Honors Interdisciplinary Seminars

Fall 2013

HONR 3310-01 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Social Justice: The Role of Reading, Writing, and Understanding Non-Fiction

Mon / 5:00pm – 8:00pm (Seq 99)
CRN: 16223

Michael Patrick MacDonald
Honors Program Writer-in-Residence

In order to write the most effective non‐fiction around social justice issues, a writer might undertake personal reflection on their own life to access that “place” that allows for greater empathy. When we write about issues affecting other people’s lives, it is important to engage in a process of contemplation that will lead to more in‐depth understanding, and create a unique and passionate “voice” that brings the reader in. This is true, no matter where we come from or what our previous exposure to the issues at hand. This model is the mark of training in traditional fields such as anthropology and the new genre of “self aware” contemporary writing that contributes to our understanding of social issues. This “writing classroom” will help students engage in critical thought and discussion of a wide range of social issues as well as grassroots movement for change. Central unifying themes of the course will be poverty, violence, and the intersection of social justice and healing efforts in communities affected by both. We will focus on the implications for writers of non‐fiction on these topics. The course will present an “insider’s” view into writing with a greater consciousness of these topics by starting with some of my work, which includes two memoirs, a screen‐play, editorials and a work‐in‐progress on solutions to gang violence in Massachusetts. Second, the course will move outward to the works of other significant writers of non‐fiction – what has made their work so effective and memorable? Have the works influenced or been influenced by contemporary social problems? Are there policy links to any of these writings? Finally, the course will frame a discussion of the many ways to write non‐fiction about these central themes: as memoirs, non‐fiction books, as reports, as news articles, and as policy initiatives. This course is suitable for students interested in general public policy issues, criminal justice concerns, social problems and social justice, journalism, urban anthropology, international affairs, English and the practice of writing.

HONR 3310-02 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Promoting Success Through Prevention Science

Mon, Thurs / 11:45am – 1:25pm (Seq A)
CRN: 16224

Prof. Emily Mann
Human Services

Child maltreatment, school failure, delinquency, and substance abuse are complicated social problems with complex causes and multifaceted solutions. Over the last century, intervention has been framed to “cure” these social problems and others. And yet individuals, families, and communities continue to be plagued by these issues. This course will ask the question “how can we prevent, intervene, and treat social problems in a more effective manner?” Using frameworks from public health, social work, psychology, sociology and family studies, we will explore the implementation of “best practices” as defined by the field known as prevention science. We will assess programmatic ability to reduce social problems and enhance positive outcomes for children, their families, and their communities. We will examine the feasibility and effectiveness of universal and selective prevention, intervention, and treatment programs on a wide range of contemporary social problems. Through class readings and discussions, we will begin to better understand what makes programs work – who is most effectively reached, whether there is an optimal intervention point, and why some programs work and others do not.

HONR 3310-03 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Can There Be Morality In Politics?

Wed / 5:00pm – 8:00pm (Seq 99)
CRN: 16225

Prof. David Rochefort
Department of Political Science

Who lives and who dies? How should scarce resources be allocated? What degree of inequality should be allowed between different social groups? When should the power of the state be used for coercion, punishment, destruction, or blame? These are just some of the weighty issues in politics that involve a critical moral dimension. The purpose of this course is to review a series of case studies in which morality and pragmatism have competed for attention in the policy making process. Through in-depth discussion of the background of these historical and contemporary situations and the controversies they provoked, students in this highly interactive seminar will examine the consideration of morality in politics and how leaders confront questions of means v. ends, rival stakeholder interests, short v. long-term benefit, and other challenging quandaries.

