2023 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.
Most courses utilize student preceptors to provide additional academic support and peer mentoring. Many courses are also Residential.
What is a Residential First Year Course?
Residential FYCs mean that students in that class will live on the same floor of a residence hall or in the same building. Faculty and preceptors may do programming in the residence hall. Approximately 60% of FYCs are residential.
Why might someone choose a Residential FYC?
- Community is strengthened through both course and housing connections
- Increased engagement on campus
- Easy for forming study groups and working on group projects
Locations of Residential FYCs:
Residential FYCs are located in Doty, Turck and Dupre residence halls. Those assigned to Turck and Dupre are gender inclusive- meaning that shared bedrooms and restrooms are not gender restrictive. Doty hall has a small set of gender-inclusive rooms, with the majority of the building being single-gender housing, meaning that each floor is designated either male or female, with coordinating rooms and restrooms. For more information, visit the Residential Life website.
Depending on your need or desire for single-gender or gender-inclusive housing, note where each FYC is placed when ranking your preferences.
It will be important to factor in your housing needs (accommodations, single gender housing needs, preferences, etc.) when thinking about your FYC selection. If you’re looking for single rooms within a FYC, there are limited spaces available. Students can indicate if they have a preference for a single on the First Year Housing preference form. If there is a need for a single room, within a particular space, please contact Disability Services prior to July 7th.
Please note, you will be paired with other folks either in your FYC class or with other residents in FYCs located in the same building. We will not be taking roommate requests.
Abbreviations Key
- WA = Argumentative Writing, WC = Writing as Craft, WP = Writing as Practice
First-Year Course Offerings for Fall 2023
Course Descriptions
AMST 194-F1: What’s After White Empire (and is it already here)? (R)
Karin Aguilar-San Juan, American Studies Department
From the Philippine-American War (1898-1910) to the global uprisings of May 2020, white supremacy and US imperialism have marched hand-in-hand, buttressed by cultures of violence and literal guns and tanks. Yet cracks in the walls of racism and empire have also always existed, with hopeful gestures of solidarity and activist movements pushing forward with new possibilities and imagined futures. In this discussion-based course, we will look for the common threads that link Nicole Hannah-Jones’ 1619 project to David Fagen (Black U.S. army soldier who defected and joined the Philippine nationalists in 1899) and Grace Lee Boggs (Chinese American philosopher activist based in Detroit, 1905-2015) along with many other individuals and events. Among the significant questions we will consider are: What makes an insurrectionist different from an ally or a rabble rouser or a survivalist? What lessons can be drawn from the global COVID pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine? What would it take to replace a culture of violence with a culture of peace? Books and films include: 1619 (Nicole Hannah-Jones), A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota (Sun Yung Shin), “Amigo” (John Sayles), “American Revolutionary” (Grace Lee).
This course will be offered as a First-Year Course only, and will carry the WA and USID designations.
Class meets TR 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
ANTH 251-F1/LATI 251-F1: Politics of Memory in Latin America (R)
Olga Gonzalez, Anthropology Department
This course examines and critically analyzes various approaches to the study of how different individuals and communities in particular historical and cultural scenarios in contemporary Latin America create meanings about their past experience with political violence. The course addresses questions related to the tension between remembering and forgetting, the presence of conflicting memories and truths and how these are negotiated or not through distinct forms of representation. The cultural analysis of different means of representation: human rights and truth commissions’ reports, testimonials, film, art and memorials will be the basis for class discussions on different notions of truth and different forms of truth-telling. A close examination of these forms of representation will reveal the extent to which they can conflict with each other while at the same time feed on each other, creating “effects of truth” and leaving room for secrecy as a mode of truth-telling. Finally, the course will also compel students to think about what consequences the politics of memory in postwar Latin America.
The content and discussion in this course will necessarily engage with historical contexts and personal testimonies of violence that include arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, sexual violence, genocide, massacres, extrajudicial execution and disappearances. Much of the material will be emotionally and intellectually challenging to engage with. We will do our best to flag especially graphic or intense content that discusses or represents violence and will do our best to make this classroom a space where we can engage bravely, empathetically and thoughtfully with difficult content every week.
Class meets TR 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
ART 149-F1: Introduction to Visual Culture (R)
Kari Shepherdson-Scott, Art and Art History Department
This course examines material and symbolic practices through myriad visual culture forms, from standards of fine art such as painting and sculpture to mass media including TV, film, advertising, and the Internet. Students will learn different theoretical paradigms and techniques for visual analysis in order to understand how visual culture mediates numerous social, economic, cultural and political relationships. We will investigate these diverse practices through lectures, guest speakers, film, historical art and media and, of course, those proliferating images that define our daily experiences.
Class meets MWF 9:40 am – 10:40 am
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
ART 194-F1: Centering: Introduction to Ceramics Art (R)
Summer Hills-Bonczyk, Art and Art History Department
This introductory course will provide a supportive studio environment for the exploration of diverse approaches to the ceramic field. With specific emphasis on the vessel, both functional pottery and sculpture will be introduced. Techniques and material for both handbuilding and wheelthrowing will be included. The goal of this course is to build an appreciation for the spirit of the handmade object as well as give students the tools to develop a personal creative practice that supports individual expression and self awareness. Course activities and clay projects will prioritize hands-on learning and creative problem solving while introducing students to the diverse and expanding field of Ceramic Art. Critiques, discussions and meditation practices will support studio work and build community within the class. This course meets the Fine Arts distribution requirement.
