Honors College Distribution
CAS:  Mathematical Sciences or Social Sciences
GSB:  Humanities
CALS:  Humanities & Fine Arts
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

Major/Minor: counts as elective in Anthropology and Linguistics majors and minors

Semantics is the study of the way in which the meaning of the sentences of human language is composed from the meanings of words and phrases. That may seem straightforward; we will quickly discover that it is not. The discipline of semantics makes use of concepts grounded in logic and mathematics to formalize a theory of how meaning is made. Our class will largely consist of acquiring a set of analytical tools (set theory, relations, functions, functional application, statement logic, predicate logic, type theory and lambda abstraction) and learning to use those tools to solve problems of interpretation of natural language.

CAS:  Humanities
GSB:  D2, Social Science Core or Humanities Core
CALS:   Humanities & Scoial Sciences
CEMS: Engineering Students - Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/CSIS/DS students check with your advisor and department chair
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS:  Consult with your academic advisor
CESS: Consult with academic advisor

This course takes its inspiration from an essay by Hannah Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” which we will read in the course and in which she explores the problem of the move from theoretical discussions of justice to real political action in the world. While all recognize the need to base political action on firm philosophical principles, the life of the mind, in its constant questioning, problematizing, and reconsideration of its own foundations, does not at first glance seem to support political action, which ideally rests on commitment to firmly held convictions. And yet no thinker would want to shut down the possibility of acting for political change, broadly defined, on account of the ever-changing interrogations of what we mean by “equality,” “justice,” and so on.

The course will examine the ways power and privilege have been theorized, with attention to class, gender, race, and other categories, by those who go on actively to support, and also to engage in, activity that promotes political change in the world that is in line with the complexity of their own abstract reflections about engagement with the world. We will spend time looking at the relationship between education and democracy, with readings that trace the necessity of an informed citizenry, the obstacles to cultivating a life of the mind in a democracy and ways to overcome them, and the question of how best to cultivate cosmopolitanism in education. In the second section of the course, we will inquire why the habits of mind encouraged by the formation of intellect (the questioning, creative life of the mind as opposed to the goal-oriented, narrowly focused problem-solving of intelligence) so often lead, not to withdrawn contemplation but rather to progressive political engagement (and to resistance from dominant mainstream culture threatened by intellect). We will then examine theoretical and autobiographical writings by those who have both articulated and lived theories of social change across questions of class, race, culture, and sexuality and how the life of the mind informed, shaped, and altered the course of their political engagement. These figures include a diverse range of intellectuals, artists, and political figures from both within and beyond the United States.

CAS: Social Science 
GSB:  D2, Social Science Core
CALS: Social Science, Humanities
CEMS:  Engineering Students - Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/CSIS/DS students check with your advisor and department chair
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS:  Consult with your academic advisor
CESS: Consult with academic advisor

Major/Minor Requirements

Elective for Health &  Society (HSOC) major and minor

For optimal well-being, is happiness the ultimate goal or should one focus more on personal growth, positive relationships, and a purpose driven life?  While there is no current consensus on a single definition of well-being, researchers agree that well-being is a multidimensional construct involving biological, social, and psychological influences occurring over the course of one’s life. Optimal well-being is a state where one experiences good emotional, physical, and social health. So how do we attain positive states of well-being? Is optimal well-being the absence of suffering?  Positive emotions, absence of negative emotions or cognitions, mastery in chosen field, and satisfying interpersonal relationships provide us the ability to face life’s challenges successfully. However, the pursuit of optimal well-being and the different ways of knowing about aspects of well-being differs across cultures and societies.

CAS:   Social Science
GSB:  D2, Social Science Core
CALS:  Social Science
CEMS:  Engineering Students - Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/CSIS/DS students check with your advisor and department chair
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS:  Consult with your academic advisor
CESS: Consult with academic advisor

Why use such a pejorative term as "madness" for the title of this course? This term has long history and illustrates the stigma often associated with mental health diagnoses. Using historical assessments, cultural differences worldwide, and psychological science research, students will use this multi-perspective approach to understand what is behind mental health stigma and will examine ways to break down such destructive stereotypes and treatment barriers.

Apply your knowledge to your own mental health processes (for example, categories of problems, evaluation, client/patient care, treatment methods and strategies, treatment outcomes) through weekly reflective assignments, class discussions and to professional applications such as education, communication disorders, law, clinical psychology/mental health, and social relationships.

CAS:  Literature
GSB:  Social Science or Humanities Core
CALS:  Social Science
CEMS:  Engineering Students - Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/CSIS/DS students check with your advisor RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

Major/Minor: Can be counted toward GSWS major or minor

In “Gender and Ways Knowing,” we will focus on the concepts of space and place in our discussions of the ways in which gender is constructed and experienced by us and others as a form of knowledge.  The space of language, the space of our body, the spaces between people, the historical and cultural space that separates us (or not) from texts like Paradise Lost, actual physical spaces we live in—all these will be the subject of our explorations. 