HONR 3310-04 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Understanding Space through Building Deep Maps

Mon, Wed / 2:50pm – 4:30pm (Seq B)
CRN: 16226

Prof. Ryan Cordell
English Department

“Deep Maps” will use cutting-edge technology, historical artifacts, site visits, and literary works to understand the complex interplay between place, culture, and artistic works. Students will work with Global Information Systems (GIS) and other spatial software to build “deep maps” which overlay historical maps, census data, literary texts, photographs, videos, and other spatial layers to create complex, nuanced arguments about specific Boston neighborhoods. At the heart of the course is the big question: how does the shared physical space of a city become the shared cultural and civic space of a community? We will visit Boston’s neighborhoods and historic sites; study neighborhood archives; examine historical maps tracing the city’s development; read iconic literary works about the city (from the eighteenth-century poetry of Phillis Wheatley to The Autobiography of Malcolm X); and compose interpretive, digital, geospatial projects concentrated on one aspect of the city’s history or culture. These projects will help students build proficiency working with digital platforms for interpreting geospatial data—skills which could benefit students in a range of academic or professional fields.

HONR 3310-05 – Honors Seminar
Topic: A History of Espionage & Covert Operations in the Cold War

Wed / 5:00pm – 8:00pm (Seq 99)
CRN: 16227

Prof. Jeffrey Burds
History Department

Commonly referred to as the world’s “second oldest profession,” espionage has become an intrinsic part of the relations between communities, institutions, and states. Drawing from a wide variety of published and unpublished primary and secondary sources, supplemented by modern theoretical and social science perspectives, literature, and films, this course explores the history of espionage during the Cold War era (1943-1991) through a series of case studies. Working individually and in teams, students will explore the history of covert operations including these sub-themes: the origins of the Cold War in World War II; the postwar battle for German scientists; Containment and Rollback; Venona and codebreaking; nuclear spies; defectors; proxy wars; insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; terrorism; technology.

Students will create a framework for understanding the alternative roles of espionage in wartime and peacetime, as well as the standard methods for establishing and running agent networks in hostile conditions.

HONR 3310-06 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Limits on Scientific Knowledge: Chaos, Complexity, and Computability

Tues / 11:45am – 1:25pm & Thurs / 2:50pm – 4:30pm (Seq H)
CRN: 16228

Prof. Waleed Meleis
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The principle of determinism – the belief that future behavior can be known and determined from an analysis of current conditions – has shaped contemporary scientific knowledge in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and other areas. This seminar begins with an exploration of this principle, and then focuses on four important conceptual challenges that were discovered during the 20th century and which reduce the applicability of determinism: chaos, complexity, uncertainty, and noncomputability. These ideas have had a dramatic effect on scientific disciplines as diverse as biology, computer science, economics, sociology, and engineering, and on applications such as weather prediction, genome sequencing, and cell phone routing. In understanding these challenges, we will discuss their practical implications for scientists. Throughout the seminar students will get hands-on experience using software packages.

HONR 3310-07 – Honors Seminar
Topic: The Art of Narrative Non-Fiction: From the Survivors of Hiroshima to the Garbage Pickers of Mumbai

Thurs / 5:00pm – 8:00pm (Seq 99)
CRN: 16229

Prof. James Ross
School of Journalism

We will read and discuss the work of some of the most compelling non-fiction writers of the 20th and 21st century and screen some of the films based on their works. We will watch and discuss a film one week and discuss the author and the book on which the film was based the following week. These authors narrate true stories but use devices normally associated with fiction, such as scenic construction, dialogue and shifting points of view.
John Hersey’s “Hiroshima,” first published in The New Yorker magazine in 1946, portrayed the lives of six survivors of the atomic blast and showed the horrors of nuclear warfare in human terms. Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” (1966) reconstructed the savage murder of a farmer and his family in Holcomb, Kansas and the search, capture and execution of the two killers. The film “Capote,” among others, is based on this non-fiction novel. Michael Herr’s “Dispatches” (1977) is a vivid, first-hand account from soldiers on the front lines of the Vietnam War. Some of the characters in the book appeared in Herr’s screenplay for Stanley Kubrick’s film “Full Metal Jacket.” Susan Orlean’s “The Orchid Thief”(1998) was the basis for the film “Adaptation,” starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep.

