HONORS SEMINARS SPRING 2015
50:525:103:01
Robert Emmons, Digital Storytelling–Has reached capacity: Course closed
F 12:20-3:00, CS 202
Course note: Satisfies a Fine Arts requirements in General Education
Course note: Counts as one course toward the Digital Humanities Certificate
Digital storytelling is short-form media production through which everyday people share personal stories using digital media and production tools. Media may include video and sound, text, animation, stills, audio only, or any form of non-physical media. Stories may be presented in a variety of formats including video, webpage, and digital literature or video games. Emphasis will be on locating personal stories and using digital tools to create autobiographical stories that explore larger themes. This is a maker’s seminar, but one that requires no experience. All of us have stories to tell, and we’re going to use technology to realize and share them. Students will work through the three stages of storytelling: Pre-Production, Production, and Post-Production. Projects include treatment developments, story outlines, scripts, and the final production piece.
50:525:109:01
Carol Singley, American Gothic — Has reached capacity: Course closed
MW 2:50-4:10, CS 202
Course note: Satisfies a Literature requirement in General Education
What scares us? Gives us that eerie, strange feeling? Why are we attracted to the ghostly, the otherworldly, the macabre, and the irrational? Join us for an exploration of horror, terror, and the Gothic in American literature and film. Learn how the Gothic develops from American encounters with the wilderness, Native Americans, slavery, and technology. Consider the role of gender in creating female and male traditions. Explore works by Edgar Alan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edith Wharton, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, and selected readings in literary, cultural, and psychological theory. Short assignments and presentations; two longer papers; and a final project.
50:525:112:01
Kate Epstein, Command History
TTh 3-4:20, CS 203
Course note: Satisfies a History requirement in General Education
“The difficulties writers have in putting themselves in the place of a wartime political leader, who bears manifold responsibilities and carries stresses that they have never borne,” wrote Eliot Cohen of supreme command, “is the greatest obstacle to sound historical judgment on wartime statesmanship.” Difficult, certainly, but necessary: winning the war over the war, as the saying goes, is as important as winning the war itself. Like commanders, historians hold lives and reputations in their hands. This course is designed to acquaint students with, and to help them navigate, the difficulties of decision-making for commanders and for historians. While teaching both history and historical methodology, it is inter-disciplinary, drawing on literature, philosophy, and science. Members of the seminar will be required to submit weekly response papers, to write two longer papers, and to participate actively in discussion.
50:525:112:02
Andrew Lees, The Making of Modern Europe, 1750-2000– Has reached capacity: Course closed
MW 1:20-2:40, CS 202
Course note: Satisfies a History requirement in General Education
Course note: Satisfies the Global (G) requirement in General Education
Since the middle of the eighteenth century, Europeans have experienced a great variety of profound transformations. Monarchies and aristocracies have largely disappeared, and so too has monopoly of power by males. Industry and high-tech have displaced agricultural production and handicrafts. Great cities have replaced villages and small towns. Bloody wars have been fought on European soil, and great Empires have been won and lost overseas. This course explores all of these changes and many more. It counts as the equivalent of the second half of a Western Civilization survey (History 510:102), but major emphasis will be placed on discussion of primary sources, with textbook reading and lecturing kept to a minimum.
50:525:112:03
Margaret Marsh, Marriage in Historical Perspective–Has reached capacity: Course closed
T 1:30-4:10, CS 202
Course note: Satisfies a History requirement in General Education
This seminar explores the history of marriage in the United States through multiple perspectives – legal, economic, social, and cultural – beginning with the colonial period and ending in the present. Marriage is both a private relationship and a public institution, governed by laws and influenced by cultural values and societal norms, and we will examine both dimensions as we consider courtship, the spousal relationship, childrearing, and family life over the course of American history. In what ways, if any, has marriage remained unchanged during the past two hundred or so years, and how is it different? Using both original documents and contemporary materials, we’ll answer those questions and more.
In recent years, two issues – the demand for marriage equality and the decline in the proportion of Americans who ever marry – have received considerable public attention. These are just two of the most recent in a long line of landmark changes to the institution. Just half a century ago, for example, in many states it was illegal for people of different races to marry. In an earlier period a husband had the absolute right to his wife’s wages. And at one time in our history, when a couple divorced, the husband nearly always received custody of the children. How and why did such laws or practices exist, and what caused them to change? And how has marriage been viewed and experienced by men and women of different backgrounds and identities? These and other questions will be addressed in both their historical and contemporary contexts through readings, discussions, and a variety of writing assignments.
