2025 First-Year Courses
Contact
Academic Programs and AdvisingWeyerhaeuser Hall, Room 215 651-696-6036
651-696-6075 (fax)
A seminar for first-year students
In your first semester, you must take a First Year Course. There are many options for you to choose from, on a wide variety of topics, representing diverse disciplinary perspectives. Some students choose this course based on the topic; others because they want to explore a department in which they might major or minor. Either approach is fine. Because this is only one course out of four, and it only lasts one semester, there are plenty of opportunities throughout the first year to explore majors or interest areas beyond the First Year Course.
Writing and the FYC: All first semester students are required to take a course that provides significant instruction in either argumentative writing (WA) or creative writing (WC). Many FYCs already fulfill this requirement – you can see which ones do on the table below. However, if your FYC does not fulfill this requirement – if it is listed as writing practice (WP) or ‘none’ – one of your other first semester courses will need to satisfy this requirement. You can find a list of courses that will fulfill this requirement here.
Many FYCs are also Residential, meaning that students in that class will live on the same floor of a residence hall or in the same building. Faculty and student preceptors may do programming in the residence hall. Approximately 40% of FYCs are residential.
First-Year Course Offerings for Fall 2025
WA = Argumentative Writing, WC = Writing as Craft, WP = Writing as Practice
Course Descriptions
AMST 194-F1: The Black Intellectual Tradition from Richard Wright to Barack Obama (R)
Duchess Harris, American Studies Department
In this course will address the tradition of public intellectuals in several Black communities. We will examine Black politics and political history, as seen through
theater, literature, and film. We will interrogate the concept of Black leadership, including who becomes one and why. We will address Communism, The American Dream, Incarceration, Feminism, and Ebony Voices in the Ivory Tower.
AMST 194 counts toward the Humanities distribution requirement. Additionally, it satisfies the US Identities and Differences (USID) requirement. Students enrolling in this course are required to simultaneously enroll in an argumentative writing (WA) or writing as craft (WC) course towards fulfillment of the college writing requirement.
Class meets TR 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Writing designation: None
Living arrangements: Turck 1
ANTH 263-F1: Things with Feathers: Science, Birds and Culture
Arjun Guneratne, Anthropology Department
Birds are among the most visible and colorful members of the natural world. Across societies and over time, that fact has generated considerable human engagement with and awareness of birds, which have been utilized for both utilitarian and symbolic purposes. This course introduces you to the knowledge that different cultures have of birds, and to their formal scientific study in modern times. The topics we will examine include the place of birds in myth and religion; indigenous ways to classify birds; how local traditions relating to birds can serve as models for conservation; the relationship of local and traditional knowledge to the development of modern ornithology; the colonial roots of ornithology; and the part played by amateur birders and other non-professionals in the emergence of ornithology as a science. We will also examine the culture of modern birding in the U.S., including issues of gender and race. The course includes a number of field trips, to birding sites to develop our own engagement with birds as wild things, and to museum collections, to understand the scientific value of birds as dead things.
Class meets MWF 8:30 am – 9:30 am
Writing designation: WA
ART 235-F1: Sculpture I
Lela Pierce, Art and Art History Department
This hands-on studio class serves as an introduction to the rich and diverse field of inquiry we call sculpture. Over the course of the semester we will investigate a variety of concepts, materials, and fabrication methods employed in the realisation of sculptural works. Examples of fabrication methods may include basic woodworking techniques, 3D modeling with cardboard, basic sewing techniques, and more. The early part of the semester is devoted to brief exercises that introduce materials, processes, techniques, tools/equipment, and ways of thinking/unthinking. The latter part of the semester is devoted to fully realised individual projects. In addition to the formal and spatial aspects of the sculptures we create, we will consider their symbolic, sociopolitical, ethical, material, and tactile dimensions. Artist presentations, short readings, critiques, group discussions, and gallery/museum visits may supplement our studio research. The goal of this class is to conduct a serious and sustained – yet playful – inquiry into the question of sculpture while nurturing individual expression. This class is appropriate for any and all curious students interested in play, thinking with the hands, and reflecting on the results.
ART 235 counts toward the Fine Arts distribution requirement. Students enrolling in this course are required to simultaneously enroll in an argumentative writing (WA) or writing as craft (WC) course towards fulfillment of the college writing requirement.
Class meets MWF 9:40 am – 11:40 am
Writing designation: None
ART 252-F1: Gender, Sexualities, and Feminist Visual Culture
Joanna Inglot, Art and Art History Department
This course examines the ways in which gender and sexuality are understood in modern visual culture. It also covers a wide range of feminist approaches in the 20th and 21st century art and as they have been articulated in theory. Students explore social constructions of gender and sexualities, their visible and invisible representation, and discuss the impact of feminism and the changing role of women in society. The course will also cover some of the most recent global feminist trends and new directions in the feminist theory. Feminist work from Africa, India, Asia and Eastern and Central Europe and various marginalized cultural centers in Western Europe and the United States will be addressed.
