Course Descriptions

DIG 245 - Critical Web Design

In this course, students will learn to conceptualize, design, and program responsive websites as both an applied and creative practice. Through a combination of technical topics in interface design and development such as usability, coding in HTML, CSS, Javascript and jQuery, as well as readings and discussions around net-based artworks and historical and cultural concerns surrounding the internet as a communication platform, students will execute interactive projects that are both culturally-relevant and technically sophisticated.

Satisfies a requirement of the Digital Studies minor.

DIG 250 - Game Development

In this course, students will learn to conceptualize, design, and program mobile and console games that are playful, yet serious. Through a combination of technical and game-oriented topics including design, usability, physics, and coding in C#, as well as readings and discussions around the history, culture, and issues in game studies, students will execute interactive works that reflect a high degree of thoughtfulness towards the construction and impact on their intended audience.

Satisfies a requirement in the Digital Studies interdisciplinary minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
ART 111 or DIG 245

DIG 270 - Digital Maps, Space, and Place

A course in the theories and practices of digital mapping as applied to the humanities and social sciences. The course brings together readings in the digital spatial humanities as well as hands-on mapping and spatial analysis through programming in the Wolfram Language (Mathematica). Students will learn how to choose geographical projections; work with points, lines and polygons; find, extract and analyze spatial data from humanistic materials; and tell stories (and lies) with maps. They will also read, think and write about real and imagined geographies, the meaning of place and memory, as well as the creation of space. The course will conclude with independent student projects on topics of their choosing. No background experience required.

Satisfies a requirement in the Digital Studies interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the Data Science interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies a Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

DIG 333 - Physical Computing

This course will explore the use of sensors, motors, and other electronics to create web interfaces that interact with the physical world. We will hack, modify, and create systems which detect analog data and transmit it across the internet to our custom web applications or mobile devices and then back again. This course is designed for artists, designers, and programmers who wish to create culturally-relevant and technically-sophisticated electronics projects that are both utilitarian and artistic at once.

DIG 340 - Gender and Technology

This class explores the relationship between gender and technology in the digital age. We will consider the countless ways modern technology shapes our attitudes toward and experiences of sex, power, play, and work, and even the way digital technology shapes our bodies. Other topics will include the representation of gender in digital media, feminism and protest in digital spaces, queer gaming, and gender performance through social media.

Satisfies a major requirement in Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Satisfies a minor requirement in Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Satisfies Liberal Studies requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

DIG 350 - History & Future of the Book

This class is concerned with the long history, the varied present, and the uncertain future of the book in the digital age. Over the course of the semester we will address three questions: What is the history of the book as a physical and cultural object? How have current disruptions in reading and writing technology changed the way we use and imagine books? And what does the future of the book look like? Along the way we will consider reading and writing innovations such as electronic paper, e-readers, and touchscreen interfaces. We will also design hybrid books ourselves, augmenting conventional printed books with electronic circuits and I/O sensors.

Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
 

Prerequisites & Notes
(Not offered 2017-2018.)

DIG 401 - Hacking, Remixing and Design

This seminar will explore hacking and remixing as creative and critical practices.  In the process we will expand the conceptual domains of both terms.  We will explore hacking and remixing across a range of forms, including code, software, social media, and digital writing.  The social, ethical, and rhetorical dimensions of hacking and remixing will also be considered as students design their own hacks and remixes.

Prerequisites & Notes
(Spring)

DIG 404 - Humanities Startup

Humanities Startup blends humanities research with startup culture in a collaborative theory and practice-based course. The class operates at the intersection of creative computing, digital culture, and humanities methodologies. Over the duration of the semester students will conceive, research, ideate, develop, and publicize a project that responds to a multidisciplinary research subject. While the class as a whole produces a single project, students will work on teams on specific aspects of that project. The collaborative project will be both technologically proficient and socially and historically conscious. The project might be serious or playful, and may take the shape of prototypes, software, hardware, public engagement, or any combination of these. No prerequisites are required; the course will play to students’ existing strengths while simultaneously pushing them to cultivate new areas of knowledge.

Satisfies a requirement of the Digital Studies interdisciplinary minor.

ECO 101 - Introductory Economics

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement. 

ECO 105 - Statistics and Basic Econometrics

Application of probability and statistics to economic analysis. Topics include: probability rules, discrete and continuous random variables, confidence intervals, hypothesis tests, correlation, and regression. Spreadsheet software is utilized. An economics research paper is a major component of the course.

One laboratory session per week.

Satisfies the Mathematical and Quantitative Thought requirement. 
Satisfies a requirement in the Data Science interdisciplinary minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
(Beginning Spring 2018)  Economics 101 or permission of the instructor.

ECO 122 - Introduction to Health Care Economics

This course provides students without an economics background a broad overview of the health economics field.  A foundation of microeconomics principles is developed, and this foundation is then used to analyze leading health care issues.

Satisfies a minor credit in Economics.
Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

ECO 180 - Indian Economic Development

This course introduces the student to some of the economic development issues of modern India as part of the Davidson College Semester in India Program.  Students will learn basic economic principles and how to apply those principles to the India they experience.

Not for major or minor credit in Economics.
Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
 

ECO 195 - Independent Study

Not for major or minor credit in Economics.

Prerequisites & Notes
Permission of the instructor.

ECO 202 - Intermediate Microeconomic Theory

Satisfies a Social-Scientific Thought requirement. 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101 and Calculus I or equivalent.

ECO 203 - Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement. 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101 and Calculus I or equivalent.

ECO 205 - Econometrics

Applications of linear regression analysis to economic analysis. Topics include model specification, parameter estimation, inference, and problems relating to data issues, statistical concerns, and model diagnostics. Statistical software is utilized. An economics research paper is a major component of the course.

Counts as an elective in the Data Science interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies the Mathematical and Quantitative Thought requirement. 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101 and either Economics 105 or permission of the instructor. 
One laboratory session per week.

ECO 211 - Introduction to Accounting

Comprehensive study of the theory and problems of valuation of assets, application of funds, corporation accounts and statements; interpretation and analysis of financial statements.

Prerequisites & Notes
Only two courses from Economics 211, 212, and 213 may earn major credit.

