Course Descriptions Winter 2026

Rich Noer taught physics at Carleton for 38 years. He was particularly interested in the history and philosophy of science, co-authored a text for liberal-arts students, and taught freshman seminars and interdisciplinary courses aimed at connecting the sciences with the humanities. He has taught eight different CVEC courses, each at least twice.

rnoer@carleton.edu

Overview: Time magazine’s “Person of the Century” in 2000, Albert Einstein first drew unprecedented public attention for his revolutionary scientific ideas (in particular, the theories of relativity and the light quantum). In the public eye he evolved into an iconic figure, instantly recognizable with his tousled hair, rumpled sweaters, and twinkling eyes—widely revered but understood by few outside the physics community.

Our classes will be devoted mainly to conceptual discussion of Einstein’s scientific ideas, including the relativity of space and time, gravity as the curvature of space-time, equation E = mc², black holes, light as photons, and the “spooky action at a distance” of quantum theory. Though these concepts sometimes strain our credulity, they are surprisingly easy to talk about without a need for mathematical analysis. Reading an unusually engaging biography written for general readers, we’ll also try to understand Einstein as a person.

Course Materials and Class Schedule: As background reading for class meetings, I will assign Walter Isaacson’s 2008 biography Einstein: His Life and Universe (paperback locally available new at Content Bookstore at $20.69 and used via bookfinder.com for less than $5). I find this a fascinating account, written with the benefit of then newly available Einstein papers and yet about as close to a page-turner as you can get in a biography. And importantly, while Isaacson has no particular scientific background that I know of, he gets Einstein’s physics right (at the very general level to which he limits his treatment).

Week 1: Class: Introductions; relativity before Einstein

Isaacson: Ch. 1-4

Week 2: Class: Galileo’s principle of relativity; the 19th century search for “the ether”

 Isaacson: Ch. 5-6

Week 3: Class: Special relativity: relativity of simultaneity, length contraction, time dilation

 Isaacson: Ch. 7-9

Week 4: Class: More special relativity: light speed as a limit, spacetime, E = mc2; reception of the theory

 Isaacson: Ch. 10-12

Week 5: Class: General relativity: the equivalence principle, Mach’s principle, experimental tests

 Isaacson: Ch. 13-15

Week 6: Class: More general relativity: black holes, the cosmological constant, dark energy

 Isaacson: Ch. 16-18

Week 7: Class: Quantum physics: the photon, the quantum atom, waves & particles

 Isaacson: Ch. 19-21

Week 8: Class: Quantum mechanics: uncertainty principle, probability, entanglement

Isaacson: Ch. 22-25 

Susan Jaret McKinstry, Helen F. Lewis professor emerita at Carleton College, teaches and writes on 19^th c British novels and poetry, Jane Austen, narrative theory, journalism, and creative writing. Her poetry appears in Plain Songs I & II, The Journal of General Internal Medicine, Crosswinds, Willows Wept Review, Rootstalk, Orchards Poetry Journal, andthe Red Wing Poet Artist Collaboration; her chapbook, Tumblehome (fall 2024) is set in western Ireland, Galway, and Northfield, Minnesota. sjaret@carleton.edu

Overview:  “What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.” Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) lived through turbulent world events and cultural changes. A member of the notorious and brilliant “Bloomsbury Group” of artists, writers, critics, and economists (who “lived in squares, painted in circles, and loved in triangles”), Woolf’s innovative writing helped shape Modernism and transform how perception, social life and the self might be conceived and represented in arts and sciences. Woolf’s sister Vanessa Bell wrote that “[Virginia] was still finding out how (and whether) she could write as a painter would paint.” Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway (1925) describes one day as wealthy Clarissa Dalloway walks through London preparing for her party—and subtly depicts the terrible damage caused by the 1918 pandemic, World War I, trauma, and gender inequity. Woolf’s stylishly experimental novel To the Lighthouse (1927) reveals social dynamics, individual perception, and the experience of time among a small group of people living in a seaside house. A Room of One’s Own (1929) follows Woolf’s struggle to write a public talk about women and fiction. Woolf’s challenging, perhaps frustrating, exquisite writing inspires us to pay close attention to the world.

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and A Room of One’s Own are all readily available used and new, in physical and eBook formats ($0 to $18), and free at libraries and online; any uncut edition is fine. I’ll send digital copies of the shorter essays before the first class and additional materials throughout the course. 

Week 1: Introduction to the group, Woolf, and Modernism. Read “Street Haunting: A London Adventure” (1927); Three Pictures” (1929); first six pages of Mrs. Dalloway.

Week 2: Mrs. Dalloway (pages 3-124)

Week 3: Mrs. Dalloway (pages 125-297)

Week 4: A Room of One’s Own (Chaps 1, 2 & 3)

Week 5: Room of One’s Own (Chaps 4, 5 & 6)

Week 6: To the Lighthouse (“The Window” to Chap xvii)

Week 7: To the Lighthouse (Finish “The Window; “Time Passes”) 

Week 8: To the Lighthouse (“The Lighthouse”) 

Steven Soderlind taught economics at St. Olaf College for over 40 years, specializing in urban and regional economies, social choice, and the history of economic thought. He also led international travel studies and taught across the curriculum in statistics, great works, and the history of science.

soderlin@stolaf.edu

Overview:  This course will explore the history of political economy—sometimes called social economics—with the help of Robert Heilbroner’s famous and still relevant The Worldly Philosophers, covering an archipelago of contributions from the likes of Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Marx, Veblen, Weber, Hayek, and others. This subject area is widely overlooked these days under the influence of abstract economic theory and related scientific aspiration. A consequence of such oversight is that rich sources of wisdom are ignored or widely misunderstood though, in fact, the progression of ideas about social organization, technology, and human nature still bear on worldly affairs.

The field of political economy responded to historical realities, including social unrest, industrialization, and ramifying technologies. It opened with Enlightenment thinkers questioning worldly production and distribution. Who dominates decision making? Are human needs being met? Are there shortages or gluts? Might there be a natural system of social organization to replace kings, bishops, and moguls? Might constitutional government reshape outcomes?

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  Our core text will be Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers, (New York, Touchstone, 1999); available via bookfinder.com for less than $15 new or $4 used.  Other readings will be distributed via a coursebook at an additional cost of $6.

The Heilbroner text and ancillary readings cover key concepts for this course. Lectures and discussions will clarify arguments and expand on biographical and historical contexts. As we explore competing and controversial ideas, good notes will be useful for recall and discussion. Finally, the internet provides a wealth of resources on Heilbroner, economic thought, social philosophy, and history. Play with your favorite search engine and explore for yourself.

Week 1: Roots of our study. Heilbroner,. Chs. 1 and 2: “Introduction” and “The Economic Revolution.”

Week 2: Classical Economists I: Smith, Malthus, and Ricardo. Heilbroner, Chs. 3 and 4, “The Wonderful World of Adam Smith” and “The Gloomy Presentiments of Malthus and Ricardo” (plus excerpts from Smith in coursebook).

Week 3: Classical Economists II: Owen, Mill, and Marx. Heilbroner, Chs. 5 and 6, “Dreams of the Utopian Socialists and “The Inexorable System of Karl Marx” (plus excerpts from Mill and Marx in coursebook).

Week 4: Abstract Markets and Claims of Efficiency. Heilbroner, Ch. 7, “The Victorian World and the Underworld of Economics”—with notes on Mises, Hayek, Samuelson.

Week 5: Critiques of the Laissez-Faire Market System. Heilbroner, Chs. 8, 9, and 10, “The Savage Society of Thorstein Veblen,” “The Heresies of John Maynard Keynes,” and “The Contradictions of Joseph Schumpeter.” The lecture will also touch on contributions from August Cournot and Joan Robinson.

Week 6: Economic Systems. Read Heilbroner, Ch. 11, “The End of the Worldly Philosophy?”

This session will begin with the Great Debate between Ludwig Mises and Oskar Lange (1930s), leading to various historical systems: State Capitalism (Soviet-style Central Planning), Free Market Capitalism, Mixed Economies, and Welfare States.

Week 7: Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), “Introduction” and Ch. 2, “The Role of Government in a Free Society.” (In coursebook.) The lecture will also touch on contributions from Friedrich Hayek and Gunnar Myrdal.

Week 8: Contemporary Issues: distribution, global warming, and confusion. Arthur Okun, Equality and Efficiency(Washington DC: Brookings, 1975—ind a 16-page summary approved by Brookings in coursebook.) McKinsey & Co., “Pathways to a Low-Carbon Economy” (excerpts in coursebook). This report from 2009 ponders the reduction of atmospheric carbon to limit the global temperature increase to 2^oC in 2030. Social media and the ascent of lies, deceptions, and fabrications. 

Rod Christensen, MD is a retired family physician who practiced in Northfield for 25 years before finishing his career in leadership positions with Allina Health. He has taught five previous courses in CVEC and is a member of the CVEC Board of Directors.

chris719@charter.net

Overview:  All of us have known someone with dementia, and all of us have questions. In this course, we will address those questions together. We will cover the basic science of the various types of dementia, and how they are diagnosed, treated and managed. We will also consider the common changes that happen to all of us as we age, and how we distinguish those from dementia. We will study what is known about preventing dementia. And we will learn about how care is provided both in the US and around the world. Our focus will be on dementia in later life, rather than on early-onset dementia.