Class meets TR 9:40 am – 11:10 am
Writing Designation: WC
CHEM 194-F1: Research in Chemistry: Creating Novel Dyes (with lab section)
Dennis Cao, Chemistry Department
In this course, students will learn about the science of color and how it is perceived, created, and used. Furthermore, students will conduct real chemistry research in which they will work in the lab to synthesize brand new dye compounds, read scientific articles, and engage in scientific writing and presentation. This course is NOT equivalent to Chem 111/115 and does NOT fulfill prerequisite requirements for Chem 112.
Class meets MWF 10:50 am – 11:50 am. There are two lab sections (8 students per section), one Tues. 1:20 pm – 4:30 pm, and the other Thurs. 1:20 pm – 4:30 pm.
Writing designation: WA anticipated
CHIN 194-F1: From Earth to Space: the future in Chinese science fiction
Xin Yang, Asian Languages and Cultures Department
The 2024 Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem marked the advancement of Chinese science fiction (SF) into the global media platform. How does Chinese SF imagine the future of China, the world, and the universe? What does the configuration of the future say about the politics of the present? This course explores Chinese SF and its underlying ideological, social, and cultural messages at different historical stages. We will examine the intersection of texts and reality, science and fantasy, human and posthuman. No prior knowledge of Chinese or China is required. The course fulfills WA and Internationalism.
Class meets MWF 1:10 pm – 2:10 pm
Writing designation: WA
CLAS 201-F1: Classics in Film
Brian Lush, Classical Mediterranean and Middle East Department
This course will explore the filmic legacy of selected texts from the Greek and Roman traditions. We read and discuss a number of epic and dramatic sources from Mediterranean antiquity, and trace how those narratives are creatively appropriated and deployed in cinema. The films explored in this course will include not only direct adaptations of ancient stories, but also points of connection between antiquity and film along thematic and stylistic lines. This course will feature live film viewings and draw upon a broad array of genres from global film-making. The filmmakers that we will view and discuss in this course will include, among numerous others, Hayao Miyazaki, Aki Kaurismaki, Denis Villeneuve, Charles Burnett, Akira Kurosawa, and Jean Cocteau.
CLAS 201 counts toward the Humanities distribution requirement. Additionally, as it carries a WP designation, CLAS 201 partially satisfies the Writing general education requirement. Students enrolling in this course are required to simultaneously enroll in an argumentative writing (WA) or writing as craft (WC) course towards fulfillment of the college writing requirement.
Class meets MW 8:00 am – 9:30 am
Writing designation: WP
COMP 194-F1: Introduction to Computer Science through Vision (R)
Susan Fox, Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Department
In this course, students will learn the basics of programming in Python. At the same time, they will explore image processing and computer vision techniques to solve a variety of computer vision problems, including motion and object tracking, hand, body, and face detection, image classification, object detection, and image generation. At the same time, students will examine ethical and social issues pertaining to computer vision methods, including privacy and surveillance, algorithmic bias, crowdsourcing and misinformation.
This course is suitable for students with no prior programming experience, who wish an introduction to computer science. It may serve as an alternative to Comp 123. Students with previous CS experience who are interested to learn more about image processing and computer vision are also welcome.
Class meets MWF 2:20 pm – 3:20 pm
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Turck 2
ECON 119-F1: Principles of Economics (R)
Mario Solis-Garcia, Economics Department
Why do markets — understood as a bunch of buyers and sellers of some good or service — “work just fine” most of the time? (There are exceptions, but this holds for nearly all of the goods you buy every day. Trust me on this one.) And why is it that, from time to time, markets don’t perform as they should? Put differently, why do markets have such a bad reputation? And if they don’t work as they should, can the government “improve things” by intervening (say, with taxes or subsidies) or regulating them so they operate in a particular way?
These concerns are enough to keep us busy for a while, yet we won’t stop here, since there’s more to do: “buyers” are mere mortals like you and me, and “sellers” refer to the firms in the economy — like the ones you may end up working for after graduation. So, talking about the buyers’ side, how should a reasonable person distribute her paycheck between all the goods available to her? On the sellers’ side, how should a down-to-business firm choose how many goods to produce and how much to charge for them?
These questions — and I’m sure you can think of many more — can be answered using the tools of microeconomics. This is the part of economics that analyzes how individual consumers and firms make their decisions in a meaningful way, and how these decisions combine into a market for any particular good.