We also will discuss the narrative non-fiction of Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, John McPhee, Gay Talese, Tracy Kidder and Katherine Boo. We will examine some of the issues raised by this type of journalism, particularly the blurring of lines between fiction and non-fiction, and analyze the use of narrative elements, photography, editing and sound in the films.

HONR 3310-08 – Honors Seminar
Topic: After the War: American Visual Culture Since 1945

Thurs / 5:00pm – 8:00pm (Seq 99)
CRN: 16434

Prof. Sara Doris
Department of Art + Design

The years after 1945 saw, as art critic Irving Sandler phrased it, the “triumph of American Painting:” American art had at last achieved an unprecedented level of international prestige. At the same time, the increasing proliferation of mass cultural forms was seen by many to constitute a threat to this precarious achievement. This course will survey the dialectical relationship between ‘high’ and ‘low’ forms of visual culture in the post-World War II U.S. as articulated in the visual arts (including Pop Art, feminist art, new media art), architecture (suburbia and pop architecture), television (sitcoms and the counter-culture’s use of t.v. news), and film (teen pics and post-modern movies). We will also examine the global influence–and criticism–of contemporary American visual culture.

HONR 3310-09 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Hearing the Movies: Music, Dialogue, and Sound Effects

Tues, Fri / 9:50am – 11:30am (Seq D)
CRN: 16527

Prof. Anthony De Ritis
Department of Music

This course introduces concepts related to *really* hearing sound in films. The course begins with a discussion of the history, technology and aesthetics of early sound films in the American Film Industry. Also known as a “The Coming of Sound”, this first part includes the onset of film style, the evolution of sound technology, and the developing practice of sound editing, mixing and aesthetics of film sound in the late 1920s and 1930s. Part II consists of the development of sound theory, referring to the onset of classical and modern sound theory, as the practice of making films with music, dialogue and sound effects began to gain traction throughout the world — especially in Russia, Europe and the United States. Part III focuses on the evolving practice and methodology of sound in film, looking closely at some of the pioneers and stylists and their use of sound in film, such as Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, and other filmmakers from outside of the U.S. Part IV covers the contemporary innovators, in particular the advent of the “Sound Designer” as an independent and distinct role in the making of films. Here we will learn some of the secrets of how sounds such as the light saber in Star Wars were created, as well as approaches to mixing sounds in film, such as in Apocalypse Now . Class activities includes reading a series of essays on the subject, group-based presentations on research topics, a mid-term essay and final essay; a basic sound design project, where groups will apply what is learned and will design all of the sound for a given film excerpt; and, of course, viewing and listening to a series of films. A working knowledge of the terms and methodology for understanding how to analyze and appreciate film sound is the goal of this course.

HONR 3310-10 – Honors Seminar
Topic: After the Walls Came Down: Central Europe Before, During and After Communism

Mon / 5:00pm – 8:00pm (Seq 99)
CRN: 16567

Prof. Harlow Robinson
History Department

The goal of this course is to understand the human dimensions of the dramatic political changes that have taken place in Central and Eastern Europe since 1945. What has it been like to live through the rise and fall of Communism, and into the brave—and often frightening–new world of capitalism? Using historical writings, memoirs, novels and films, we will examine the transformation of the societies in this volatile region in the post-war period, paying particular attention to Czechoslovakia (later Czech Republic and Slovakia), East Germany and Hungary. Austria, the only country in the region to develop an enduring capitalist economy and democratic government after 1945, will provide a different comparative model. Why did Communism appeal to so many people in these countries? How did national and cultural factors influence the way the various Communist regimes arose and developed? How did the USSR attempt to control the local populations? How have these various countries and societies dealt with the difficult transition from Communism to capitalism? The goal of the course is to understand better what people gained—and what they lost—when the fences and walls came tumbling down from Berlin to Prague to Budapest.

