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2012-2013 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Course Search
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AMS 495-01 - Senior Seminar: J. B. Grinnell-the Man, Myths and the Magnificent! 4 credits (Spring)
Who is this cultural icon of Iowa, Josiah Bushnell Grinnell? Historians tell us he was a U. S Congressman, an ordained Congregational minister, founder of Grinnell, Iowa and benefactor of Grinnell College. But what were the social, political and economic undercurrents of his symbolic life: New England upbringing, seminary and legal training, ministry, Westward expansion politics, slavery, abolitionism, Freedman’s Bureau, railroads, cattle industry politics, and the Republican Party? Or who were the prominent individuals in his milieu: Horace Greely who implored him to ” Go West”, Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, Lovell Rousseau, Louise May Alcott, and others. This course will examine his life, works, imagination, and legacy through speeches, documents, memoir, journalism , local and state archives, material culture and address the complexities of his loyalty to the causes of equality, social gospel, economic development and social justice in the 19th century.
Prerequisite: AMS 225 .
Instructor: Scott
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ART 400-01 - Seminar in Art History (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
Collecting People: Foreignness and British Visuality, 1558-1837. Until the advent of Hogarth, Gainsborough and Reynolds in the early eighteenth century, Britain arguably failed to cultivate a native artistic tradition, choosing instead to import the best talent from Italy, Germany, Flanders and France. This course traces the impact of foreign tastes and foreign people on British visual culture (including plays, prints and decorative arts) from the age of Elizabeth Tudor to the accession of the ‘Empress of India,’ Queen Victoria. Themes include: colonization/appropriation, xenophobia, religion, masking, display culture, gender and aesthetic theory.
Prerequisite: Junior or senior standing in art history concentration.
Instructor: Lyon
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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
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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
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BIO 150-02 - Intro to Biological Inquiry W/Lab (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Plant Genetics and the Environment. The physical and behavioral characteristics of living organisms are largely determined by their genetic makeup and their environment. This course is designed to allow us to ask questions about the relationship between genetics and the environment and to explore the mechanisms plants use to acclimate and adapt to changes in their environment. Using the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana, we will examine the influence of different environmental factors on the growth and development of ‘wild-type’ and mutant individuals. Students will design and perform experiments to address questions about the effect of genetic mutation on plant responses to the environment. After careful analysis of experimental results, students will communicate their findings in various scientific forms.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: DeRidder
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BIO 150-02 - Intro to Biological Inquiry W/Lab (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
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: Kuzmanovic
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BIO 150-03 - Intro to Biological Inquiry W/Lab (Fall and Spring) 4 credits (Fall and Spring)
The Effects of Climate Change on Organisms. We will examine the effects of predicted changes in temperature, moisture and carbon dioxide levels on organismal and ecosystem function through experimental investigation. We will focus on the effects of such changes on the physiology and metabolic functioning of organisms, as well as on biogeochemical processes of ecosystems. This course will be taught in a workshop format, meeting twice a week for three hours. Class time will be devoted primarily to discussions and lab work, examining theoretical aspects of organismal and ecosystem functioning, design and implementation of lab-based experiments, and the interpretation of our results in the context of extensive ongoing climate change research.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Jacobson
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BIO 150-04 - Intro to Biological Inquiry W/Lab (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
“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). 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: Kuzmanovic
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BIO 150-04 - 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. How do cells do this? Why do they spend so much energy breaking symmetry? It turns out that symmetry breaking (cell polarization) is essential for many cellular processes. In this course students will learn to use frog oocytes, eggs, and/or embryos in order to observe and explore polarization 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
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BIO 150-05 - Intro to Biological Inquiry W/Lab (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
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
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CSC 151-01 & 02 - Functional Problem Solving (Fall and Spring) 4 credits (Fall and 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.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Price Jones, Weinman
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CSC 161-01 - Imperative Prob Slvng & Data Structures (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
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ENG 120-01 - 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: Barlow
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ENG 120-01 - Literary Analysis (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
This course introduces students to the fundamental techniques of literary analysis. While reading a wide variety of texts, from poems, prose, and plays to graphic novels, digital literature and film, we will learn to actively read and interact with literature. We will investigate how form and structure shape literary texts, and we will learn the critical vocabulary of literary theory in order to analyze texts from many different critical approaches, such as feminist theory, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, queer theory, and postcolonialism. We will also trace how formations of race, gender, and sexuality have evolved across multiple genres and historical contexts, making a special effort to focus on literature that is non-canonical, experimental, or marginalized.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Khactu