But this only gets us halfway through. What if we aggregate buyers and sellers beyond micro-level markets, say, at the level of regions or countries? As you’ll see, things look very different when dealing with economic aggregates. For example, why do some countries grow vigorously over the long run, but others fail to leave the ground and stagnate instead? Alternatively, why is the average family far better off today than 50 years ago? (Or, for that matter, 200 years ago? Yes, there are exceptions here as well, but this holds for most of the people on the planet. Trust me on this one too.) Now let’s turn our attention to a shorter time horizon. Why do countries recurrently experience recessions and expansions? Are they all the same? Do the decisions of all buyers and sellers in an economy have something to do with recessions and expansions? In a recession, is government policy to blame, or can policy actually get the economy out of a downturn? And why did the COVID-19 pandemic generate a depression-like event around the world and leave us with higher inflation around the world?
As you may know, these questions lie at the core of macroeconomics, aka the really cool part of economics. (Yes, I’m a very biased macroeconomist. There, I’ve said it.) In the second half of the course, we turn towards the aggregate behavior of consumers, firms, and the government (which plays an important role given fiscal and monetary policy), and how these behaviors give rise to short-run economic fluctuations (caused, say, by bad policy… or a global pandemic) and long-run growth.
ECON 119 counts toward the Social Sciences distribution requirement. Additionally, as it carries a Q3 designation, ECON 119 fully satisfies the Quantitative Thinking general education requirement. Students enrolling in this course are required to simultaneously enroll in an argumentative writing (WA) or writing as craft (WC) course towards fulfillment of the college writing requirement.
Class meets MWF 9:40 am – 10:40 am
Writing designation: None
Living arrangements: Turck 2
ENGL 150-F1: Introduction to Creative Writing (R)
Emma Törzs, English Department
Writing, whether in the form of a story, a poem, or a late-night email begging your professor for an extension, is always a creative act. Words arranged on a page create meaning, and in this class we will examine and practice certain authorial choices that go into creative meaning-making. We will do this through the lenses of poetry and fiction, reading widely and carefully with an eye to explore what choices the authors make, and to what end. Essentially, we will be asking over and over what makes a reader feel, experience, and understand. By the end of the semester I hope you’ll feel confident with your new toolbox of tricks n skills, and empowered in your creative work to a) Say what you mean to say, b) How you mean to say it, c) With the desired emotional impact.
Class meets TR 1:20 pm – 2:50 pm
Writing designation: WC
Living arrangements: Dupre 3
ENGL 125-F1: Writing Against the Machine (R)
Jin Dawes, English Department
The machines echoed us. Now, we echo the machines. In a world that automates art and reduces people to data, we will return to what remains uniquely human: the impulse to imagine, to make, and to share.
Think of this course as part book club, part writing workshop, part philosophy circle. You’ll take on creative challenges that invite risk and discovery — from personal narratives to game design, oral storytelling to digital experiments. With each project, you’ll be asked not just what you want to create, but why it matters — to you and to others.
Along the way, we’ll read and discuss novels where creativity becomes a lifeline, a way to find joy, meaning, and community. We’ll turn to philosophers, ancient and modern, to explore how creation can be a wellspring of purpose and possibility in turbulent times. And we’ll close, finally, with science fiction — to ask what kind of future we’re heading toward, and whether there’s still time to rewrite it.
Class meets TR 9:40 am – 11:10 am
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Dupre 3
ENVI 234-F1: US Environmental History
Chris Wells, Environmental Studies Department
People have always had to contend with the natural world, but only recently have historians begun to explore the changing relationships between people and their environments over time. In this course, we will examine the variety of ways that people in North America have shaped the environment, as well as how they have used, labored in, abused, conserved, protected, rearranged, polluted, cleaned, and thought about it. In addition, we will explore how various characteristics of the natural world have affected the broad patterns of human society, sometimes harming or hindering life and other times enabling rapid development and expansion. By bringing nature into the study of human history, and the human past into the study of nature, we will begin to see the connections and interdependencies between the two that traditional history often overlooks.
ENVI 234 counts toward the Humanities distribution requirement. Additionally, as it carries a WP designation, ENVI 234 partially satisfies the Writing general education requirement. Students enrolling in this course are required to simultaneously enroll in an argumentative writing (WA) or writing as craft (WC) course towards fulfillment of the college writing requirement.
Class meets MWF 2:20 pm – 3:20 pm
Writing designation: WP
GEOG 232-F1: Food, Agriculture and the Environment (R)
Bill Moseley, Geography Department
The investigation of nature-society relationships lies at the heart of geography and has been one of the pillars of the discipline since the late 19th century. This realm of inquiry also has been an important bridge between geography and other disciplines. This course introduces you to the geography of food and agriculture, one of the most significant ways that humans knowingly or unknowingly engage with the environment. We will examine agro-environmental issues in a variety of geographic contexts (Global South and Global North) and the connections between agro-environmental problems in different locations. Beyond food and agriculture, we will also examine other sectoral issues in relation to agriculture, such human population dynamics, consumption, biodiversity, climate change, and environmental/food justice. We further will explore a number of theoretical lenses from geography’s broad human-environment tradition (such as physical geography, cultural and political ecology, commodity chain analysis, resource geography, the human dimensions of global change, hazards geography and environmental justice). As such, the course not only explores a range of agro-environmental issues, but introduces you to the big ideas and frameworks that shape our understanding of food and the human-environment interface.