Summer 2013

Summer 1

HONR 3310-01 – Honors Seminar
Topic: A History of Espionage & Covert Operations in the Cold War

Seq 3
Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs / 1:30pm – 3:10pm
CRN: 40839

Prof. Jeffrey Burds
History Department

Commonly referred to as the world’s “second oldest profession,” espionage has become an intrinsic part of the relations between communities, institutions, and states. Drawing from a wide variety of published and unpublished primary and secondary sources, supplemented by modern theoretical and social science perspectives, literature, and films, this course explores the history of espionage during the Cold War era (1943-1991) through a series of case studies. Working individually and in teams, students will explore the history of covert operations including these sub-themes: the origins of the Cold War in World War II; the postwar battle for German scientists; Containment and Rollback; Venona and codebreaking; nuclear spies; defectors; psyops; interrogation; MKULTRA; proxy wars; insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; terrorism; technology; cyberespionage.

HONR 3309 – Honors Seminar Abroad

Dialogue is full; no longer accepting applications.

The purpose of the course is to use Rome as a social laboratory to explore major urban issues. Rome will be examined in a context of its geographic region, its role as the capital city of Italy, and as a major urban center of the European Union. The course will address the social, political and cultural history of Rome and its role as a contemporary cultural trend setter and world class city. Through explorations within the city and other key sites in the area including Florence and Herculaneum students will learn about political and economic life of Italy. The course will use ethnographic research, scholarly articles, guest lectures, site visits to develop a deeper understanding of contemporary issues such as immigration, gentrification, changing gender roles, political corruption, and tourism that would not otherwise be possible in a traditional classroom setting.

Summer 2

HONR 3310-01 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Can There Be Morality In Politics?

Seq B
Mon, Wed / 1:30pm – 5:00pm
CRN: 60700

Prof. David Rochefort
Department of Political Science

Spring 2013

HONR 3310-01 – Honors Seminar
Topic: A History of Espionage & Covert Operations in the Cold War

Seq B
Mon, Wed / 2:50pm – 4:30pm
CRN: 36332

Prof. Jeffrey Burds
History Department

HONR 3310-02 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Contemporary Issues of Substance Abuse

Seq: D
Tues, Fri / 9:50am – 11:30am
CRN: 36333

Prof. Carol Paronis
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences

This course covers pharmacological, social, and political aspects of drug abuse and the treatment of drug abuse disorders. Didactic lectures the mechanisms of action of different drugs are paired with class discussions on readings drawn from the original literature that describe pharmacological effects of commonly abused drugs including opioids, psychomotor stimulants, alcohol, marijuana, and nicotine. The class will also address the use of research data to set legal and medical policy.

HONR 3310-03 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Health Policy in an Era of Reform

Seq B
Mon, Wed / 2:50pm – 4:30pm
CRN: 36334

Prof. Kristin Madison
Department of Health Sciences
School of Law

Health reform has dominated headlines for much of the last few years. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and numerous other reform initiatives led by policymakers, health care providers, employers, and others have the potential to completely transform the health care system. In this course, we will look behind the headlines to evaluate the implications of these initiatives for health care access, cost, and quality, and ultimately for health. Through readings, class discussions, and research papers and presentations, we will explore diverse health policy-related issues, including obesity, health incentives, direct-to-consumer advertising, health disparities, malpractice liability, and the Affordable Care Act. We will then identify the common themes that weave these topics together and discuss their implications for the future health care system.

HONR 3310-04 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Social Fact from Fiction: Using Novels to Explore Contemporary Social Problems and Public Policy

Seq: 99
Wed / 5:00pm – 8:00pm
CRN: 36335

Prof. David Rochefort
Department of Political Science

Harriet Beecher Stowe and slavery. Upton Sinclair and unhealthy working conditions. John Steinbeck and the Great Depression. Richard Wright and racial inequality. There is a long tradition of concern in American fiction with emerging or neglected social problems. At its best, such work has had far-reaching effects, first in raising public awareness, and second in triggering public policy reforms. The purpose of this honors seminar will be to examine the way that novelists on the contemporary scene are using their writing to explore poverty, homelessness, mental illness, race relations, domestic abuse, and other important social issues. Reading fiction can be a powerful experience that brings together the “historical,” “social,” and “personal” dimensions of life in our society. By focusing on a series of noteworthy realist novels, this course aims to cover both the factual basis of the texts and the narrative devices, such as plotting, characterization, symbolism, subjective description, and normative judgment, used by authors to cast a spotlight on social problems and their impacts.