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ENG 120-02 - 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
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ENG 120-03 - Literary Analysis (Fall and Spring) 4 credits (Fall and Spring)
An introduction to poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, this course explores the complex interplay between the world, the text, and the writer. Reading a wide range of literary genres and authors, we will be guided by big questions: What is literature? What makes a story a story, a poem a poem? What is the role of the writer? We will also attend to the pleasures of the text, the formal and stylistic particulars of specific works and their writers. Readings will include: stories by Herman Melville, Denis Johnson, Grace Paley, Junot Diaz, and Jhumpa Lahiri; a novel by Don DeLillo, which will facilitate an introduction to critical theory; a cross-section of American poetry, including Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, James Schuyler, Gwendolyn Brooks, Yusef Komunyakaa, C. K. Williams, John Yau, Kay Ryan, and Frederick Seidel; essays by James Baldwin, Arundhati Roy, Joan Didion, and David Foster Wallace. Graded assignments will include regular short writing assignments, a midterm, class presentations, and two papers.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Phan
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ENG 120-04 - Literary Analysis (Fall and Spring) 4 credits (Fall and 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
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ENG 120-05 - Literary Analysis (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
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
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ENG 120-06 - Literary Analysis (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
This course introduces students to the fundamental techniques of literary analysis. While reading a wide variety of texts, from poems, prose, and plays to graphic novels, digital literature and film, we will learn to actively read and interact with literature. We will investigate how form and structure shape literary texts, and we will learn the critical vocabulary of literary theory in order to analyze texts from many different critical approaches, such as feminist theory, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, queer theory, and postcolonialism. We will also trace how formations of race, gender, and sexuality have evolved across multiple genres and historical contexts, making a special effort to focus on literature that is non-canonical, experimental, or marginalized.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Khactu
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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
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ENG 121-01 - Introduction to Shakespeare (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
This course is an introduction to Shakespeare’s drama and poetry. We will read Shakespeare’s work as a way to develop the skills necessary for literary analysis: close reading, clear writing, and logical argumentation. Shakespeare’s texts did not only paint a picture of the complicated Renaissance world; they attempted to change how that world looked. His poetry and drama powerfully challenged and redefined some of the dominant orthodoxies of Renaissance English culture. We will study how Shakespeare used the sonnet form to critique the norms governing Renaissance sexuality, the history play to reveal the long history of class tensions and social injustice dividing the English nation, the comedy to redefine the place of women in English society, and the tragedy to reimagine the position of the individual in vast corporate institutions such as the state and the church. In studying how Shakespeare participated in some of the most pointed cultural debates of his time, we will consider how recent critics and theorists have read Shakespearean texts to critique aspects of contemporary culture.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Lee
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ENG 121-02 - Introduction to Shakespeare (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
This course is an introduction to Shakespeare’s drama and poetry. We will read Shakespeare’s work as a way to develop the skills necessary for literary analysis: close reading, clear writing, and logical argumentation. Shakespeare’s texts did not only paint a picture of the complicated Renaissance world; they attempted to change how that world looked. His poetry and drama powerfully challenged and redefined some of the dominant orthodoxies of Renaissance English culture. We will study how Shakespeare used the sonnet form to critique the norms governing Renaissance sexuality, the history play to reveal the long history of class tensions and social injustice dividing the English nation, the comedy to redefine the place of women in English society, and the tragedy to reimagine the position of the individual in vast corporate institutions such as the state and the church. In studying how Shakespeare participated in some of the most pointed cultural debates of his time, we will consider how recent critics and theorists have read Shakespearean texts to critique aspects of contemporary culture.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Lee
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ENG 223-01 - The Tradition of English Lit I (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Centuries of Revolution. This course is an introduction to the major texts and dominant issues defining the English culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. We will read texts from this broad historical range, by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton, as individual artistic masterpieces, but also as important interventions in the religious, political, and scientific revolutions of the time. Our understanding of the period will be defined by four central cultural issues: the rise of the idea of the English nation, the influence of Humanist rhetoric and education on English literary culture, the Protestant Reformation and the creation of the Anglican Church, and the development of the empirical scientific method. The course will conclude with an analysis of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, written in the aftermath of the tumultuous English Civil War, as the culmination of the four themes covered in the class. Throughout the course, we will focus on how literary texts decisively intervened in broad cultural debates during a time of unprecedented religious, political, and scientific upheaval. The course will be centered around class discussion and close reading of assigned texts. Our work will focus on clear writing and logical argumentation.