ECO 212 - Intermediate Accounting

ECO 213 - Cost Accounting

Study of allocation and utilization of resources. Emphasis on cost behavior, cost allocation, product costing, budgeting, decision-making and control activities related to job-order, process and activity-based costing (ABC) systems.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 211. 
Only two courses from Economics 211, 212, and 213 may earn major credit. (Fall)

ECO 214 - Finance

This course provides a foundation in the principles and tools of finance, which include financial analysis, the time value of money, capital budgeting and capital structure. It emphasizes an intuitive, logically rigorous understanding of the theory and practice of finance, illustrating concepts that are applicable to public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. Ethical and societal issues related to these principles are examined.  

Only two courses numbered 211-214 may count towards the Economics major.
Only one course numbered 211-214 may count towards the Economics minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 211

ECO 219 - Game Theory and Strategic Behavior

Study of strategic situations in theory and practice. Course begins with the concept of Nash equilibrium and covers refinements of it, addressing ideas such as mixed strategies, preemption, wars of attrition, commitment, repeated games, and signaling.

Satisfies a Mathematical & Quantitative Thought requirement.

 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101 and Calculus I or equivalent.

ECO 220 - Economic Analysis of Health and Access to Care

Economic perspective on differences in health outcomes and health care utilization across the categories of income, wealth, education, gender and race.  Includes study of theories of time allocation, health production, health insurance and discrimination, and assessment of related empirical research and policies. 

Satisfies Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101 or both Economics 122 and permission of the instructor. 
Recommended, but not required: Economics 105.

ECO 221 - Economic History of the United States

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement. 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101.

ECO 224 - Labor Economics

Labor markets, unionization, unemployment, and public policy primarily in the setting of the United States.  Particular focus will be on inequality and discrimination in the labor market.

Satisfies a Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101.

ECO 225 - Public Sector Economics

Analysis of the role the public sector plays in a mixed economy.  Topics include public goods, externalities, tax policy, expenditure policy, budget deficits, and the national debt.  Includes proposals for tax welfare, and health care reforms. 
A student may not receive credit for both Economics 225 and Economics 325.  

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement. 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101.

ECO 226 - Environmental and Natural Resource Economics

Focuses on the application of economic tools to the evaluation of environmental amenities, the analysis of pollution control policies, the uses of renewable and nonrenewable resources, and the protection of biodiversity.  Examines the strengths and weaknesses of the economic approach to those issues.

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement. 
Satisfies depth and breadth course requirement in the Social Science Track of the Environmental Studies major or interdisciplinary minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101 required; Calculus I or equivalent recommended.

ECO 227 - Investments: Theory and Behavior

In this course we study the financial behavior of both idealized agents in economic models and actual humans faced with complex decisions, a large number of choices, uncertainty, and (mis)information.  The first part of the course introduces the financial system and financial assets and provides an overview of optimal investor behavior, including asset pricing, valuation, portfolio choice, and the life cycle model of consumption.  The second part includes a survey of the literature on behavioral finance, including overconfidence bias, herding effects, inertia and the effect of choice architecture, and the behavioral life cycle hypothesis.  We discuss various remedies to the mistakes often made by everyday participants in the financial system.

Satisfies a major requirement in Economics.
Satisfies a minor requirement in Economics.
Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101.

ECO 228 - Financial Economics

ECO 229 - Urban Economics

Role of economics in the development of modern cities. Topics include: the monocentric-city model, urban land values, crime, transportation, education, and taxation.

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement. 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101.

ECO 231S - History of Economic Thought

Evolution of economic thought in a social-historical context, from the Mercantilists up to Keynes, with particular attention to the Classical, Marxian, Austrian, Neoclassical, Institutional, and Keynesian schools.

Satisfies the Liberal Studies requirement. 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101.

ECO 232 - Economics of Migration

Types of migration, economic basis for migration, aggregate and distributional consequences on migrant sending and receiving countries, fiscal and other effects of migration, ‘brain-drain’ and ‘brain-gain’, remittances, migration policy.

Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement for International Studies.
Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101

ECO 234 - Latin American Economic Development

This course combines economic theory, policy and historical accounts to understand forces that have shaped Latin American economic development.  You will gain an understanding of major theories and trends in Latin American development while obtaining the necessary tools to analyze specific development issues and the impact of development projects.

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101.

ECO 235 - Economics of South Asian Environmental Issues

The goal of this course is for students to learn about the economics of environmental issues in South Asia (defined here as Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). The economic tools will include externalities and consideration of common and open access goods. The issues discussed will be topical, and the students will get to choose a topic for their research project.

Satisfies depth and breadth course requirement in the Social Science track of the Environmental Studies major or interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies a Social Scientific Thought Requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101.

ECO 237 - Macroeconomics of Development

Why are some countries rich and others so poor? What are the commonalities across today’s low-income countries, and how are they dissimilar? Which policies can best move billions of people from abject poverty to development and prosperity? This course is about the huge differences in incomes and standards of living that separates the wealthy nations from the poor. We will explore the nature and meaning of development and its macroeconomic manifestations within the context of a major set of economic problems faced by developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Topics include economic growth and structural transformation; poverty and inequality; agricultural transformation and rural development; human capital; migration and urbanization; foreign aid; violence and armed conflict; and role of monetary policy and fiscal policy to foster macroeconomic stability and economic development.

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies the 30-series Economics major requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101

ECO 280 - Economic Analysis of India’s Development

Students will engage in learning about the economic issues associated with the development of modern India as part of the Davidson College Semester in India Program.  Students will review introductory economics, read an economic analysis of India, and apply the lessons learned from their readings to the India they experience. 

Satisfies a requirement in the Economics major and minor.
Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought Ways of Knowing requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101 (Introductory Economics).

ECO 286 - Economics of Education (=EDU 286)

(Cross-listed with EDU 286)
This course will examine questions about the American educational system from an economic and behavioral-economic perspective.  Is school funding better spent on merit pay for teachers or reducing class size?  Do charter schools help more students get to college?  Who benefits from free tuition policies in higher education?  We will learn about returns to educational investment, effects of educational inputs, teacher labor markets, school choice, and higher education finance and policy.  There will be an emphasis throughout on empirical tests of individual behavior and their implications for education policy.

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies the 20-series Economics major course requirement.
Satifies a requirement in the Educational Studies minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101

ECO 288 - Economic Issues in Emerging Markets

This course covers the core ideas behind international monetary and trade theories with particular emphasis on emerging markets.  Why does the dollar go “up” or “down,” and with what implications?  How do financial crises begin and spread?  Who gains from international trade, and how does it affect economic welfare worldwide.  In addition to answering these questions, the course will cover topical issues in emerging economies: foreign aid, income inequality, environmental protection, and the relationship between democracy, national security, and open markets.  In addition to using texts and selected readings, we will rely on several case studies and country-specific analysis to further our understanding of these issues.  This class is not open to students who have taken POL 360.

