This course explores the causes, course and effects of African revolutionary movements in the 20th and 21st centuries. Beginning with a study of the impact of European imperialism and its role in fomenting nationalist and revolutionary movements and ideologies, students then delve deeply into several case studies to analyze how Africans adapted theories of revolution to their own movements and the lasting effects on African nations today. Students engage with challenging texts written by revolutionary theorists such as Marx, Che Guevera, Mao, Fanon, Boahen, Cabral, Machel, Mondlane, Mandela, Lumumba, Nkrumah and the Mau Mau movement. An exploration of African culture and literature through fiction, music and the Negritude movement provide students with the opportunity to evaluate the connections between culture, literature and history. This course requires students to read and analyze challenging primary, secondary and literary texts and complete a final in-depth research and writing project. Students should have a strong foundation in critical reading and writing skills and enjoy student-led inquiry-based discussions.

The region of Latin America reflects multiple histories and experiences. Having the opportunity to perform a “case study” of a single country in the region will allow students to dive deeply into the way in which that country’s complex relationships, issues, and histories tell stories of national joy and trauma. In this course, students will use primary sources, historical analyses, literature, current political issues, and film to take a focused look at one specific country in the region and the current issues that country is facing. Students will examine various processes of truth, peace, and reconciliation that are currently occurring in that semester’s chosen country. Through analytical thinking, comparative study with different regions across time, and chronological reasoning, the class will strive to attain a depth of understanding not found in a survey course. Students will work collaboratively in groups on presentations to demonstrate mastery of specific historical figures and events, and will build advanced writing skills through research, academic writing, and personal narrative. This course will also ensure that students gain exposure to various types of texts, from the historical to the poetic, the narrative to the musical.

This course focuses on the intersections of literature and the political upheaval in South Africa between 1950 and 2000. Literature responded to politics, but also may have suggested the path followed by politicians such as Desmond Tutu, F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, winners of Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and 1993. The course studies colonial settlement, psychology and race relations as told by two of South Africa’s celebrated writers, Nobel Laureates J.M. Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer, as well as the Post-Apartheid era of majority rule, especially the choice to end Nuremberg Trial-style retributive justice, embodied in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The culminating project involves research and presentation of cases from the Commission.

In this course, students both read and write advanced creative nonfiction works from a variety of authors and time periods. They analyze multiple genres, including journalism (both literary and investigative), memoir and biography, and they explore writing with their own nonfiction pieces. Students also look at how these genres have evolved through other media, including film, audio storytelling, photojournalism, song, spoken word and more. They also compose their own creative nonfiction in a variety of

This course explores the history, culture, and politics of the U.S./Mexico border, the people who have crossed it and the multinational and multicultural communities they have built. Through reading personal narratives, books by historians, political scientists, and journalists, and analyzing art, music and films, students come to understand contemporary border issues such as immigration, national security and trade and to place these issues in a broader historical context. They consider how a border is constructed, what pushes people to cross borders, and how that border crossing has shaped empires, nations, people and cultures. Through field trips and a semester-long research project, students experience how the border has created both a dividing line and a zone of exchange that has shaped and changed people and nations on both sides. To be successful in this course, students should have strong research skills, the ability to think both chronologically and thematically and an interest in transnational, interdisciplinary exploration.

This course examines the rise and influence of existentialism, the literary and philosophical movement that came of age following the Second World War. After a study of the basic principles of existentialism, especially as espoused by the French philosopher Jean Paul-Sartre, we will read representational authors such as Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Tom Stoppard, Kurt Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood, Jerzy Kosinski and Banana Yoshimoto. We will study the formation of Feminist Existentialism, and we will trace the influence of existentialism in some very contemporary works such as Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag. Students should have a foundation in literary analysis, close reading, Harkness-style discussion and expository writing, including the thesis-driven essay. Utilizing these skills students should be prepared to engage in comprehensive and detailed research with an eye toward preparing papers of significant length and weight; these MLA-documented papers will further facilitate students’ ability to synthesize materials and to make university-level arguments. More broadly speaking, this course asks students to read and consider deliberately philosophical literary works, to formulate their thoughts on those texts both in written and oral form and to push the boundaries of their own world views, particularly when it comes to questions of meaning and existence.

