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Reading Plays guides students in close readings of dramatic literature, in particular of plays that are typically left out of the traditional theatrical canon. This edition of Reading Plays will focus on texts and performances considered “queer” with an emphasis on plays and performances created post-Stonewall and their relationship to queer history. Students will attempt to define several terms as a class and for themselves, in particular the terms “queer,” “queer theater,” and “queer performance.” We will complicate these definitions by posing questions such as, what does queer embodiment illuminate about these plays and performances? What happens if these plays are performed without queer people? For straight audiences? Students will learn about the socio-historical context of each play, and in-class exercises will introduce them to the foundation of script analysis: they will examine the play’s given circumstances, dialogue, dramatic action, characters, and style. While we will be studying theater scripts, you do not need to be a theater expert to enjoy this class. Students will read on average one play per week.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

The theorization of difference is an important aspect of creative inquiry. In this class we will look at the ways that artistic practice allows us to interrogate, understand, and represent difference. We want to examine how the turn to difference—racial difference, gendered difference, the politics of citizenship and belonging—has been approached through different forms like the essay, the book, investigations of place, and performance. We will think about the various ways that power is performed through cultural objects and then work through different forms of our own to critique these objects and move toward new social realities. We will look at the foundational work of artists and cultural producers in the early and late 20th century whose work focuses on critical race and ethnic studies, activism and exile, as well as more recent creative work that focuses on the administration of difference through surveillance technology and social media. The class is a studio-based course that exposes students to a range of materials including print, digital media, film, the internet, and social media.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

This class is a hybrid discussion-studio course that surveys cultural production of and about Blackness. Looking at the work of artists, filmmakers, and theoreticians, we will analyze the ways that Blackness is performed as a visual language and genre, how it appears or disappears as a racialized, gendered, and (dis)abled set of embodied practices from the late 19th century to today. We learn from the ways that artists have taken social phenomena and reworked them into images, and we will work through ways that we can shape our own practices as creatives. While the course is focused primarily on the US, we will also talk about racial formations beyond the US, including the Caribbean, UK, West and Southern Africa. Class time will include technical demonstrations, artist presentations, working studio sessions, individual and group critiques, and field trips. Students will have the opportunity to work in their chosen media—photography, video, sound, installation, digital platforms, performance documentation, or hybrid forms—to produce a final portfolio. Through sustained inquiry, students will develop their own visual practice that thinks with and through Black life and aesthetic innovation.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

The course examines the post-World War II Civil Rights Movement led by African Americans in the United States.  In the class, students will analyze key people, issues, events, and debates within movement history, including, but not limited to, gender and leadership; struggles for civil rights in the south, west, and urban north; the impact of the Cold War on race relations; student activism; movement strategies; and the emergence of Black Power.  Throughout the semester, students will read a wide variety of primary and secondary texts to illuminate the activities and life stories of individual participants as well as the broad historical forces that characterized this long era of insurgency.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

The American West is central to the construction of America's identity and popular culture. The mythology of the American West, built on a narrow foundation of Euro-American settlement and conquest, is critical to understanding the role of the West in the national narrative of American history. Using a variety of materials, including films, art and photography, literature, and historical sources, this course will examine how writers, artists, actors, settlers, and government officials, among others, shaped the creation of the mythic West. This course will investigate what - and who - is and is not considered part of this mythology, as well as the ways in which these constructs attempted to make sense of the diverse populations converging in the West. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," -and or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

This course examines Native history since 1871, the year Congress unilaterally chose to stop making treaties with Native nations. By focusing on Native sovereignty, resistance, and the exercise of treaty rights, this course highlights histories and contemporary experiences of Native people in what is now the United States. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," and or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Poor and minority populations have historically borne the brunt of environmental inequalities in the United States, suffering disproportionately from the effects of pollution, resource depletion, dangerous jobs, limited access to common resources, and exposure to environmental hazards. Paying particular attention to the ways that race, ethnicity, class, and gender have shaped the political and economic dimensions of environmental injustices, this course draws on the work of scholars and activists to examine the long history of environmental inequities in the United States, along with more recent political movements-national and local-that seek to rectify environmental injustices.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