Satisfies a Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies the 30-series requirement in the Economics major.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101.

ECO 295 - Individual Research

Designed for the student who desires to pursue some special interest in economics. A research proposal must be approved in advance by the faculty member who supervises the student and determines the means of evaluation as well as the Department Chair.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101 and permission of the instructor.

ECO 316 - Computational Economics

Computational methods for building and solving models in the context of economics topics. Methods discussed include agent-based simulations to analyze complex adaptive systems, value function iteration to solve dynamic structural models, and miscellaneous estimation and optimizing techniques.

Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement for applied mathematics.
Counts as an elective in the Data Science interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 105 or permission of the instructor.

ECO 320 - Psychology and Economics

Incorporation of psychological insights into economic models, with emphasis on empirical evidence. Also known as behavioral economics. Analysis of how individuals depart from a standard economic model in three ways: 1) nonstandard preferences, such as procrastination, 2) nonstandard beliefs, such as overconfidence about one’s ability, and 3) nonstandard decision making, such as framing effects and the roles of social pressure and peer influences.

Satisfies Social Science requirement.
 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 105 and Economics 202.

ECO 321 - Research Seminar in Public Choice Economics

Public Choice Economics is the application of economic methods to problems usually within the sphere of political science.  This research seminar is as much a vehicle for developing a student’s research skills as it is a valuable field of inquiry.  The students will actively engage with their peers in learning about Public Choice Economics, in developing a viable research proposal, and in conducting their own empirical research projects.  It is appropriate for either advanced economics-focused students with an interest political science or advanced political science-focused students with an interest in economics.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics focus: Economics 105 (Statistics), either Economics 202 (Intermediate Microeconomics) or Economics 203 (Intermediate Macroeconomics), and a Political Science course above 201.

Political Science focus: Political Science 201 (Methods and Statistics in Political Science), a Political Science course above 300, and Economics 101 (Introductory Economics).

ECO 323 - Industrial Organization

We often hear that perfect competition is the ideal market structure for an industry, but what if it isn’t?  When are there benefits to consumers from allowing two large companies to merge?  Are Microsoft and Google providing valuable technological innovations for society, or strategically capturing market share and profit for themselves?  

We study some frameworks for answering these and other questions, starting with a review of how market structure, firm behavior, and outcomes for consumers are related.  We examine the effects of various business strategies such as price discrimination, product differentiation, collusion, mergers, advertising, R&D and investment.  Finally, we discuss landmark antitrust court cases and apply theoretical frameworks to understand why different industries may be treated differently.

Satisfies a Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 202 required.

ECO 324 - Labor Economics

Labor markets, unionization, unemployment, and public policy primarily in the setting of the United States. (A student may not receive credit for both ECO 224 and ECO 324.)

Satisfies a Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 105 and Economics 202 or permission of the instructor.

ECO 325 - Public Sector Economics

Analysis of the role the public sector plays in a mixed economy.  Topics include public goods, externalities, tax policy, expenditure policy, budget deficits, and the national debt.  Includes proposals for tax welfare, and health care reforms. 
A student may not receive credit for both Economics 225 and Economics 325.  

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement. 

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 202.

ECO 328 - Money and the Financial System

Term structure of interest rates, structure of financial markets, regulatory framework, asset demand theories, Federal Reserve system and operation of monetary policy.

Satisfies a Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 203.

ECO 329 - Sports Economics

Sports economics covers the major economic issues confronted in professional and major college sports. The course examines four topics in depth: (1) the structure of professional sports industry, (2) public finance issues surrounding stadium construction and team ownership in professional sports, (3) labor market issues in professional sports, and (4) the economics of amateur athletics (with a focus on the NCAA).

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 105 and Economics 202.

ECO 336 - Economic Growth

What sustains economic growth in the long run?  This question was the focus of Adam Smith’s 1776 masterpiece “The Wealth of Nations”.  Nobel laureate Robert Lucas famously said that “Once one starts to think about [questions of economic growth], it is hard to think about anything else.”  The purpose of this course is to explain and explore the modern theories of economic growth.  We will use  theoretical and empirical models and publicly available data to study the role of key components of economics growth such as: capital accumulation, including all new investments in land, physical equipment, and human resources through improvements in health, education, and job skills; population growth; technological progress; openness to trade and capital flow; institutions, culture, and geography; and environmental sustainability.

Satisfies a Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies the 30-series requirement in the Economics major.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 203

ECO 337 - International Trade

Economic basis for international trade, determinants and consequences of trade flows, barriers to trade, and trade policy.

Satisfies a Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 202.

ECO 338 - International Finance

Satisfies a Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 203.

ECO 339 - Economics of Multinational Firms

Multinational firms with operations spanning national boundaries are some of the most powerful companies in the world. Why do some firms go global? What prevents others from internationalizing their operations? How do multinationals innovate? Do they benefit the countries where they operate? Answers to these questions will provide key insights about the world we live in, and we will use economics to examine these and other issues to learn how firms respond to the pressures of globalization and how the global presence of these firms affects the well-being of citizens in rich and poor countries.

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 203

ECO 380 - Seminar in Economics (ECO 380-384)

Reading, research, papers, and discussion on selected topics in economics. Particular topic or area of the seminar and course number will be announced in advance of registration.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 202 or 203 or 205 and permission of the instructor.

ECO 395 - Individual Research

Designed for the major who desires to pursue some special interest in economics. A research proposal must be approved in advance by the faculty member who supervises the student and determines the means of evaluation as well as the Department Chair.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 202 or 203 or 205 and permission of the instructor.

ECO 494 - Honors Thesis Research

Independent research designed to formulate a written proposal for an honors thesis. The proposal will include a review of recent literature, development of a theoretical framework and research hypotheses, and a discussion of your empirical estimation approach and available data.  An oral defense of the written proposal is required.  Graded on a Pass/Fail basis.

Not for major or minor credit in Economics.

Prerequisites & Notes
Permission of the Department Chair. (Fall)

ECO 495 - Senior Session

Prerequisites & Notes: 
Economics 202, 203, and 205 or permission of the department chair.
Offered in both fall and spring semesters. Priority is given to seniors.
 