We will spend the second part of each session discussing how dementia affects caregivers, friends and loved ones, and why it is often so difficult to respond effectively. While this course is not designed as a support group, we will have time to share our own stories, experiences, and questions, especially as they pertain to the week’s topics. We all have much to learn about dementia, including from one another.

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  The first part of each session will be mainly in lecture format, but with plenty of time for questions. In the second part of each session, we will discuss the book Travelers to Unimaginable Lands by Dasha Kiper. She uses patient/caregiver stories and related research to demonstrate how our normal brains’ functions and psychology can make dealing with dementia in others so challenging, but also often so meaningful. The book is available at Content with a group discount, or through bookfinder.com, new for $20 or less, used for $15 or less. Expect to read 20 to 35 pages each week, along with optional supplemental readings as desired.

Week 1: What is dementia? What isn’t dementia? Basic brain anatomy and function. How does memory work? Discussion of Kiper: Foreword and Preface, pp. vii – xxxii.

Week 2: The various types of dementia. How are they different? What changes does dementia cause? What are the early clues? Discussion of Kiper: Chapter 1, pp. 3 – 21.

Week 3: How common is dementia, by age, gender, and geography? Diagnosis of dementia. Is screening helpful? Discussion of Kiper: Chapters 2 and 3, pp. 22 – 55.

Week 4: What causes dementia? What are the risk factors, and how can they be modified? Can dementia be prevented? ]Discussion of Kiper: Chapters 4 and 5, pp. 56 – 88. 

Week 5: Natural history of dementia. What pharmaceutical treatments are available, and how well do they work? Controversies, challenges and opportunities in research. Discussion of Kiper: Chapters 6 and 7, pp. 89 – 112. 

Week 6: What supportive strategies and local resources are available? How is care provided in the U.S. and around the world? Personal financial aspects of dementia. Discussion of Kiper: Chapter 8, pp. 113 – 131.

Week 7: What ethical issues arise in dementia care? How is autonomy respected? Can challenges be anticipated and managed? Discussion of Kiper: Chapters 9 and 10, pp. 132 – 158.

Week 8: Ethical issues part 2, focused on end-of-life care and advanced care planning. Discussion of Kiper: Chapter 11 and Epilogue, pp. 159 – 185. Summary and review. 

Optional Supplemental Reading and Film:

Staying Sharp: 9 Keys for a Youthful Brain through Modern Science and Ageless Wisdom, by Henry Emmons and David Alter. Discusses many approaches to maintaining brain health, with supportive research and stories. Available at Content with a group discount from $19 or used from bookfinder.com for $12 or less.

“Resources for Caregivers” in Travelers to Unimaginable Lands includes many recommendations.

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant, by Roz Chast. Graphic memoir by the New Yorker cartoonist about her struggles to help (and understand) her aging parents. Group discount from $19 at Content. From bookfinder.com used $7 or less.

The Bear Came over the Mountain, by Alice Munro, is a short story about a spouse’s choices in her book, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. It is available at Content for $18 or may be ordered, and is available for free as a YouTube reading at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2gF53YZuJ8

King Lear, by William Shakespeare, is widely available, and may be viewed in part as a picture of dementia destroying a family. Consider watching the TV movie (a shorter version with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson) on Amazon Prime.

Still Alice, by Lisa Genova. This novel about a professor trying to manage her early-onset dementia is available on order from Content at $19, or used from bookfinder.com for $12 or less. The film, for which Julianne Moore won the Academy Award for Best Actress, is available on Netflix. 

Valley of Forgetting: Alzheimer’s Families and the Search for a Cure, by Jennie Erin Smith, tells the story of Columbian families with early dementia caused by genetics, and the researchers who worked with them for decades. Available (hardback) from Content discounted from $30, or used from bookfinder.com for $15 or less.

Gerald Hoekstra taught music history at St. Olaf College for 33 years before his retirement in 2014. His specialty is the Renaissance Era, and in addition to teaching courses in music history, he directed the St. Olaf Early Music Singers and the Collegium Musicum, both of which performed music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque Era. 

hoekstra@stolaf.edu

Overview:  When we visit the great cities of Europe today, we marvel at the wonderful palaces, churches, piazzas, and city halls, many of which date from the Renaissance Era. They offer a glimpse into the lives and activities of the people who inhabited them, as do the beautiful sculptures and paintings that grace their walls. But these spaces are largely mute today. They bear little witness to the sounds of the worship services, ceremonies, and daily life that took place in them. In this course we will examine the soundscape of Renaissance Europe by focusing on music and musical life in some of its greatest courts and cities.

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  Through readings and discussion of musical examples, we will explore the genres and styles of Renaissance music as well as the role that music played in institutions and the daily lives of people, whether clerics, courtiers, or townspeople. In preparation for each class meeting, participants will be asked to listen to several musical selections and to read excerpts from primary sources or a short article placing the music in its historical and social context. It will not be necessary that students know how to read music. A printed coursebook, which will cost $6 in addition to tuition, will be provided at the first class with all materials necessary for the course. Musical examples for listening will be distributed as mp4 files via Dropbox and participants can listen to them on iTunes. I will offer instructions in the first class on how to download the free version of Dropbox and how to access the listening examples.

Week 1: Introduction: The Renaissance Era and Its Music—On Listening to Renaissance  Music

Week 2: The Republic of Florence—Music for the Cathedral and the Carnivals

Reading: Manetti, Account of the dedication of Santa Maria del Fiore; Translation of text for Nuper rosarum flores

Listening: Nuper rosarum flores – DuFay; Palle, palle – Isaac; Quis dabit capiti meo aquam – Isaac; Trionfo di Bacco – Anonymous; Canto degli Spazzacamini (Visin, visin, visin) –Anonymous; Giesù sommo conforto – Savanarola; Giesù dolce conforto – Savanarola; Adieu Florens la yolye – Anonymous

Week 3: The Burgundian Court—Music for the Royal Chapel and Court Entertainments

Reading: Excerpt from Olivier de la Marche, Memoir on the House of Burgundy; Excerpt from Mathieu d’Escouchy, Chronique

Listening: Missa L’homme armé, Kyrie – DuFay; Missa L’homme armé, Kyrie – Busnois; Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoys – DuFay; Quant la doulce jouvencelle – Anonymous; Je ne vis onques la pareille – Binchois; Chanson – Binchois; Ave regina caelorum – Frye

Week 4: The Sistine Chapel—The Popes, their Choirs, and their Music

Reading: Recommended: Wikipedia article on the Sistine Chapel

Listening: Illibata Dei virgo – Josquin; Ave Maria – Josquin; Missa Pange lingua, Kyrie – Josquin; Conditor alme siderum – Festa; Emendemus in melius – Morales; Missa Papae Marcelli, Credo – Palestrina; Nigra sum – Palestrina

Week 5: The Cities of the Low Countries—Town Bands, Processions, and Amateur Music-making

Reading: Kristine K. Forney, “16th-Century Antwerp,” from Ian Fenlon, ed., The Renaissance: From the 1470s to the End of the 16th Century

Listening: Ave regina caelorum –Obrecht; Ego flos campi –Clemens non Papa; Ic weinsche alle scoene vrauwen eere – Obrecht; Waar sij di Han? Wie roupt ons daer? – Obrecht; Tandernaken op den Rijn – Anonymous; T’andernaken – Alamire; La Morisque – Susato; Pavane & Galliarde “La dona” – Susato; 3 Galliards – Susato;  Fortuyne, wat heb dy ghebrouwen – Clemens non Papa; Madonna mia gentil – Marenzio; Vorria morire – Waelrant; Pleurez, Muses –Pevernage; Je porte tes couleurs – Pevernage

Week 6: The Bavarian Court in Munich—Lassus and the Musicians of Albrecht V

Reading: Clive Wearing, “Orlandus Lassus (1532-1594) and the Munich Kapelle,” from Early Music (April 1982)

Listening: Penitential Psalm no. 1 – Lassus’ Bon jour mon coeur – Lassus; Toutes les nuits –Lassus; Chi chilichi? – Lassus; Hört zu ein news gedicht— Lassus; Musica, Dei donum optimi — Lassus

Week 7: Elizabethan London—Music at Court and in the City

Reading: Craig Monson, “Elizabethan London,” from Fenlon, ed., The Renaissance: From the 1470s to the End of the 16th Century (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989)

Listening: Salvator mundi –Tallis; If ye love me – Tallis; Aspice Domine, quia facta est – Byrd; O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth our Queen – Byrd; Browning – Byrd; Almaine The Honie-suckle— Holborne; Galliard The Fairie-round – Holborne; Can she excuse my wrongs – Dowland, with arrangements by Anon. & Morley; The Earle of Essex Galliard – Dowland; Flow my tears – Dowland; Pavana Lachrymae – Byrd; As Vesta was from Latmos Hill descending – Weelkes; Hark! All ye lovely saints – Weelkes

Week 8: Venice, City of Trade and Pomp—Music at St. Mark’s Basilica and on the Piazza

Reading: Ian Fenlon, “Magnificence as Civic Image,” from Fiona Kisby, ed., Music and Musicians in Renaissance Cities and Towns (Cambridge, 2001)

Listening: Deus qui beatum Marcum – Bassano; Quis est iste – G. Gabrieli; Audite principes – G. Gabrieli; Canzon septimi toni – G. Gabrieli; Chi la gagliarda – da Nola; Madonna mia fa’ – Willaert

Libby Falk Jones is Professor of English, Emerita, at Berea College, where she taught writing, literature, and general studies for 29 years. She is author or co-author of five books of poems, most recently Enchanting the Ordinary(Broadstone, 2025), in which she pairs her poems with her photographs. She currently co-directs Coming of Age, a program supporting writing and art by Kentucky women over 60, and leads writing workshops locally and nationally. libbyfalkjones@gmail.com

Overview:  “A poem should not mean / but be.” 