Class meets TR 8:00 am – 11:20 am
Writing Designation: None
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
CHEM 115-F1/CHEM 115-L1: Accelerated General Chemistry and Lab (R)
Keith Kuwata, Chemistry Department
This one-semester course integrates topics from Macalester’s first-semester and second-semester general chemistry classes and is designed for incoming first-year students with a
strong high school foundation in chemistry. The course begins with an intuitive introduction to quantum mechanics that we then use to explain the structure and properties of atoms and molecules. We then apply our understanding of atoms and molecules to gain a novel perspective on macroscopic concepts such as energy, entropy, and the rates of chemical reactions. Classes will largely consist of lectures and demonstrations. Weekly laboratory sessions will reinforce concepts from class and teach students how to make written scientific arguments based on experimental and computational data. Students completing this course are prepared to take sophomore-level courses in analytical and organic chemistry.
Class meets MWF 1:10 pm – 2:10 pm. Lab meets Thurs 1:20 pm – 4:30 pm
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Single-gender spaces. Single Gender spaces have binary bathrooms options with a gender inclusive bathroom on the first floor.
COMP 194-F1: Functional Problem Solving
Abigail Marsh, Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Department
Have you ever wondered how a computer scientist turns an idea into code? Have you ever thought about the way that computers process problems? This course introduces the field of computer science by using recursion—solving problems by looking at simpler versions of the same problem—and functional programming—solving problems by dividing them into small, specific tasks. We will cover central computing concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. For this course, we will be working in the Racket programming language, which is derived from a rich lineage of functional programming languages in the LISP family. Along the way, you will learn about what it means for a programming language to be functional, how to decompose projects into functions, and how to use recursion to solve problems.
This course serves students who might envision focusing on computer science in college and students who wish to have solid computing skills to support work in another field. Only basic high school math (through algebra and trigonometry) is required as a prerequisite. Nonetheless, even if you have extensive experience with computer science or programming (including advanced placement or similar) you may find new and challenging material in this course because of its emphasis on writing recursive programs and the design of programming languages.
Comp 194 counts towards the Natural Science and Mathematics 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. Comp 194 will serve as a replacement for the Comp 123 prerequisite if you register for Comp 127 in the future.
Class meets MWF 10:50 am – 11:50 am
Writing designation: None
ECON 119-F1: Principles of Economics (R)
Pete Ferderer, Economics Department
Economics is the study of how people make decisions and how those decisions relate to a wide array of real-world phenomena. Examples include: Why are some countries rich and other countries poor? Why do earnings differ across genders and racial groups? What causes unemployment and inflation? How does the economy affect the environment? Economics is a broad discipline that helps us understand historical trends, interpret today’s headlines, make predictions about the coming years, and formulate policy solutions to pressing social problems.
Principles of Economics is a one-semester overview of both microeconomics (the study of individual firms, consumers and markets) and macroeconomics (the study of the economy as a whole). This course is required for the economics major, but also provides a good introduction to the discipline for non-majors who only plan to take one economics course. It fulfills the general education requirement of quantitative thinking (Q3) – and is a prerequisite requirement for 200-level economics courses.
Class meets MWF 1:10 pm – 2:10 pm
Writing designation: None
Living arrangements: Single-gender spaces. Single Gender spaces have binary bathrooms options with a gender inclusive bathroom on the first floor.
ECON 119-F2: Principles of Economics
Gary Krueger, Economics Department
Economics is the study of how people make decisions and how these decisions apply to real-world problems. Economics can help us understand income inequality within and across countries, the quality of the environment, unemployment, poverty, crime, health care, financial crises, technological change, inflation and many more issues. This course introduces the basic tools that economists use to explore these topics and will cover fundamental economic concepts like scarcity, supply and demand, costs and benefits, trade-offs, and incentives. This course is a one semester overview of both microeconomics (the study of choices firms and individual consumers make) and macroeconomics (the study of the economy as a whole). This course will not satisfy the writing requirement.
Class meets MWF 1:10 pm – 2:10 pm
Writing designation: None
EDUC 194-F1: We Demand: Student Power, World Building, and Democratizing Higher Education (R)
Gonzalo Guzman and Hanna Dinku, Educational Studies Department
Noted scholar, activist, and educator W.E.B Du Bois argued that higher education was the bedrock of education in the United States. Specifically, Du Bois looked to higher education to be civic oriented and be devoted to uplifting communities. In other words, world building. What does this mean in the context of the Movement for Black Lives, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and the shifting terrain of what community even means in the United States? Looking at critical ethnic studies, local community activism, global movement to decolonize higher education, and the history of Macalester (Mac), this course will look at the ways in which world building, community collaboration, and student activism have existed and must exist at Mac. Housed in Mac’s Cultural House, the focus of this course will be to use said themes for students to create and develop their own philosophy of education and creed regarding their hopes and dreams for their times at Macalester.
