI 242 , PHI 263 , PHI 264 , PHI 265 , PHI 268 , PHI 336 , PHI 393 .
    Instructor: Meehan
  
  

  • PST 320-01 - Applied Policy Analysis (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    Cross-listed as: POL 320-01  and PSY 320 . Improving Public Decision Making and Problem Solving. This seminar will explore how research in psychology might inform (a) the design, implementation, and evaluation of public policies and (b) decision-making processes which rely on the analysis of public problems. Among other topics, we will examine research into human judgment, problem solving, decision making, and reasoning about information, risks, and other uncertainties. We apply this research to understand how problems are framed, how risks are perceived and acted on, and how taking psychology into account can influence policy design and implementation. Analytical tools used to advise decision makers-such as cost-benefit analysis, decision trees, methods of debiasing, and program evaluations-will also be explored and applied.

    Prerequisite: Prerequisites for PST-320: PST 220 . Prerequisites for POL-320: POL 216 , POL 239 , POL 222 , POL 250 , or PST 220 . Prerequisite for PSY-320: PSY 220  or PSY 260  and PSY 225 .
    Instructor: Lyons, Hess
  

  • REL 394-01 - Advanced Topics: Comparing Saints (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Comparing Saints. This seminar focuses on Indian holy men and women, past and present. We will critically examine the assumptions and categories that affect how gurus, godmen and saints appear to us and to others. How do religious commitments, Christian models, secular sensibilities and social location shape what we see in such figures and their devotees? Are saints or other exemplars still possible in the modern world? We will highlight methods of comparison, performance and history, including the history of the field of religious studies.

    Prerequisite: REL 311 .
    Instructor: Dobe
  

  • RUS 281-01 - Major Russian Writers: Dostoevsky (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    Cross-listed as: GLS 281-01 . The short works and major novels of Feodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) are the focus of this semester’s Major Russian Writers course. Novels considered include Poor Folk, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov. We will also read several short works, including Notes from Underground, The Double, and Muzhik Marey. Discussion topics include Dostoevsky’s place in the Russian literary tradition, the development of the nineteenth-century novel, and philosophical and aesthetic questions in Dostoevsky’s works. Lectures and supplemental readings will consider the historical, social, and political context of Dostoevsky’s Russia. Conducted in English.

    Prerequisite: None.
    Note: Plus-2 available in Russian.
    Instructor: Armstrong
  

  • RUS 281-01 - Major Russian Writers: Nabokov (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Cross-listed as: GLS 281-01 . The works of Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) are the subject of this semester’s Major Russian Writers course. Novels considered include Mary, Despair, The Defense, Lolita, Pnin, Pale Fire, and Ada. We also will read several short stories and Nabokov’s autobiography Speak, Memory. Discussion topics include Nabokov’s role in the Russian literary tradition, émigré literature, and (auto)translation. Conducted in English.

    Prerequisite: Second-year standing.
    Note: Plus-2 option available in Russian.
    Instructor: Herold
  

  • RUS 389-01 - Advanced Russian Seminar: Pushkin’s Onegin (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    This semester’s seminar focuses on Aleksandr Pushkin’s novel-in-verse, Eugene Onegin. We will read the novel and discuss its central place in the history of Russian literature and culture. We will also consider important critical works on Eugene Onegin and artistic interpretations (film, opera, translations) of what is arguably Russia’s most famous literary work. Conducted in Russian.

    Prerequisite: RUS 313 .
    Instructor: Herold
  

  • SOC 390-01 - Advanced Studies: Identity and Inequality: Race, Gender, & Social Class Revisited (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    In this advanced sociology seminar, we will examine the interconnections among gender, social class, race-ethnicity, and other social categories at both the micro-level of identity and social interaction as well as at the macro-level of larger social structures, using the theoretical framework of intersectionality. Intersectionality, based on feminist theory and critical race theory, examines the multiple, fluid, and dynamic identities each person holds. Race, social class, and gender also structure our social world along various hierarchies of power and privilege that can reinforce or contradict each other, creating in turn both opportunities and oppression, as they shape identities and experiences of individuals. This seminar will address these issues and other dimensions of social inequality.

    Prerequisite: At least one 200-level sociology course and third-year standing.
    Note: Plus-2 option available.
    Instructor: Ferguson
  

  • SOC 390-02 - Advanced Studies: School to Prison Pipeline (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    The “school-to-prison pipeline” describes the increasing flow of U.S. students from schools into the carceral system – for example, by involving police to arrest (disproportionately disadvantaged) “disruptive” students. We will read foundational theoretical texts (e.g., Foucault’s Discipline and Punish), examine the sociological, political, and educational literature on the phenomenon, and look critically at current media coverage of events. Assignments will include short memos, a critical review of the literature, and a mini-empirical project on current events.

    Prerequisite: At least one 200-level sociology course and third-year standing.
    Note: Plus-2 option available.
    Instructor: Devine-Eller
  

  • SPN 320-01 - Cultures of the Spanish-Speaking World (Fall)

    4 credits (Fall)
    The Worlds of Spanish-speaking Immigrants. This course will focus on the cultures of Spanish-speaking immigrants moving from Latin America to the United States, Spain, and within Latin America. We will discuss and analyze their reasons for migrating, the challenges faced by these migrants, and the perceptions about immigrants in the countries of arrival. The course will include articles from various disciplines as well as films, documentaries, and web material.

    Prerequisite: SPN 285 .
    Instructor: Benoist
  

  • SPN 320-01 - Cutlures of Spanish Speaking World (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    Latin American Food and Cultural Identities. This interdisciplinary course focuses on the role of food and drink in the self-conception and construction of Latin American identities and uniqueness. In our discussions of Latin American “national” foods, we’ll also consider nationalism, nostalgia, and longing. Class materials will include fiction, poetry, academic and non-academic essays, film, and music.

    Prerequisite: SPN 285 .
    Instructor: Aparicio
  

  • SPN 386-01 - Studies in Medieval & Early Modern Spanish Literature (Spring)

    4 credits (Spring)
    This advanced seminar focuses on the literature produced in Spain and the Spanish American colonies between 1492 and 1700. The course will address issues of race, class, identity, and gender in early modern poetry, theater, prose, and visual texts. Close attention will be paid to the cultural and historical context of the era. Conducted in Spanish.

    Prerequisite: SPN 311 , SPN 312 , SPN 314 , SPN 315 , or SPN 317 .
    Instructor: Pérez
 

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