Class meets TR 9:40 am – 11:10 am
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Turck 4
GEOG 241-F1: Urban Geography (R)
Dan Trudeau, Geography Department
This course introduces you to the interdisciplinary study of cities and emphasizes a geographical lens. The central point of the course is to examine how the built environment of cities is shaped by human activity and how, in turn, urban life is shaped by the built environment. The course focuses on American cities, and Minneapolis-St. Paul in particular. This course takes advantage of Macalester’s location by introducing you to the urban environment of the Twin Cities and connecting you to its history, landscapes, communities, and institutions through case studies, field study exercises, and visits with experts working in organizations and institutions in the local community. We will draw on our engagement with the local urban environment to explore several topics in the academic study of urban geography (e.g., the effect of transportation systems on urban development; how racism has influenced the structure of US cities, the mechanisms and opportunities for effecting social change through the built environment; processes of urban growth and neighborhood change) at a more personal level. Hands-on exercises will help you learn analytical skills. Writing assignments will help you synthesize knowledge from exercises, lectures, and readings. You will also research a significant issue facing cities today, which you will share with your classmates. These activities will hone your argumentative writing and ability to conduct college-level research.
Other details: This course provides you with a unique opportunity to leave campus and engage people and places in Minneapolis-St. Paul. This will require from you a willingness to explore the city by bus, bike, foot, and/or train. It will also require a solid work ethic to complete the field study exercises in a timely fashion. You will be rewarded with foundational knowledge of St. Paul and the greater Twin Cities region that you can draw upon throughout your time at Macalester.
Class meets MWF 10:50 am – 11:50 am
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Turck 3
GEOL 160-F1: Dynamic Earth and Global Change (with lab) (R)
Kelly MacGregor and Jeff Thole, Geology Department
The planet Earth is an amazing place, with a dynamic interior and surface even after 4.6 billion years under its belt. At its most basic, this class is an introduction to the materials and structure of the Earth, and to the processes acting on and within the Earth to produce change. We will begin to learn the language of geology through a study of plate tectonics, planetary structure, and rocks of all sorts. I am particularly interested in the physical forces that shape the surface of the Earth, and I am excited to teach you about a multitude of surface processes that shape our planet (rivers and glaciers and landslides, oh my!) and tell you about my research on glaciers and in rivers and lakes. The planet has begun to show signs of our expanding population and the increasing need for natural resources, and we will consider the feedbacks between humans and the Earth as well.
Broadly, the goals of the course are three-fold: first, to introduce the materials and processes that govern the evolution of the Earth; second, to examine global environmental changes in the context of natural processes; and third, to inspire you to develop a lifelong interest in the planet on which you reside. The course begins with an overview of the origin of the solar system and other planets. Next, you will learn about Earth materials and how to interpret the significance of minerals and rocks in the context of our dynamic planet. We will examine the composition, structure, and evolution of the interior of our planet, as well as the well-accepted (but not complete) model of plate tectonics. We will also spend time examining the forces that shape our continental surfaces, including surface and groundwater movement, hillslope processes, coastlines, wind and deserts, and glacial processes. Throughout the course, I will strive to link the academic study of our planet to ‘real-life’ situations and events, and demonstrate the importance of understanding earth processes to being an educated global citizen. Finally, through explicit writing instruction and several fun assignments, you will improve upon your argumentative writing skills in the scientific context.
The course has no prerequisites, and I expect most of you may not have had a physical or environmental sciences course since middle school! We will have weekly lab meetings (in addition to class), and one optional overnight field trip (no experience or equipment required!) to northern Minnesota – woo hoo!
Class meets MWF 9:40 am – 10:40 am. Lab meets Thursday 8:00 am – 11:10 am.
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Turck 4
GERM 194-F1: Our Cyborgs, Ourselves (R)
David Martyn, German Studies Department
A cyborg is any technologically enhanced human being. Defined this way, cyborgs are present wherever people grow attached to their technology: from brain-computer interfaces, to artificial limbs, to you and your smartphone. Arguably, humans have always been cyborgs, all the way back to homo sapiens—the animal whose distinguishing characteristic was their use of tools. In this course, we will explore the cyborg across a wide range of cultural and theoretical sources, from literature (E.T.A Hoffmann’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” on which the ballet is based; Goethe’s Faust; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein) to film (Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the main inspiration for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner) to material history (puppets, marionettes, and 19th-century toy manufacturing in Nuremberg). We’ll read philosophical anthropology on the idea of the human as deficient being, compelled to reinvent itself with tools and technology in order to survive. Discussion topics will include: what does the cyborg in culture and theory tell us about the limits of the human? Where does culture begin and biology end? Why are cyborgs either hyper-gendered, androgynous, or both at the same time, and what does this tell us about gender? Weekly reading responses; several short essays spread over the semester; a final, building on the shorter essays. The course counts for the argumentative writing and internationalism general education requirements. Taught in English; no prerequisites.