Class meets MWF 9:40 am – 10:40 am
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Cultural House
ENGL 150-F1: Introduction to Creative Writing (R)
Michael Prior, English Department
In this course, we will explore and develop the foundational skills of creative writing. We will hone our craft and build a respectful, collaborative writing community through a series of creative exercises, close reading assignments, and workshops (where we will have the opportunity to share and receive feedback on our own drafts). Over the semester, we will read and discuss poems and stories from a diverse group of published authors, focusing on what we might learn from their approaches to the page, while asking how, among so many unique voices, we might cultivate our own. This course requires us to devote a significant amount of time outside of class to reading the course texts and composing our own work: creative writing is a way to discover more about ourselves and the world, but such discovery requires attention, contemplation, and practice. Readings will include writing by Jhumpa Lahiri, Ocean Vuong, Jamaica Kincaid, Neil Gaiman, Joy Harjo, Haruki Murakami, Yanyi, and others. This course fulfills the WC general education requirement.
Class meets TR 1:20 pm – 2:50 pm
Writing designation: WC
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
ENGL 194-F1: Movie Medievalisms
Coral Lumbley, English Department
Were the Middle Ages as magical as Hollywood would have us think? Medieval movies show us knights in glittering armor, mysterious ladies with hidden powers, and sorcerers with dark secrets. From the gritty Last Duel to the campy King Arthur: Legend of the Sword to the irreverent Monty Python and the Holy Grail, audiences love medievalisms, or creative ways of representing the Middle Ages. How else to explain the success of fantasy films, shows, and books?
In this class, we will learn how fantasy and fiction come together in modern movies and the medieval texts they are based on. Each week, you’ll watch a movie and read a short text, then come to class for discussion-based analysis of how the two interact. For example, we’ll watch The Green Knight and read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, then talk about how lessons about courage, greatness, and queer attraction appear in each. Prepare for time-traveling conversations and multimodal projects (including papers and short films) that take a deep dive into modern fantasies about medieval life and culture. Huzzah!
Note: These R-rated films and medieval texts contain adult content and themes, including violent battles and sex scenes. Students should be prepared to analyze this material with care and sensitivity.
Meets Gen Ed Requirement for Writing as Argument and Internationalism
Class meets MWF 10:50 am – 11:50 am
Writing designation: WA
ENVI 252-F1/GEOG 252-F1/POLI 252-F1: Water and Power (R)
Roopali Phadke, Environmental Studies Department
Fresh water has become one of the most fiercely guarded local and global resources as the climate changes. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to studying water resources. With a focus on the Mississippi River, whose headwaters are in northern Minnesota and whose banks are a mile from campus, we will examine historical and emerging challenges to the equitable and sustainable use of waters. We will also meet with local artists, activists and scientists whose work centers around imagining how rivers heal and take fieldtrips that include paddling the river! We will address a range of controversial topics including energy production, indigenous rights, and cultural preservation.
Class meets TR 9:40 am – 11:10 am
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
FREN 194-F1: Health and Disease in an Age of Revolution: Medical Enlightenment and Social Reform in Eighteenth-Century France (R)
Andrew Billing, French and Francophone Studies Department
What does it mean to describe a society as “healthy” or “diseased,” or compare the illnesses or wellbeing of individuals to those of the “social body”? And can social institutions and practices be “diagnosed” and “cured”? In this course, we will explore how eighteenth-century French writers understood health and illness as conditions to which the individual body and mind were susceptible, and also as metaphors to understand society and conceptualize social reform.
Late eighteenth-century France experienced a Medical Enlightenment, in which advances in physiology and medicine led writers and social reformers to advocate for improvements in medical care and treatment, and lay the foundations for the emerging field of public health. On the eve of the French Revolution, however, a new French “medical science of man” also prescribed remedies for the diseases of society as well of individuals, aiming to restore both to conditions of health and vigor.
In the first part of the course, we will examine France’s Medical Enlightenment, and how it transformed understandings of the health and illness of individuals. We will examine how diseases were understood and treated and how medicine was taught and performed, including the “doctor wars” between doctors and surgeons. We will also consider access to care and the conditions of hospitals and clinics and their links to the repression of various forms of social “deviancy,” including vagrancy and prostitution. We will also examine how public health reformers emerged to denounce the “miasmatic” conditions of urban spaces caused by poverty, overcrowding, and poor sanitation. Finally, we will study the campaigns in favor of smallpox inoculation by leading French Enlightenment philosophers.
The second part of the course will focus on how French Enlightenment writers, literary authors, and social critics drew on metaphors of health and illness, as well as their own personal experiences of illness, to critique the practices and institutions of French society and propose social reforms. Themes that we will explore include education, the family and childcare; the social roles of women and men, including members of the “third sex”; and the health and disease of the political body, including in the domains of power and money. We will also consider how authors employed images of health and disease, and related images of vitality, transformation, and degeneration, to describe and justify or critique France’s relationship to the non-European world, including its colonies.
Our main course objective will be to think critically about how French intellectuals understood health and disease both as lived experiences and as images for social critique during the Enlightenment. We will also consider how our own conceptions of health and disease as lived experiences and social metaphors compare or differ from those of late eighteenth-century France.
Our readings will include short fiction and essays by authors including Louis-Sébastien Mercier; Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Denis Diderot; Buffon; Émilie du Châtelet; Voltaire; Olympe de Gouges; Madame de Staël; the Abbé Sieyès; and Robespierre.