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: Lee
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ENG 224-01 - The Tradition of English Lit II (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
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 Bront‰, 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
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ENG 226-01 - Tradition of English Literature III (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Ends of Empire: The Literature of Britain and Ireland from 1900 to Present. This course takes its readings mainly from three areas: the 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 a diverse selection of contemporary British writers such as Jeanette Winterson, Hanif Kureishi, 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 orENG 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
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ENG 227-01 - American Literary Traditions I (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Contact, Colony and Republic. As the title suggests, we will explore American literature from the perspective of three processes spread out over time: early in the semester we will explore the impact of “contact” on Old and New World inhabitants, primarily through creation and travel narratives; during the longer middle part of the semester we will look at the ways in which the pressures of colonization impact the poetry, sermons, and journals of colonists ranging from Puritans such as Anne Bradstreet and Mary Rowlandson to more secular writers such as Benjamin Franklin; and in the longest final third of the semester, we will explore the ways in which writers such as Hannah Foster, Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Lydia Maria Child, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass and Nathaniel Hawthorne react to the ideological pressures of the newly formed Republic in writings that reflect their concerns about selfhood, citizenship, and nationality.
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: Andrews
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ENG 228-01 - American Literary Traditions II (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
From the Mexican-American War to the Civil War, from the Indian Removal Act and the “Trail of Tears” to U.S. imperialism in the Pacific, the nineteenth-century American border was particularly contested and bloody. Merely trying to define the geographic borders of the United States proved difficult, even as many nineteenth-century American writers sought to create and re-formulate a truly national identity through literature. Starting with the American Renaissance, we will examine how these nineteenth-century American writers sought to create an American identity that would influence discourses as varied as the frontier, race, nature, domesticity, sexuality, and freedom. We will closely read canonical masterpieces like Melville’s Moby Dick and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, but we will also investigate the many different writers who challenged received definitions of American identity, such as David Walker, Catherine Sedgwick, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Emily Dickinson, William Wells Brown, Harriet Jacobs, Dion Boucicault, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Chesnutt, Onoto Watanna, John Rollin Ridge, Mar¡a Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Henry James, Frederick Jackson Turner, Stephen Crane, and Zitkala-Sa.
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: Khactu
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ENG 229-01 - The Tradition of African Amer Lit (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Debating Black Literature. A survey of African American literature from its beginnings to the present, this course is structured around seven units that will introduce students to major debates, theories, and texts within the black literary tradition. Organized chronologically to ground students in the historical context and cultural tropes that inform much of black writing, this class will debate, among other things, the “origins” of African American literature, gendered notions of racial uplift, dialect and representation in black literature, pimp profiles in jazz poetry, and the “end,” as scholar Ken Warren asserts, of African American literature. An exciting and dynamic class that will feature student-led debates for each unit, 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
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ENG 323-01 - Studies in English Lit:1660-1798 (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
On Saying Yes: Desire and Consent in the Eighteenth Century. In this course, we will examine a wide variety of Restoration and eighteenth-century British texts that represent sexual desire and consent across the development of modern moral standards and gender norms. We will read plays, poems, novels, pamphlets, and legal and medical cases from this period that pit the idealized free expression of sexual desire and gender non-conformity against rising imperatives of modesty, chastity, and heteronormativity. Our authors will include Aphra Behn, William Wycherly, Daniel Defoe, Eliza Haywood, Henry Fielding, John Cleland, Laurence Sterne, and Elizabeth Inchbald. Students will do historical research on eighteenth-century representations of gender and sexuality, and present their discoveries to the class. In another short paper (5-6 pages), students will perform an analytical reading of a short section of text as it pertains to eighteenth-century debates about the aesthetic and rhetorical properties of realism. By the end of the semester, students will produce a substantive research paper (10-12 pages) on some aspect of literary representations of sexuality during this period.
