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SPRING 2010 Honors Seminars
WHAT'S CULTURE GOT TO DO WITH IT? GLOBALIZATION AND THE HUMAN CONDITION (WI)
Why? Classic Answers from Aristotle to Freud to the Big Questions about the Order of Nature and the Way People Behave (WI) CRN: 35408 HNRS 2316, SEC 002 (3 s.h.) This course, which will be run as a discussion-based seminar, is a wide-ranging romp through some foundational texts in the intellectual history of the West. The quest to explain ‘why things happen’ has driven people and scholars across ages and cultures: all of us, whatever discipline we specialize in, are trying to answer the three-year-old’s eternal question “Why?” in some shape or form. In class, we will examine classic and immensely influential works by Aristotle, the writers of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, Augustine of Hippo, Islamic and Jewish thinkers, Thomas Aquinas, Niccolò Machiavelli, John Calvin, René Descartes, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud. The goal of this seminar will be to isolate and compare the basic elements of explanation in these systems of thought: first the underlying assumptions (premises, such as the existence of a deity, a law-governed natural world, the soul, or the id-ego-superego make-up of the psyche), and second, the causal theories such thinkers have built on them to elucidate the behavior of nature and people. Thereby, students should gain better insight into the common intellectual goals uniting many disciplines as well as be able to analyze and assess the radically different assumptions and images of the world such thinkers have proposed. Days/Times: T 1400–1700 Location: Brewster B-203 Instructor: Dr. Jonathan Reid, Associate Professor, Department of History, (Ph.D., University of Arizona) Prerequisite: None General Education Credit: Social Science or free elective. Fulfills 3 s.h. Writing Intensive requirement. ART AS A REFLECTION ON THE EBB AND FLOW OF LIFE: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY SERVICE LEARNING IMMERSION (WI) CRN: 32494 *HNRS 2216, SEC 002 (3 s.h.) This course will offer interdisciplinary didactic and experiential opportunities to explore the interrelatedness of content, form, and subject as a unifying framework in art that focuses on end of life care. Time outside of class including some weekend time may be anticipated to meet the course requirements. This can be credited as volunteer time. Times: T TH 0830-1000 Location: Brewster D 311 Instructors: Susan Martin Meggs, Assistant Professor, College of Human Ecology (MFA, University of Wisconsin); Annette G. Greer, Co-Director, Office of Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Education (PhD, East Carolina University) Prerequisite: None General Education Credit: Fine Arts or free elective. Fulfills 3 s.h. Writing Intensive requirement. AT THE BOUNDARIES OF THE "PERMISSIBLE": ART, POLITICS, AND ENTERTAINMENT IN RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN CONTEXTS (WI) CRN: 35316 HNRS 2116, SEC 001 (3 s.h.) Through cross-cultured examination of artistically powerful and nevertheless politically or otherwise controversial Russian and American films, books, documentaries, cartoons, photography, and other mass media forms, this interdisciplinary seminar in humanities will enable you to explore the boundaries of the permissible in the artists', authorities', and public's understanding of freedom of expression and interpretation. Course Flyer Days/Times: W 1400-1700 Location: Bate 2011 Instructor: Dr. Elena Murenina, Assistant Professor of Russian, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures (Ph.D., Saratov State University, Russia) Prerequisite: None General Education Credit: Humanities or free elective. Fulfills 3 s.h. Writing Intensive requirement. |