The class will be taught mainly in seminar/discussion format with some short lectures, debates and historical simulations, and a fieldtrip to the University of Minnesota’s Wangensteen Medical Library. Coursework will include a series of short papers, oral presentations, written exams, and one longer research paper. You will be expected to present and defend your ideas using arguments and evidence, and attempt to persuade and engage with the ideas of other students. All materials will be in English.
Class meets MWF 2:20 pm – 3:20 pm
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
GEOG 239-F1/LATI 239-F1: Neotropical Landscapes
Xavier Haro-Carrion, Geography Department
The Neotropical realm is a region that includes tropical areas in the Americas and South America’s temperate zone. These areas provide important environmental services like water, climate regulation, and biodiversity. They also support human populations and livelihoods. This course examines the main types of landscapes in the Neotropics, such as rainforests, deserts, and temperate forests. We will study the climate, ecology, and people of each area, including indigenous communities and others. We will also learn about how humans interact with these environments, such as through changing the land, conserving natural resources and cultures, and adapting to the impacts of climate change. To enhance the learning experience, we will employ various teaching methods, such as readings, short lectures, discussions, class activities, essays, invited speakers and field trips. As an Argumentative Writing (WA) class, students should be prepared to write approximately 5,000 words of text.
Class meets TR 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Writing designation: WA
GEOG 242-F1: Regional Geography of the U.S. and Canada (R)
Laura Smith, Geography Department
In this Geography FYC, we consider relevant and engaging questions such as:
- Can the Colorado River continue to sustain fast-growing cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix in the Intermontane West region?
- What characteristics give “The South” a stronger regional image than other areas of the U.S. and Canada?
- Can we – or should we even try to? – reverse the dramatic loss of population from the Great Plains region?
- What are the cultural and economic effects of language in the French Canada region?
As a regional geography course, we explore physical, social, and cultural “regions” of the U.S. and Canada. How have human activities and cultural characteristics in a place been shaped by the physical landscape? And how has the landscape been shaped by human activities? We will discuss patterns of human settlement, economic activity, and land use, with special attention given to social and legal issues relevant to Native populations in the U.S. and the historic and current status and development of Native lands. (This course fulfills the U.S. Identities and Differences (USID) general education requirement.)
You will be introduced to a variety of concepts and methods that geographers use to analyze spatial patterns and processes. The course is designed to be interactive; we often draw on classmates’ “regions of expertise” to learn from each other. In addition – because fieldwork is central to developing our skills of observation and analysis and to improving our understanding of places and regions – we will practice our geographic fieldwork skills by traveling to the Boreal Forest region of northern Minnesota! Here we will explore the “reinvention” of a traditional natural resource-based regional economy: the impact of iron ore mining on the cities and populations of Minnesota’s Iron Range, the historic and contemporary forestry and paper industries of the area, and Native American cultural history and contemporary economic development initiatives in the region.
As a First-Year Course, considerable emphasis will be placed on research and writing; this course also fulfills the Argumentative Writing (WA) general education requirement. In addition to a few short writing assignments throughout the semester (e.g., map and visual image interpretations, reflective field essay, policy recommendation), you will complete a final independent research project on a regional geography question of your choosing.
Geographers are broadly trained to analyze, synthesize, and visualize – and are well prepared to study contemporary issues from rural to urban and from local to global. Experience Geography by exploring the U.S. and Canada with us!
Class meets MWF 10:50 am – 11:50 am
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
GEOG 248-F1: Political Geography of Nations and Nationalism (R)
Dan Trudeau, Geography Department
This course investigates how nations and nationalism affect social identity and the organization of territory in our world. Political geography helps us think through the complex intersections of people, place, land, and politics that constitute the struggle to create and maintain nation-states. We will explore these topics through assigned readings, lectures, experiential learning activities, and discussions. The first part of the course is devoted to building a foundational understanding of core concepts in political geography, such as nation, state, territory, sovereignty, scale, borders, and geographical imagination. This will allow us to assemble a framework for understanding why our contemporary organization of territory throughout the world looks the way it does. Equipped with these foundations, we explore topics in the second part of class that help you think critically about the stability of nations and the organization of territory into the nation-state system as well as challenges and alternatives to these institutions. Toward this end, you will also monitor how news media frames nationalism as well as conduct independent inquiry concerning an actually-existing attempt to create a nation-state. These exercises will help you develop your argumentative writing skills as you relate ideas and arguments in the course to the ways that nations and nationalism shape our world and appear in everyday life.
Class meets MWF 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
GEOL 165-F1/GEOL 165-L1: History and Evolution of the Earth (R)
Raymond Rogers, Geology Department
This course provides an overview of major happenings in the history of Earth over the past ~4.54 billion years. We will explore the earliest history of our Earth, the making of mountains and ocean basins, the history of climate change, and the many cataclysmic events that punctuate Earth history. Major emphasis is placed on tracking the evolution of life, from the simplest single-celled organisms of the early Earth to today’s diverse floras and faunas. Another major focus is the linkage among Earth’s major systems – the rocks, atmosphere, oceans, and life did not and do not evolve independently. Changes in one part of the system impact all aspects of the system. The class includes an overnight fossil-collecting field trip to southeastern Minnesota (weather permitting) and shorter day trips. Lab exercises will focus on minerals, sedimentary rocks, and fossils. This course is required for geology majors, and counts toward the major. Three hours lecture per week. Three hours lab per week.