Prerequisite: ENG 223 , ENG 224 or ENG 273 .
Instructor: Shanafelt
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ENG 325-01 - Studies in Ethnic American Literatures (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Translation Matters: The Task of the Ethnic American Writer. In this seminar, we will explore the literary, linguistic, and cultural matters of translation in ethnic American literature and examine how and why translation matters for reconceptualizing the relationship between “the ethnic” and “the American.” Drawing on the insights of translation theory, from Walter Benjamin’s “The Task of the Translator” to recent critical interventions by Lawrence Venuti, Gayatri Spivak, and Emily Apter, we will consider questions concerning the complex interplay between language, culture, and identity. Authors will likely include: Chang-Rae Lee, Maxine Hong Kingston, Richard Rodriguez, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, John Yau, Gloria Anzald£a, David Treuer, Dave Eggers, and Andrew X. Pham. In addition to a mid-term paper and final project, students will be required to write short weekly responses to the readings and participate actively in discussion. For the final project, students will have the option of writing a longer research paper on a specific matter of translation in ethnic American literature or producing their own translation of a literary work, accompanied by a critical introduction. Students will be encouraged to read, think, and write across disciplinary boundaries, drawing on their own foreign language knowledge, academic studies, and cultural backgrounds-in short, to translate in their own terms what it means to be American, ethnic and otherwise.
Prerequisite: ENG 227 , ENG 228 , ENG 229 , ENG 231 , ENG 232 , or ENG 273 .
Instructor: Phan
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ENG 326-01 - Studies in American Poetry I (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
Affectionate Absorption: The Case of Whitman and Dickinson. Walt Whitman concludes his preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass with the proposition that “the proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.” These days few would argue that Whitman and Dickinson have not been “affectionately absorbed,” at least by American literary culture. Such was not always the case, however; during the period when Whitman and Dickinson were producing the bulk of their work, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was arguably the most dominant literary figure in America. What happened? This course will explore the question of cultural absorption and the extent to which the form and content of Whitman’s and Dickinson’s poetry helped effect a shift in literary value during the twentieth century (earlier for Whitman, much later for Dickinson). Close-readings of poetry or essays by Whitman, Dickinson, Emerson, Longfellow, and Poe will help situate us within their nineteenth century context, and these will be followed by more recent works that may include poems or critical essays by Hart Crane, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich, Derek Walcott, June Jordan, Susan Howe, Martin Espada, and Heather McHugh. During the second half of the course we will focus on three specific cases in which the impact of Whitman or Dickinson on 20th century literary concerns is especially acute: the inaugural issue of Poetry magazine (1912); the publication of Howl (1955); and the publication of the Facsimile Edition of Dickinson’s poems (1981). We will conclude with a series of discussions on the politics of methodology and classroom practice in relation to the poetics of identity.
Prerequisite: ENG 227 , ENG 228 , ENG 229 , ENG 231 , ENG 232 , or ENG 273 .
Instructor: Andrews
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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
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ENG 331-01 - Studies in American Prose II (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Feminist Memoirs. A study of contemporary memoirs by feminist writers. In addition to critically analyzing the memoir as a literary form, students will examine how feminist writers have used memoir to describe both personal and political experiences, to theorize from these experiences, and to develop concepts of feminist subjectivity. Readings will include a diverse range of memoirs, as well as critical essays on memoir, autobiography, and feminist/queer theory.
Prerequisite: ENG 227 , ENG 228 , ENG 229 , ENG 231 , ENG 232 , or ENG 273 .
Instructor: Henry
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ENG 349-01 - Medieval Literature (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Trojans at the Round Table: Writing English Empire in the Middle Ages. Medieval narratives of the Trojan War and the reign of King Arthur help comprise the Matter of Britain, which is a body of literature that explores England’s place in the world as England attempts to define itself as a new nation. This course will consider the rise of English nationalism and the discourse of imperial ambition in medieval texts that present England’s mythological Trojan ancestry and the legendary tales of King Arthur and his knights. Throughout the semester, we will read theoretical and critical essays about nationalism and empire that will provide context for our primary texts, which may include Virgil’s Aeneid, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, French and English Arthurian romances, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.
Prerequisite: ENG 223 .