50:525:119:01
Jennie Owens, Families across Borders: The Changing Legal Definition of Marriage and Relationships
T 4:30-7:10, CS 202
Course note: Satisfies a Social Sciences requirement in General Education
Throughout legal history in this country, the legal definition of marriage and of relationships has changed. These changes have been brought about by historic changes in the political climate when those cases were being considered. This seminar will focus on these seminal cases, such as when a woman was considered the property of her husband, interracial marriage, and recent decisions regarding same-sex marriage and polygamous marriages. After discussion regarding the standards for judicial review and the overall structure of the Courts in the United States, each week the seminar will focus on a case that defines marriage, relationships etc. The students will research and discuss the historical and political climate surrounding these cases, and the reasons why the decision was reached by the Court. Course grade will be based upon student presentations and a short paper due at the end of the semester.
50:525:120:01
Kristin August, Social Relationships and Health
MW 1:20-2:40, CS 203
Course note: Satisfies a Social Sciences requirement in General Education
In this seminar, we will draw upon research in psychology and other fields to understand how our relationships with other people impact our emotional and physical health (and vice versa). The focus of the course will be on both the structure and function of social relationships, as well as on different types of relationships throughout the lifespan.
Specific topics to be covered include the role of social support in buffering stress, the effects of social regulation (control) on health behaviors, the adverse effects of social relationships (for example, conflict, loneliness) on health, the emerging role of social media on health, and the effect of being the “giver.” In this course, students will read both book chapters and original articles. In addition to exams, reaction papers, and class discussions, students will engage in an experiential learning component to gain insight into how their own social relationships impact some aspect of their health.
50:525:121:01; 50:988:201:H1
Cathy D’Ignazio, Introduction to Women’s Studies–New
MW 10:30-11:50Course note: Satisfies the Transcultural Health and Diversity requirement in the School of Nursing
Course note: Satisfies the Diversity (D) requirement in General Education
Introduction to the study of women as a diverse social group with a history, culture, and experience of their own, and to the study of gender as a category of social, cultural, and economic organization. An interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach to incorporating race, class, and ethnicity as well as gender analysis. Emphasis on contemporary issues pertaining to women, including feminism and antifeminism, work, sexuality, family relations, reproduction, and politics.
50:525:127:01
Paul Bernstein, Screenwriting: The Art of Playwriting Transformed
TTh 11:00-12:20, Classroom to be assigned by Registrar
Course note: Satisfies a Fine Arts requirement in General Education
Course note: Satisfies the Writing (W) requirement in General Education
This is a hybrid course that examines the principles of Playwriting and ventures into related elements of Screenwriting, utilizing effective perspectives and techniques from both written forms. Each student will create a 10-minute play and a 10-minute film script. In addition, the class will view Theater and Film while incorporating a system for critical analysis. Our study of plays, film scripts, and the work of several innovative artists will provide a key academic component for this writing intensive course. Students will discover how 1,000 years of writing for the stage has influenced the comparatively short 100-year history of the film script.
50:525:129:01; 50:920:217:H1
Drew Humphries, Drugs and Society–Has reached capacity: Course closed
MW 10:30-11:50am, CS 203
Course note: Satisfies a Social Sciences requirement in General Education
Course note: Satisfies the Transcultural Health and Diversity requirement in the School of Nursing
Drugs and Society attempts to place “drugs” in a more sociological perspective than students normally experience. It looks at the social organization of drug dealing, focusing on a group of teenage dealers, who distributed crack in New York City in the early 1990s. From there, the course moves to larger questions, the acquisition of progressively more potent drugs and the streams whereby they entered global commerce. Since the 1900s efforts to prohibit or restrict use have driven U.S. policy on drugs. The prosecution of crack mothers in the 1990s provides a window through which to examine policies of drug prohibition and their consequences in America. Because treatment is no less an issue than enforcement, the experiences of drug addicts in the California treatment system provides insights into both the need for treatment and its shortcomings.