            –Archibald MacLeish, “Ars Poetica”

This four-week course aims to explore the architecture and music of poetry, in hopes of enhancing our abilities to understand how poems “be” and to read poems more fully and deeply. We’ll look at structure, language, and rhythms in several traditional poetic forms still in wide use today, including haiku, sonnet, villanelle, pantoum, ghazal, and sestina. We’ll explore ways these forms are generative, rather than stifling, and ways that contemporary poets have adapted them to make meaning. As one means of understanding the challenges and opportunities these forms offer, we’ll do some collaborative imitations. We’ll also experiment with various ways of getting these poems into voice not as performance but as a means of heightening our experience of craft.  

This course is designed for people who love poetry in any form and for people who don’t love poetry (not yet, anyway) but who are intrigued by words and/or sounds, shapes, puzzles, rules, and rule-breaking.  

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  Readings will be selected chapters from several books. PDFs will be provided, but books may be purchased if desired. The books are:

Wendy Bishop, Thirteen Ways of Looking for a Poem (available via bookfinder.com used for less than $7; Steve Kowit, In the Palm of Your Hand, chapters 7 and 16-21 (available via bookfinder.com for less than $20 new and less than $4 used); Phillis Levin, The Penguin Book of the Sonnet (available via bookfinder.com for less than $25 new and less than $10 used).

The Haiku Foundation https://thehaikufoundation.org/ will be our Haiku resource. Additional poems TBA

Week 1: Introductions; overview of elements of a poem (language, line, and form); haiku (and other syllabic forms like the cinquain and American Sentence)

Week 2: Pantoums, ghazals, and villanelles 

Week 3: Sonnets and sestinas

Week 4: Playful forms (limericks and double dactyls); nonce forms; vocal approaches; conclusions

Peter Bailey is Piskor Professor of English emeritus at St. Lawrence University. His teaching and writing focus on literary and film criticism. For CVEC he has taught courses on the films of Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, the songwriting of Paul Simon, New York Cinematic Stories, and films set in American small towns.

pbailey@stlawu.edu

Overview:  Most of us cineastes probably saw many of the films listed below in the 1970s through 1990s, but re-experiencing them in the 21^st century allows us to appreciate—their historic settings notwithstanding—how evocative are their themes of their production eras and why their cinematic interpretations of Anglo-American texts were sometimes characterized as piracies, so faithfully did they cleave to their literary sources. In its Ismail Merchant obituary in 2005, the London Telegraph observed that it was during the 1970s that the trio “hit on a successful formula for studied, slow-moving pieces … Merchant/Ivory became known for their attention to tiny period detail and the opulence of their sets.” Recalling his partnership with James Ivory and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Merchant quipped: “It is a strange marriage we have at Merchant Ivory …  I am an Indian Muslim, Ruth is a German Jew, and Jim is a Protestant American. Someone once described us as a three-headed god. Maybe they should have called us a three-headed monster.” If their films have a recurrent theme, it’s that of human beings confronting massive cultural change.

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  Before each class I will distribute handouts about each film, providing historical context, production details, excerpts from reviews and biographical background on the moviemakers’ filmmaking challenges and tribulations. Discussion questions for each class will be provided as well. These documents will inform but not limit our discussions, which will seek to clarify the dramatic arcs of the films while illuminating the significant cultural moments—imperialist theater troupes dispatched from England to India, Shanghai before the arrival of Japanese troops and civil war—that they dramatize. All films are available on Amazon Prime for roughly $3.99 apiece. 

Week 1: Shakespeare Wallah (1965)

Week 2: Roseland (1977)

Week 3: A Room with a View (1985)

Week 4: Maurice (1987)

Week 5: Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990)

Week 6: Howards End (1992)

Week 7: The Remains of the Day (1993)

Week 8: The White Countess (2005)

Sid Sondergard/Song Xiande (the name by which colleagues in China know me and which I use in my translation work) is Piskor Professor of English and Asian Studies Emeritus at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY. In his research and teaching career he has translated the only complete English language edition of Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from Liaozhai, edited and co-written the multidisciplinary studies of cannibalism that are presented as graphic narratives in Food for Thought: Graphic Essays on Anthropophagy, taught and published on topics as diverse as the archetypes from Hesiod in Guillermo del Toro’s films, conspiracies in the popular graphic novel Watchmen, and the coopting by Early Modern English women of the violence found in the writings of their male contemporaries.

sson@stlawu.edu

Overview:  Bill Gates released a jar full of live mosquitos into the auditorium where he was giving his 2009 lecture, “Mosquitos, Malaria, and Education.” Photographer Herb Ritts posed his models after draping them with unusual objects—from an octopus to a huge chain. French painter Rosa Bonheur wore men’s clothing for much of her career and coopted subject matter that was considered exclusively male for some of her most dramatic artwork. What these three examples have in common is the belief that the communication of ideas and aesthetics is at times made most effective when it restructures, challenges, provokes, or confounds the expectations of an audience.

Enter two unlikely protagonists, a pair of cartoon vultures: one a philosophical bird named Hegel, and one a rather volatile scientist named Jekyll, who occasionally manifests in the form of an alter ego. This course, which will read and discuss the cartoons contained in the collection Hegel & Jekyll: Culture Vultures, will focus on subjects as varied as:

• The often difficult, substantive philosophical and other issues where Hegel and Jekyll take very different positions.

• The interface between aesthetics and ideas: for example, how to represent abstract concepts concretely, and how to exploit the “conceptual malleability” of a visual medium rhetorically.

• The act of interpretation as intellectual stimulus and as pleasure.

• The relative meaning, for culture considered broadly, of the “author” of each cartoon (which will pursue investigations of “authorship,” of the value of biographical history, and of lay scholarship as disseminated online).

• The importance of free expression in times when limitations are externally imposed on traditional freedoms.

• The potential for convergence of current events and narrative strategies.

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  Each class meeting, we’ll discuss the individual cartoons grouped together for that week.  As preparation for each session, class members are encouraged to think of themselves as investigators, pursuing mysteries that may only begin coming to light upon asking questions like, “What is that doing there?” Other questions might include:

• Why did the author make this particular choice given other obvious options that might have been selected?
• Why insert something intentionally discordant/disjunctive into the flow of the narrative?
• Why juxtapose this specific image with these specific words, when the two seem at odds?
• Why follow path x when path y seems to be what the genre would dictate? 
• Why “distract” from the primary images in the narrative by incorporating very specific secondary/background details?

Here is an example from Sept. 6, 2025:

A good place to start is with the “author” of each episode. We’ll share notes on what you’ve discovered during the week as we talk in class about the subjects listed above. It is my hope that each class member will come to see the rich potential of the visual narrative as a medium of expression and as a vehicle for the presentation of ideas.  In addition, of course, to being a fun way to exercise the mind.

Students will receive the cartoons by mail from the instructor in the form of a book, for which there will be no charge. A charge of $8 will be added to the cost of the course to cover mailing.

Week 1: The first 10 cartoons, from “The Place of Anguish” through “S’Real As You Want It to Be.”

HOMEWORK: Review the “Working vocabulary for cartoon analysis” listed at the end of this document.

Week 2: The next 10 cartoons, from “Here Today, Gone to Marrow” through “Pride is Prejudiced.”

Week 3: Cartoons 21-30, “Unbalancing Act” through “Self-Organized Criticism.”

Week 4: Cartoons 31-40, “Green Dregs and—Hmm” through “Maybe Duck.”

Week 5: Cartoons 41-50, “The Penultimate Supper” through “Building Truss.”

Week 6: Cartoons 51-60, “Music to My Ears” through “A Gnarly Brown Christmas.”

Week 7: Cartoons 61-70, “To Go Where” through “Outer Limitless.”

Week 8: Cartoons 71-80, “Under the Whether” through “Kon-Tentment.”

HOMEWORK: Develop your own example of a four-panel cartoon, structured however makes sense to you, with elements as simple (e.g., stick figures) or complex (e.g., as the new Thomas Nast) as you wish.  We’ll share them in class as we conclude our discussions of the birds.

Working vocabulary for cartoon analysis 

PANEL – Each individual segment of the cartoon, delimited in the example of H&J by four lines.  Read in order, the top left panel is panel #1; the panel to the right of it is panel #2; the panel below panel #1 is panel #3; and the bottom right panel is panel #4.