Class meets MWF 9:40 pm – 10:40 pm
Writing designation: WA
Living Arrangements: Dupre 2
HIST 194-F1: Responding to Revolutionary Haiti: Art, Literature, and Politics
Linda Sturtz, History Department
Revolutions in the United States and Haiti transformed the late eighteenth-century Atlantic World. The emerging new republics influenced each other as both nations wrestled with the meanings of race and citizenship. How did revolutionary-era Haiti’s politics, history, and cultures influence the early United States? How have North Americans ascribed meaning to the Haitian revolution? In U.S. politics and popular opinion, North Americans have exoticized Haiti by emphasizing voodoo religion, “octoroon” women, and spicy Creole cuisine. Later US history explored the nation’s invasions and influence on Haiti, especially in the 20th century. But connections between the two mattered long before that. In this course students will examine primary sources, including political speech, food, fiction, and expressive culture, to explore how the reverberations of the Haitian Revolution shaped the early United States.
Class meets MWF 9:40 am – 10:40 am
Writing Designation: WA anticipated
HIST 194-F2: Disasters in World History
Karin Velez, History Department
What constitutes a disaster in human history, and who decides this? How have explanations for and responses to calamity changed over time and place? What does it mean to describe a disaster as natural, social, or political? How have disasters intersected with racial and socioeconomic inequalities, colonialism and capitalism? In this course, we will consider what historians bring to the table in the growing, interdisciplinary field of disaster studies, surveying select case studies of disaster from across time and around the world that include plague, fire, earthquakes, hurricanes, revolutions, warfare and pollution. We will also consider how writing and disaster converge: Can trauma be captured in prose, and can it useful to approach our own writing as catastrophic?
Class meets MWF 9:40 am – 10:40 am
Writing designation: WA anticipated
INTL 110-F1: Introduction to International Studies: Globalization – Homogeneity and Heterogeneity
Ahmed Samatar, International Studies Department
The big and small elements of the phenomenon of “Globalization” are everywhere for the naked eye to see, the ear to hear, the nose to smell, the mouth to taste, and for the intellect to comprehend.The multiple forces at work range from the cultural/aesthetic, political, economic/technological, and to the environmental in this age of the anthropocene. Whether a farmer in the middle of Minnesota or a merchant in Shanghai, an artist in Rio or an industrial worker in Munich or Oshawa, a young student in Dakar or a garment factory laborer in Decca, a struggling activist in Yangon or a scientist in Saint Petersburg, the time of disparate identities and fates seems to be closing. Yet, there are diverse approaches to comprehend (and live) our epoch and enter into the on-rushing future. For some, globalization is essentially harmful — that is, it corrodes local intimacy and autonomy, and breeds alienation. For others, the phenomenon offers new and rich opportunities for individual growth, an enlargement of sensibilities, cosmopolitan civic consciousness, and belonging. This course offers students an initial exploration of the contradictory but challenging approaches to “Globalization.”
Class meets TR 1:20 pm – 2:50 pm
Writing designation: WA
INTL 202-F1: Global Media Industries
Alix Johnson, International Studies Department
Media have a tremendous influence on how we see and know the world. But while media is central to the production of a sense of “the global,” media industries are materially, culturally, and geographically placed. Exploring some of these sites, and their complex interconnections, can help us to better understand our own media environments as well as some of the pressing issues that media systems worldwide face today: Who owns the media and who regulates it? How have its centers of power shifted over time? How do media systems located in different political, economic, and historical conditions result in different kinds of products? What is the impact of media industries on the earth? In this course we will follow a wide range of media forms (telegraph, radio, film, television, social) across time and space, focusing on questions of labor, infrastructure, and ownership. Course assignments will help you to make connections between past moments and contemporary questions, in relation to some of the media that matters most to you.
Class meets TR 9:40 am – 11:10 am
Writing designation: WA anticipated
MATH 137-F1: Applied Multivariable Calculus II
Taryn Flock, Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Department
A second course in calculus. This course introduces multivariable functions, and explores their behavior and applications using the tools of calculus. We’ll learn about partial derivatives, gradient vectors, constrained and unconstrained optimization of multivariable functions. We’ll learn about interpretations of integrals via finite sums, the fundamental theorem of calculus, and double integrals over rectangles and triangles. We’ll also discuss series expansions of functions and differential equations. The course will highlight applications in the mathematical, natural, and social sciences. Attention is given to both symbolic and numerical computing.