Spring 2019 Senior Seminars

Section A: “Great” Books in Economics
Instructor: Jha

This course will survey the great thinkers, their seminal ideas, and the great texts of economic thought in the history of the discipline. Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” changed the world, with a basic trinity of individual prerogatives: self-interest division of labor, and freedom of trade. But what, according to Smith, were the limits of reason and rationality? What were Keynes’s views on ‘animal spirits’, the spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical speculation, that drove human action? How did Marx distinguish between fixed or constant drives that are integral to human nature and the relative appetites that are rooted in particular social structures and modes of production? How did Polanyi contrast rational self-interested behavior in the market society of early modern Western Europe with socially motivated behavior in the communitarian patterns of organization in traditional societies? The objective of this course is to conduct a close study of select “great texts” in economics, focusing on classics in economic thought supplemented with contemporary analyses.
 

Section B: The Economics of Conservation Biology
Instructor: Martin

This course focuses on the economic analysis of conservation biology policies, which are intended to preserve biodiversity. The goals of conservation biology and economic analyses can conflict because the former prioritizes preserving the status quo while the latter promotes creative destruction. Also, the complex ecological goals of a biodiversity policy must be implemented within an equally complex human society. Students will read, discuss, and write about the primary literature to learn about these tensions, their causes, and potential resolutions to them. At the end of the course, the students will bring all of this material together into an economic analysis of a biodiversity policy of their choice.
 

Section C: The Geography of Prosperity
Instructor: Smith

Why is North Korea’s economic output per person a fraction of South Korea’s? Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in England? This course will examine competing theories behind why some societies have enjoyed economic success while others have not. Special attention will be paid to understanding the role of economic institutions and the role of geography in generating long run economic prosperity.
 

Section D: The Economics of Foreign Direct Investment
Instructor: Stroup

Multinational firms with operations spanning national boundaries are some of the most powerful companies in the world. Why do some firms go global? What prevents others from internationalizing their operations? How do multinationals innovate? Do they benefit the countries where they operate? Answers to these questions will help us understand the world we live in, and we will use economics to examine these and other issues to learn how firms respond to the pressures of globalization and how the global presence of these firms affects our well-being.

Section H: Honors Thesis
Instructor: Foley

Completion of the honors research proposed in Economics 494 (section H), including estimation of the empirical models, interpretation and discussion of the results, and a concluding section.  Oral defense of the thesis is required. Students will also take comprehensive exams in microeconomic and macroeconomic theory, ETS Major Field Test in Economics and an oral examination conducted by an external examiner

Prerequisite: Pass in Economics 494 and permission of the Department Chair. (Spring)

FALL 2018 SENIOR SEMINARS

Section A: Contemporary Economic Issues
Instructor: Gouri Suresh

The objective of this course is to conduct a close study of selected economics research publications in terms of their theories and empirical approaches. Over the course of the semester, five papers and one book will be chosen jointly by the students and the professor based principally on the criteria of timeliness and timelessness. “Timely” papers will be chosen from recent issues of the Journal Economics Perspectives and other comparable sources. “Timeless” papers will be chosen from a list of papers widely accepted as classics in the field. Students will read, analyze, discuss, and write about these papers and the book in various ways - response papers, op-eds, book/article reviews, and policy briefs. The professor will also choose one empirical result from any of the readings in the course for a “replication” exercise that the students will conduct using either simulated or real data.
 

Section B: Income Inequality in the United States: From the Colonial Period to the Present
Instructor: Ross

This course will look at the mechanisms of income and wealth determination. The principal applications will be within the United States, since the Colonial Period to the present. Within the course, we will examine the central tendency of the income and wealth distribution, with particular attention paid to the degree of inequality. For different time periods, we will examine those issues that contributed to greater inequality, as well as any issues or programs that reduced inequality.

ECO 495, section B satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

EDU 121 - Foundations of American Education: Historical & Philosophical Perspectives

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
 

Prerequisites & Notes
(Fall and Spring)

EDU 131 - Schools, Cinema, and American Culture

This course explores how “school films” have become authoritative texts on what counts as good education.  We will examine how students, educators, and school communities are represented in film, particularly in regard to race, nation, class, gender, sexuality, and disability.  We will interrogate implicit assumptions and hidden messages in cinematic portrayals of school life with a focus on teachers’ lives, work and careers.  We will re-imagine the cinematic role in shaping educational practices, policies, and law.  Students will write analytical papers and complete a major research project.

Satisfies the Liberal Studies requirement.

EDU 141 - Introduction to Philosophy of Education

A study of classic and contemporary documents in Philosophy of Education. Includes readings, discussions, and analyses of approximately twenty different philosophers from the fifth century BCE to the twenty-first century.

Satisfies Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.

EDU 208 - Comparative and International Education

This course introduces students to the comparative study of educational institutions and cultures in India, Chile, the UAE, China, Northern Ireland, and the United States.  We will examine a number of issues, including but not limited to:  The role of NGOS and international organizations, educational reform efforts, colonialism and empire, educational access, attainment, and success around the world. Students will write a research paper, in addition to reviews and class assignments.

EDU 210 - Dialogues on Race and Racism

This course is based on the intergroup dialogue model where two facilitators of differing social identity groups encourage dialogue among class members about persistent social issues and conflicts related to race, racism, and its intersections with other social identities such as class, gender, sexual orientation, religion and immigration/migration background.  The intergroup dialogue approach to teaching about race and racism in the United States is pedagogically unique. The class is balanced with approximately half of the students self-identifying as White and the other half identifying as Students of Color or racial minorities in the United States and at Davidson College. Classroom diversity, balance and size is critical for building the trust and safety necessary for a racially diverse class to deeply engage the topic of race and multicultural education as a practice. Through interactive activities, in-class dialogues, course readings, and self-reflective writing assignments, students will learn about important issues and perspectives facing the participating populations on campus and in the United States. This course is by permission only and a pre-registration survey must be completed before the instructors determine the final class roster.

Satisfies a requirement in the Communication Studies major and interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
This course is by permission only. A pre-registration survey must be completed before the instructors determine the final class roster. To take this survey, navigate to this link: https://davidsonedu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5ok6O8reW0kfjpj. Direct any questions or problems to Trent Foley, trfoley@davidson.edu. You will be notified via email whether you have been admitted to the class on or just after the date that WebTree closes.

EDU 221 - Schools and Society (=SOC 221)

EDU 241 - Child Development (= PSY 241)

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement. 
 