This survey course will explore history, policy, and pedagogy as they relate to race, ethnicity, and culture as education. K-12 public education will be the primary focus with topics including desegregation, standardized testing, multi-cultural and ethnocentric pedagogy, the teacher's role and experience, and significant historical events in education. The course will culminate by analyzing current trends and future expectations in education.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Since the development of the first atomic weapon, nuclear power has come to define the American and global political and cultural landscape. Fantasies of annihilation and ruin not only define the contemporary political imaginary but also obscure the past and delimit notions of time, space, and futurity  Join us as we trace contemporary U.S. history and environmental policy and the stakes of "wastelanding" through art, culture and activism.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

This discussion-based course is entirely focused on Bruce Lee, the movie actor and leading martial arts icon of the 20th century. Using American Studies and Critical Race Studies to frame and interpret the construction of racialized and gendered bodies, we will discuss Bruce Lee in terms of his biography, identities, politics, philosophy, and filmography (performative masculinity, anyone?). We will take time to appreciate the entertainment value and athleticism that Bruce Lee brought to his work, and we will distinguish the commercialized, commodified Bruce Lee--from t-shirts to posters to action figures--from the serious historical figure who symbolized the spirit of cultural independence and political sovereignty around the world. We will watch all four films in class starting with “Enter the Dragon,” and explore relevant scholarship in Bruce Lee Studies.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Join us as we explore the roots and routes of Native Cultural Studies through photography, film, television, print and media. How have Indigenous people been represented in visual culture? And what can Indigenous visual artists or film theory teach us about the past, present and future in the United States? No previous coursework required.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

In this course, we will examine Japanese American history and literature from the mid-nineteenth century to the present with an eye toward Japanese American activism and resistance. Balancing historical accounts and scholarly texts with poems, stories, and novels by Japanese American authors whose work offers a lens into the past, we will interrogate how Japanese Americans have been historically articulated as both enemy spies and a “model minority;” we will also explore the experiences of Japanese Americans in Hawai’i, U.S Imperialism in Asia, Japanese American solidarity with the Civil Rights Movement, and Japanese American organizing against Islamophobia. By pairing critical and creative texts, we will not only consider how Japanese Americans have been positioned within American racial discourse, but also the ways Japanese American activists and activist-writers have challenged and countered such imaginings with their work. We will supplement our class readings and discussions with field trips to Fort Snelling and the College archive in order to better understand the histories of Japanese Americans in Minnesota and even on the Macalester campus.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

In this survey course, we will trace an African American literary tradition from 1900 to the present. Our journey across this rich tradition will be guided by the concept of art we need now, in our current national context. Among the authors we will study are: W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, John A. Williams, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and Danez Smith. Requirements include: brief written responses to the readings, a presentation, a medium-length essay and a revision of it, and a final reflection essay. This course fulfills the English major requirement of a course focused on literature by U.S. writers of color. It also fulfills the college’s WA and USID general education requirements.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