Prerequisite(s): AP Calculus AB (with a score of 4 or 5), AP Calculus BC (with a score of 3,4, or 5), or IB HL Mathematics: Analysis & Approaches (with a score of 5, 6 or 7), or IB HL Mathematics: Applications & Interpretations (with a score of 6 or 7), or a comparable year of high school calculus. Students with a BC score of 4 or 5 or IB HL A&A score of 6 or 7 should also consider Math 237.
MATH 137 counts toward the Natural Science and Mathematics distribution requirement. Additionally, as it carries a Q1 designation, Math 135 partially satisfies the Quantitative Thinking general education requirement. Students enrolling in this course are required to simultaneously enroll in an argumentative writing (WA) or writing as craft (WC) course towards fulfillment of the college writing requirement.
Class meets MWF 2:20 pm – 3:20 pm
Writing designation: None
MCST 194-F1: A Land-based Liberal Arts: Entangling art, nature and everyday life (R)
John Kim, Krista Langberg, and JG Everest, Media and Cultural Studies Department
What is the role of a liberal arts education in addressing today’s challenges and tomorrow’s uncertainties? How do the liberal arts provide students with the thinking skills and tools to address them? What does it mean to be a college student today?
These are clearly big, complex questions, and this course takes a specific route through them. We will explore the liberal arts as an integrative interdisciplinary education on and about the land by learning from Macalester’s Katharine Ordway Natural History Study Area, a 300-acre site on the banks of the Mississippi River. We will make multiple trips to Ordway to engage experientially with the site as a place for reflection, study and creative exploration, where we will develop collaborative projects that encourage us to examine and develop our own connections and entanglements with the land and with nature.
The class will attend to the role of the arts in a liberal arts education. We understand this in a few different ways: the arts can support a transformation of life. A land-based arts education seeks to imagine and transform the world into one in which humans, non-humans, and nature can thrive. In this sense, the arts can be in defense of nature of which we are a part. In addition, this interdisciplinary course will invite professors from across departments to teach us about varying ways to understand our relationship to the land. For example, we may draw on regional histories of colonization, ecologies of the Upper Midwest, critical media theories on digital disconnection and separation, the neuroscience of sound, increasing awareness through movement, along with other fields. In its capacity to foster discoveries, reveal neglected perspectives, and nurture creative problem solving, we will explore an expanded sense of art’s role in translating and making public these ideas.
The course is co-taught by a music composer and director (JG Everest), dance professor and somatic educator (Krista Langberg) and Media and Cultural Studies professor (John Kim), who each have extensive experience in land-based arts education. Please be advised that this class will make about 4-5 required Saturday lab trips to the Ordway Study Area and other off campus locations throughout the semester. These labs will either be full or half day afternoon excursions. Please consider taking another FYC if you expect to have a conflict.
Class meets TR 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Writing designation: WC anticipated
Living arrangements: Dupre 4
MUSI 111-F1: World Music
Chuen-Fung Wong, Music Department
This course surveys traditional, folk, and popular genres from major music traditions in the world through a comparative lens. It seeks to understand the diverse ways in which musical sounds are organized across cultures. We approach music as both aesthetic and social processes, and explore the interaction between music making and other domains of human experience. Students will develop basic skills in critical listening, analysis, and writing about music. Course materials also explore discourses of music against changing ideas of musical otherness in world history.
Class meets TR 9:40 am – 11:10 am
Writing designation: WA anticipated
PHIL 100-F1: Introduction to Philosophy: Love and Friendship
Geoffrey Gorham, Philosophy Department
The Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle said “without friends no one would choose to live, though they had all other goods”. (Nicomachean Ethics, 1055a 5-7) It is not clear exactly what Aristotle means by this, but the high value he gives to friendship and love is shared by many philosophers from many eras and tradiGons. This class will begin with an overview of central themes in ancient and contemporary philosophy — epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, and including philosophical method — and then undertake a detailed invesGgaGon of friendship and love: Why are friendship and love valuable to us? How do we become friends, and when should we break-off friendships? With whom can we be friends: family members? pets? on-line friends? AI? Is ‘romanGc’ love real or merely a social construcGon? How do we decide when to break-off a friendship, or love affair, or marriage? Should we love only one other, or many, or everyone? Could it be good for us to have no friends, or should we have as many friends as possible? What role, if any, does gender play in friendship and love? What, if anything, do we owe to our friends and lovers? We will consider texts by Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Sappho, Confucius, Montaigne, Kant, Emerson, de Beauvoir, Sartre, as well as several contemporary philosophical perspecGves on friendship and love. We will also read works of literature, such as Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and poems of Emily Dickinson, and view & discuss together several films, such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Your grade will be based on three short papers, two ‘take-home’ examinations, reading responses (‘convos’), and attendance/participation.