Prerequisites & Notes
Psychology 101. (Fall)

EDU 242 - Educational Psychology (= PSY 242)

Satisfies Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
 

EDU 243 - Adolescent Development (= PSY 243)

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Psychology 101

EDU 250 - Multicultural Education

This course examines the ways in which schools and society in the United States engage with diverse individuals and groups, as well as how obstacles to ever-increasing multiculturalism are rooted in behaviors, assumptions, values, thinking and communication styles.  The course will be taught using the intergroup dialogue model where two facilitators of differing social identity groups encourage dialogue among students about persistent social issues and conflicts related to race, racism, and the intersections of class, gender, sexual orientation, religion and immigration/migration background.  The intergroup dialogue approach to teaching multicultural education is pedagogically unique.  The class is balanced with approximately half of the students self-identifying as White and the other half identifying as Students of Color or racial minorities in the United States and at Davidson College.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies Social-Scientific Thought requirement. 

Prerequisites & Notes

 

EDU 260 - Oppression & Education (=SOC 260)

This course examines various manifestations of oppression in the United States and the questions they raise about inequality and social justice within educational institutions.  We will apply methods of critical analysis drawn from anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and psychology to an examination of social issues in the United States educational system.  We will examine education as a central site of conflict over the gap between the United States’ egalitarian mission and its unequal structure, processes, and outcomes.  Students will rethink contemporary solutions to social diversity in education, develop a social justice framework which emphasizes inequality, and design an institutional ethnographic project as a critical intervention in schools and society.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
 

Prerequisites & Notes
Not open to students with credit for EDU 210 or EDU 250.

EDU 270 - Democracy and Education

Democracy and Education examines philosophical and theoretical positions which contend that education is a public good and is essential to the cultivation of a democratic civil society. Through critical analysis and scrutiny, students investigate the notion that public schooling in the United States should be based on principles of equitable access and that every individual has a right to educational opportunities which are just, fair, and democratic.  

Satisfies the Philosophical and Religious Perspectives requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

EDU 280 - Introduction to Educational Policy

This course is designed to introduce students to current issues in educational policy, and help them develop rigorous policy analysis skills. We will examine the goals, institutions, and actors that shape the American K-12 education system in order to understand recent reform efforts and their consequences for students.  A substantial portion of the course will require that students apply theories of the policy process and tools of policy analysis to specific reforms such as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the Common Core State Standards, teacher workforce policies, and the growing presence of charter schools, especially in urban areas.  Students will engage these topics through in-class discussions, case studies, presentations, and through the creation of work products such as policy memos, issue briefs, and op-ed articles.

Satisfies a Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies a major requirement in the CIS major in Educational Studies & Public Policy Studies.
Satisfies a minor requirement in Educational Studies.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement

EDU 286 - Economics of Education (=ECO 286)

(Cross-listed with ECO 286)
This course will examine questions about the American educational system from an economic and behavioral-economic perspective.  Is school funding better spent on merit pay for teachers or reducing class size?  Do charter schools help more students get to college?  Who benefits from free tuition policies in higher education?  We will learn about returns to educational investment, effects of educational inputs, teacher labor markets, school choice, and higher education finance and policy.  There will be an emphasis throughout on empirical tests of individual behavior and their implications for education policy.

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies the 20-series Economics major course requirement.
Satisfies a requirement in the Educational Studies minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
Economics 101.

EDU 290 - Oral History: Problems, Perspectives, & Possibilities (=SOC 290)

In this hands-on methods course, students will build interdisciplinary research skills focused on the theory and practice of oral history.  We will explore the theories, methods, and debates surrounding one of the oldest research tools: oral testimony.  Students will learn to critically evaluate oral sources and use oral histories in conjunction with other forms of research.  Students will engage with the practical aspects of oral history by completing and transcribing two oral history interviews.  In addition, students will gain a sophisticated understanding of individual and collective memory and the questions that both raise for writing oral history.  Each student will participate in a class oral history project.

Satisfies a major requirement in Africana Studies
Satisfies a major requirement in Sociology
Satisfies a major requirement in CIS Educational Studies
Satisfies a minor requirement in Educational Studies
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement

EDU 291 - Data in Education

Educational data and quantitative data analyses have come to play a powerful role in the way we govern our schools. In this course, students will learn to be critical consumers and skilled producers of such analyses. In the applied portion of this class, students will learn data management, analysis, and visualization strategies by working with real data gathered in educational settings to answer research questions of policy and practical interest.

Satisfies a requirement in the Educational Studies minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the Digital Studies interdisciplinary minor.
Counts as an elective in the Data Science interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies a Mathematical and Quantitative Thought requirement.

EDU 292 - Theory of Sports Coaching

This course provides an overview of academic theory essential to understanding competitive sports coaching in secondary schools and colleges. The student will evaluate, apply, and synthesize current theoretical perspectives and research in coaching sports. Topics include coaching philosophy, communication, pedagogy, skill development, and team management.

Satisfies a minor requirement in Educational Studies.

EDU 300 - Special Topics: Politics of Education

The United States is constantly stalled in a never-ending debate over the role of governments in schools, colleges, and universities. This course will explore that debate by examining the political dimensions of the major educational issues of our time including, but not limited to, the school choice movement, gun violence in schools, sexual assault on university campuses, school desegregation, and policies related to college affordability. The course will draw on methodologies from political science and economics and will focus on power dynamics and political action in education and society.  In addition to traditional writing assignments and assessments, students will produce a white paper for a state or local legislator, non-profit organization, or other policy-related client on an educational policy issue of interest.

EDU 301 - Independent Study in Education

EDU 305 - Critical Issues in Higher Education

This course is a study of the nature and function of American higher education through an examination of the history of colleges and universities, as well as contemporary issues facing the sector.  We will examine higher education policies from college and university admissions, NCAA athletics, affirmative action, Greek life, HBCUs and HSIs, #FreeCollege and #RealCollege, the role of community colleges, just to name a few of the topics.

Satisfies a requirement in the Social & Cultural Studies category of the Educational Studies minor.
Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

EDU 320 - Growing up Jim Crow (= AFR 320, =SOC 320)

Instructor
Kelly

Examines how a generation learned race and racism in the Age of Jim Crow. Through multiple and intersecting lenses, students will examine texts, such as oral histories, literary narratives, and visual representations of various topics.  Topics will include Jim Crow schooling, white supremacy, disenfranchisement, lynching, rape, resistance, interracial harmony, and desegregation.