This course investigates the relationship between the major Middle Eastern faiths – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – and how their belief systems have interacted with the Holy City of Jerusalem and other cities made holy in the Middle East and beyond. Students delve into an in-depth exploration of Jerusalem and why it has been the focus of three Abrahamic faiths and a site for pilgrims from all over the world. Narratives of Jerusalem in sacred texts provide the foundation for an understanding of its significance to believers and allow for discussions, research and writing on the architecture, literature, art and the history of conflict and cooperation amongst believers throughout the ages. Students also analyze and reflect on how modern political, ideological and theological narratives of Jerusalem have placed it at the center of conflict amongst major powers vying to control the sacred for the secular. Students conclude the course by studying other holy cities in independent research projects to further explore the connection between faith and place.

This course explores the literary and artistic culture of Los Angeles from the 1800s to the present. It traces the development of Los Angeles’s literary aesthetic and predominant genres, focusing especially on the rise of noir and the relationship between film and literary cultures. The course will include a study of several key Los Angeles writers of the past and present and will invite students to seek out through field trips and partnerships with local organizations what “Los Angeles literature” is all about. Students should have a foundation in close, careful reading and literary analysis, expository writing and Harkness discussion skills. This course will build on these skills and invite students to begin to make their thinking and writing public: through presentations and curation exercises, field work and, possibly, publication-worthy essays and writing projects.

This course provides an in-depth study of the major political, economic, social and cultural events and themes that shaped Latin America in the 20th century. Beginning with a brief survey of Latin America’s colonial history and independence movements, we quickly shift to focus on topics including the major Latin American revolutions, relations with the United States, dictatorships and the wave of democratization in the region, trade and economic development, immigration and counternarcotics issues. Investigating various historical, artistic and literary texts, students will also gain an interdisciplinary understanding of the evolution of this region. The class offers opportunities for field research and includes a final in-depth research and writing project.

This course takes a deep dive into the founding of the United States and the ways that story fits into developments in politics, economy, culture and society in Europe, West Africa, Indigenous lands and the Caribbean in the 18th century and beyond. Additionally, it places the United States’ birth in the context of other political movements from the Glorious Revolution through the Haitian Revolution. From shifting imperial geopolitics, to emerging ideologies, to new frontiers in slavery, to the war itself and finally to the establishment of new governments, students will consider the conflict through multiple lenses, perspectives and identities. Focusing heavily on primary sources-the Revolution through the words of those who shaped it and were shaped by it- as well as fiction and historical texts, students will hone their skills in close reading, research, chronological reasoning, literary analysis, debate and critical writing.

This course will investigate the work of, as well as the historical and intellectual currents that conspired to create and evolve, the global cultural phenomenon known as “modernism.” This course will consist of close readings across disciplines, from visual arts and music, to theater, dance and film to explore the compulsion for “new” modes of expression during times of propulsive societal change. Beginning with the origins of the Modern Era at the end of the 19th century in Europe, this course will track the challenges to form in artistic and cultural production: from the growth of the avant–garde at the turn of the century, through the countercultural movements of the `60s and `70s and on to more contemporary and postcolonial articulations of modernist expressive potential. Course texts may include work by a varied cast of writers from various literary disciplines and landscapes, such as poets like Charles Baudelaire, Osip Mendalstam, Muriel Rukeyser, T.S. Eliot and Leopold Senghor, novelists like Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner and Djuna Barnes, playwrights such as Bertolt Brecht and scholars like Darwin, Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, Frazier and James. Students will leave this course knowing how to think and write critically about historical, political and theoretical ideas on modernity and progress across time and place.