GUTTER – This is the blank space that occurs between panels, running like an alley between those segments. It can be used to signify the passage of time (e.g., like cutting in a film from one scene to another), hence it can be used to connect the panels or to separate them.

DIALOGUE BALLOON – That space often located directly above the character who is speaking or thinking (if the shape of the balloon changes, this usually signifies a shift in communication mode) that is filled with words—or, on occasion, an image.

FOREGROUND – Primary characters or events are most often placed in the foreground of each panel.

BACKGROUND – This can include secondary action, thematic reinforcement, elements of visual irony, or “fill,” the artist’s way of fleshing out or giving closure to the panel.

Dave Hagedorn is a percussionist and retired college jazz band director. Jazz I at St. Olaf College won two DownBeat student music awards under his leadership, and also toured Cuba in 2016. He plays regularly in Northfield with various jazz groups at Imminent Brewing and Keepsake Cidery, and in the Twin Cities at Jazz Central, Berlin, and Crooners. He also is the music director and drummer for the Genesis Jazz Orchestra, based in Rosemount, MN and has performed regularly with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for over 20 years.

Overview: This course is designed to enhance understanding of jazz by concentrating on eight jazz giants, one per week. No musical experience is required, but you need to be able to count to 4 and group those counts, normally in sections of 4, 8, 12, 16 and 32. The class is organized by artist: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman and Carla Bley. Because of the historical overlap of many of these artists, there will a substantial component of review.  

Course Materials and Class Schedule: Recordings of each artist will be distributed through YouTube urls.  Written material will be available through pdfs of biographical articles on each person, as well as references to some published biographies, sent to students as pdfs or links.
            
Week 1: Louis Armstrong
Texts: excerpts from Louis Armstrong, An American Genius, James Lincoln Collier; Louis Armstrong, In His Own Words, Thomas Brothers, ed.; Early Jazz, Gunther Schuller
Distinguishing Characteristics: Vibrato, Dynamics, Uneven beats, Not on beat
Recordings: Hot Five, Duos with Earl Hines, Hot Seven

Week 2: Duke Ellington
Texts: excerpts from Music is my Mistress, Edward Kennedy Ellington; The Duke Ellington Reader, Mark Tucker, ed.; The Duke Ellington Collection; Duke Ellington: Jazz Composer, Ken Rattenbury; Early Jazz, Gunther Schuller
Distinguishing Characteristics: Large group composing concepts
Recordings: Washingtonians, Cotton Club jungle band, Writing for specific people, First wordless vocals with Creole Love Call, Sacred concert, Duos with James Blanton Copying James P. Johnson

Week 3: Charlie Parker
Text: excerpts from Bird Lives, Ross Russell
Distinguishing Characteristics: Bebop style over standard tunes, but with substitute chords and added harmonies
Recordings: With Miles Davis, With Dizzy Gillespie, With strings

Week 4: Miles Davis
Texts: excerpts from Miles, the Autobiography, Quincy Trope; Kind of Blue, the making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece, Ashley Kahn; The Miles Davis Reader, Frank Alkyer
Recordings: With Charlie Parker, 1950’s quintet with Coltrane, Xmas eve recording with Monk and Milt Jackson, Kind of Blue modal jazz, Large group recordings, 1960’s quintet, Electric bands
                        
Week 5: John Coltrane
Texts: excerpts from John Coltrane, Bill Cole; John Coltrane, His Life and Music, Lewis Porter
Distinguishing Characteristics:  “Coltrane” changes, Tenor vs. Soprano, Spiritual playing without harmony, San Francisco church of Coltrane
Recordings: (Nothing really on record until he played with Miles Davis Quintet in 50’s), 1950’s quintet with Miles Davis, With Monk at the 5 Spot, Kind of Blue (1959), Giant Steps (1959), A love supreme, Ascension, With Dolphy

Week 6: Thelonious Monk
 Texts: excerpts from Straight, No Chaser, the Life and Genius of Thelonious Monk, 
Leslie Gourse; Thelonious Monk, The Life and Times of an American Original, Robin D. G. Kelley
Distinguishing Characteristics: Deemed the ”high priest of bebop”, 1948 pivotal year,   Improvisational style based on his compositions, Compositions based on standards
Recordings: Solo piano, trio, quartet (at Five Spot), Town Hall Concert with Miles Davis and Milt Jackson, Other artists covering his compositions

Week 7: Ornette Coleman
Texts: excerpts from Ornette Coleman, the Territory and the Adventure, Maria Golia; Ornette Coleman, a Harmolodic Life, John Litweiler; Four Lives in the Bebop Business, A. B. Spellman
Recordings: Shape of Jazz to Come, “Free Jazz”, Harmolodics, Dancing in Your Head, Skies of America
                        
Week 8: Carla Bley
Text: excerpts from Carla Bley (American Composers), Amy C. Beal
Recordings: First album: Realities, Influence of Sgt. Pepper’s on A Genuine Tong Funeral, First jazz opera Escalator over the hill, Dreams So Real for Gary Burton, Xmas arrangements for brass quintet, Trios with Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow, Duo with Steve Swallow

John Barbour was a professor of religion at St. Olaf College for 36 years until his retirement in 2018. His academic field was Religion and Literature, focusing on the modern novel and religious autobiography. He has written five scholarly books, Renunciation: A Novel, and Family Conscience: A Memoir of Four Generations. This is John’s seventh CVEC course.

barbourj@stolaf.edu

Overview: In this course we examine apocalypticism, millennialism, and messianic movements from biblical times to the present. Our focus is not simply on predictions of catastrophe, but on why narratives about The End appeal, and how various religious perspectives have found meaning in imagining the end of history and the world. What is the apocalyptic worldview, and why does it make sense to some people? What do we think of it?

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  Three books are required. The first two will be on stock at Content Bookstore, or you can order them online for about $20 each:

• Dorian Lynskey, Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World (New York.: Random House, 2024)—new for $20 or less, used $15 or less on bookfinder.com. 
• Lizzie Wade, Apocalypse: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures (New York: HarperCollins, 2025)—new or used on bookfinder.com about $20.
• Kelly J. Murphy and Justin Jeffcoat Schedtler, eds., Apocalypses in Context (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016). Get the first edition. It is expensive purchased new. I recommend that you order a used copy from bookfinder.com, where I see 20 copies for less than $12. (The second edition, published in August 2025 is $55.)

Other readings will be made available either by an online link or as a pdf.

You should have a Bible, whatever version you like. I use the Oxford Annotated Bible, NRSV.

Week 1: Jewish Apocalyptic literature and the New Testament

Hebrew Bible passages: Isaiah 24:1-3; Amos chapters 4,5,7; Daniel, ch 7-12

New Testament passages: Mark 13, Mt 17-18, 27-28, 1 Thes 4: 13-18; I Cor 7:25-31, 15: 20-26

R. J. Z. Werblowsky, “Eschatology” in Encyclopedia of Religion

AIC (=Apocalypses in Context), chapters 1, 2, 5, 6

John Collins, “Apocalypticism as a Worldview in Ancient Judaism and Christianity” 

Optional: Terry Gross interview with Bart Ehrman, 2004 (just 20:37 to 30:24: apocalyptic in the gospels)

Week 2: Revelation

The Book of Revelation

AIC, chapter 8 

Elaine Pagels interviewed by Terry Gross on “Fresh Air,” 2012

Bart Ehrman interviewed by Terry Gross on “Fresh Air,” 4/4/23

Bart Ehrman, “The Apocalypse of John and the Gospel of Jesus” from Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End

Week 3: 1. Apocalyptic themes in Western history: 1) art; 2) Millennial Movements; 3) American Evangelicalism; 4) poetry

AiC, chapter 13

Norman Cohen, The Pursuit of the Millenium, sections, online in The Anarchists Library

Catherine Wessinger, “Millennialism” in Critical Terms in Futures Studies

Daniel Hummell, “American Evangelicals and the Apocalypse” in The Cambridge Companion to Apocalyptic Literature

Three poems: T. S Eliot, “The Hollow Men”; W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”; Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice”

The New Yorker humor: “Nextdoor Reacts to the Rapture”

Week 4: New Religious Movements

Catherine Wessinger, “NRMs and Millennialism” in Encyclopedia of Religion

Research these movements in online Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millennial Movements:

1) “David Koresh and the Branch Davidians”

2) A non-violent group, e. g. Seventh Day Adventists, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Jehovah’s Witnesses

3) “The Ghost Dance and Standing Rock Sioux”

4) “Jim Jones, Jonestown, and The People’s Temple”

AiC, chapter 20: “Space Brothers and Mayan Calendars”

Optional: Nat Turner’s Confessions, online in Gutenberg Project

Seventeenth Century English Millenarianism” in Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millennial Movements

Week 5: The Stories We Tell

Dorian Lynskey, Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World,

Introduction, Prologue, Chapter 3, pp. 110-112, and chapters 7-9

Week 6: Lynskey, Everything Must Go, chapters 13-16, p. 333, chapters 18, 21, and Epilogue

Week 7: After The End

Lizzie Wade, Apocalypse: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures, Introduction, chapters, 4-6, and Epilogue (total=98 pages).