The course has two “plots.” The main plot is the work we will be doing in class with our primary texts: the biblical book of Genesis, excerpts from John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Jennie Livingston’s 1990 film, “Paris is Burning,” and Janet Mock’s Redefining Realness, among others.  Many of our discussions will focus on the spaces of possibility that are opened by these texts, particularly when we put them into conversation with the secondary texts that the course will draw on, a number of theory-based essays on gender, power, and privilege.  Often in the course, we will pause to consider events and people in the news and in popular culture.

The second plot of the course will move us from the consideration of these “imaginative spaces” (as geographers would refer to them) to actual spaces (built and virtual) in which we experience and imagine gender in our lives.  This part of the course will be conducted in a semester-long progressive project, and will culminate in group presentations prepared for the HCOL First-Year Research Symposium at the end of the semester.

CAS:  Social Science
GSB:  D2, Social Science Core
CALS:  Social Science, Humanities
CEMS:  Engineering Students - Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/CSIS/DS students check with your advisor and department chair
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS:  Consult with your academic advisor
CESS: Consult with academic advisor

 Major/Minor Requirements

Elective for Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies major and minor

Elective for Sexuality and Gender Identity Studies minor

Elective for Health & Society (HSOC) major and minor

Elective for Sociology major and minor

What is medicine? How is medical knowledge produced and by whom? How is medical knowledge and practice related to the larger political, cultural, and social contexts in which it develops? What “truths” does medicine tell us about sex, gender, and sexuality and how have these “truths” changed over time? Medicine, as a branch of science, is often envisioned as apart from culture. However, as this course will demonstrate, it is very much a part of culture. Medical knowledge and practice are shaped by culture and in turn shape cultural knowledge and practice. In this course we will examine medicine through a cultural lens, drawing on sociological, historical, anthropological, philosophical, feminist, queer, and critical race studies perspectives in order to explore the intersections of sex, gender, sexuality, and medicine.

CAS:  Humanities
GSB:  D2, Social Science Core or Humanities Core
CALS:   Humanities & Social Science
CEMS: Engineering Students - Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/CSIS/DS students check with your advisor and department chair
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS:  Consult with your academic advisor
CESS: Consult with academic advisor

This course takes its inspiration from an essay by Hannah Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” which we will read in the course and in which she explores the problem of the move from theoretical discussions of justice to real political action in the world. While all recognize the need to base political action on firm philosophical principles, the life of the mind, in its constant questioning, problematizing, and reconsideration of its own foundations, does not at first glance seem to support political action, which ideally rests on commitment to firmly held convictions. And yet no thinker would want to shut down the possibility of acting for political change, broadly defined, on account of the ever-changing interrogations of what we mean by “equality,” “justice,” and so on.

The course will examine the ways power and privilege have been theorized, with attention to class, gender, race, and other categories, by those who go on actively to support, and also to engage in, activity that promotes political change in the world that is in line with the complexity of their own abstract reflections about engagement with the world. We will spend time looking at the relationship between education and democracy, with readings that trace the necessity of an informed citizenry, the obstacles to cultivating a life of the mind in a democracy and ways to overcome them, and the question of how best to cultivate cosmopolitanism in education. In the second section of the course, we will inquire why the habits of mind encouraged by the formation of intellect (the questioning, creative life of the mind as opposed to the goal-oriented, narrowly focused problem-solving of intelligence) so often lead, not to withdrawn contemplation but rather to progressive political engagement (and to resistance from dominant mainstream culture threatened by intellect). We will then examine theoretical and autobiographical writings by those who have both articulated and lived theories of social change across questions of class, race, culture, and sexuality and how the life of the mind informed, shaped, and altered the course of their political engagement. These figures include a diverse range of intellectuals, artists, and political figures from both within and beyond the United States.

CAS:  Humanities
GSB: D2: History Core #1 or Global & Regional Studies Core #5
CALS:  Humanities & Social Sciences
CEMS:  Engineering Students - Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students check with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult with your academic advisor

Toleration and, indeed, acceptance or even celebration of difference (whether of race, ethnicity, class, gender, culture, or religion) are very recent and, in a global context, hardly generalized values.  This course aims to explore the meaning of toleration and the processes by which it can be achieved through an examination of encounters with difference in medieval and Renaissance Europe, a culture which, on the whole, valued intolerance.  The course will begin with readings that familiarize students with the structure of this society and the key normative values, categories, principles, and expectations that informed its identity as well as its approach to people who did not appear to conform to these norms.  Students will then analyze primary-source texts and images that bear witness to a number of encounters which threw into sharp relief the difference between the normative (i.e. Catholic, male, heterosexual, and often elite) European and the “Other.”  These encounters were fraught and often hostile, but they opened the eyes of many European observers to the ubiquity of difference and the humanity of those who were different.  This was the beginning of a complex process of self-examination and familiarization with difference that formed the basis for the possibility of creating the concept of toleration.  As an extension of the themes in HCOL 085, students will also consider the different “ways of knowing” that were used by the contemporaries of these encounters, and that evolved or were challenged in trying to make sense of them.