This course explores historical and modern motivations for traveling by analyzing personal narratives, photography, film and cultural histories. Why have people historically left home to travel to other places, and what do contemporary tourists or travelers share with such historical journeys? We analyze travel narratives as an interdisciplinary field, examining genres such as autobiographical writing, letter writing, geographical descriptions and visual storytelling. We consider narratives from many regions of the world and consider modern stories as well as early travel narratives such as pre-Christian journeys on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela and Marco Polo’s travels through Asia. We apply a critical theoretical lens to such narratives by recognizing when they are products of the colonial gaze and interrogating the motivations and consequences of exploring and also (ecologically) exploiting seemingly “new worlds.” Students create their own travel narratives as a final project, considering how travels can be about searching instead of consuming.

This course engages students in the study of art by immersing them in a project to create a written and digital art catalog. We partner with professional artists and scholars as we study art ranging from world-renowned masterpieces to works on our campus. We use this knowledge to analyze and document significant buildings, paintings and photographs at Webb and at the Claremont Colleges. This course involves a selective, thematic overview of the art history field, as students strive to place works in historical context and learn the vocabulary of the discipline. Creating the catalog involves research, writing, geocaching, web design and more. No previous visual arts experience necessary but experienced artists can also find a home in this class.

This Advanced Studies course is not a series of sprints, but a marathon, with all the challenges and rewards that come with such an endeavor. Students will immerse themselves in a single major novel and will see what happens when they allow themselves to dive deeply into a fully realized, extensive and complex fictional world. In addition to reading, students will examine the cultural, social and historical forces that combined to produce the “big book” in question. Depending on the semester, the novel students read might be Crime and Punishment, An American Tragedy, Our Mutual Friend, Moby Dick or another text. Through student-driven literary and historical research, students will produce a substantial, college-level “seminar” paper at the end of the semester and will be expected to read a variety of literary critics, philosophers and historians’ takes on the book. We will end the course with a mock literary conference in which students present their papers to each other and conduct panel discussions in front of their classmates. And perhaps, as a side effect of all this work, students in this course will stumble into joy – the joy that comes from diving deeply into an imagined world, the joy that comes from the mastery of a seemingly mountainous task and the joy that comes from being in the company of a “big book’s” varied and very human characters.

This course, required for all tenth grade students, is one half of the interdisciplinary American Studies program, which encourages a rich, holistic, and humanities-style investigation of American culture, society, and ideology. While both courses consider the many narratives, identities, values, and cultural phenomena that are the driving forces and products of American experiences, American Society, Past & Present focuses particularly on American attempts to create an ideal society and to balance the conflicting interests of this diverse nation, considering how American culture has evolved as part of these social struggles. Through close examinations of historical as well as literary sources, students consider questions such as: How does someone get to be considered a “real American?” How do Americans balance their individualism and ambition with the needs of their communities? What gives a person power in America? How do Americans want their government to behave? Students practice many skills vital to the humanities, especially research, primary source analysis, and historical interpretation.

This course explores the evolution of the concept of virtue, through study of classical and contemporary texts. It weaves together the strands of students’ educations—moral, literary, logical, and rhetorical—as it challenges them to think critically about fundamental questions of living good lives. Students address the concept of virtue from both philosophical and literary standpoints, often making ethical and moral arguments for why characters act the way they do. Readings include selections from various ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophers. This course also engages students in contemporary and local issues, through study and field work that raises issues like food shortage and the social safety net provided by shelters and local charities. Recent texts include: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.

This course provides an immersive introduction to fundamental skills in the Humanities, prioritizing the mastery of tools that Webb students will use during their coursework through their four years here. Students build their skills in collaboration, critical reading and analysis, and communication, including writing, speaking, presentation, and debate. Additionally, students cultivate essential habits of mind: multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary thinking, creativity, curiosity and global engagement. This course asks students to apply their thinking to a number of intellectual tasks that engage them with the contemporary world. Projects may take a variety of forms, from giving a formal speech to authoring new forms of multimedia storytelling. While teachers engage students around shared texts and projects, assignments encourage students to follow their own lines of inquiry and to focus on topics they care to research and understand. This course is required for all ninth grade students.

