Spring 2023 Honors Discovery Courses with Availabilities
Biological Science
CRN: 52054
An inquiry into current controversial issues in biology and their scientific and technical bases, but with an emphasis on exploring the various perspectives or beliefs related to each topic and their social and environmental implications.
Attributes: Inquiry (Discovery), Honors course, Biological Science(Discovery)
Instructors: Thomas Foxall
TR 9:40AM - 11:00AM
Historical Perspective
CRN: 55196
What did Washington, Jefferson, Adams (John and Abigail), Madison and Paine have in common? They were all instrumental in shaping the US political system, but they were also educated in the classics. When building the framework of our democratic republic, they continually looked to Athens and Rome as models, inspirations and warnings. The course examines ancient political systems and how they helped fashion our founder's notion of the ideal government and continue to do so.
Attributes: Writing Intensive Course, Inquiry (Discovery), Historical Perspectives(Disc), Honors course
Instructors: Yujhan Claros
TR 8:10AM - 9:30AM
Environment, Technology, and Society
CRN: 55198
This course examines positive and negative impacts of ancient technological advances: engineering (fire, metallurgy), writing technology (scripts, including the alphabet, the emergence of papyrus and vellum), military technology (shipbuilding, defensive and offensive technologies, and navigation), artistic (invention of dyes, lost-wax methods of bronze casting), infrastructure (roads, bridges, and aqueducts), and monumentality (Stonehenge, Greek temples, and the Roman Colosseum). Focus on the ways in which societal and environmental factors influenced technological development and vice versa.
Attributes: Honors course, Environment,Tech&Society(Disc)
Instructors: Gregory McMahon
MWF 9:10AM - 10:00AM
CRN: 51095
This course draws upon the knowledge from emerging product design concepts and principals and advocates for inclusiveness of all consumers regardless of their age, abilities, disabilities, and personal affinities. Students will apply critical thinking and hands-on learning to evaluate day-to-day technologies by use of various design criteria, identify usability problems, and design technology solutions. Course work will include readings, interactive activities, discussions, quizzes, and group projects.
Attributes: Inquiry (Discovery), Honors course, Environment,Tech&Society(Disc)
Instructors: Ben Lee
TR 9:40AM - 11:00AM
Humanities
CRN: 55251
Of our special concern will be the claim that race is a culturally or socially, not biologically, constructed category. The reading list will include literary texts (Toni Morrison's "Recitatif"), works of African American comedians (Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, etc.), philosophical texts (Immanuel Kant, W.E.B. DuBois, K.A. Appiah, etc.) as well as some legal documents (recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning affirmative action). We will also do two case studies, one on the name of Redskins and one the Whiteness Project. The general goal of the course is to improve the student's ability to speak and think critically about race and race relations in the U.S. Writing intensive.
Attributes: Writing Intensive Course, Humanities(Disc), Honors course
Instructors: Petar Ramadanovic
TR 9:40AM - 11:00AM
CRN: 54968
This course explores the various ways that scientists, philosophers, poets, novelists, and literary theorists have tried to reconcile what we see (or think we see) with what we know (or think we know), from the ancient past to the 21st century. Our special focus will be on how the Copernican Revolution prompted a wholesale reevaluation of perception and knowledge. We will explore how writers, artists musicians, and philosophers embraced or lamented the enormous cultural and psychological changes that the Copernican evolution helped to introduce. We also will investigate how these changes continue to shape our worldview in the 21st-century.
Attributes: Humanities(Disc), Honors course
Instructors: Rachel Trubowitz
MWF 10:10AM - 11:00AM
Physical Sciences
CRN: 53693
We explore models of the universe and our place in it. We discuss the foundation of ideas about motion on Earth and in space, as well as the history of modern physics and astronomy, which have changed how we understand space and time. We consider the sources and limitations of human knowledge concerning the origin of the universe, the mystery of the origin of life and evidence that our description of reality is incomplete.
Attributes: Writing Intensive Course, Physical Science(Discovery), Honors course
Instructors: Nathan Schwadron, Katharine Duderstadt
Social Science
CRN: 51768
Basic functions of the United States economy viewed as a whole; policies designed to affect its performance. Economic scarcity, supply and demand, the causes of unemployment and inflation, the nature of money and monetary policy, the impact of government taxation and spending, the federal debt, and international money matters. ECON 401A emphasizes applications to the international economy. ECON 401H is open to students in the Honors Program.
Attributes: Social Science (Discovery), Inquiry (Discovery), Honors course
Instructors: Michael Goldberg
TR 9:40AM - 11:00AM
World Cultures
CRN: 56092
This course in HOW TO MAKE A REVOLUTION (if you lived more than 100 years ago) will ask why the Sea Beggars flooded Holland, the Levellers dug up the Commons, and Black Loyalists fled the independent Americans after their revolution. The class asks how slaves in Haiti defeated Napoleon's troops, utopian socialists built a railway around a cross at the center of Europe, and Marx rallied the workers of the world to unite. Course meets the History major requirements for Group II.
Attributes: Writing Intensive Course, World Cultures(Discovery), Honors course
Instructors: Janet Polasky
MW 9:10AM - 10:30AM
CRN: 53580
How do humans fit into the cosmos? Once, we thought we were central players; most human societies believed they played a starring role, second only to the gods. Developments in the sciences have led modern humanity to a far more modest view: our existence is full of contingency and without cosmic significance. Humanity's self-conception is now recognized to be deeply culturally conditioned: is an objective view of humanity's place even possible?
Attributes: Writing Intensive Course, World Cultures(Discovery), Honors course
Instructors: Subrena Smith
MWF 10:10am - 11:00am