Week 8: Evaluating Contemporary Apocalypticism

AiC, ch 17: “The Planet’s Apocalypse: The Rhetoric of Climate Change”

AiC, chapter 19: “Apocalyptic America: Buying the End Time”

Amy Frykholm, “Apocalypticism in Contemporary Christianity” in Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature

Lorenzo Ditommaso, “Apocalypticism in the Contemporary World” in The Cambridge Companion to Apocalyptic Literature

Barbara Rossing, “Reclaiming Hope for Our World” or “End Game”

Tom Drucker retired in 2021 and moved to Northfield after decades of teaching in STEM fields at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has also taught courses in the history and philosophy of science and mathematics, including multiple courses in CVEC, lectured on paradoxes at a national mathematics conference last summer, and is a member of the CVEC Board.

druckert@uww.edu

Overview:  In this course we’ll be investigating the role that paradox has played in literature, theology, philosophy, mathematics, and physics. G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Nothing is as natural as the supernatural.” This statement is self-contradictory on the face of it. It is an example of the genre of paradox, of which Chesterton was one of the masters in English literature and controversy. Defining “paradox” is controversial in its own right, but Chesterton defined it as “a truth standing on its head.” Paradox has been a useful tool in the hands of writers like Chesterton, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde as a way of waking up readers and audience members.

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  The use of paradoxes is not limited to literature. Statements in theology have taken that form for millennia, one of the most celebrated being Tertullian’s line, “Credo quia absurdum” (I believe it because it is absurd). The claim has been made that the only way to try to understand aspects of the divine is via paradox, since the gap between humans and God is unbridgeable by ordinary common sense.

Paradoxes have also been a source of development of ideas in philosophy. When the Oracle at Delphi was consulted as to who the wisest of the Greeks was, the response was “Socrates.” When this was reported to Socrates, he was puzzled, since he knew how much he didn’t know. On reflection he concluded that if he was the wisest of the Greeks, it was because he knew he didn’t know anything, while most others were under the delusion that they knew a great deal.

Finally, paradoxes emerge in mathematics and physics. Euclid had laid down certain axioms 2300 years ago and mathematicians abided by them for 2100 years. Then certain issues suggested that those axioms were sometimes violated, and this result seemed paradoxical. As other cases piled up where common sense seemed to be violated, the existence of paradoxes forced mathematicians to reconsider what they had been taking for granted. Quantum mechanics has had a paradoxical flavour since its earliest days in the first half of the 20^th century.

No background in mathematics or physics will be assumed, but we also shan’t be in a position to remove the paradoxical aspect from either discipline. We shall be seeing how a statement that starts off looking paradoxical can end up being accepted with a consequent alteration of intuition. 

Our main text will be Sleight of Mind by Matt Cook, published by MIT Press in 2020 and available through bookfinder.com and other sources for less than $30 new or $12 used. Please be careful: There is a different book with the title Sleights of Mind about magic and neuroscience. Cook is also a novelist, but not to be confused with Robin Cook. There will be additional readings in the earlier part of the course that will be sent out via scanning. 

The class will depend on students’ reactions to the proposed paradoxes across the intellectual spectrum. For some of the examples, there may be students who don’t see anything paradoxical about them, while others will have nagging doubts. If another student asks which perspective is correct, one answer may be the famous, “And you’re right, too.”

Week 1: What is a paradox? Is it possible to formulate a criterion that is not itself paradoxical? We’ll contrast “paradox” with “orthodox” and “heterodox” and look at some of the most venerable examples.

Reading: Selection from Roy Sorensen, A Brief History of the Paradox

Week 2: The Heyday of Paradox in Literature—we’ll be looking at examples from Chesterton, Shaw and Wilde.

Readings: Selections from the monarchs of paradox

Week 3: God, Man, and Paradox.

Reading: The chapter “Credo Quia Absurdum” in The Uses of Paradox by Matthew Bagger

Week 4: Ancient and Mediaeval Philosophy.

Readings: Chapter 2 in Cook and excerpts from This Sentence is False by Peter Cave

Week 5: Paradoxes of Self-Reference and Circularity.

Reading: Chapter 7 in Cook

Week 6: What Does Infinity Do to Common Sense?

Reading: Chapter 1 in Cook

Week 7: Twentieth-Century Physics.

Reading: Chapter 12 and 13 in Cook

Week 8: Paradoxes and Logic.

Reading: Chapter 3 in This Sentence is False by Peter Cave

Fred Ohles is President Emeritus of Nebraska Wesleyan University and a long-time creator and assessor of crossword puzzles. His relationship to Northfield is strong. He graduated from Carleton in 1975, then completed a Ph.D. in comparative history at Brandeis in 1981 and served at St. Olaf as Associate Dean for Curriculum and Faculty Development, with additional responsibility for international programs, and Associate Professor of History from 1990-1996.

fred.ohles@gmail.com

Overview:  This interdisciplinary course is a study of word puzzles as an individual and shared human experience. In general, the course focuses on crossword puzzles. It looks from a variety of angles at crosswords found in major city, daily and Sunday newspapers in the United States. Other word puzzles, including a wide variety of American puzzles and the crossword puzzles of other countries, also receive consideration.

The course goal is to guide participants to an informed appreciation of word puzzles in society and human endeavor. The course supposes no prior knowledge of word puzzles. It offers no program of instruction in solving them. The course has a theme for each week: 1. Boundaries; 2. Precision; 3. Variety; 4. Ethics; 5. Creativity; 6. Language; 7. Community; 8. Humor.

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  A coursebook, with all materials, will be mailed to participants one week before class begins at an additional cost of $15. In a typical week there are short readings on the theme that total one or two dozen pages. The readings have been selected from respectable journalism, books about word puzzles, and the blogosphere that has arisen about word puzzles as about seemingly everything else in life. Also, a few of the readings are by me. They are portions of a book-in-progress based on my experiences solving and creating word puzzles.

We will spend the first part of each week’s session considering the theme. We will devote the second part of our time together to a discussion of one variety of word puzzles other than ordinary crosswords. All of the readings and puzzles are in the course book for you to purchase.

I have sequenced the themes and the variety puzzles to build familiarity first with the fundamental structures and commonly accepted rules of word puzzles, principally crosswords, then to explore the world of these puzzles as those structures are pushed to their limits and those rules occasionally get broken. Along the way we will acquaint ourselves with a dozen of the major personalities involved in creating word puzzles. We will learn about how they think and what motivates them. In that way, the course ends up being about a community of word-loving people, as well as their words, as they have been cleverly, artfully and playfully manipulated.

(Note: New York Times and Wall Street Journal are abbreviated NYT and WSJ throughout.)

Week 1: Introduction: What we seek to learn and know through this course about word puzzles.

Theme – Boundaries: Why word puzzles have rules. Why we would or would not follow them.

Readings:

A – Patrick Berry, Crossword Constructor’s Handbook, 26-28, 45, 60 (5 pp.)

B – “Sometimes You Can’t Trust the ‘Rules’ of Crosswords,” Puzzle Nation blogsite, January 19, 2021 (5 pp.)

C – Matthew Kassel, “Patrick Berry is the Thomas Pynchon of Crosswords,” The New York Observer (now Observer – online only), December 3, 2015 (3 pp.)

D – Laura Braunstein (“LauraB”), “Indie Spotlight: Will Nediger, Bewilderingly Puzzles,” Diary of a Crossword Fiend blogsite December 4, 2017 (2 pp.) 

E –Jim Horne, “This is the first ever QUINTUPLE pangram in the NYT,” Xword Info: NYT Crossword Answers and Insight website, August 10, 2016 (1 p.)

Variety for the Week – Letter Fills:

Patrick Berry, “Crazy Eights,” NYT, March 7, 2021, and November 13, 2022; Patrick Berry, “For Starters,” NYT, May 1, 2022, and May 7, 2023; Eric Berlin, “Circular Reasoning,” NYT, August 31, 2025

Week 2: Precision: Where the exceptional discipline in word puzzle themes and clues arises.

Readings:

A – Patrick Berry, Crossword Constructor’s Handbook, 7, 19-21, 62-67 (10 pp.)

B – Coral Amende, “The Wrong Stuff,” The Crossword Obsession, 62-65 (4 pp.)

Case Study One: Try writing brief clues for these words

C – Clue exercise sheet (1 p.)

Case Study Two: What role, if any, should opinion have in puzzle themes and clues?

D – David Henderson, “Is Alex Eaton-Salners Ignorant or a Liar?” Econlib (4 pp.)

Variety for the Week – Word Finds:

Patrick Berry, “Trade-Ins,” NYT, December 12, 2021; Will Shortz, “Sit for a Spell,” NYT, December 12, 2021; Patrick Berry, “Four-by-Fours,” NYT, February 9, 2019; Patrick Berry, “Rhyme Scheme,” NYT, September 12, 2021; Will Shortz, “Just Saying,” NYT, June 26, 2022; Patrick Berry, “Doublespeak,” NYT, March 6, 2022; Patrick Berry, “Sound Check,” NYT, October 16, 2021; Patrick Berry, “Pull Quote,” NYT, April 3, 2022; Mike Shenk, “Two Bits,” September 14, 2025

Week 3: Variety: How there are many different kinds of puzzles with words as their materials.