Instructor: Arner
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ENG 360-01 - Seminar in Postcolonial Literature 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
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ENV 495-01 - Senior Seminar on Tropical America 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 or permission of instructor.
Instructor: Campbell
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FRN 350-01 - Adv Tpcs: Masc/Fem French Lit & Film (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
Masculine/Feminine in French Literature and Film. Explores concepts of the masculine and the feminine from the Romantic era to the present in literature, art and film. Examines topics such as desire, ambition, sexuality, paternity, maternity, and the writing of the self. Authors and directors to be studied include Chateaubriand, Stendhal, Sand, Rachilde, Colette, Godard, Truffaut, Duras, Jaoui, Denis, Toussaint, and Houellebecq.
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Instructor: Moisan
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FRN 350-01 - Advanced Topics in Lit & Civilization (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Advanced Topic in Literature and Civilization: American Stories. Conducted in French. Explores the ways in which North America is portrayed in works by authors from diverse regions of the French-speaking world. Topics to be addressed include the American dream, immigration, exile, the death penalty, and September 11. Examines cities such as Montreal, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami.
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Instructor: Ireland
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GWS 495-01 - Senior Seminar: Where Are We Now? 4 credits (Spring)
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 , GWS 249 and Senior Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies major.
Instructor: Henry
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HIS 100-01 - Making History (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Dakota-U.S. War of 1862. This course provides an introduction to issues of historical causation, argumentation, and evidence, through an examination of one historical event: the 1862 war between Dakota Indians and Anglo-American settlers in Minnesota. Students will reconstruct what happened, why it happened, and what the uprising meant to settlers, Dakota Indians and other American Indians in the region. Using primary and secondary sources, students will learn the skills necessary to analyze historical scholarship and be introduced to the various means by which historians conduct research and write about the past.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Lacson
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HIS 100-01 - Making History (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
Confucian Civilization and Its Challengers. This course provides an introduction to issues of historical causation, argumentation, and evidence, through the lens of the rise of Confucian civilization. Using primary sources, we will examine the foundations of the idea of civilization, and how it can be applied to the numerous cultures and peoples living within Confucian East Asia. Topics to be addressed in detail will include: the relationship between Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism; interactions between agrarian and nomadic societies; meanings of the past in pre-modern China, Korea, and Japan; the spread and consolidation of Confucian states in world historical time. By the end of this course students will understand more about the methodology and history _of_ history, and how these historical practices have shaped our understanding of one of the ancient world’s most dynamic regions.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Johnson
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HIS 100-02 - Making History (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Europe in the Age of Revolutions, 1789-1917. 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
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HIS 100-02 - Making History (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
Dakota-U.S. War of 1862. This course provides an introduction to issues of historical causation, argumentation, and evidence, through an examination of one historical event: the 1862 war between Dakota Indians and Anglo-American settlers in Minnesota. Students will reconstruct what happened, why it happened, and what the uprising meant to settlers, Dakota Indians and other American Indians in the region. Using primary and secondary sources, students will learn the skills necessary to analyze historical scholarship and be introduced to the various means by which historians conduct research and write about the past.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Lacson
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HIS 100-03 - Making History (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
1968 Around the World. This course provides an introduction to issues of historical causation, argumentation, and evidence through the lens of protest movements in five major cities in 1968. In tandem with discussions of historical methods we will explore the claim that “history came off its leash” in 1968. We will work with primary and secondary texts as well as film and music to study uprisings in New York City, Mexico City, Berlin, Paris, and Prague.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Sanders
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HIS 100-04 - Making History (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
The Spanish Conquest of America. This course provides an introduction to issues of historical causation, argumentation, and evidence through the lens of the first major episode of European colonization. In tandem with discussions of historical methods we will examine accounts of Spanish experiences in the Caribbean, in Mexico, and in the Andes. Using primary and secondary sources, students will learn the skills necessary to analyze historical scholarship and be introduced to the various means by which historians conduct research and write about the past.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Silva
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HIS 312-01 - Race in Early America (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
This course examines the social construction and significance of race in North America from the colonial period to the Civil War. In what ways did the concept of race in early America differ from our twenty-first century assumptions about race? How did Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans understand race? How did their experiences with one another shape their ideas about race? The readings are meant to introduce students to the various ways in which historians have examined race. Each student will be challenged to develop a historical question related to race. Students will then write a research paper to answer that question.