This course examines the intersections between the US Civil Rights Movement and the Troubles in Northern Ireland, exploring themes of power, marginalization, and the fight for justice. The primary objectives are to expose students to the parallels between Black Americans’ and Irish Catholics’ ongoing fights for civil rights and social equity, focusing especially on women’s roles in both movements. The course also digs into the role of political polarization in both contexts, emphasizing the ongoing barriers created by racial and religious divides. The Good Friday Peace Accords were signed more than 25 years ago, but Northern Ireland today remains divided along sectarian lines in many ways. Travel to Northern Ireland in May will give students a much deeper and nuanced understanding of the history and politics of the place, the challenges inherent in moving from a divided to a more unified society, and an opportunity to learn from people on the ground who are committed to building peace. For students living in an increasingly polarized United States, time spent in Northern Ireland to be a sobering reminder of the challenges ahead and the possibilities for progress. The course's focus on individuals committed to building peace in Northern Ireland provides students with real-world examples of conflict resolution and reconciliation efforts. This exposure can inspire students to consider similar approaches in addressing divisions within their own communities. A $3,000 travel fee is due by January 15, 2026.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Is there a distinct American worldview, or merely a confluence of intellectual traditions originating beyond and before the USA? This course explores the diverse intellectual strains that have contributed to the development of American philosophy in the last three centuries, including influences that have been somewhat neglected: the American Indian thought of Arthur Parker and Zit Kala Za (Gertie Bonnin); the puritan theology of Jonathan Edwards; the political theory of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson; the African American philosophy of W.E.B. DuBois and Alain Locke; the transcendentalism of R. W. Emerson and H.D. Thoreau; the ’classical’ pragmatism of C.S. Peirce and William James; the ’radical’ pragmatism of John Dewey and Jane Adams. Special attention will be given to American conceptions of justice, freedom, democracy, religiosity, nature, pragmatism, progress and self-reliance.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

This course provides an interdisciplinary discussion of the Latinx experience in the United States with a focus on Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cuban- Americans. Using fiction, poetry, films and critical essays, we will examine issues of race and ethnicity, language, identity, gender and sexuality, politics, and immigration. This course satisfies the Area 2 requirement for the Spanish major. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 305 or SPAN 306

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

In this course, we will explore Afrofuturism, a flourishing and exciting contemporary movement of writers, artists, musicians, and scholars who imagine, represent, and theorize alternative times (often, but not always, the future) and forms of the human, along with outer spaces and other places wherein Black people are centered. We will explore the artistic, social, and political power of the movement as we closely read, listen to, and view key Afrofuturist texts. Those texts will include, among others: short stories by Samuel Delany, a novel by Octavia Butler, Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer “emotion picture,” and Wangechi Mutu’s visual art. We will also read scholarship relevant to the movement, including queer theory and posthuman theory. Course requirements include: brief reading response papers, one expanded response paper, a presentation, and a final project. This course fulfills the English major requirement of a course focused on literature by U.S. writers of color. It also fulfills the colleges’ WA and USID general education requirements. It has a prerequisite of a 100-level English literature course.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

The border region between the United States and Mexico exists as both a physical space and an ideological construct. This seminar uses literary and filmic narratives to explore issues of identity, opportunity, and violence that arise from this contested space. How does the border shape individual and cultural identities? In what ways does the border create opportunities for both advancement and exploitation? How do these works engage conflicts and tensions of race, nationalism, gender, and power? The course will include writers and filmmakers from both countries, and we will read original texts both in Spanish and English. This course satisfies the Area 2 requirement for the Spanish major. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 308 or consent of the instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Reading Plays guides students in close readings of dramatic literature, in particular of plays that are typically left out of the traditional theatrical canon. In this edition, students will learn about the socio-historical context of each play, and in-class exercises will introduce them to the foundation of script analysis: they will examine the play’s given circumstances, dialogue, dramatic action, characters, and style. Students will read a new play every week; assignments include weekly in-class writing exercises and short critical papers. Some playwrights we may explore are: Ayad Akhtar, Jaclyn Backhaus, Christopher Chen, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Prince Gomolvilas, David Henry Hwang, Naomi Iizuka, Rajiv Joseph, Hansol Jung, Haruna Lee, Kimber Lee, Young Jean Lee, Qui Nguyen, Jiehae Park, Lloyd Suh, Kristina Wong, Lauren Yee, and Chay Yew.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

In this introductory course, we will study African American literature from its origins to the present. We will study major genres and movements, including the Harlem Renaissance and Afrofuturism. We will learn to use the tools of literary analysis in order to read closely, critically, appreciatively—and collectively. Themes of prophesy (what W. E. B. Du Bois termed “second sight”) and beauty will focus our study. Authors will include: David Walker, Harriet Jacobs, W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Danez Smith, and Ross Gay. Requirements include: a presentation, brief written responses to the readings, one medium length essay and a revision of it, and a final project that will include a written component. This course fulfills either the foundation course in literature requirement or the literature by U.S. writers of color requirement for the English major. It also fulfills the college’s USID and WA general education requirements.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