Class meets MWF 1:10 pm – 2:10 pm. Lab meets R 8:00 am – 11:10 am
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Single-gender spaces. Single Gender spaces have binary bathrooms options with a gender inclusive bathroom on the first floor.
GEOL 101-F1: Dinosaurs (R)
Kristi Curry Rogers, Geology Department
Dinosaurs dominated Earth’s landscapes for nearly 200 million years, and then seemingly vanished in one of the “big-five” mass extinctions that punctuate the history of life. In this course we’ll “dig in” to explore dinosaurs in their world and examine their evolution, biology, and behavior. Along the way we’ll meet the supporting cast of non-dino neighbors that live alongside dinosaurs within their Mesozoic ecosystems. We’ll examine the dramatic diversification and astounding ecological success of dinosaurs, and investigate theories for their sudden disappearance 66 million years ago. Far from being dimwitted icons of extinction, they are the ultimate survivors — dinosaurs still populate your backyard birdfeeder!
The class may include field trips to the Science Museum of Minnesota and beyond that will allow us to get up close and personal with fossils. Students in this course can expect to participate in class discussions, create your own popular science writing artifacts, and work individually on a semester-long project that will include a written report and an oral presentation.
Three lecture hours per week, and occasional field trips.
General Education Requirements: Quantitative Thinking Q1, Writing WC
Distribution Requirements: Natural science and mathematics
This course is an elective for geology majors and minors
Class meets MWF 1:10 pm – 2:10 pm
Writing designation: WC
Living arrangements: Single-gender spaces. Single Gender spaces have binary bathrooms options with a gender inclusive bathroom on the first floor.
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 TR 9:40 am – 11:10 am
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
HIST 181-F1/LATI 181-F1: Introduction to Latin America
Ernesto Capello, History Department
The term “Latin America” was concocted by French and Brazilian intellectuals in mid-19th-century Paris as a means to establish cultural links with Spanish America. Does such an invented term properly describe the complex region that at minimum ranges from the US Southwest to Tierra del Fuego? How can we conceive of Latin America’s multiracial demographics and cultures or the place of the diasporic Latinx populations across the Americas, Europe, and the world? Why are Latin American countries often considered “traditional” societies despite the region’s crucial role in the inception of global modernity and its urbanized, industrialized, and cosmopolitan present? How do these fluidities manifest across racial, class, or gender lines?
These are some of the questions we will address in this course, which will consider the history of “Latin America” by engaging persistent metaphors marking the region’s identity. While presenting a roughly chronological overview, this course will emphasize the historical and contemporary resonance of motifs like “the Conquest,” “the Future,” and “Border Crossings.” As such, our conversations will consider the roots of present-day Latin America and its linkages (and divergences) from its past.
This will be an argumentative writing course with extensive attention to narrative and synthetic storytelling. Depending on student interest, it will also offer the opportunity to engage in bilingual (Spanish/English) discussion in small group settings and possibly draft first versions of papers bilingually with final drafts in a single language.
This class meets the Internationalism distribution requirement.
Class meets TR 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Writing Designation: WA
HIST 194-F1: Wakanda Forever (R)
Walter Greason, History Department
Blending history, literature, and economics, this course explores the creation of fictional worlds like Marvel Studios’ Wakanda in ways that advance the principles of a liberal arts education. Students will read and write across multiple disciplines and ultimately create a multimedia project about their studies by the end of the semester. If you like stories like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Harry Potter, and the Hunger Games, you’ll love this class!
Class meets M 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
INTL 110-F1: Introduction to International Studies: Globalization – Homogeneity and Heterogeneity
Ahmed Samatar, International Studies Department
This First Year seminar explores major global phenomena. We live in a stirring world time with many old and new forces at work, and in arresting combinations. Two that stand out seem to be pushing human societies in opposite directions. On the one hand, there is centripetal logic to the growth of empowering developments such as scientific discoveries, technology, economic productivity, trade, travel, search for pluralistic and democratic order, cultural hybridity, and the spread of ecological consciousness. On the other hand, there are other coexisting trends towards centrifugence and entropy. These include: acute alienation of the individual, a resurgence of ethnic and racial chauvinism, religious intolerance, deepening immiseration and marginalization of hundreds of millions of people, the collapse of polities, livelihoods and ecological systems, and war. This conundrum is the central concern of the seminar.
*** The course will be marked by heavy reading, intensive writing, and public presentations by students.
Class meets TR 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Writing designation: WA
JAPA 254-F1/ASIA 254-F1: Japanese Film and Animation: From the Salaryman to the Shōjo
Arthur Mitchell, Asian Languages and Cultures Department
This course surveys the history of Japanese motion pictures from the “golden age” of Japanese cinema to the contemporary transnational genre of anime. Through weekly viewings of films, supplemented with essays and texts on critical film viewing, we will learn and cultivate skills in formal film analysis, which will enable personal, original, and probing engagements with the films that we consider. All aspects of the course including discussion, instruction, and grading are grounded in principles of antiracist liberatory pedagogy. We will be guided in our work by two related archetypes: the middle-class salaryman and the shōjo (adolescent girl). These figures – as well as their incarnations as bureaucrats, mecha-warriors, sex workers and teen rebels – help us explore issues of class and gender, and themes of social change and solidarity. Directors include Ozu Yasujiro, Akira Kurosawa, Miyazaki Hayao, and Yamada Naoko.