Prerequisite: Any 100-level history course and any 200-level American History course.
Instructor: Lacson
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HIS 314-01 - US Civil War: History & Memory (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Students in this seminar will complete major research projects about the U.S. Civil War and/or its presence in public memory. The Civil War was a major watershed event, and students will study a number of important recent trends and debates in its historiography before defining their own topics of research. We will consider new approaches to analyzing the military,economic, social, gender, and racial dimensions of the war as well as topics such as popular culture, geography, immigration, and transnational history. In addition to studying the war itself, students will also consider how Civil War commemorations continued to shape U.S. history and culture during Reconstruction and beyond.
Prerequisite: Any 100-level history course and any 200-level American History course.
Instructor: Purcell
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HIS 329-01 - Latin America and the U.S. (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
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: Any 100-level history course and HIS 201 , HIS 202 , or HIS 204 .
Instructor: Silva
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HIS 336-01 - The European Metropolis (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
This seminar examines the blossoming of new urban spaces in Europe from roughly 1850-1930, spaces characterized by unprecedented population density and diversity, radical shifts in infrastructure and communication, and vertiginous social and cultural developments. Using London, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin as case studies, we examine political developments, social theory, the visual arts,film, literature, architecture, consumer culture,and music. Concentrating in particular upon the ways that artists and intellectuals grappled with the idea and the experience of the metropolis, we consider such themes as community and alienation,the fluidity of the self, spectacle and entertainment, disease and criminality, and gender and class.
Prerequisite: Any 100-level history course and any 200-level European history course including British or Russian history.
Instructor: Maynard
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HIS 361-01 - Sacred & Secular Hist in Mod Middle East (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
At the turn of the twentieth century, communities across the Middle East began to call for independence from the Ottoman Empire, European colonial authority, or both. That they did so on the basis of national identity and self-determination signaled a profound transformation in how these communities understood the nature of history and, as a result, how they “did history.” This transformation - specifically, the development of secular historical narratives about the nature of community - had tremendous implications for the place of religion in society, the political economies of communities in the Middle East, and the nature of government in the region. This course will begin with readings providing a common foundation in historiographic traditions in the Middle East and the appearance - and contestation - of nationalisms in the region. Students will then pursue research projects on a range of topics. Possibilities include (but are not limited to) comparison of sacred and secular historiographic traditions, particular nationalist histories, economic development programs, critiques of secular historical narratives from within the Muslim community, and the place of colonialism and international institutions in the emergence of nationalism in the Middle East.
Prerequisite: Any 100-level history course and any course on the history of the Middle East.
Instructor: Elfenbein
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HIS 373-01 - Chimerica: History of Specl 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
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MUS 201-01 - Tpcs in Mus & Cult: Baroque Improv (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
The art of improvisation-a vital aspect of music-making in many types of popular and non-Western music today (e.g. jazz, North Indian classical music)-has virtually died out of Western classical music. Yet in earlier periods, the ability to improvise was an essential skill learned by every Western musician; J.S. Bach was famously able to improvise counterpoint for hours on end. In this course we will study historical sources from the Baroque period (such as treatises and examples of written-out improvisation) plus the work of recent scholars and performers who have studied these sources. Students will then apply these ideas to their own performance medium. They will learn to ornament a melody in various Baroque styles, build variations over a standard harmonic pattern, realize a figured bass, and work towards improvising whole pieces.
Prerequisite: MUS 112 , and facility on any instrument (including voice). Recommended: MUS 213 , MUS 261 , MUS 324 , MUS 215 , or MUS 216 .
