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Culture Studies Credit
In requiring two courses in Culture Studies of all undergraduate majors, the College seeks to ensure that students are introduced to a cultural system different from that of mainstream America. The advantage of such a requirement is that it exposes students to a set of values, attitudes, and methods of organizing experience that may not be obtained from the predominant American culture. Such exposure should lead students to understand better the facts, possibilities, and limitations of their own cultural conditioning.
Courses that are proposed as satisfying this requirement should convey the distinctive world view, institutions, and patterns of organization of another culture from the perspective of that culture. Such courses should not be restricted to a chronology of events in the life of that culture or to only one aspect of its traditions or institutions. The course should instead teach the relationships among some of the following aspects of the culture: art, religion, literature, philosophic traditions, social behavior and institutions, and linkages with other cultures. A course on one specific aspect of a culture—for example, its art or political institutions—could be considered to fulfill the requirement only if it devoted a substantial amount of time in readings and class discussions to the relationships between that specific aspect and the culture more generally. An allowable course might have a broad conceptual focus within a narrow geographical and temporal setting (such as the intellectual and aesthetic traditions of Russia under Catherine the Great) or a narrow conceptual focus across a broad geographical and temporal setting (such as the political institutions of tribal Africa in the pre-colonial period). Whether the conceptual focus of the course is narrow or broad, the Office of Undergraduate Academic Affairs will be looking for evidence of an integrated approach to the culture. In other words, the culture course should not be restricted to themes so narrow or so specialized (temporally, spatially, or conceptually) that it is inconsistent with the general goals of a liberal arts education.
There is no limit to the number of Culture Studies courses that may be approved for a given department; nor is there a requirement governing the level of courses which may be approved. A request may be made for a course already in the curriculum or may be included with a new course request. (The recommended format for culture studies requests can be found here 
.)
List A Courses on List A focus on a culture or cultures other than the dominant cultures of the United States and of modern Western Europe. Students may take two courses from this list to fulfill the Culture Studies requirement, or they may take one course from this list and one course from List B.
List B Courses on List B focus on a culture or cultures of modern Western Europe. Students may use one course from this list toward fulfillment of the Culture Studies requirement.
Each time a Culture Studies course section is scheduled, the department’s scheduling officer must notify the Registrar (by using the Registrar’s Report Code Value “BLCO”) that it is offered for Culture Studies credit. From the Registrar’s homepage, students and advisors can access a “Special Course Listing” of all Culture Studies courses offered that semester.