Course designations: WA, Internationalism
Class meets MWF 1:10 pm – 2:10 pm
Writing designation: WA
MATH 194-F1: Calculus: A Biomedical Introduction (R)
Will Mitchell, Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Department
This course is a gentle introduction to calculus with a special focus on technical writing skills. With attention to applications in biology and medicine, we’ll build calculus skills using symbolic, graphical, verbal, and computational approaches. One of our goals is to produce clear, concise, and memorable writing on technical topics. Another goal is to cover some standard and nonstandard calculus topics: functions as models of data, differential calculus of one and several variables, basic integration, differential equations, estimation, and dynamics. This course is designed for students with no previous calculus background. Students who take this course will be prepared to continue with MATH 137.
Class meets TR 9:40 am – 11:10 am
Writing designation: WC
Living arrangements: Single-gender spaces. Single Gender spaces have binary bathrooms options with a gender inclusive bathroom on the first floor.
MCST 194-F1: Documentary Cinema, Theory and Practice (R)
Morgan Adamson, Media and Cultural Studies Department
This course is an exploration of documentary history, theory, and practice. Students will analyze seminal documentary styles and movements, read about and discuss documentary ethics and politics, and put this study into practice by making short documentary films. We will explore aspects of pre-production, production, and post-production as we develop documentary projects through peer and instructor critique. We will also explore new directions in non-fiction storytelling, including web-based documentary and virtual reality.
Class meets TR 1:20 pm – 2:50 pm
Writing designation: WC
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
Music, Race, Ethnicity
Chuen-Fung Wong, Music Department
Ideas of race/ethnicity are integral to identities, aesthetics, and other domains of human experience. As sound and performance, music provides a means by which racial/ethnic boundaries are produced and recognized. Race and ethnicity are also intertwined with music “in fundamental ways through the discursive and institutional processes of Colonialism, modernity, and Enlightenment” (Haynes 2012, 3). This course examines how race and ethnicity participate in the production and consumption of musical sound, structuring our musical tastes and organizing our social lives. Examples and case studies are drawn from a range of world genres and styles. Readings and audiovisual examples address topics such as authenticity, exoticism, ethno-/nationalism, diaspora, subaltern consciousness, among others. No previous knowledge of instrument or notation is assumed.
Class meets MWF 10:50 am – 11:50 am
Writing designation: None
MUSI 225-F1/ENGL 225-F1: Musical Fictions (R)
Mark Mazullo, Music Department
From E. M. Forster’s Lucy Honeychurch, who “entered into a more solid world when she opened the piano,” to James Baldwin’s Sonny, who “moved in an atmosphere which wasn’t like theirs at all,” fictional musicians encounter trouble when negotiating the conflicting realms of art and society. Experts in one kind of expression, they fail in others. What draws these characters to music? What does it offer them? What is its value to us? In the musical novel and short story, we encounter music as an agent of violence, of consolation, of transcendence and redemption as well as damnation. We witness empathy through music, but we also learn that shared feeling can be both beautiful and dangerous, that music unites and divides. This course combines the close reading of literary texts (as well as works of literary theory and musicology) with the examination of the musical contexts that inform and inspire them. We will explore, for example, the relationship between Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Unconsoled and Richard Wagner’s music drama Parsifal. We will talk about syncopation in “jazz” by Charles Mingus and Toni Morrison. We will watch Marguerite Duras and Katherine Mansfield turn innocuous music lessons into spaces of wretchedness. We will try to understand what David Mitchell’s young composer Robert Frobisher means when he says, “One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn’t, the wolves and blizzards would be at one’s throat all the sooner.”
The course is discussion based.
Class meets MWF 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
PHIL 100-F1: Introduction to Philosophy: Love and Friendship
Geoffrey Gorham, Philosophy Department
The 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 other ancient Greek and Chinese Philosophers, such as Plato, Epicurus, and Confucius. This class will begin with an overview of central themes in ancient and contemporary philosophy — epistemology, metaphysics and ethics — and then undertake a detailed investigation of friendship and love: Why are friendship and love valuable? 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 ‘romantic’ love real or merely a social construction? 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 perspectives on friendship and love. We will also read works of literature, such as Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and love poems of Emily Dickinson, and view 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.
General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Distribution Requirements:
Humanities
Course Materials. This class is ‘textless’. All required readings will be made available on our class Moodle site.
Class meets TR 1:20 pm – 2:50 pm
Writing designation: WA
PHIL 121-F1: Introducton to Ethics
Samuel Asarnow, Philosophy Department
What matters in life? Is happiness the only thing that matters? If so, whose happiness should I pursue—just my own, my family’s, or everyone’s? Does suffering matter, too? What about the suffering of non-human animals? Is it okay for me to make animals suffer in order for me to enjoy the pleasure of eating their flesh? Or how about the suffering of people who are really far away from me—say, on another continent? Is it okay for me to spend money on cool stuff when instead I could donate it to help people who are suffering very badly far away? If things in life other than happiness matter too, what are they? People who oppose torture think that it’s wrong to hurt one person really badly even in order to prevent a large number of people from being hurt. Are they right? Is it always wrong to treat someone as merely a means to an end? Is it in general wrong to do things to people without their consent? Why? When do people deserve to be praised or blamed for their actions? What kind of person should I be? Should I try to be happy? Or should I try to be virtuous? Is virtue its own reward? Or are we all inevitably faced with a choice between being virtuous and being happy? If we are faced with that choice, which one should we pick? In this discussion- and writing-based course, we will consider these questions, and others.