Instructor: Brown
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MUS 201-01 - Tpcs in Mus & Cult: Pop Mus/Blk Atlantic (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
As theorized by Paul Gilroy, the Black Atlantic refers to a shared sense of identity shaped by a history of slavery, imperialism, and coerced migration that has evolved outside the dominant identity markers of the nation. Popular music has had a powerful influence on the ways in which Africans and members of the African diaspora on both sides of the Atlantic understand their own identities, confront this troubled history, and engage with one another. In this course, students will explore the idea of the Black Atlantic, the role music has played in its evolution, and the ways in which popular music continues to participate in the shaping of identity in Africa, Europe, The United States, and elsewhere in the Americas. We will examine issues of race, ethnicity, nationalism, modernity, and resistance as we explore the powerful role popular music has played in confronting a complex and ever-shifting history.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Perman
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MUS 203-01 - Reg Studies in Wrld Music: African Music (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
This class introduces students to a diverse range of African musical practices from combined musicological and anthropological perspectives. Through engaged reading and listening, students confront the idea of African music as a set of vibrant cultural practices that has emerged from a dynamic and volatile history. We will explore the ways in which music serves various communities’ spiritual lives, has participated in nationalist projects, and has been transformed through Africa’s twentieth century colonial experience. Topics also include African Christianity, urbanization, colonialism, South African apartheid, race and ethnicity, and recent issues of globalization and music in Africa.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Perman
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PHI 394-01 - Adv Stds 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: At least 2 of the following: , PHI 235 , PHI 242 , PHI 263 , PHI 264 , PHI 264 , PHI 268 , PHI 336 , or PHI 393 .
Instructor: Meehan
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SOC 390-01 - Advanced Studies in Sociology: Identities and Inequalities: Race, Gender, and Social Class Revisited (Fall) 4 credits (Fall)
Advanced Studies in Sociology: Identities and Inequalities: Race, Gender, and Social Class Revisited. 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.
Instructor: Ferguson
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SPN 320-01 - Cultures of the Spanish-Speaking World (Spring) 4 credits (Spring)
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
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Western European Studies |
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WES 297 - Guided Reading Project 2 credits (Fall or Spring)
To be taken in the semester preceding that in which the student will take the 397 course, this project is designed as preparation for Senior Independent Study. The student may request to work with any instructor currently teaching in the program who will also be teaching on the Grinnell campus during the following semester.
Instructor: Staff
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WES 397 - Senior Independent Study 4 credits (Fall or Spring)
The subject must be arranged with a faculty adviser (preferably the instructor of the Guided Reading Project 297, above) before the end of the semester preceding the independent study. The study should result in either a substantial essay (about 25–30 pages) or a creative accomplishment such as a photographic essay, film, dramatic production, paintings, etc. of similar magnitude. The latter will require some written explication as well. Occasional colloquia consisting of all students and faculty engaged in these projects will be held to exchange ideas and methods.
Instructor: Staff
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Writing Laboratory |
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EDU 150 - Teaching Writing 2 credits (Fall or Spring)
Cross-listed as: WRT 150 Students in Writing 150 will gain both theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience as they serve as writing mentors for
college courses or teach writing as volunteers in other contexts (e.g., prison programs, school, peer tutoring). They will read about theories of teaching writing, practice skills of tutoring, running workshops and facilitating peer review, observe the teaching of writing in several contexts, and engage in a discourse (both oral and written)about the teaching and learning of writing skills.
Prerequisite: None.
S/D/F only
Instructor: Staff
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WRT 101 - Basic Principles of Writing 1 credits (Fall and Spring)
In this course students attend a series of weekly workshops on the basics of academic composition as well as individual appointments in the Writing Lab to apply those basic principles to their assigned writing in other courses.
Prerequisite: None.
S/D/F only
Instructor: Staff
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WRT 102 - Advanced Principles of Writing 2 credits (Fall and Spring)
Using both small group sessions and individual Writing Lab appointments, this course focuses on the interrelationships among purpose, audience, and genre. Some required writing and revision.
Prerequisite: WRT 101
S/D/F only
Instructor: Staff
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WRT 120 - Oral Communication Skills 2 credits (Spring)
Students will present a series of persuasive and informational speeches to a variety of audiences, receiving feedback from both instructor and classmates. Some reading and class preparation required.
Prerequisite: None.
S/D/F only
Instructor: Staff
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WRT 150 - Teaching Writing 2 credits (Fall or Spring)
Cross-listed as: EDU 150 . Students in Writing 150 will gain both theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience as they serve as writing mentors for college courses or teach writing as volunteers in other contexts (e.g., prison programs, schools, peer tutoring). They will read about theories of teaching writing, practice skills of tutoring, running workshops and facilitating peer review, observe the teaching of writing in several contexts, and engage in discourse (both oral and written) about the teaching and learning of writing skills.
Prerequisite: None.
S/D/F only
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