Readings:

A – Fred Ohles, “First Thoughts Toward a Typology of Variety Word Puzzles” (6 pp.)

B – Caitlin Lovinger, “Puns and Anagrams,” Wordplay column, NYT, February 24, 2018, with Sam Ezersky puzzle solved and clues (3 pp.)

C – Nicholas Henriquez and Liz Maynes-Aminzade, “Reintroducing The New Yorker’s Cryptic Crossword,” Crosstalk column, The New Yorker, November 26, 2019 (3 pp.)

D – Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, “Wall Street Journal Guide to Cryptic Crosswords” (1 p.)

Variety for the Week – Cryptic and Anagrammatic:

Michael Lieberman, “Puns and Anagrams,” NYT, October 31, 2021; Sam Ezersky, “Puns and Anagrams,” NYT, June 12, 2022; Ali Gascoigne, “Cryptic Crossword,” NYT, November 28, 2021; Richard Sylvestri, “Cryptic Crossword,” NYT, October 30, 2022; Eric Berlin, “Fraternal Twins,” NYT, October 12, 2024; Alex Eaton-Salners, “Out of Order,” NYT, November 14, 2021

Week 4: Ethics: Whether some topics and contents are unsuitable for word puzzles. What theresponsibilities are of puzzle constructors and editors.

Reading:

A – Fred Ohles, “Watch Your Language,” chapter of a book manuscript (14 pp.)

Case Study One: The editor was a plagiarist.

B – Danny Lewis, “Plagiarism Scandal Checkers the World of Crossword Puzzles,” Smithsonian, March 8, 2016 (3 pp.)

C – Jessie Guy-Ryan, “Plagiarism Scandal Leaves the Crossword Community Puzzled,” Atlas Obscura, March 5, 2016 (3 pp.)

Case Study Two: The man of many names.

D – “Marie Kelly”’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Play It Cool”; “Raul Ellaray”’s review, Diary of a Crossword Fiend blogsite, December 16, 2018 (2 pp.) 

E – “A Puzzly Nom de Plume?” Puzzle Nation blogsite, January 22, 2019 (1 p.)

F – “A Note on Crosswords and Bylines,” WSJ, January 2019 (1 p.)

Variety for the Week – Going for Less:

Andrew J. Ries, “Section Eight #1, Easier Version,” Aries Puzzles, September 28, 2023; Patrick Berry, “Section Eight,” WSJ, May 28, 2022, and April 27, 2024; Ori Brian, “Uniclue Crossword,” NYT, January 19, 2022; Evan Kalish, “Vowelless Crossword,” NYT, February 24, 2022; Alex Eaton-Salners, “Takeaway Crossword,” NYT, September 19, 2021

Week 5: Creativity: How the constant search for novelty finds expression in word puzzles.

Readings:

A – A. J. Jacobs, “The Puzzle of Puzzles” and “Cryptics,” excerpts from The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life (15 pp.) 

B – Deb Amlen, “60 Seconds with Patrick Berry,” NYT Wordplay online column, January 22, 2018 (2 pp.)

C – Stanley Newman, “Crossfire: The Pipsqueak Manifesto,” excerpt from Cruciverbalism: A Crossword Fanatic’s Guide to Life in the Grid (18 pp.)

D – Dean Takahashi, “Stanley Newman interview: A chat with the chief Brain Games mastermind,” VentureBeat website, March 4, 2022 (8 pp.)

Variety for the Week – Overlaps: Patrick Berry, “Snake Charmer,” NYT, June 26, 2022 (see sheet with this date, Week 2) and April 2, 2023; Eric Berlin, “Jelly Roll,” NYT, September 14, 2025 (see sheet with this date, Week 2) and NYT, October 16, 2021 (see sheet with this date, Week 2); Stuart Cleland, “The Spiral,” Games World of Puzzles, June 2016; Will Shortz, “Spiral,” NYT, July 20, 2025; Patrick Berry, “The Long and Winding Road,” WSJ, October 26, 2024

Week 6: Language 1: What range of words and expressions are found in word puzzles and why

Reading:

A – Fred Ohles, “Words, Words, Words,” chapter of a book manuscript (18 pp.)

Language 2: How word puzzles in other languages and other countries differ from American

word puzzles.

Reading:

B – Examples of crossword puzzles in Czech, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, and Turkish (10 pp.).

Variety for the Week – Interweaves: Patrick Berry, “Freewheeling,” NYT, March 9, 2025; Patrick Berry, “Switchbacks,” NYT, January 8, 2023; Patrick Berry, “Making Waves,” NYT, August 22, 2021; Mike Shenk, “Alternation,” WSJ, October 12, 2019; Patrick Berry, “Curly Quote,” WSJ, November 20, 2021; Patrick Berry, “Seven Sages,” WSJ, February 5, 2022; Patrick Berry, “Rows Garden,” WSJ, October 11, 2025; Mike Shenk, “Spell Weaving,” WSJ, June 8, 2024

Week 7: Community: How word puzzles people form communities and what they expect of each other.

Readings:

A – “Meet Team Fiend,” Diary of a Crossword Fiend blogsite, retrieved October 21, 2025 (4 pp.)

B – Gary Schlapfer, aka Husker Gary, “Gary’s Blog Map,” Diary of a Crossword Fiend, (1 p.)

C – Burkhard Bilger, “Meet the Marquis de Sade of the Puzzle World,” The New Yorker, March 4, 2002 (17 pp.)

D – Rachel Fabi, “What It’s Like to Compete at a Crossword Puzzle Tournament,” NYT, Gameplay online column, April 11, 2022 (3 pp.)

E – Oliver Roeder, “An AI Finally Won an Elite Crossword Tournament,” Slate, April 27, 2021 (4 pp.)

Variety for the Week – Dropped In

Eric Berlin, “Gotta Split,” NYT, July 20, 2025 (see sheet with this date, Week 5) and October 5, 2025; Eric Berlin, “Circular Reasoning,” August 31, 2025; David Niederman, “Two-for-One Crossword, March 7, 2021 (see sheet with this date, Week 1); Will Shortz, “Building Blocks,” NYT January 8, 2023 (see sheet with this date, Week 6; Fred Piscop, “Split Decisions,” NYT, May 29, 2022, June 22, 2025, October 12, 2025

Week 8: Humor: Which things merit laughs in word puzzles?

Readings:

A – Eric Konigsberg, “Crossword Scandal? The Times’ Mid-Ass Touch,” The New Yorker, February 10, 2012 (4 pp.)

B – “Fast Pitch” – clues that may be funny, culled from crosswords (8 pp.)

C – David Alfred Bywaters, “Crossword FAQ (plus Novel excerpt from same FAQ),” on his personal website (2 pp.)

D – Deb Amlen, “60 Seconds with Lynn Lempel,” Wordplay online column, NYT, March 19, 2018 (2 pp.)

E – “Strip Tease,” WSJ Daily Crossword, Lynn Lempel, February 3, 2022 (1 p.)

F – Los Angeles Times Daily Crosswords, David Alfred Bywaters, August 24, 2022, and December 8, 2022 (2 pp.)

Variety for the Week – Across with Other:

Patrick Berry, “Whirlpool,” NYT, August 21, 2022; Mike Shenk, “Marching Bands,” WSJ, September 2, 2023; Patrick Berry, “Twister,” WSJ, September 5, 2020; Patrick Berry, “Wrap Session,” NYT, March 27, 2022; Patrick Berry, “Mixed Doubles,” WSJ, July 22, 2023

Eric Berlin, “Patchwork,” NYT, May 30, 2021; Mike Shenk, “Labyrinth,” WSJ, July 8, 2023

Joe DiPetro, “Cascades,” NYT, November 13, 2022; Patrick Berry, “Trail Mix,” WSJ, August 5, 2023

Conclusion:

What we have learned and what we still want to learn.

Dana Strand is Andrew W. Mellon professor of French and Francophone Studies, emerita, at Carleton College, where she taught from 1981 to 2016. She has taught previous CVEC courses on French Film and short stories. Her publications include a book on the short fiction of Colette and an edited volume on French Cultural Studies.dstrand@carleton.edu

Overview:  Relating the story of a 19^th century French provincial woman whose passionate dreams, fueled by sentimental (Romantic) literature, lead her tragically astray, Flaubert’s novel has drawn its fair share of praise and blame since its appearance in 1857. While at that time, the book (and its author) faced a censorship trial for representing a threat to public morality and religion, over the years the response of readers and critics to both has been decidedly more positive. Often reserved a place among the greatest European novels of the 19^th century, Madame Bovary is, according to its recent translator into English, Adam Thorpe, “perhaps the most carefully written book in literary history.” If Emma Bovary’s story is compelling, Flaubert’s telling of it has been judged groundbreaking. As Henry James has written, “The form (of the novel) is in itself as interesting, as active, as much of the essence of the subject as the idea, and yet so close is its fit and so inseparable is its life that we catch it at no moment on an errand of its own.” Dividing the book into four parts of roughly equivalent length, we will focus our weekly discussions on topics of interest that emerge through our careful attention to both the form and content of the narrative. 