Class meets MwF 1:10 pm – 2:10 pm
Writing designation: WA
PHYS 194-F1/PHYS 194-L1/PHYS 194-L2: Our Solar System an Beyond (R)
Anna Williams, Physics and Astronomy Department
Astronomers have confirmed the existence of over 5,300 exoplanets and nearly 4,000 planetary systems. These systems are light-years away, and our studies are limited to what we can observe with a telescope. Luckily, our solar system is rich with diverse objects, from rocky planets like our own Earth to gas giants with many moons to icy comets with ion tails. Understanding our own planetary system can show us what is possible in those further away. In this course, we will study the properties of solar system objects and their origins with an eye towards how these objects can help us learn more about extrasolar planetary systems. We will discuss the physical laws that govern our solar system and the results of recent planetary missions to investigate its objects more closely. In lab, we will explore observational techniques and analyze data, including observations acquired with Macalester’s robotic observatory in Arizona (the Robert L. Mutel Telescope, operated by the MACRO Consortium). This quantitative course will use mathematics at the introductory calculus level; high-school physics and calculus are recommended. Assignments will include problem sets, short papers, and a research paper.
General education course designations: WA & Q1
Class meets MWF 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm. L1 meets T 8:00 am – 11:10 am. L2 meets T 1:20 pm – 4:30 pm.
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Single-gender spaces. Single Gender spaces have binary bathrooms options with a gender inclusive bathroom on the first floor.
POLI 120-F1: Foundations of International Politics: Western and Non-Western Perspectives (R)
Andrew Latham, Political Science Department
This Foundations course is designed to introduce students to the study of International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline. The primary goal of the course is to develop a substantive understanding of the history of IR, both as a set of political realities and as a field of study. To this end, it first provides an overview of historical non-Western international systems (the international relations of the historical Chinese, Indian, Islamic and other often-overlooked world orders). It then introduces students to key concepts, theories, and perspectives in contemporary International Relations. Next, it examines the defining processes, actors, and norms across the major domains of international relations: law/organization (sometimes called ‘global governance’), foreign policy, international security, and international political economy. Finally, it rounds out this foundational coverage with a consideration of the inherently “tragic” nature of international relations.
Each class session will be organized as a “lectorial” – that is, as a hybrid learning and teaching session that combines elements of both formal lecture (for delivery of content) and interactive seminar (for student group activities, discussion, etc). The structure and content are both intended primarily to prepare students for advanced work in the field of International Relations, although the course is also appropriate for those merely seeking to satisfy an interest in the study of international affairs.
This course fulfills the college’s WA and “Internationalism” general education requirements.
Class meets MWF 1:20 pm – 2:10 pm
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
POLI 207-F1: US Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Patrick Schmidt, Political Sicence Department
This course examines the struggle for justice, equality, and liberty in the United States, taking as its starting point the many issues and disputes that arrive before the U.S. Supreme Court. But those are only the starting points for many questions that interest political science, including the contributions of social movements and political institutions, and the limits of courts within public policymaking. In addition to reading decisions of the Supreme Court, the course emphasizes the wider historical movements and cycles of constitutional politics. Major topics include speech, religion, privacy, the many types of discrimination (including racial, gender, sexual orientation), aspects of the criminal justice system, and the regulation of guns. Interest in law is helpful but no background is not required. Students able to bring perspectives from other national traditions are warmly welcomed.
Class time offers a mix of lecture, dialogue, and small group discussion. Short assignments include observing state and federal appellate courts in Minnesota. A longer assignment will involve writing a decision in the style of a judicial opinion in a case currently before the courts. Students will join in “moot court” activities involving oral arguments in the manner of American appellate courts, ending with an intramural tournament supported by the college’s moot court team. Political Science 207 also counts toward the Legal Studies concentration.
MWF 10:50 am – 11:50 am
Writing designation: WA
PSYC 194-F1: How We Remember, Learn, and Decide: Applied Cognitive Science
Brooke Lea, Psychology Department
How do people remember, learn, and make decisions? Philosophers have considered these questions for millennia, but in the last century the questions have been taken up in the relatively newer fields of psychology and cognitive science. Recently, significant progress has been made in applying our understanding of human cognition to larger societal goals and challenges. In this FYC, we will take a psychological approach to the study of human mental processes such as memory, attention, problem solving, and learning. Equipped with evidence-based theories of the mind’s sophisticated yet quirky workings, we will examine how recent advances can be used to dispel popular myths about human cognition, and point the way to societal improvements in the areas of criminal justice, education, and bias-reduction. Our readings will include both primary sources and popular writing from scholars and public intellectuals.
Class meets MWF 10:50 am – 11:50 am
Writing designation: WA
RUSS 294-F1/HIST 294-F1: Between Europe and Asia
Maria Fedorova, Russian Studies Department
What does it mean to be “between Europe and Asia?”
How have people who have inhabited the territory of present-day Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Baltic states for centuries dealt with finding themselves in between the two worlds? How did these groups of diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds interact with one another? The course explores these questions and the history of peoples and spaces in Northern Eurasia from the medieval period to the fall of the Soviet Union.
Stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, Northern Eurasia has been a place of intensive cultural, economic, and political exchange for many centuries. This exchange resulted in trade, wars, imperial rule, and revolutions, as well as socialist experiments. This course will examine these contacts and consider the following topics: the historical geography of Northern Eurasia; Eurasian identities and indigeneity; ideas of Russianness, imperialism, and Orientalism; nation-building and the Soviet empire.
This course will be an excellent introduction to Eurasian and Russian Studies, as well as an introduction to the issues of imperialism, colonialism, and nationalism in a global context.
Class meets MWF 10:50 am – 11:50 am
Writing designation: WA
SOCI 150-F1: Prius or Pickup? Political Divides and Social Class (R)
Khaldoun Samman, Sociology Department
The Far Right in the United States has appropriated working class identities to produce an identity among the white working class. Donald Trump, for instance, intentionally portrays a large gap in highbrow and lowbrow to take jabs at privileged liberals (such as when he tweeted the “Hamberder” photo). This course observes what can be called the Far Right “theater of politics” in order to understand how liberals have left working class culture behind in ways that allowed the far right to fill the void by finding persuasive techniques in culture (country music, religion, church…) to articulate a political voice that some working class folks, especially whites, may find appealing. Some of the major questions of the course include: (1) How do political and economic elites produce class, gender, and racial divides and segmentations by aligning themselves with the cultural practices often associated with working class folks? (2) Can the left create a political culture that cultivates respect for organic cultural expressions that include religious expressions and pop-cultural themes like country music and sports (yes, even football!) into their fold Reducing everything to class and asking all others to submit to its political logic is a limited vision. Instead, the course investigates whether it is possible to envision a political project that rather than privileging the concerns of upper-middle class whites produces a culture of resistance that can articulate working class subjects – straight, queer, white, black, binary, non-binary – into a populist left movement? One of the truly powerful features of the Left is that it is much more diverse than the Far Right. Is it possible to extend that diversity even further so that it can show a “little respect” for organic cultural producers to feel comfortable producing and living in multiple class, racial, gender, and sexual habitus?
Class meets TR 1:20 pm – 2:50 pm
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.
SPAN 305-F1: Advanced Oral and Written Expression: Exploring Spanish in the United States
Cynthia Kauffeld, Spanish and Portuguese Department
Spanish 305 serves as a bridge between the intermediate and advanced courses in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and counts for the Spanish major and minor. Its main objective
is to improve oral and written communication in Spanish while strengthening grammatical skills and deepening knowledge of Hispanic cultures. In this first-year course section of 305, we will explore cultural, literary, and linguistic topics related to the long-standing presence of Spanish in the United States and will address the common but mistaken notion of Spanish as a foreign language in this country.
Class meets MWF 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Writing designation: WA
THDA 105-F1: Seeing Performance in the Twin Cities
Wynn Fricke, Theater and Dance Department
In a process of studied spectatorship, students in this first-year course will acquire the vocabularies of the field to critically articulate their individual reactions to dance and theater performances. With the support of seminal readings in dance and theater criticism, students will write reviews and essays that give special consideration to issues of representation, socio-historical context, and artistic expression. We will view films of dance and theater performances presented at professional venues in the Twin Cities such as the Walker Arts Center, the Guthrie, Penumbra Theatre, Mixed Blood, Northrop Auditorium, and Cowles Center.
General Education Requirements: Fine Arts, U.S. Identities and Difference, Writing as Argument
Class meets TR 9:40 am – 11:10 am
Writing designation: WA
THDA 105-F2: Seeing Performance in the Twin Cities
Randy Reyes, Theater and Dance Department
In a process of studied spectatorship, students in this first-year course will acquire the vocabularies of the field to critically articulate their individual reactions to dance and theater performances. With the support of seminal readings in dance and theater criticism, students will write reviews and essays that give special consideration to issues of representation, socio-historical context, and artistic expression. We will view films of dance and theater performances presented at professional venues in the Twin Cities such as the Walker Arts Center, the Guthrie, Penumbra Theatre, Mixed Blood, Northrop Auditorium, and Cowles Center.
General Education Requirements: Fine Arts, U.S. Identities and Difference, Writing as Argument
Class meets TR 9:40 am – 11:10 am
Writing designation: WA
WGSS 100-F1: Introduction to WGSS: Intersectional Queer Approaches to Pandemics and Uprisings (R)
Myrl Beam, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department
This FYC, entitled Intersectional Queer Approaches to Pandemics and Uprisings, introduces key concepts in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies through an analysis of the present: the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Uprisings for racial justice that continue to unfold, and the urgent and existential threat of extractive capitalism and climate change. Exploring the connections between these seemingly disparate issues and developing a conceptual framework that understands them together is the core project of this course. We will analyze the relationship between anti-Blackness, colonialism, sexuality, gender embodiment, and policing, as well as the differential distribution of health and exposure to risk. In this community-engaged course, we will focus on the way these interact in the Twin Cities, and also think about the ways that uprisings like Stonewall and the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot and pandemics like HIV/AIDS offer lessons to help us think through the present moment.
Class meets MWF 1:10 pm – 2:10 pm
Writing designation: WA
Living arrangements: Gender Inclusive Housing. Gender Inclusive means that all students will have access to use the same bathroom. Students can room with anyone, regardless of gender identity.