This course introduces the basic issues and concepts of Asian American Studies. We begin by looking at the birth of Asian American Studies as a field in response to student protests in the late 1960s. We then proceed to an overview of Asian American history beginning with U.S. imperialism in Asia and moving up to the present moment. For the remainder of the course, we'll focus on particular topics such as: the model minority myth; anti-Asian violence; multiracial Asian American identity; and Asian American activism. The approach of this course is interdisciplinary; it draws on theoretical and methodological insights from academic disciplines such as history, ethnic studies, and sociology.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

This introductory-level course approaches the youth-oriented Hunger Games series as a "map and mirror" for our times and a platform for launching adult, scholarly conversations about systems of extraction and exploitation, surveillance and the politics of Reality TV, environmental justice and public health, trauma due to war, and the possibilities for building a Culture of Peace. We will take an interdisciplinary American Cultural Studies approach as we read and watch everything in the Hunger Games series (the trilogy + two prequels) in the first half of the semester. In the second half of the semester, we will connect to various texts including: Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler), The Autobiography of Mother Jones, Ministry for the Future (Kim Stanley Robinson), and The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What's Possible in the Age of Warming (Eric Holthaus). A major goal of the course is to open up our hearts and minds, and to discover more precisely what we hunger for-as scholars, citizens, and human residents of the planet Earth.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

From the Philippine-American War (1898-1910) to Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota (2026), white supremacy and US imperialism have marched hand-in-hand, buttressed by guns, bombs, and the language and mindset of violence. 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 David Fagen (Black U.S. army soldier who defected and joined the Philippine nationalists in 1899) to the Vietnam antiwar movement (1955-1975); and Grace Lee Boggs to Julian Bond and Vincent Harding. Among the significant questions we will consider are: How can we change the separatist mindset of "zero-sum" and move toward solidarity on a world scale? What lessons can be drawn from the COVID19 pandemic, George Floyd, and Operation Metro Surge? How do we start to build a culture of peace?

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

The theorization of difference is an important aspect of cultural theory. In this class we will look at the role of difference as it is understood through ideas of representational and aesthetic politics as well as through the practice and production of knowledge. We want to examine the turn to difference within cultural studies and how this move has shifted how we think about power relations and meaning making in society. We will look at the foundational work of critical race and ethnic studies in cultural theory as well more recent scholarly work that focuses on the administration of difference through surveillance technology and social media. The class will expose students to a range of material including print, digital media, film, television, and internet and social media.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:

Poor and minority populations have historically borne the brunt of environmental inequalities in the United States, suffering disproportionately from the effects of pollution, resource depletion, dangerous jobs, limited access to common resources, and exposure to environmental hazards. Paying particular attention to the ways that race, ethnicity, class, and gender have shaped the political and economic dimensions of environmental injustices, this course draws on the work of scholars and activists to examine the long history of environmental inequities in the United States, along with more recent political movements-national and local-that seek to rectify environmental injustices.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

This class examines the Atlantic commerce in enslaved Africans that took place between 1500 and 1800. We will explore, among other topics, transatlantic commerce, the process of turning captives into commodities, the gendered dimensions of the slave trade, onboard experiences, resistance to the trade, Africans in the Americas, and the abolitionist movement on both sides of the Atlantic. Students will read a range of primary and secondary sources in order to gain a more complex understanding of the trade and how it changed over time. Meets the global and/or comparative history requirement. Meets the pre-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields within the History major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

This course will address the tradition of public intellectuals in numerous Black communities. We will expand the definition of "politics" to include theater, literature, and film. We will interrogate the concept of who chooses the scholarly leaders for Black communities. We will examine numerous topics such as Communism, The American Dream, Incarceration, Feminism, and Ebony Voices in the Ivory Tower.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