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  Here’s a list of some (but certainly not all) of the questions we might consider:

1. What makes Madame Bovary stand out as a classic literary text that survives the test of time?

2. How has Flaubert fashioned a narrative about an inexperienced French country woman that resonates beyond her story?

3. Readers often have difficulty sympathizing with Emma. How might a better understanding of the social setting in which she found herself and the status of women in France at the time argue in her defense? What else can we learn about mid-19^th century French society from the book?

4. As Henry James notes, the formal innovations of what Thorpe refers to as “an unexotic story of boredom and adultery in the flatlands of 19^th century Normandy” are its most distinguishing hallmarks, setting it apart from contemporary French novels. To what extent does our experience in reading reinforce James’s assertion of the close correspondence between form and content in the novel?

5. What role does irony, perhaps the slipperiest of tropes, play in the book?

Time (and technology) permitting, I will incorporate clips into the classes from three of the numerous film adaptations of Madame Bovary: directed by respectively, Jean Renoir (1934), Vincente Minnelli (1949), and Claude Chabrol (1991). Text to purchase: Madame Bovary: Provincial Morals, translated by Adam Thorpe, Modern Library, NY, 2013, ISBN: 978-0812985207. Available via bookfinder.com for less than $18 new or $7 used.

Week 1: pp. 1-81

Week 2: pp. 82-194

Week 3: pp. 195-273

Week 4: pp. 274-417

Corliss Swain is an emerita professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College. She taught in St. Olaf’s Paracollege for several years and in the philosophy department (1987-2024). She has served as chair of the philosophy department, associate dean for the Humanities and as interim chair of the Russian Language and Area Studies department.  An active member of the international Hume Society, she served as Secretary-Treasurer and President and was co-editor (with Saul Traiger) of Hume Studies.

swain@stolaf.edu

Overview:  The Problem

J.S. Mill famously supported freedom of speech on the grounds that it allows for the expression of unpopular or controversial ideas that may actually be true, and consideration of the grounds of even false ideas to reveal their flaws. Philosophers of science, from Karl Popper to Helen Longino, have promoted disagreement as an important element in the conduct of science. And almost everyone is familiar with the argument for pluralism that imagines people trying to describe an elephant, each from their own experiences. We’ve all been warned about bubbles and groupthink. So, it has seemed that while consensus is nice, disagreement is more valuable if we are seeking knowledge and insight. On this view, even crackpot ideas and conspiracy theories should be taken seriously

Today that feels just wrong. Disagreement seems to bring individuals and politics and science to an impasse, with unfortunate consequences for relationships, communities, and the planet as well and stymies the search for knowledge. Oreskes and Conway document this in Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change. The cartoon below illustrates a frustrating phenomenon that we may encounter with conspiracy theories and political spin. If this is right, some ideas can rightly be summarily dismissed. 

The Solution

Given that disagreement can be both fruitful and harmful in the search for knowledge, the guiding question would be: when is disagreement helpful in the search for knowledge and when does it get in the way? The hope is that we can deal more wisely with disagreement by understanding these conditions.

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  Participants should obtain a copy of Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread. The book is available via bookfinder.com and other sources for less than $25 new and less than $10 used, and as an e-book at the St. Olaf-Carleton library. Course materials will also include articles distributed electronically and links to online articles and podcasts.

Week 1: Disagreement and Dialectic: Some Classic Statements 

Readings:

Topic: The Subjects of Disagreement; Reading: Plato’s Euthyphro (5c-9c) Using the example of warring gods, Plato draws two distinctions, the first between the type of disagreements that lead to conflict and disaffection as opposed to those that do not and the second between the things that gods (and human beings) dispute and those they agree on.

Topic: The Benefits of Disagreement; Reading: Mill, “Of Liberty of Thought and Discussion.” On Liberty (75-118). This is the classic liberal defense of free speech. Mill argues that dissenting opinions need to be heard for two reasons—because they might be true and because, even if they are false, only by discussing them can we come to see why they are false. Participants should bring to class their thoughts about how far we should take this. Is there a point at which the benefits of free speech and discussion are outweighed by the harms? 

Topic: Controversial Dialectic as the art of disputing so as to hold one’s own, whether right or wrong. Reading: Schopenhauer, “The Art of Controversy” (1-15). Schopenhauer, the pessimistic philosopher, considers the relation between objective truth and success in defending one’s position from those who disagree. His analysis of the dialectical situation drawing on human nature and our typical condition with respect to truth contains some important insights. Class discussion will focus on whether and to what extent this reflects our personal experiences.

Week 2: Historians of Science on current scientific “controversies”

Readings: Introduction (1-10) and Conclusion: Of Free Speech and Free Markets (240-265) in Naomi Oreskes & Erik M Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. 

After carefully documenting cases of the manufacturing of doubt about scientific findings by some prominent scientists (often the same ones for different cases), Oreskes and Conway locate an important political motivation for these supposedly scientific “controversies,” and discuss how this has affected public policy. Participants should bring some current examples of what seems to be manufactured doubt. In class we will discuss whether political motivations rather than scientific disagreements might be at work here, and what those motivations might be.

Week 3: Philosophical Diagnosis of the Epistemic Problem of Dissent in Science

Readings: Justin B Biddle and Anna Leuschner, “Climate Skepticism and the Manufacture of Doubt: Can Dissent in Science be Epistemically Detrimental” (1-21) and selection from Biddle, Kidd, and Leuschner, “Epistemic Corruption and Manufactured Doubt: The Case of Climate Science,” (175-180)

The authors write about epistemic (knowledge-centered) consequences as opposed to the moral and political ramifications of manufactured doubts concerning established scientific conclusions. They argue that while dissent can be epistemically beneficial, there are certain conditions under which, rather than furthering our pursuit of knowledge, dissent actually impedes it in several ways: 1) by ineffective and inefficient uses of epistemic resources, 2) by encouraging scientists to downplay their results, and by fostering epistemic vices. They develop an account of the conditions under which dissent in science is detrimental. Questions for discussion include whether their contrast between epistemically beneficial dissent and epistemically detrimental dissent captures the distinction and whether their account could be generalized beyond the context of science.

Week 4: Why Do We Need to Rely on Scientific Knowledge? 

Readings: Introduction and Chapter 1: What Is Truth (1-45) in Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread

The introduction of The Misinformation Age illustrates how beliefs based on the testimony of others sometimes leads to the widespread acceptance of false ideas by reasonable people. Chapter 1 outlines the authors’ view of the relation between science and truth and a justification for trusting the results of scientific inquiry even though science is fallible.

Questions for discussion: Are these legitimate reasons to think that trust in science is well-placed? What about other sources of knowledge or belief—intuition, personal experience, revelation? Do O’Connor and Weatherall provide good enough reasons for us to accept science when it conflicts with these other sources?

Week 5: The Effects of Social Engagements on Our Beliefs

Reading: Chapter 2: Polarization and Conformity (46-92) The Misinformation Age

Starting with the assumption that scientists rely on other scientists for our information and that they are embedded in different social networks, O’Connor and Weatherall show how polarization amongst well-meaning and rational inquirers is the inevitable result. They account for polarization without necessarily appealing to individual psychological tendencies 

Week 6: Science, Propaganda, and the Public 

Reading: Chapter 3: The Evangelization of Peoples (93-146) The Misinformation Age

Adding into the mix public figures who rely on the testimony and evidence of scientists, the situation becomes more complicated. The way scientists are embedded in networks of other scientists isolates them, to some extent, from the effects of the scientist merchants of doubt. Public figures (as well as the general public) are much more susceptible to their propaganda and the destabilizing effects of dissent. This chapter works on various models.

Discussion will focus on understanding the details of these models.

Week 7: Combatting Misinformation 

Reading: Chapter 4: The Social Network (147-186), The Misinformation Age

This chapter is the payoff for all that analysis and modeling of the social effects of the fact that we rely on others for the majority of our beliefs. Starting with Pizzagate, his chapter illustrates the spread of misinformation in the press and on social media. The authors suggest several ways that we can use knowledge of these social effects in countering new and continuing attempts to mislead the public on issues of importance. 

Participants should choose one of these proposals to discuss with respect to its likely effectiveness and possible side-effects. 

Week 8: Other Proposed Solutions 

Readings: Katie Peters, Cody Turner and Heather Battaly, “Intellectual Humility Without Open-Mindedness: How to Respond to Extremist Views” (1-23); Selections from Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard (164-166, 176-179, 194-208, 217-218), Epilogue (266-274) Merchants of Doubt, Kate Schweitzer “Acetaminophen Use in Pregnancy—Study Author Explains the Data” JAMA (E1-E3)

These articles offer a variety of solutions at different levels and for slightly different problems. “Intellectual Humility Without Open Mindedness” considers the pros and cons of open-mindedly responding to views you know are false and argues that a different virtue, intellectual humility, is more appropriate. The selections from Good Arguments contain advice about when to debate (versus when to stay silent) and how to respond effectively to a debate bully. The Epilogue to Merchants of Doubt takes on the issue of action based on fallible beliefs rather than certain knowledge. The JAMA article illustrates how scientists might counter misinformation with effective communication of evidence (in this case, it is short, sweet, and uncomplicated). 