Satisfies a requirement in the Sociology major.
Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: North America).
Satisfies a requirement in the Educational Studies minor.
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

*Interlinked Memory Studies Courses
Five different courses that engage with phenomena of memory will link up once a week for common readings and discussions. Students will meet one day a week with their course instructor to engage in the discipline-specific study of memory. On the other day each week, students and faculty members in all five courses will meet together to compare and share different disciplinary and personal ideas about the study of memory; the creation and effects of memory; the representation of memory; and the social, cultural, and personal creative processes that make memory.  Participating courses are:

AFR 320 / EDU 320 / SOC 320 (Kelly) Growing Up Jim Crow
CIS 292 / PSY 292 (Multhaup) Collective Memory
ENG 204 (Parker) Introduction to Writing Fiction
GER 433 / HIS 433 (Denham) The Holocaust and Representation
​HIS 287 (Mortensen) Memory and Identity in the People’s Republic of China

EDU 330 - Sociology of Education (=SOC 330)

(Cross-listed as SOC 330.) An introduction to the sociological study of education in the United States, including an examination of the school as an organization within a larger environment. Explores the link between schools and social stratification by analyzing the mutually generative functions of schools and considers how processes within schools can lead to different outcomes for stakeholders.

Provides major credit in Sociology.
Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
(Fall)

EDU 340 - Education in African American Society (=SOC 340)

EDU 350 - Latino(a) Education in the United States

This course will examine the schooling experiences and educational attainment of Latinos & Latinas in the United States.  We will explore the impact of culture, gender, class, and immigration on Latino/a educational experiences, as well as the impact structures and settings, activism and advocacy, and politics and economics can have on educational attainment.

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

EDU 351 - Educational Biography

This seminar prepares students to write an intellectual biography of a major figure in the history and practice of education in the United States.  The course will start with a simple question:  What is educational biography?  Students will read and analyze several educational biographies and, eventually, write their own.  The goal of the course is to write a final seminar paper that will inform the general public about major educational thinkers and practitioners who have made significant contributions to our society.

Satisfies a requirement in the Educational Studies minor (Historical & Philosophical Foundations category).
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.
 

EDU 360 - Seminar in Second Language Acquisition

This course provides an introduction to second language acquisition theories and research, exploring the limits and possibilities of instructed and natural contexts. Topics include the nature of language, the role of the native language, second language acquisition universals, theoretical and pedagogical approaches, nonlanguage influences, instructed second language learning, and linguistic data analysis. Students will engage in critical discussions of the readings and observations of foreign/second language classes, and either produce a research-based instructional intervention or linguistic fieldwork analysis.

Satisfies a Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Students must have fulfilled Davidson’s foreign language requirement or its equivalent before enrolling in the course.

EDU 361 - Bilingualism, literacy and schooling

In this seminar course, we will devote time inside of class and in our local community to the study of bilingualism and literacy development in immigrant school-aged children and youth. Although we will focus on teaching English literacy to students, we will consider ways to do so that honor students’ home languages and cultures. We will meet one afternoon per week (Tuesdays, 1:40-4:20pm) to discuss theoretical and practice-oriented research literature.  Students will also be required to commit either Mondays or Wednesdays (3:30-4:20) to tutoring ELLs at Cornelius Elementary School.  Although not required, a background in second language acquisition, psychology, and/or sociology is recommended.

Satisfies a minor requirement in Educational Studies

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement

Satisfies the Cultural diversity requirement

EDU 365 - Language Policy and Planning

Students will learn how to evaluate and make informed decisions about educational language policy and practices. We will begin the course with a macro focus on historical and current educational language policies and frameworks in the United States. Students will compare these to those elsewhere by investigating and leading a class discussion on the language situation in and policies of a country or region of their choice. During the second part of the course, we delve into bilingual education planning, including language curricula and instruction, teacher preparation, administrative support, and material resources needed to design successful programs.

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

EDU 370 - War, Peace, & Education

War, Peace, and Education confronts the complex relationship most Americans have with war by detecting components of the hidden curriculum in schools that serve to endorse war.  The course will focus on five such components:  masculinity and hero worship, patriotism, hatred, religion’s frequent support of war, and war as an arena for supplying existential meaning.

Satisfies the Philosophical & Religious Perspectives requirement

EDU 371 - Critical Race Theory (=AFR 371, =SOC 371)

This course introduces students to the development of critical race theory as a specific theoretical framework to explain or to investigate how race and racism are organized and operate within the United States.  The course will have a sociological focus with emphasis on critical race scholarship that includes, but is not limited to, an analysis of double consciousness, colorblindness, intersectionality, whiteness as property, racial microaggressions, and structures of power.  Students will also explore central tenets and key writings advanced in the 1990s primarily by African American, Latino/a, and Asian American scholars in law, education, and public policy.  The course is both reading intensive and extensive with a major writing assignment that addresses a theoretical problem that grows out of the course topics and discussions. 

Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: North America).
Satisfies a requirement in the Sociology major.
Satisfies a minor requirement in Educational Studies.
Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.

EDU 380 - Evaluating Educational Innovations for Youth

This course will survey selected social innovations aimed at improving social and educational outcomes for youth, and introduce students to theoretical and empirical approaches to assessing the effectiveness of innovations. Following the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, a social innovation is defined as “a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than present solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals.”  Through the course, students will understand the evaluative needs of different stages of innovation, learn to connect appropriate research designs, and become critical consumers of research that examines social and educational innovation. Course participants will also have the opportunity to interact with local and national social entrepreneurs through a series of in-person and remote guest lectures. In addition, students will engage in intensive case study of select social innovations, and design an evaluation plan for a new or existing innovation.

Satisfies the Social-Scientific Thought requirement.
Satisfies a major requirement in the CIS major Educational Studies & Public Policy Studies.
Satisfies a minor requirement in Educational Studies.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

EDU 395 - Independent Study in Education

Independent Study in Education

EDU 400 - Dir Field Placement - Education

ENG 110 - Course list for Introduction to Literature

Fall 2018

ENG 110 A Introduction to Environmental Literature (=ENV 210)
Instructor
Merrill

(Cross-listed as Environmental Studies 210.)  An introduction to global environmental literature.  We’ll focus primarily on short fiction, novels, and non-fiction prose.  The course will introduce students to environmental justice issues as well as contemporary trends in global literature.  Literary and environmental topics include toxicity, waste, food, inequality, the idea of “wilderness,” and activism.  No prior experience studying literature is required.

Satisfies depth or breadth course requirement in Humanities Track of the Environmental Studies major or interdisciplinary minor
 

ENG 110 B World’s Greatest Short Stories
Instructor
Kuzmanovich

This course examines the history and development of the modern short story and its various subgenres through a close reading of texts from many authors and cultures.  The course also gives some attention to the ways short stories are currently evaluated and allows the option of submitting creative work.