CAS: Literature
GSB:  Humanities
CALS: Humanities & Fine Arts or Social Science
CEMS:  Engineering Students - Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/CSIS/DS students check with your advisor and department chair
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS:  Consult with your academic advisor
CESS: Consult with academic advisor

This course uses science fiction as a means of thinking through the challenges of sustainability in the face of the climate crisis. We begin with a non-fiction text, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, in which Amitav Ghosh argues, among other things, that literature struggles to tackle climate change. Outside the canon of literary fiction, however, science fiction has been exploring themes of climate change and sustainability throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. This course will use some of these texts, representing perspectives from North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, to make climate change “thinkable” and to examine how the climate crisis threatens sustainable development and how lack of investment in sustainable development in turn contributes to the climate crisis.

CAS:  Humanities, non-European
GSB:  D2, Humanities Core
CALS: Social Science
CEMS:  Engineering Students - Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/CSIS/DS students check with your advisor and department chair
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS:  Consult with your academic advisor
CESS: Consult with academic advisor

Major/Minor Requirements
Non-European Cultures
Elective for Global Studies major and minor
Elective for Latin American & Caribbean Studies major and minor

In 2017, the European Alps lost more than 5 feet of water-equivalent glacier mass. In 2018, more than 8,000 fires burned 1,893,913 acres in California. In 2019, the shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami people warned a crowd of US scholars gathered in Cambridge, MA, of the imminent danger his people and the rainforest faced. A month later Amazonia burned.

In this course we will examine the advancement of some phenomena resulting from the one degree Celsius that has already warmed the planet, and their impacts on environmental, social, economic and human systems. We will locate examples and case studies in Latin America: from tipping point triggers in the Amazon rainforest, to social disruptions due to changing water patterns, climate migrations and the politics surrounding climate refugees.

CAS: Literature
GSB: Humanities
CALS: Humanities & Fine Arts or Social Science
CEMS:  Engineering Students - Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/CSIS/DS students check with your advisor and department chair
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS:  Consult with your academic advisor
CESS: Consult with academic advisor

In this class we will start by considering that “race” as a meaningful biological category, especially in the service of racial hierarchies, constitutes one of the most pernicious science fictions of recent human history.  Pseudo-scientific narratives establishing fundamental, socially meaningful differences among “races” have rationalized slavery, segregation, and many other forms of oppression. It’s no surprise, then, that writers of science fiction and fantasy (often collectively labeled “speculative fiction” or “sf” these days) have been well-positioned to challenge racism and to expose its effects.

The works we’ll read during this class will frequently challenge basic assumptions about race (and class and gender), but they’ll also push us to read in new ways. Speculative Fiction challenges readers through shocks to the imagination as we’re invited to view our societies radically transformed and our texts playing by new rules. We’ll spend some of our time orienting ourselves in the new worlds and their new rules (which have implications in terms of social and literary models). As diverse readers ourselves, some of us may come to these texts with a background in fantasy, science fiction, dystopian narratives and the like; others will be new to these genres. Those with familiarity can teach us to see these texts through the eyes of experience; those who are new to this sort of work will teach us to see things we haven’t noticed yet!

CAS:  Fine Arts or Humanities
GSB:  Humanities
CALS:  Humanities & Fine Arts
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

Major/Minor: counts as elective in Art History major and minor and Category E for Studio Art major

In this course, we will examine the relationship between nature and humankind through the eyes of Western artists, art theorists, and scholars from the Renaissance (1500s) to the present day. This course is an introduction to the study and analysis of art and architecture of the so-called ‘West’ (Europe and the Americas), focusing on major artworks from the Western canon and a selection of major artists ranging from Leonardo da Vinci to Georgia O’Keeffe. We will explore and discuss art historical topics such as style, form, composition, and technique, and we will evaluate the effects of technological developments in image-making (printmaking, photography) on our understanding of nature. Students will investigate the evolution of Western ideas and images concerning nature, ecology, and natural philosophy, and examine the social, political, economic, religious, and/or environmental contexts that inflect the making and meaning of art in the past and present.

CAS:  Fine Arts or Humanities
GSB:  Humanities
CALS:  Humanities & Fine Arts
CEMS:  ENGR: Gen Ed Elective; Math/Stat/CS/DS students consult with your advisor
RSENR: Consult with academic advisor
CNHS: Consult with academic advisor
CESS: Consult academic advisor

Over the course of the last century there has been an abiding concern regarding the influence of the United States on international business, politics, and—especially—culture. Often these concerns focus on the way that the form and content of the mass media pave the way for American goods and ideas in global markets. The “style” of these modes of cultural expression has a had a profound influence on the way daily life is conducted throughout the world. This course examines one of the most potent heralds of the “American Century,” Hollywood Cinema, by considering certain global “oppositions” to its aesthetic and ideological formulas. By examining a number of loosely defined cinematic “movements” (French New Wave, Soviet Kino, Third Cinema, New Asian Cinema, etc.), we will hopefully not only broaden traditional notions of cinema (and film criticism), but also witness how cinema participates in a wide range of political and cultural debates. Further, by examining a number of oppositional films and film theories within our separate case studies, we will hopefully belie the notion that these cinema movements are monolithic while also undermining the assumption that Hollywood itself speaks with one voice.