Discussion: Are any of these of use in your own life? Strengths and limitations of the various approaches. Bring examples of effective or ineffective strategies for combatting the spread of misinformation. 

Judith Nelson is a master teacher of dance with over 35 years of experience. She danced with the José Limón Dance Company, the David Gordon Pick-Up Company (appearing on PBS in Dance in America), and toured the US and Europe as a solo artist and in musical theatre. Judith has taught a wide range of dance courses at colleges and community programs across the country, including Auburn University, Carleton and St. Olaf.  judithnelson@me.com

Overview:  Cultivate joy and enrich your mind, body, and spirit through the power of dance, one of the liberal and performing arts! We will practice safe, accessible, brain-compatible dance technique and alignment, including the Brain Dance, for improved balance, strength and flexibility. We will creatively explore fundamental dance concepts that encourage self-awareness, expression, and build community. And we will have fun! Please wear comfortable, non-restrictive clothing and bare feet or soft, flexible dance shoes.  

Course Materials and Class Schedule:  Brain-Compatible Dance Education is a structured methodology for teaching dance using a 5-part class format and strategies that create an environment in which the brain is ready, willing, and able to learn. Developed by Anne Green Gilbert, renowned dance educator and author, this holistic approach allows participants the opportunity to become personally knowledgeable about dance, critical thinkers, innovative creators, successful collaborators, and respectful responders. Participants are given the opportunity to learn dance skills and also to develop their own creative ideas and voices through movement explorations, improvisation, and choreography. Brain-Compatible Dance Education supports joyful and transformative learning and self-expression!

During our 8-week session, we will explore the core dance concepts underlying the primary categories of time, space, and energy.  We will follow the 5-part class format. Following an opening meditation/visualization, we will warm up with the BrainDance, a series of eight developmental movement patterns that help to organize the brain, strengthen neural pathways, energize the body, and reduce stress. We will continue with a creative exploration of a dance concept, then basic dance technique including a dance combination, followed by creating simple, short choreography, usually done in small groups. We will end with a review, reflection and cool-down.  

Each class will focus on a different dance concept or two. Examples include shape, pathway, level, tempo, rhythm, balance, flow, movement qualities, and many others. A large assortment of creative prompts and choreographic springboards will be offered over the course of the session. Examples include mirroring, shadowing, shaping, use of props such as stretchy bands, movement based on visual art, choreographic structures such as canon, chance-dance, ABA form, and many other ideas! We may also occasionally make time to view videos of dance performances and discuss them, and/or send links for viewing at home. The class will give participants the tools to enjoy and appreciate dance performance, while expressing themselves freely in a no-judgement zone focusing on the joy of dance.

There is no detailed week-by-week syllabus, as I will assess and address the needs and interests of the students from week to week to select the weekly concepts and activities within the consistent structure of the 5-part class format.  No required reading. There is no outside homework other than personal reflection and an occasional suggested video. All genders are welcome. Dance is for everyone!

Gary Wagenbach is the Winifred and Atherton Bean professor of Biology, Science, Technology, and Society, emeritus, at Carleton College. He has taught several courses over the last 15 years on science and the environment for CVEC.

gwagenba@gmail.com

Overview:  Parasites have a stunningly huge presence while arguably being the least widely understood life form on earth. It has been noted that if all the plants and animals on earth were removed or made transparent but their parasites and symbionts (organisms, typically microscopic, that live in or on another organism [the host] in a long-term interdependent relationship) remained, all the plants and animals would still be visibly outlined by their parasites and associates! This course will introduce interested students to this fascinating life form by focusing on several examples of a range of medically, historically, and ecologically important parasites (such as Plasmodium (malaria), or tapeworms) and symbionts (microbiome in your gut).  

Course Materials and Class Schedule: We will learn that some parasites historically abundant in the U.S. have had major effects on health and well-being. We will also explore examples of parasites that control the behavior (think making zombies!) of a variety of animals and also affect humans, sometimes via control of the host nervous system. Two texts will provide the vast majority of our reading material:

Dickson D. Despommier, People, Parasites, and Plowshares (available via bookfinder.com new or used for $35 or less) and Kathleen McAuliffe, This Is Your Brain On Parasites (available via bookfinder.com for less than $20 new and $7 used.

Despommier’s book provides accessible accounts of worms and single-celled organisms that live in (infect) humans and animals, often in very entangled relationships. Examples are currently common in both tropical and temperate environments, and more abundant in human populations of some countries. Treatments for diseases caused by parasites have made major contributions to global health. Continued monitoring for emerging infectious parasites is needed. Both authors emphasize historical context as well as the scientific investigations that led to better medical and veterinary care. Many cultural connections are present in the variety of examples we will consider.

Gary will provide introductions, graphics, and videos (links will be provided) to help develop an inside understanding of chosen examples. Don’t be discouraged by some of the biological and anatomical details. Gary will clarify and simplify where needed. Small group and class discussions will be included. If some participants have encountered parasites not mentioned by Gary, or by our authors, please bring them to his attention. We may be able to explore some.

Week 1: Control of hosts by parasites

An in-class showing and discussion of “The Insane Evolution of Mind-controlling Parasites.”  (10:36 min., 2024).produced by BioFront:  https://youtu.be/VYDNNVLBIsg?si=zvLJRFMFmnQMJyVJ will introduce several of the main themes of the course and help define “parasites”.

We will then turn to the case of hookworms infecting humans, a prime cause of “laziness” among 19^th C. dwellers in southern states?  If so, then still occurring at present?  

Readings: Despommier, Chapter 2. The hookworm, how it lives and affects human health. How to avoid. McAuliffe: Hookworm, pp. 205-208, also scan chapter 12 and look for a few elements of the “parasite stress model”. Consider one or two examples of how arguments emphasizing cause and effect, evidence, and interpretation are presented.

Video overview: The Worms Living Inside People in the Southern US. (3.5 min. 2023) https://youtu.be/9BToQ46ilfQ?si=61GVZ8IaknmOcKns

Week 2: “Houdini’s nefarious cousins”

The Trypanosomes, the Schistosomes, and the Lymphatic Filariae. Focus: The Trypanosomes: African and Western versions…

Reading: Despommier, Chapter 3

Videos: Parasitic Diseases Lectures #9: African Trypanosomes, 2018, 36 min. Medical school level. View first 8 min. for introduction and maps. Dickson and Daniel discuss African trypanosomiasis caused by Trypanosoma brucei gambiense and Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense: https://youtu.be/8imHJKsna58?si=aWuG426PpwuihktD

Western species: Mini Lecture: Trypanosoma cruzi Life Cycle. 3:02. 2024; causes of Chagas disease: https://youtu.be/GCuLGRw-BFg?si=UgV597T43iyBKp8Z

Map: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/ntds/chagas-disease/chagas-2018-cases.pdf

Schistosomes introduced, time permitting.

Week 3: “A parasite for all seasons: Toxoplasma”  + brain infections by Naegleria amoeba 

Focus: parasite “manipulation hypothesis”; single celled parasites in humans and other animals.  Q. Can one acquire Toxoplasma gondii from petting a cat? Does a Toxoplasma infection change a rat’s behavior resulting in a cat being more likely to eat that rat and thus infect the cat?  Infections in humans.

Readings: Despommier, Chapter 4; McAuliffe, Chapter 4.

Watch: “The life cycle of Toxoplasma gondii” – 6:45 min; 2020: https://youtu.be/YGTe6Kk9w8E?si=9KKlmhlS-mn3u7iw; “Brain-Eating Amoeba…” 11:44 min; 2025: https://youtu.be/aXnYqW6Sd_4?si=p3I8uKzYMh6JCcfu

Week 4: A week of Tapeworms

Readings: Despommier, Chapter 6; McAuliffe, Chapter 2. Look for examples of tapeworms using other organisms to travel to new hosts.

A question: Do parasites rule the world?

Week 5: “Do parasites rule the World?”

Reading: Carl Zimmer. “Do parasites rule the world?” New evidence indicates our idea of how nature really works could be wrong. PDF Handout will be sent.

Parasites in snails and humans + parasites in insects and crabs.

Video: The Insane Evolution of Mind-controlling Parasites. (10:36 min., 2024). produced by Biofront: https://youtu.be/VYDNNVLBIsg?si=zvLJRFMFmnQMJyVJ

Week 6: Influence & control by parasites  

Readings: McAuliffe, Chapters 2 and 12. Look for Examples of tapeworms using other organisms to travel to new hosts. Many examples of influence/control by parasites. Challenges of determining cause and effect. Compare McAuliffe and Despommier’s approaches to questions of cause and effect for selected examples we have studied. 

Week 7: “All’s well that ends well”

Dracunculus medinensis” (remember Dracula!) guinea worm; control without neurochemicals by a worm infecting humans.

Readings: Despommier, Chapter 7; McAuliffe, pp.31-35

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculus medinensis

Watch “Guinea Worm Explained in 90 Seconds”: https://youtube.com/shorts/oZQ9rxyv-NA?si=RpecMn5s297fE-7F

Week 8: “Nature Has All the Answers – What’s Your Question?”

Treatments for parasitic diseases.

Reading: Despommier, Chapter 8; McAuliffe – multiple examples of treatments.