Class meets MWF 9:40 am – 10:40 am
Writing designation: WA
PHIL 121-F1: Introduction to Ethics
Sumeet Patwardhan, Philosophy Department
How should you live your life? This course is dedicated to exploring that BIG question. One dimension of that question is: what is good for you? Or in other words, what makes a life go well? Is it all dependent on the amount of pleasure and pain that you experience? All about how many desires of yours are satisfied? Or something else? However we answer such questions, we might also wonder – is morality just about self-interest? If not, what else is it about? And so another dimension of the question of how to live is: what makes an action morally right or wrong? Is it all about the consequences – for you or other people? Is it about treating people as more than just a means to get what you want? Is it about virtue? About caring for others? Is morality a messy combination of all of these things, and more? No matter what we think morality is, we can all admit: sometimes we morally mess up. And so we must wonder: what do we do in the wake of wrongdoing? Should we express blame? If so, when, and how? If I myself am the wrongdoer, can I ever forgive myself? This course is about questions like these. Along the way, we’ll consider myriad real-world ethical issues – how to treat animals; how to live a life with meaning; whether we have obligations to donate to charity; what it means to give consent to sex; how to feel about and respond to our complicity in various structural injustices; and more. Readings will include not just philosophical papers, but also films, short stories, and popular essays. If you want a chance to reflect deeply on how to live – a chance to work together to explore the big questions in life – this course is for you.
Class meets MWF 2:20 pm – 3:20 pm
Writing designation: WA
PHYS 194-F1: Nanoscience (R)
James Heyman, Physics and Astronomy Department
Nanoscience is the science of matter on the nanometer length scale. This interdisciplinary field sits at the convergence of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Materials Science and Electrical Engineering. Our course will discuss objects at the nanometer scale: their properties, how they are made and what they can be used for. This quantitative course will use mathematics at the introductory calculus level, and high-school physics and calculus are recommended. Assignments will include readings, problem sets, short papers and a research paper.
PHYS 194 counts toward the Natural Science and Mathematics distribution requirement. Additionally, as it carries a WP designation, PHYS 194 partially satisfies the Writing general education requirement. Students enrolling in this course are required to simultaneously enroll in an argumentative writing (WA) or writing as craft (WC) course towards fulfillment of the college writing requirement.
Class meets MWF 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm.
Writing designation: WP
Living arrangements: Turck 3
POLI 140-F1: Foundations of Comparative Politics (R)
Paul Dosh, Political Science Department
In Comparative Politics, we use comparison to analyze political outcomes within and across countries. Why do Mexican political parties organize around conservative and liberal policy preferences, whereas Nigerian parties tend to organize along ethnic and religious divides? In Germany, how has the far-right reshaped the party system? Facing repression in Russia and Singapore, why do some LGBTQ activist groups conform while others resist? And when confronted with protests in their cities, do state security forces in China and the United States respond with similar methods or do they differ? Through comparative analysis, students will learn to describe diverse political institutions, to propose explanations for divergent outcomes, and to evaluate scholarly and popular arguments about politics.
Class meets TR 9:40 am – 11:10 am.
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Turck 1
POLI 194-F1: Ways of Thinking, Ways of Being
Patrick Schmidt, Political Science Department
Politics is a social science: It means trying to solve the problem of how to live with other people in a society. This course will take inspiration from some of the big puzzles about our struggle to live together. What are the advantages of thinking ideologically and thinking pragmatically? How do we build power to do good things but also control it? How should we be governed? How skeptical should we be of utopian thinking? Topics will include power and cooperation, democracy and its alternatives, different scales of government (from local to global), the construction of national identity, and constitutions and rights. Readings will range from theory, to history, to social science research; class periods will mix discussion, dialogue, and lecture. This course qualifies as a “Foundations” course, a required element in the Political Science major.
Class meets MWF 10:50 am – 11:50 am
Writing designation: WA anticipated
PORT 194-F1: Soultracking Brazil: Shuffling Through the Sounds of a Musical Nation (R)
Ernesto Ortiz-Díaz, Spanish and Portugese Department
What binds together a continental-sized country, stretching across both hemispheres and four time zones, made up by a wide array of landscapes and climates, encompassing half of the population of South America and with a society that is the quintessence of racial diversity? In this course, we will study how the idea of Brazil as a nation rests upon the ongoing creation of a popular soundtrack that brings the country’s different cultural regions closer through a melody of sounds, rhythms, and musical genres. Every week, we will shuffle through the national musical archive to look for the soul of Brazil to the beats of samba, bossa nova, modinha, xote, forró, lundu, choro, frevo, carimbó, maxixe, maracatu, among many others. As we explore the musical richness of Brazil, we will also reflect on how concepts like gender, identity, race, ethnicity, and class have informed the national music scene. This course will be taught in English.
