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All registration will be done through RamWeb. Make an appointment to meet with your departmental adviser early so you'll be ready to take advantage of your priority registration time. Your major department assigns your adviser, so check with that office. The Honors Office is available, too, for advising. Call, email, or stop in for an appointment. The following courses are a sampling of Honors sections being offered for Spring Semester 2010, as of September 23, 2009. The description and other details for each class can be found by clicking on the CRN link from the tables below or from Class Schedule on RAMweb. HONORS seminar times and descriptions are listed at the bottom of this page.
The Honors courses listed above are described in the RamWeb Class Schedule by clicking on the CRN for each section. To determine if the course listed meets Honors curriculum requirements in your major, check the Honors website at http://www.honors.colostate.edu/academics/curriculum.htm. Click on either Track 1 or Track 2, then on the link for your college.
Honors Seminars (descriptions below table) CAUTION: The list below is current as of September 30, 2009
Sections 1 and 2: MOVE IT! – F. Glycenfer Everyday movement is a rich source for ritual, societal change and personal discovery. This class will explore how movement forms have evolved throughout history to present day and brought greater cultural awareness. Classes will include lecture/discussion, laboratory experiences and viewing movement events on DVD and Live Performances. Students will experience a variety of movement approaches through watching and participating in explorations that guide them in a process of discovery. Section 3: Cultural Conflict in Literature and Life – M. Elkins Section 4: Vietnam & America: An Introduction – P. Vaughan-Knaus America’s longest war--the Vietnam conflict--was also one of its most divisive. As U.S. troop levels swelled to more than a half million by the late 1960s, American society split sharply over the morality and efficacy of the war effort. The war’s inconclusiveness and unpopularity spawned not only a broad-based antiwar movement but also a reexamination of America’s purpose as wrenching and far-reaching as any other since the Civil War. Neither President Richard M. Nixon’s decision in 1969 to begin withdrawing U.S. troops nor the fall of Saigon to the communists in April 1975 did much to resolve the debate or to ease the traumas that it unleashed. Our class explores the larger boundaries of that debate by focusing on questions such as: Why did the United States intervene in Vietnam? What did the United States seek to accomplish in Vietnam? Were its goals attainable? Who were its enemies? Its allies? Can U.S. actions there be characterized as moral—or immoral? Much reading and even more discussion will allow us to travel back and re-live this conflict and its ascendant chaos, perhaps with new-found appreciation for Vietnam’s American legacy. Section 5: Who Am I? The Nature and Function of the Self – C. Elkins Who am I? How did I get to be who I am? This seminar seeks to explore these two major questions with a focus on the nature and creation of the Self in its interaction with the Other (family, friends, society at large and culture, i.e. anything that is not "me"), with an emphasis on the family. The course will be divided into five major sections: Nature versus Nurture and Theories of Human Nature will frame some of the basic issues; the Concept of the Self will focus on four key elements: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Class anchor our conceptions of who we are; family concentrates on the way in which this social institution functions in the formation of the Self; and the fifth and final section explores ways in which we attempt to sustain our sense of self in interaction with others. Sections 6 and 7: Gender in Our Lives - J. Krafchick From our family lives to college campuses to the race for the White House, gender shapes our experiences and relationships everyday. In this discussion based seminar, we will look across cultures and history to learn how gender roles have changed and how they affect people’s choices, relationships, and lives. Students will explore the social movements that have influenced gender roles, psychological theories related to gender identity development, and how the media shapes our perceptions of people based on their gender. We will discover the ways that gender influences politics, relationships, education, and careers. Using a gender lens, we will consider gender-based stereotypes and identify personal and professional solutions to resist the limitations these rigid expectations have on people and the impact on social and personal choices. Sections 8 and 11: Got Affluenza? – A. Merline Affluenza - the bloated sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste, and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the American Dream. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth. This course will examine the results of living in an affluent society. Based on the PBS series with the same name, a book that was written to expand on the series, and other scholarly works, we examine the effect of living in a society of over-consumption and its detriment to human culture and the environment. Section 9: Tell Me a Story: Finding and Creating Meaning in Our Lives – C. Elkins Listening to and creating stories appears natural and universal. There is no culture, however “primitive” without its stories about nature and themselves: where they come from, how to behave, and where they are going. As children, we hear stories and learn to repeat them; as adults, we hear, read, write, see and tell stories constantly from others, television, books, film, advertising, and even in our sleep. In stories we order our experiences and create ourselves. In this seminar, we explore the nature and function of stories as they are manifested in such narratives as: myths of origins and death, dreams, tragedy and comedy, politics, and autobiography. In doing so, we will focus on three general questions: Why do we need stories at all? Why do we need the “same” story over and over? Why do we always need more stories? Section 10: Ethical Dilemmas in Media - P. Plaisance This course is intended to introduce students to ethics theory and demonstrate its application in media practice. The course is designed to help students strengthen their ethical reasoning skills by exploring how various moral & political philosophical approaches can inform both the behavior of media professionals and the judgments of media consumers. These approaches are applied to actual case studies in journalism, public relations and advertising. Sections 12, 13 and 15: Globalization and Sustainable Development – J. Boulter Our earth is shrinking and flattening at the same time. This is not a recent phenomenon. Since Prince Henry the Navigator taught Magellan and Columbus to navigate the open oceans from his navigational wheel in Sagres Portugal, our international communities have been growing more connected and closer. Contemporaries of Columbus warned him that the Earth was flat and ended somewhat beyond the visible horizon; so the earth in effect was flattened by ignorance and superstition. Today our earth is flattened by technology, the Internet, and many powerful economic and social forces that encourage and support the pace and scope of Globalization. From the ever present Golden Arches, to the pervasive influence of the Internet, from immigration issues, to currency exchange systems and sustainable development, this class will examine our “New” world as 21st century academic explorers. Section 14: Infectious Disease: An Exploration of Human Disease and the Pioneers behind Biomedical Research – M. Brown In part I, students will explore the history of human disease and breakthroughs in biomedical research. We will delve into the mysteries of ancient plagues and discuss their influence on past civilizations, using art and literature of various cultures to follow pestilence on its path to the modern world. Section 1: Coming to America: The Immigrant Nation – M. Elkins The story of America is the story of immigrants -- their problems and contributions, their struggles to assimilate or to resist assimilation in their new country. In this course, we will begin by taking a look at the 19th and early 20th century immigration from Europe to the Northeastern part of the United States. From there we will move on to a study of a single city, Lawrence, Massachusetts, called "the immigrant city." Lawrence was created as a city for immigrants brought to Massachusetts to work in the great textile mills along the Merrimack River. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Lawrence has seen wave after wave of immigrants from different countries. It remains "the immigrant city" and is both representative of and unique in the American experience. Sections 2: Why Do They Hate Us? Understanding the Myths, Realities and Limits of the American Empire – K. Jaggers In “Why Do They Hate Us?” we will explore the tension between how Americans perceive themselves and how, and why, the rest of the world perceives us in a different, and typically less flattering, light. At its core, this course will focus on the uneasy relationship between America’s liberal political culture and institutions and the power-centric ideals that have traditionally governed our country’s foreign policy. Particular emphasis will be placed on the motivations and tactics that have fueled America’s expansionist ambitions over the past 200 years and the forces, both domestic and foreign, which have sought to limit both the size and scope of the “American Empire.” We will also examine both the political and moral implications associated with being the world’s first global “empire” and the social and political forces contributing to the rise of anti-American terrorism throughout the Islamic world. Sections 3 and 6: The Passion Within: Adventures in Creativity – F. Glycenfer What would life be like if we truly discovered our passions and were able to share them in a meaningful way that captures people’s imagination? This class seeks to develop individual passions through analyzing scientific research on creativity, exploring creative responses in improvisational activities and understanding the passions of others both well-known and those in our everyday lives. Creative passions are not just for the talented few, but can be found in many areas of our lives. The class will focus on how we can remake our passions to serve others and impact the world around us. Section 4: Media in American Life – J. Landers During significant periods in American history the media have played a role shaping public debate about important national issues and public perception of events pertaining to those issues. This seminar will explore these significant periods in American life: the Gilded Age of the 1880s to early 1900s when issues of economic injustice, the rights of workers, opportunities for women, racial separation, and the nation's emergence as a global power; the Jazz Age of the 1920s and Depression era when the cultural and social transformation challenged the status quo, and movies were an affront to mainstream morality while radio programming was perceived as both a benefit and a threat; the TV era of the 1950s-60s when nuclear war was a danger, civil rights for African-Americans dominated the national agenda, the Vietnam War divided the nation, and the Watergate political scandal resulted in the resignation of a president. Lectures, readings, and student presentations will examine media performance and socioeconomic conditions for each period. Section 5: You’re Not the Boss of Me: Perspectives on Human Rights – A. Merline This course examines the topic of human rights. We will read and discuss the philosophy, the articulation, and the legislation of human rights in the context of the United States and in the World Community. In order to make sense of a very broad topic we will break down this examination into economic, political, social, racial, and ethnic perspectives of human rights. Within these perspectives we will look at torture, unfair trials, exclusion from political participation, the subordination of women, and extreme poverty. We will also question the definition of human rights as a relative term. Other topics to explore are pornography, hate speech, censorship, sexual freedom, euthanasia, suicide, abortion, war, cloning, genetic enhancement, and the death penalty. Section 1: The Brain and Creative Problem Solving – R. Richburg Francis Crick, Nobel Prize winner, described the human brain as "the most awe inspiring entity in the known universe." This class will focus on understanding our awe inspiring brain. How does it work? How does it learn? How is each of our brains unique? Under what conditions does the brain learn most effectively? One of the brain's best functions is its ability to "figure things out" and solve problems. How the brain creates, innovates and solves problems will be central issues for the class. Class activities will include: lectures, discussions, model building, field trips and presentations by people who are creative in every day circumstances. (NOTE: This course is designed for any major, not just science majors!) Sections 2 and 3: Freedom in Focus – K. Jaggers This course is organized around the idea, and practice, of freedom. While freedom is said to be "on the march" in the world today, what, precisely, does