HONR 3310-05 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Unraveling the Beatles

Seq A
Mon, Thurs / 11:45am – 1:25pm
CRN: 36336

Prof. Dennis Miller
Department of Music

This course will look at the threads that weave through the career of the Beatles. Their influence, while grounded in their music, spun off in ways that helped to both shape and reflect a particular historical time between 1963 and 1971. Yet, their musical consciousness continues to influence today. This course will explore how the themes of religion, politics and innovation (among others) run through their music. The course will ground students in the musical terms and concepts that will be used as foundational tools to discuss the seminal influence of the Beatles.

HONR 3310-06 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Social Impact Investing: Connecting Compassion and Capital

Seq H
Tues / 11:45am – 1:25pm & Thurs / 2:50pm – 4:30pm
CRN: 36337

Prof. Dennis Shaughnessy
Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Impact investing is a rapidly emerging sector within the global capital markets and investment community in which investors increasingly fund social enterprises dedicated to solving the world’s most difficult problems, like extreme poverty. Historically, these enterprises received funding by way of donations from generous individuals and grants from non-profit foundations and government agencies. Today, many are seeking and receiving much needed capital to fund critical operations in the form of equity investments, loans and other forms or so-called “patient capital.” In this class, students will learn about this emerging sector, as well as study the people and enterprises that receive impact or patient capital and how they use it to build sustainable high impact social enterprises around the world, and especially in low income or developing countries. Investors seeking financial and social returns are growing in number and influence, and we will learn about their motivations, goals, and outlook as we study new methods for alleviating poverty among the “other three billion.” The course is open to all majors.

HONR 3310-07 – Honors Seminar
Topic: Global Political Ecology: Environmental Justice & the Polluter-Industrial Complex

Seq 99
Tues / 5:00pm to 8:00pm
CRN: 36765

Prof. Daniel Faber
Department of Sociology and Anthropology

A new arena of environmental conflict and policy response has emerged over the last two decades around issues of Environmental Justice (EJ) – essentially the social justice implications of environmental degradation and regulation. This advanced undergraduate honors research seminar in will explore contemporary environmental politics and ecological threats, with a focus on environmental inequities experienced by different peoples in the U.S. and world economy. Topical areas of theoretical focus include the political economy of ecological degradation in the United States; technology and environmental exploitation; underdevelopment, imperialism, and ecological crises in the Global South; the relationship between ecological and economic crisis; the social division of labor and economic/ecological stratification; the human and environmental impacts of corporate-led globalization; environmental injustice (especially in terms of race, class, and gender); and the current crisis of labor, environmental, and other popular social movements. These topics and more will be analyzed from a political-economic or class perspective in order to achieve a more “totalistic” view of the global ecological crisis. In particular, the class will examine the growing power of the “polluter-industrial complex” to shape environmental regulations and policy prescriptions related to climate change, pollution and toxic wastes, unsafe foods, and other environmental and human health problems. Students will design a major research project and report, and present their findings to the class.

Fall 2012

HONR 3342: Topics in Contemporary Issues
Topic: Focus on Analysis, “The Edible Environment”

Jennifer Cole, Academic Specialist; Director
Environmental Science Program

Seq: 3 – Monday, Wednesday, Thursday / 10:30-11:35 AM , CRN: 16307

Agricultural activities are the single largest impact humans have on the earth. Historically, subsistence farming provided for families and communities with minimal impact on the environment. As we shifted to industrial farming, the impacts on soil, air, and water, biodiversity, and human health have become unsustainable. This course examines the environmental, historic, social, economic, and political dimensions of eating. Environmental impacts include soil erosion and contamination, global warming, and groundwater contamination by pesticides, 3 herbicides, and fertilizers. Economic impacts include poverty and nutrition, fair wages for farm workers, the misuse of natural resources in industrializing nations, and monocrops for trade instead of multiple crops in subsistence farming. Social impacts include mad cow disease, bacterial food poisoning, the cases for vegetarianism, and the use of antibiotics and growth hormones in the meat industry. Political discussions will include the development of technology, the possibility of cultivating more land, moving to the oceans for food, and the political implications of food importing. We will discuss alternatives such as organic farming, fair trade, and shifting to different types of food including insects and algae.

HONR 3341 – Topics in Contemporary Issues: An Historical, Ethical or Aesthetic Perspective
Topic: After the War: American Visual Culture Since 1945

Assistant Prof. Sara Doris
Art and Design, College of Art Media and Design

Seq: 99 – Thursday / 5-8 PM, CRN: 15835

The years after 1945 saw, as art critic Irving Sandler phrased it, the “triumph of American Painting:” American art had at last achieved an unprecedented level of international prestige. At the same time, the increasing proliferation of mass cultural forms was seen by many to constitute a threat to this precarious achievement. This course will survey the dialectical relationship between ‘high’ and ‘low’ forms of visual culture in the post-World War II U.S. as as articulated in the visual arts (including Pop Art, feminist art, new media art), architecture (suburbia and pop architecture), television (sitcoms and the counter-culture’s use of t.v. news), and film (teen pics and post-modern movies). We will also examine the global influence – and criticism – of contemporary American visual culture.

HONR 3343 – Topics in Contemporary Issues
Topic: The Art of Narrative Non-Fiction: From the survivors of Hiroshima to the garbage pickers of Mumbai

Prof. James Ross
School of Journalism

Seq. 99 – Thursday / 5-8 pm, CRN: 16132

We will read and discuss the work of some of the most compelling non-fiction writers of the 20^th and 21^st century and screen some of the films based on their works. We will watch and discuss a film one week and discuss the author and the book on which the film was based the following week. These authors narrate true stories but use devices normally associated with fiction, such as scenic construction, dialogue and shifting points of view.

John Hersey’s “Hiroshima,” first published in The New Yorker magazine in 1946, portrayed the lives of six survivors of the atomic blast and showed the horrors of nuclear warfare in human terms. Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” (1966) reconstructed the savage murder of a farmer and his family in Holcomb, Kansas and the search, capture and execution of the two killers. The film “Capote,” among others, is based on this non-fiction novel. Michael Herr’s “Dispatches” (1977) is a vivid, first-hand account from soldiers on the front lines of the Vietnam War. Some of the characters in the book appeared in Herr’s screenplay for Stanley Kubrick’s film “Full Metal Jacket.” Susan Orlean’s “The Orchid Thief”(1998) was the basis for the film “Adaptation,” starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep.

HONR 3341-01 – Topics in Contemporary Issues: An Historical, Ethical,
or Aesthetic Perspective
Topic: Social Justice: The Role of Reading Writing and Understanding Non-Fiction

Michael Patrick MacDonald
Honors Program Writer-In-Residence

Seq. 99 – Monday / 5-8 pm, CRN: 14650

In order to write the most effective non‐fiction around social justice issues, a writer might undertake personal reflection on their own life to access that “place” that allows for greater empathy. When we
write about issues affecting other people’s lives, it is important to engage in a process of contemplation that will lead to more in‐depth understanding, and create a unique and passionate “voice” that brings the reader in. This is true, no matter where we come from or what our previous exposure to the issues at hand. This model is the mark of training in traditional fields such as anthropology and the new genre of “self aware” contemporary writing that contributes to our understanding of social issues. This “writing classroom” will help students engage in critical thought and discussion of a wide range of social issues as well as grassroots movement for change. Central unifying themes of the course will be poverty, violence, and the intersection of social justice and healing efforts in communities affected by both. We will focus on the implications for writers of non‐fiction on these topics. The course will present an “insider’s” view into writing with a greater consciousness of these topics by starting with some of my work, which includes two memoirs, a screen‐play, editorials and a work‐in‐progress on solutions to gang violence in Massachusetts. Second, the course will move outward to the works of other significant writers of non‐fiction – what has made their work so effective and memorable? Have the works influenced or been influenced by contemporary social problems? Are there policy links to any of these writings? Finally, the course will frame a discussion of the many ways to write non‐fiction about these central themes: as memoirs, non‐fiction books, as reports, as news articles, and as policy initiatives. This course is suitable for students interested in general public policy issues, criminal justice concerns, social problems and social justice, journalism, urban anthropology, international affairs, English and the practice of writing.