PORT 194 counts toward the Humanities distribution requirement. Students enrolling in this course are required to simultaneously enroll in an argumentative writing (WA) or writing as craft (WC) course towards fulfillment of the college writing requirement.
Class meets MWF 10:50 am – 11:50 am
Writing designation: None
Living arrangements: Dupre 2
PSYC 194-F1: The Uses and Misuses of Psychology
Jean-Marie Maddux, Psychology Department
Science can be a powerful tool to transform society, but the applications of scientific knowledge can result in either beneficial or detrimental outcomes, regardless of scientists’ intentions. This course examines the societal ramifications, both real and imagined, of landmark discoveries from the field of psychology. For example, the work of B.F. Skinner greatly increased our understanding of how both animal and human behavior can be shaped through interactions with the environment, but these same principles of operant conditioning have been used by the U.S. military to produce soldiers who are more effective at killing in combat. We consider social, cultural, political, financial, and historical contexts as influential moderators of both science itself as well as the ends for which it is used. Readings include a mix of scholarly literature, popular sources, and works of fiction.
Class meets MWF 10:50 am – 11:50 am
Writing designation: WA anticipated
RELI 121-F1: Jesus, Peter, Paul and Mary: The Beginnings of Christianity
Susanna Drake, Religious Studies Department
In this course we examine the diverse literature of the New Testament along with some other early Christian texts that did not become part of the Christian canon. We will learn about historical-critical approaches that help you situate New Testament texts in their social, political, and historical contexts and understand the reception and uses of these texts among diverse communities of faith in the United States. We will pay special attention to how the various authors of the New Testament produced Jewish-Christian difference, participated in discourses of race and ethnicity, and understood the role of women within their communities.
We will employ contemporary modes of interpretation to explore the formation of identity not only in the first and second centuries of Christianity but also in the present U.S. context. This course will foreground biblical interpretations of traditionally marginalized groups in the U.S., examining, for example, the interpretations of New Testament texts in slave sermons from the Ante-bellum South, 20th- and 21st-century African-American, Asian-American, and Latinx interpretations of the bible, feminist, post-colonial and liberationist theologies, and queer and trans theologies. One of the central concerns of the course will be to determine how liberationist and identity-perspective approaches to biblical study help us to be better historians and interpreters of the early Christian world. We will thus explore how the sustained engagement of biblical interpretations from diverse U.S. communities augments the understanding of identity and difference in biblical times. Likewise, we will explore how analyses of difference and power in the ancient Mediterranean world help us to rethink and contextualize approaches to difference in the contemporary U.S.
Class meets MWF 9:40 am – 10:40 am
Writing designation: WA anticipated
RUSS 261-F1: Making History: Russian Cinema as Testimony, Propaganda, and Art
Julia Chadaga, Russian Studies Department
Through the study of films made in the former Soviet Union, starting from the silent era up to the present day, the course will explore how storytelling in cinema differs from that in history and fiction, as well as how power relations, technology, and aesthetics shaped cinematic depictions of major historical events in Russia from medieval times to the post-Soviet era. Course readings will draw upon film theory, history, fiction, and memoirs. We will use our readings to create a conceptual framework for examining the films as narratives about real events, as vehicles of propaganda, and as imaginative works of art.
Class meets TR 1:20 pm – 2:50 pm
Writing designation: WA
THDA 105-F1: Seeing Performance in the Twin Cities
kt shorb, Theater and Dance Department
In this course, first-year students critically attend live dance and theater performances in the exciting arts scene of the Twin Cities, and articulate their individual reactions by writing reviews, responses, and essays. In this process of studied spectatorship, students acquire the vocabularies of the field. Readings include seminal texts in dance and theatre criticism, as well as manifestos and scholarly articles. We will attend dance and theater performances at professional venues such as the Walker Arts Center, the Guthrie, Penumbra Theatre, Mixed Blood, Northrop Auditorium, and Cowles Center. This course is typically reserved for incoming first-years and not open to returning students. Only offered as a First-Year Course.
Class meets TR 1:20 pm – 2:50 pm
Writing designation: WA
THDA 105-F2: Seeing Performance in the Twin Cities
Mina Kinukawa, Theater and Dance Department
In this course, first-year students attend live dance and theater performances in the exciting arts scene of the Twin Cities, and articulate their individual reactions by writing reviews, responses, and essays. In this process of studied spectatorship, students acquire the vocabularies of the field. Readings include seminal texts in dance and theatre criticism, as well as manifestos and scholarly articles. We will attend dance and theater performances at professional venues such as the Walker Arts Center, the Guthrie, Penumbra Theatre, Jungle Theater, Mixed Blood, Northrop Auditorium, and the O’Shaughnessey.
Class meets TR 1:20 pm – 2:50 pm
Writing designation: WA