Counts as an Innovation course for the English major.

Spring 2019

ENG 110 A - Literary Monsters
Instructor
Ingram

This course examines monsters in widely varied texts.  Some are influential classics, such as Beowulf, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Some are recent works by prominent writers, such as Octavia Butler’s Fledgling, Colson Whitehead’s Zone One, and short fiction by Margaret Atwood and Karen Russell.  Some are bestsellers, such as Stephen King’s The Outsider; films, such as Nosferatu and Night of the Living Dead; and television shows, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Penny Dreadful.  One is a graphic novel with a topic and a title to suit this course, Emil Ferris’s My Favorite Thing Is Monsters.  

Each text will be contextualized, so that students will discuss each monster as a response to distinct fears.  Students will also discuss the unstable place of monsters in cultural history, so essential to ancient and medieval texts at the core of the canon, yet later associated with popular entertainment.  Like all who survive encounters with monsters, the students of this section will come away with new questions and new ways of reading.

ENG 110 I - Graphic Medicine:  Drawing Disability
Instructor
Fox

Why is the graphic novel literary? And why has it become an immensely popular site for the representation of illness, disability, and medicine?  In this Introduction to Literature class, we’ll start with the premise that the unique intersection of word, color, image, text, and juxtaposition offered by the graphic novel offers authors singular opportunities for storytelling. We will further ask: what do comics, zines, and graphic novels have to teach us about our varied kinds of embodiment, particularly about disabled bodies? We will consider how these visual texts teach us about how bodies engage with the social and medical contexts surrounding them. Encompassing everything from bipolar disorder to cancer, depression to HIV/AIDS, epilepsy to deafness, and end-of-life issues to amputation, possible course works may include Epileptic, Cancer Vixen, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, and Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michaelangelo, and Me.  Students will also make their own comic!

Counts as an Innovation Course for the major.
Counts for the Health and Human Values Interdisciplinary Minor

OTHER TOPICS (not offered in current academic year):

ENG 110 Shakespeare & Sports
Instructor
Lewis

Contemporary sports and Elizabethan theater have much in common. Both present spectacles, before a rowdy audience, in an arena. Both involve rehersal and scripted performance. Both require guides, whether a director or a coach. Both create rivalry, whether between teams or acting companies. Most important, both center on stories that thrive on the essential, exhilarating, and painful human experience. Like Shakespeare’s plays, sports history yields instances of extraordinary heroism and of heart-breaking mistakes. Real athletes find reflection in many of Shakespeare’s best known characters. Take, for instance, Dale Earrnhardt, Jr., whose larger-than-life father haunts him as King Hamlet’s ghost haunts his son. Andre Agassi’s second chance at tennis recalls The Tempest’s Prospero, who is exiled from and returns to dominate another court. This class explores how such moments and people in sports find reflection in Shakespeare’s works.

ENG110 - Introduction to Comedy
Instructor
Ingram

This course offers an overview of the comic tradition in English, from the Middle Ages to the present, from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to Arrested Development.  Although humor will be a recurring feature of some texts and of most class meetings, this course traces how comedies respond to inescapable challenges of human life:  social and political structures as apparent obstacles to the desires of individuals; the body and its failings, to the point of death; art, particularly comedy, as a reassuring (or maybe deceptive) refuge of happy endings that can seem elusive in life.  Different eras respond differently to those challenges, so the course offers a broad survey of literary and cultural history.  Over the semester, students and professor alike will look for comedy in surprising places, including in the form of the course itself, certain to end happily, before it has even begun.

ENG 110 - Media & Community
Instructor
Churchill
 
From Walt Whitman’s broad embrace of American readers in the 1860s to the digital social networks of today, this course examines how various media form communities of readers and writers. We will investigate how lyric poetry creates one kind of intimacy between author and reader, how blogs establish another, and how the NBC television comedy Community builds its own cult following. Davidson College meets Greendale Community College in a course that teaches you how to read, analyze, and respond critically and creatively to various forms of media. 

Media & Community topic satisfies a requirement of the Digital Studies interdisciplinary minor.

ENG 110 Growing Up in America
Instructor
S. Campbell

In this course, we will consider young adult fiction both from various critical perspectives and within various readerly contexts.  Over the semester, we will:

• Review a brief history of the genre from 1860 to 2000;
• Explore shifting perceptions of gender, sexuality, and coming of age in the United States;
• Discuss in what ways ethnicity, race, and socioeconomic status impact expectations about maturation;
• Consider how reviews of and responses to young adult texts reflect contemporaneous assumptions about the purposes of literature.

Satisfies an elective requirement in the English major.
Provides elective credit in the Gender and Sexuality Studies major and minor.
Satisfies a Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric distribution requirement.

ENG 110 Literature & Medicine
Instructor
Vaz

Science and medicine have indelibly influenced how we understand and respond to the physical and mental state of being human.  We will consider how an appreciation of literary texts and the questions they broach give us a different insight into the human condition and affect our awareness of health, addiction, illness, disease, suffering, recovery, and death.  In doing so, we will also pay close attention to the cultural coding of these issues, as we examine how gender, class, race, sexual orientation, or other cultural biases color our perceptions of health, disease, suffering and death.

Counts for the Health and Human Values Interdisciplinary Minor

ENG 115 - The Art, Science, and Fascination of Fragrance

Description: This is a new kind of course, built bottom-up from the kinds of curiosity about the sense of smell expressed by students and professors in a liberal arts college. Not all of these questions have answers, but this course strives to give you  the feeling that you are looking in the right direction as you consider the  fascination of fragrance, the science of scent, and the passion and profit of perfume.  You and professors from Art History, Biology, Chemistry, Classics, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, and Psychology will think together and think out loud about what would be the best  next step  in formalizing your own curiosity about olfaction.  So the course is really a series of investigations into the art, biology, chemistry economics, history, and psychology of fragrances.