HONR 3302 – Topics in Research and Inquiry: Focus on Analysis
Topic: Limits on Scientific Knowledge: Chaos, Complexity, and
Computability

Prof. Waleed Meleis
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
Ph.D. University of Michigan

Seq. H – Tuesday 11:45 am-1:25 pm, Thursday 2:50 pm-4:30 pm, CRN: 16441

HONR 3341-02 – Topics in Contemporary Issues: An Historical, Ethical,
or Aesthetic Perspective
Topic: Contemporary Issues in Health Care

Prof. Lorna Hayward
Physical Therapy Department

Seq. A – Monday, Thursday / 11:45 am – 1:25 pm, CRN: 14651

The course will examine modern health care issues at the individual, local, national, and global levels. Students will develop an understanding of U.S. health care issues in an historical context. Students will also develop an understanding of health care issues abroad in both developed and underdeveloped nations. Students will examine health decisions from multiple perspectives including: historical, political, ethical, financial, technological, and epidemiological.

HONR 3343 – Topics in Contemporary Issues
Topic: Mastering the Language of Public Affairs: The 2012 Campaign Edition

Prof. David Rochefort
Distinguished Professor
Political Science Department

Seq. 99 – Wednesday / 5-8 pm, CRN: 16304

“Political language is political reality,” observed the eminent political scientist Murray Edelman. In fact, one finds many distinct narratives inside the world of public affairs, forms of communication whose content and methods differ according to purpose, audience, and authorship. How might an anti-war critic compose a persuasive newspaper editorial presenting his or her position? Have you ever wondered why one stump speech ignites a crowd, while another falls flat? What communication strategy might you adopt if you were a high-level official invited to be interviewed on Meet the Press? The purpose of this course is two-fold: first, to analyze the use of language in editorials, speeches, slogans, position papers, oral testimony, and other vehicles of political communication; second, to practice the skills necessary for effective writing in the domain of politics and policy making. This seminar will be taught coincident with the 2012 presidential campaign, and special attention will be given to related political ads, candidate debates, late-night humor, and more. The course is intended for students in any discipline who are interested in public affairs. No specialized knowledge of politics and government is required.

HONR 3343-01 – Topics in Contemporary Issues
Topic: Promoting Success Through Prevention Science

Prof. Emily Mann
Human Services Department

Seq. 99 – Wednesday / 5-8 pm, CRN: 14655

HONR 3301-02 – The City of Light: Paris 1919-1940

Prof. Beryl Schlossman
English Department

Seq. 99 – Monday / 5-8 pm, CRN: 14711

Twentieth-century Paris begins to flourish at the end of World War I. The city draws writers, painters, architects, composers, photographers, designers, performing artists, intellectuals, and exiles from many places to live and work in the city of light. American writers who became part of Gertrude Stein’s “lost generation” include Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Barnes, Faulkner, Eliot, and Pound. Surrealism, jazz, avant-garde film, and photography contribute to the arts in society.

This Honors seminar emphasizes learning through the study of literature and the experience of a range of works of art, including film, style and spectatorship, music, and the arts in society. Readings and seminar discussions focus on American literature, and French films will be viewed with subtitles. Students will be asked to write short papers on three of the works studied, and to complete an individual project in any medium, integrally related to the works studied in the course.