What is the experience and story of justice in the United States, over time? How does that connect to the justice system and prison system today? From the stockade to mandatory minimums, this course considers the complex structure, purposes, and effects of American systems of punishment and rehabilitation. Students examine which people and what crimes are punished, why, and how this has evolved over the course of history. Students also study examples and models in other nations. This course considers the experience of those imprisoned, as well as the way our legal and judicial system is presented by the media. Through written reflection, research projects, textual analysis, and engaged conversation, students debate questions of ethics and efficacy, including policies like capital punishment and solitary confinement.

This course will explore the general shared history of Los Angeles, the communities that share it and examine how the experiences of several different racial and ethnic groups differ. Students will learn how these communities have forged new cultures, traditions and stories for themselves in the City of Angels. Students will practice sociological and anthropological modes of analysis for some of L.A.’s many diverse neighborhoods, including Chinatown, Olvera Street, Little Tokyo, Leimert Park Village and communities in the greater San Gabriel Valley. Students will generate projects exploring the shared history of these communities and their roots of cultural expression, creating their own L.A. street art, poetry, neighborhood tours and museum exhibits. We will experience aspects of these neighborhoods firsthand through field trips to relevant sites in the Los Angeles area.

The mission of this course is to prepare students to become active citizens and productive leaders of our economy by providing them with the ability to make sound economic decisions. Developing “an economic way of thinking” is vital to understanding the coursework. Reading contemporary literature on current economic thought plays a crucial role. Once a firm grasp of the basic economic principles has been established, students are exposed to microeconomic topics relating to the functions of product markets, resource markets, and the limited role a government plays within a free-market economy. Real-world simulations are a key component to illustrate and solidify the economic theory taught in class. Oral presentations on scarce resources, a stock market simulation, and a written business analysis are some of the projects.

This course explores the complex relationship between ethics and the actions of state and nonstate actors in the modern world. Students who take this elective will grapple with contemporary topics such as immigration and refugee crises, environmental degradation and global warming, genocide, terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Students will practice critical 21st century skills to formulate policy recommendations, for the U.S. and other nations, supported by ethical principles. They also research and review both current and historical literature and other forms of media as a basis for class discussions and debate and to provide the inspiration for shorter written assignments as well as a summative and substantial written piece. This course is perfect for students interested in international relations. This course includes at least one field trip to relevant sites in the greater Los Angeles area.

This course explores the various ways that humans have interacted with the earth and how we will navigate the challenges of sustainable living in the future. Students study Native American societies and the ideas of anthropologists, writers, ethicists, activists, and historians, such as Rachel Carson, Wade Davis, J.R. McNeill, and Jared Diamond and discuss how people’s relationship with the earth has changed over time. Student-led inquiry and seminars provide the foundation for constructing understanding. Students write policy papers and collaborate on projects that directly engage them with current issues and assess their understanding of content and skills. This course requires analytical reading of a variety of primary, secondary, and literary texts, research and writing, seminar leadership, collaborative projects, Harkness discussions, and an experiential component. While global in scope, students actively engage in local environmental issues at Webb and in Southern California to practice their skills.

Many religious traditions seek to unite the human with the divine, a process that American poet Denise Levertov called “oneing.” In this comparative course, students will trace the development of this search across traditions including Taoism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Sufism. We will apply the critical lenses of psychology, anthropology and gender studies to these practices, attempting to discover why humans seek union with nature or deity. The class will explore firsthand accounts of mystical experiences; look for traces of the mystical in popular music, film and television; work together to develop a psychological and philosophical definition of mysticism and consider the works of both modern and ancient mystics who seek to describe their experience of “oneing.” Students will take an active role in the creation of knowledge through class and group projects. We will practice the basics of mindfulness, evaluate and create Zen koans, improve our critical thinking skills through reflective writing and student-led discussions and pit mystical poets against one another in an epic rap battle for the ages.

This course investigates how myths, particularly the story of the hero, examine and reflect aspects of humanity that connect people across time and place. Through literature, history, art, and music, the class analyzes how humans use myth to attempt to answer the essential questions of existence and to investigate how the journey of the hero reflects the values and journeys of various cultures. Students consider works by Joseph Campbell and Karen Armstrong, among others. Course skills focus not only on advancing discussion and close reading skills, but will expand on students’ research and writing abilities through various persuasive essays, creative writing, and group projects.

This literary studies course engages students in the study of poets’ authority in societies that grant them little or no power. Students will compare and contrast the purposes and methods of verse with those of rhetoric. Harkness discussions will explore the artist’s roles in communities: healer, prophet, revolutionary, visionary, and witness. In writings, students will weigh the power of the W/word as truth, fact, and misdirection. Formative and summative close readings of poems will emphasize an understanding of form’s relation to function, exploring the question of how a poet’s decisions build or counteract an effect upon a reader and reflect its historical context. The course will trace motifs and detect resonances by reading groups of poems – rather than individual pieces – at the same time that we study relevant historical works and contemporaneous speeches. In the service of poesis, meaning “to create” as opposed to analysis (lit., “to undo”), students will develop a portfolio of their own poems and prose pieces, drafted during daily invitations and exercises using course readings as models, leading to a manifesto addressing the powers of now on behalf of a culture of the future and a curated chapbook to be shared at an evening poetry event on campus.

This course focuses on postcolonial film and literature from Latin America and Africa. Students analyze how the legacy of colonialism had ripple effects in cinematic and literary works and how writers and directors articulated political, economic, and social changes. Students also consider the ways in which recent literary and film criticism inform the ongoing creation of these works of art. Students evaluate the historical impact of these creative works, and they look at ways in which they can use film and literature to become more active participants in the global community. Students may read or view works from writers and directors such as Glauber Rocha, Juan Rulfo, Carmen Buollosa, Roberto Bolaño, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Fernando Solanas, Chinua Achebe, Sembene Ousmane, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Jean-Marie Teno and Teshome Gabriel.

A through line exists from cave paintings, to classical texts, comic books to computer art. Students in this course will investigate the art and craft of storytelling and the role it plays in the growth of human civilization. In making narrative, students will use ancient methods and modern technology to workshop stories of their own. From personal biography to political questions of self and society, students will write, draw, photograph, film and produce media that’s personal, purposeful and engaging. Students will look to answer such questions as: How do I best write my own story here at Webb? How does my story ripple across a wider community? From Aristotle to Susan Sontag and beyond, students will examine the classical in The Canterbury Tales and One Thousand and One Nights, as well as the contemporary in On Photography and Regarding the Pain of Others, international animated shorts, Instagram Stories and more. The course will culminate in each student creating and presenting a portfolio of creative work.

This course explores depictions of war in the modern age and the methods writers and artists use to convey the experience of war. Students investigate how war is rendered for those who are soldiers and those at home and contrast a journalistic style of war reporting with more creative approaches. They observe how writers and artists struggle with questions about identity, heroism, sacrifice, good vs evil, nationalism and trauma. They study a variety of wars that span time periods and consider how the technologies being used in these wars affect both the war experience and the work of writers and artists. Through close reading of the texts throughout the semester and analysis of depictions of war in art and film, students will continue developing their critical thinking, literary analysis and discussion skills about one of the driving forces in human history.

This course examines human behavior and mental processes through literature and film. By applying psychological principles to personal, social, historical, and contemporary texts, students explore and analyze the narratives used to describe human thoughts, feelings, and behavior. This is an interdisciplinary course in which students practice literary and media analysis of various psychological concepts, which may include social influence, thinking, relationships, consciousness, development, personality disorders, and more. The class culminates with an in-depth research project.

This course, required for all tenth grade students, is one half of the interdisciplinary American Studies program, which encourages a rich, holistic, and humanities-style investigation of American culture, society, and ideology. While both courses consider the many narratives, identities, values, and cultural phenomena that are the driving forces and products of American experiences, The American Idea focuses particularly on the ongoing relationship between literary and artistic expression and American culture and history. While engaging in critical analysis of a variety of texts and primary sources, students consider questions such as: What makes an American text or work of art so “American”? How can we read a social or historical moment through an artist or writer’s reaction to it? What are Americans afraid of, and what are they reacting against? How do artists and writers make social and historical change with their work? Students practice many skills vital to the humanities, especially literary analysis and writing.