Organizing Questions: How exactly does the sense of smell work?  Why do we have considerable numbers of olfactory receptors yet a rather small vocabulary for describing smells?  Did the sense of smell shape the human face? Are perfumes aphrodisiacs? Why are aphrodisiacs named after Aphrodite? What are nectar and ambrosia in Homer’s epics? Do fragrances alter moods?   What makes  tangerine fragrance as effective as Valium in lowering stress? Can fragrances really bring back memories?  What role do fragrances play in religious rituals? Why do skins react differently to the same perfume? How did the ancients make/use/store perfumes? Why myrrh and frankincense?  Are there always smells in the air?  Beyond inviting pollinators, of what use are fragrances to fragrant plants? How come mirror image molecules smell so different? How come some fragrances last long on me and some don’t? What is the link between fragrance and flavor? What is the Spice Road and how did it come about?  If I like perfume  X, what other perfumes might I like? Why?   How do people lose their sense of smell? Is losing one’s sense of smell predictive of certain diseases? How do dogs smell cancer? Why do men seem to pay less attention to smells than women do? Are women really 1000 times more sensitive to musk than men are?  Is there a relation between odor and morality? Can human behavior be subliminally manipulated by odors? Does aromatherapy work? Why do I love some fragrances and hate others?  How come old people’s perfumes smell so strong? Is it true that animal urine is used in perfumery? Is there really a smell of fear? Are organic perfumes better than synthetic ones? Why is there the persistent belief in human pheromones? What exactly are notes in a fragrance? How many different smells can a human nose distinguish? How big is the fragrance industry?  What does it take to succeed in it?  What’s up with celebrity perfumes? What perfumes did Cleopatra use? In what organs do human have odor receptors?  

Texts:  Rachel Herz,  The Scent of Desire;   Mandy Aftel, Essence and Alchemy:  A Natural History of Perfume;   Patrick Susskind, Perfume;  Scent of a Woman; Essays on the art, history, chemistry, biology, psychology, and economics of fragrance; Poems and stories on fragrance  themes.

Satisfies a Liberal Studies requirement.

ENG 116 - Gesture

From our non-verbal cues in daily conversation to our postures, gaits, facial expressions, and movements, gesture plays a significant role in our daily communications with one another. Whether we are using sign language or watching the unfolding of a graceful développé in ballet, we are tuned in to the ways in which our gestures communicate meaning. The study of gesture is a multidisciplinary effort, as scholars draw on fields as diverse as psychoanalysis, performance studies, dance, neuroscience, anthropology, linguistics, behavioral science, and literary analysis. This course will examine the interpenetrations of gesture with both speech and thought in a series of cultural artifacts, ranging from the silent film comedy of Buster Keaton in The General (1926) and the fiction of Nathanael West and Zadie Smith, to the YouTube videos of Chris Crocker (“Leave Britney Alone!”) and the documentaries Paris is Burning (1990) and Rize (2005). What does it mean to study gesture in an interdisciplinary way? What questions do theorists of gesture ask of the literary and cultural artifacts they study?  How do gestures amplify our understanding of each other and of literary characters and documentary subjects? Rooted in close reading and analysis, this class will ask students to consider how our movements create meaning and what those meanings suggest about our culture(s) and the other cultures under consideration in the course.


Satisfies a Liberal Studies requirement.

ENG 201 - History of the Essay

As Annie Dillard wrote, “the essay is, and has been, all over the map.  There’s nothing you can’t do with it; no subject matter is forbidden, no structure is proscribed.”  Today essayists as varied as the classical, sedate Phillip Lopate and the lyrical, innovative Eula Bliss draw inspiration from a long line of progenitors.  In this course, we will get to know these literary ancestors, from Japanese courtier Sei Shonagan to be-ruffed, ink-stained Montaigne to the hard-drinking New Journalists of the 1960s.  We will examine the moves these thinkers make and try them out in essays of our own, taking risks and expanding our ideas of the possible.  We will think about the ways the essay has been used to create new knowledge, to assert identify, and to advocate for important causes.  Focusing particularly on the personal essay, we will challenge, revise, and refine our idea of where we each fit within this rich and varied community of writers.

Satifies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.

ENG 202 - Introduction to Creative Writing

English 202 introduces students to the art and craft of writing short fiction and poetry of all varieites including “slam”.  Creativity is essential, as is dedication to writing, reading, and engaging in productive discussions of each other’s work.

ENG 203 - Introduction to Writing Poetry

ENG 204 - Introduction to Writing Fiction

Instructor 
Parker

A workshop course in fiction writing, offered in conjunction with the Memory Commons (six courses in different disciplines, all focused upon memory and its operations). Two class sessions weekly: one meeting as a fiction workshop, and another with all six courses together, team-taught. 

*Interlinked Memory Studies Courses
Five different courses that engage with phenomena of memory will link up once a week for common readings and discussions. Students will meet one day a week with their course instructor to engage in the discipline-specific study of memory. On the other day each week, students and faculty members in all five courses will meet together to compare and share different disciplinary and personal ideas about the study of memory; the creation and effects of memory; the representation of memory; and the social, cultural, and personal creative processes that make memory.  Participating courses are:

AFR 320 / EDU 320 / SOC 320 (Kelly) Growing Up Jim Crow
CIS 292 / PSY 292 (Multhaup) Collective Memory
ENG 204 (Parker) Introduction to Writing Fiction
GER 433 / HIS 433 (Denham) The Holocaust and Representation
​HIS 287 (Mortensen) Memory and Identity in the People’s Republic of China

ENG 211 - Filmmaking

This course is a workshop, where virtually everything will be based upon, work from, and be inspired by, the films you and others in your class accomplish.  The course is based on learning the discipline and rigors of thinking visually, daily.

Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in Film and Media Studies and Digital Studies.
Satisfies Visual and Performing Arts requirement.
 

ENG 220 - Literary Analysis

Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.

ENG 240 - British Literature to 1800

Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Fulfills the Historical Approaches requirement of the English major.
 

ENG 242 - Women’s Work: 21st Century Female Playwrights (=THE 242)

This course provides a close look at work created for the stage by women since 2000.  The analysis of plays written and produced in the 21st century will be set in the context of feminist and queer theory which has offered insights into the cultural function of “tomen’s work.”

Satisfies a requirement in the English major.
Satisfies a requirement in the Theatre major and minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the Literary & Cultural Representations Track of the Gender and Sexuality Studies major and minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the Global Literary Theory interdisciplinary minor.

ENG 245 - Book History, Arts, Culture

As the book has undergone a rapid century of changes, how have poets, fiction writers, and theorists imagined and come to terms with “the book” and “the library”? How do ideas of “the library” and “the book” vary in theory and practice? In the era of e-readers and nearly infinite digital storage capabilities, why own books at all? This course will examine the contested status of the printed object in the 21st century as a development of events in the 20th. Readings may include Benjamin, Borges, Danielewski, Drucker, Howe, Kittler, McLuhan, Van Vliet, and several film screenings. (Writing-intensive.) (Theory or Theme).

ENG 260 - British Literature since 1800