In this course we will study African American literature from the end of the 18th century to the turn of the 20th century, from Phillis Wheatley to Frederick Douglass to Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Organizing themes of the course will include: reading and writing as subversive acts and African American literature as an agent of political and social change. We will also connect current crises surrounding non-white U.S. citizenship to early African American writers’ recurrent representation of Black people’s exclusion from “inalienable rights.” At the same time, we will foreground early African American literature as art, reading it closely and appreciatively. Requirements include: brief written responses to the readings, a presentation, a medium-length essay and a revision of it, and a final reflection essay. This course fulfills the English major requirement either of a course focused on literature by U.S. writers of color or a course on 19th-century American literature. It also fulfills the college’s USID and WA general education requirements.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Radical Reelism serves as an introduction to Critical Indigenous studies. In this course, we will trace the roots and routes of contemporary Indigenous filmmaking and new media in the U.S. and globally. What is the history of visual representation for Indigenous people? How do we reconcile the relationship between the reel and real? What is visual sovereignty? And what can Indigenous filmmakers and film theory teach us about radicalism and the world we live in? We will seek answers to these questions through a centering of the radical visions, stories and aesthetics of contemporary Indigenous filmmakers and visual artists around the world.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

We won’t be traveling to a galaxy far, far away, but we will examine the creation of the U.S. empire – and historical and contemporary resistance to the impositions of empire. We’ll begin with encounters with Indigenous nations in the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawai’i before traveling to Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and other U.S.-held territories. This class will focus on discussions of race and imperialism, citizenship and belonging, and inclusion and exclusion, centering on federal policies and performances of race on national and international stages. We will also examine how these attempts were often (and continue to be) subverted and undermined by these supposed subjects who continually resist and redefine imperialist ambitions.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Who profits and who is punished at mega-prisons like CECOT (El Salvador), Pinheiros (São Paulo), and Angola (Louisiana)? What explains divergent outcomes of prison strikes in Alabama and Venezuela? And how have incarcerated women in Colombia successfully demanded alternative sentencing to allow caregivers to remain with their children, while their allies in Minnesota struggle to achieve the same goal? Over 4 million people are now incarcerated in the Americas, and in the largest detention systems over two-thirds of prisoners are Black, Indigenous, immigrants, or other minoritized groups. This course examines the politics of mass incarceration in Latin America and the United States, with attention to community organizations and prison reform and abolition movements. Drawing on imprisoned voices and the work of U.S. and Latin American scholars, we will study carceral imperialism, prisons as a cornerstone of structural racism, and resistance rooted in racial and gender identity. Class normally meets for 90 minutes (M-W 10:50 am-12:20 pm), but the 10:50 am-1:00 pm time slot allows us to take field trips to sites such as All Square & the Legal Revolution, Transformation and Re-entry through Education and Community, and the Global Prison Nursery Network Symposium. Guest speakers may include Mujeres Libres (Bogotá), MOVIR (San Salvador), Juvenile Justice Advocates (Minneapolis/Mexico City), and the Asian Prisoner Support Committee (California).

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

This course provides an interdisciplinary discussion of the Latinx experience in the United States with a focus on Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cuban- Americans. Using fiction, poetry, films and critical essays, we will examine issues of race and ethnicity, language, identity, gender and sexuality, politics, and immigration. This course satisfies the Area 2 requirement for the Spanish major. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 305 or SPAN 306

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:

In this course, we will explore a range of interdisciplinary research approaches and methods to both environmental justice and public humanities. Together, we will examine new directions and public projects in environmental humanities through key themes including environmental and climate justice, resource extraction, waste disposal, Indigenous sovereignty, imperialism, militarism and environmental racism. Students will also devote time to develop an original public humanities research project on social movement histories and environmental inequality. Open to all. This research-oriented seminar will fulfill the requirement for AMST Junior Seminar.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

The Senior Capstone is required of all majors. Majors who meet college criteria are encouraged to conduct an honors project in conjunction with their Senior Capstone.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements: