Welcome to the web site and home page for the Human Issues class on El Salvador at Edgewood College.  The course is currently in the preparation stages for its seventh offering as a year long (4 credit) seminar, including travel to El Salvador. Planned for both semesters of the 2009-2010 school year, we will meet on a weekly basis, on a Monday evening for two hours, to share together our thoughts and reflections on the readings, videos, lectures and other activities that form the basis of the course.  The class was devised in 1996 by Professor Peter Fabian of the Psychology Department and Marc Rosenthal, adjunct faculty at Edgewood and Emergency Room Nurse at Madison Meriter Hospital.  As a longtime activist in the Madison community, Marc brings to us a wealth of experience and knowledge on Central American issues and U.S. foreign policy.  Together he and Peter formulated a course on the history, politics and culture of El Salvador today, centered around a Spring visit to Madison’s sister city of Arcatao in northern El Salvador.  The aim of the course is to increase awareness among our students and, through outreach, the community at large, about El Salvador today, U.S.-Central American relations, the plight of underdevelopment and poverty that afflicts the country, the situation of the rural poor and, in particular, the importance of solidarity and sistering as a tool for education and international cooperation. In its next year, the course was team taught by Marc and John Leonard, professor of Religious Studies.  John was able to add his disciplinary expertise to provide a specific focus on the importance of Liberation Theology in El Salvador’s recent history.  In the course's third offering, Marc was accompanied by Ian Davies (Spanish) and Melanie Herzog (Art History), who brought bring a special focus on culture and popular education.  Currently, Ian and Marc are the instructors for the 2009-2010 offering.