this mean? What does it mean to have free will; to live in a free society; to express oneself freely? Moreover, is the march of freedom inevitable? Is it desirable? Should it be unbridled in both its promotion and construction? While there is a temptation in our society to uncritically accept the idea of freedom as an unalloyed "good," by viewing the concept of freedom through the analytical lenses of philosophy and the social sciences we are better able to understand the "bounded" role of freedom in human society. The objective of this course is to think critically about the idea of freedom and, in the process, to evaluate the political, social, theological and ethical arguments both for, and against, its promotion. In this course we will examine the idea of freedom by reading the works of classic social theorists and commentators (e.g., Plato, Mill, Kant, Freud, Sartre, etc) and by interpreting these works through the lens of modern cinema (e.g., The Seventh Seal, The Matrix, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Apocalypse Now, A Clockwork Orange, etc). Note: students who register for this course will be required to attend weekly screenings of films that fall outside of scheduled class meetings. Section 4: Construction of Self in the Arts and Sciences – G. Callahan There is only one thing that we come into this world with, only one thing we leave this world with (maybe), and only one thing that truly makes much of a difference along the way. Oddly enough, it is the one thing that we are told to ignore for the better part of our lives and the one thing that medical science has overlooked for most of the past century -- our selves. Construction of Self will explore three views of this most essential of human traits -- the biological, the philosophical, and the literary. Literature and philosophy have for centuries probed at the surface and the cavities of self. Biology, our teachers have told us, couldn't care a whole lot less about the nature of the human self. But as we will see in this course, biological and medical sciences, though less overtly, are also steadily changing the way we view our selves. The consideration of these seemingly disparate subjects and their intersections will allow us to explore the process of self-construction and the ways in which our images of self are synthesized from the seemingly discontinuous fragments of our experience.
Section 5: Globalize This! Fear and Loathing in the Age of Progress – K. Jaggers In "Globalize This!" we will explore both the perils and promise of globalization. For better or worse, the process of globalization is fundamentally transforming the economic, cultural and political foundations of the globe. While globalization holds out the promise of progress providing significant opportunities for the emancipation of the much of the world's population from the tyranny of poverty, ignorance and political repression it simultaneously evokes a sense of fear and loathing throughout the globe. Globalization has become a popular buzzword which serves to crystallize disagreements concerning the speed and direction of change in the world at large. Globalization is a contentious process; its meaning almost entirely dependent on who is talking about. Neo-liberal economic reformers, environmental and human rights activists, security experts and cultural nationalists, to name a few, all compete for the right to stake claim to the idea of globalization and shape public perceptions about its potential impact on the world in which we live. While both the meaning and merits of globalization have become highly politicized in recent years, with intellectual debate about this topic transforming itself into contentious political action with increasing regularity, in this class we will seek to evaluate the origins, nature and impact of this process in the modern world using insights and analytical tools from history and the social sciences. Section 6: America and the Civil War – M. Elkins “Any understanding of this nation has to be based on an understanding of the Civil War... it defines us.” These are the words of the eminent Civil War historian, Shelby Foote, and they form the premise for this course. Who we are as a nation, how we see ourselves, what we value, and how we conduct our national and international life all have their roots in this great 19th Century catastrophic upheaval. This is not a history course although we will be reading James McPherson’s Crossroads of Freedom and other historical texts. Rather, it is a course on the ways in which the Civil War has seeped into our consciousness and been revised and reinterpreted over generations. In particular, we will look at its influences in art, both popular and elite. We will look at fiction dealing with the Civil War, such as The Killer Angels, and films ranging from Gone With the Wind through Glory and Gettysburg. We will read some poetry from the time, such as the work of Walt Whitman, and from the 20th Century, such as Robert Lowell’s “For the Union Dead.” We will consider such issues as the image and reputation of Abraham Lincoln over the years, the relationship between slavery and contemporary racism. The consequences of the Civil War, both good and ill, are all around us. And the interest in the War and its iconic cast (Lincoln, Lee, Frederick Douglass, to name only three) is manifested in the amazing amount of research, of a very high quality, that appears on bookshelves on an almost daily basis. In the words of William Faulkner, “The past is not dead. In fact, it isn’t even past.” Section 7: Construction of Self in the Arts and Sciences – D. Mogen There is only one thing that we come into this world with, only one thing we leave this world with (maybe), and only one thing that truly makes much of a difference along the way. Oddly enough, it is the one thing that we are told to ignore for the better part of our lives and the one thing that medical science has overlooked for most of the past century -- our selves. Construction of Self will explore three views of this most essential of human traits -- the biological, the philosophical, and the literary. Literature and philosophy have for centuries probed at the surface and the cavities of self. Biology, our teachers have told us, couldn't care a whole lot less about the nature of the human self. But as we will see in this course, biological and medical sciences, though less overtly, are also steadily changing the way we view our selves. The consideration of these seemingly disparate subjects and their intersections will allow us to explore the process of self-construction and the ways in which our images of self are synthesized from the seemingly discontinuous fragments of our experience.
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