Honors General Studies Course Descriptions: Spring 2017
English 102H: Academic Writing and Research: Semiotics: Exploring and Analyzing
American Popular Culture—01 and 02/Jane Christensen
As suggested by the title of this course, the focus will be on written exposure of ideas
within the context of semiotic analysis of various topics in American Popular Culture.
Presumably through intense and careful examination of the elements and phenomena
of American popular culture we can learn more about different levels of our culture and
what the popularity of certain elements says about us as a culture. Readings from Signs
of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers include topics such as
consumer behavior, advertising, television, film, and iconic figures real and imagined.
Semiotics is a particularly effective methodology for analyzing popular culture—
semiotics is the study of signs and symbols, and of locating meaning in any sort of text:
print, images, and other media. Language development as well as writing practice by
critical analysis, together with research, will be the goal, with emphasis on discussion.
English 240H: Literary Classics of the Western World—01/Marguerite Tassi
This course focuses on great works of literature that delve into the mysteries of the
human mind and heart. As the characters Oedipus, Odysseus, Othello, and Elizabeth
Bennet (and even comic characters such as Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About
Nothing) seek to know themselves better, they are launched on quests that reveal
painful truths about what it means to be human, to be exiled from home, and to love
without the certainty of being loved in return. The questions these works pose are
difficult for characters and readers alike to face: What lies at the very core of the self?
What realizations do we have when social conventions and accommodations fall away?
What is the essence of love? Where is home to be found? How integral are others to the
making up or destruction of a self? These classic literary works present us with
memorable and moving narratives of yearning for homecoming, the difficult quest for
identity and self-knowledge, the desire for justice and revenge, and the deepest need of
all—the need for love. Our goals will be to write clearly and perceptively about classic
literature and to gain insight into these great works so that we can understand what
makes them endure (that is, what makes them classics). What compelling qualities do
these books possess that make them relevant not only in their own time, but even
today? What can we see in the structures, characterizations, language, and thematic
concerns of these works that make them brilliant?
Geography 106H: Human Geography—01/Paul Burger
This course is an introduction to one of the main subfields of Geography—Humans and
Their Culture. Geography 106H, one of several courses designed to provide a topical
introduction to the discipline, addresses the spatial implications of the human and
cultural component. The course is designed around the five themes of cultural
geography, which will form the basis for our exploration of human societies, their
distribution, characteristics, and cultural impact on the landscape and earth.
Political Science 170H: Democracy as a Political Idea—01/Lorna Bracewell
“Democracy! Bah! When I hear that word I reach for my feather boa! Better we should
have a big Jewish dictatorship full of Blintzes: Better a spade Fish queen…”—Allen
Ginsberg.
As poet Allen Ginsberg observes here, democracy can feel absurd, ridiculous, and
bewildering. The primary aim of this course is to make it feel a little less so by
furnishing you with the intellectual resources necessary to grapple with questions such
as the following: Why do 1 out of 3 Democrats and Republicans view members of the
other party as “a threat to the nation’s well-being”? Why do so many conservative
intellectuals and Republican Party elites loathe Republican party nominee Donald
Trump? What does the 2016 Republican Party Platform mean when it says, “taxes, by
their very nature, reduce a citizen’s freedom” and what does the 2016 Democratic Party
Platform mean when it pledges to “challenge and dismantle the structures that define
lasting racial, economic, political, and social inequity”? Is Bernie Sanders a communist?
Is Donald Trump a fascist? Is Hilary Clinton a feminist? Who are Gary Johnson and Jill
Stein and what makes the Libertarian Party and the Green party different from the
Republican Party and the Democratic Party?
To help you answer these questions and many others, this course will examine the
historical development and contemporary manifestation of a variety of political belief
systems or “ideologies” that shape politics in the United States and beyond today. By
exposing you to a wide range of ideological perspectives, the course will help you
become a more informed and efficacious democratic citizen who understands what
ideology (or ideologies) they believe in, why they believe what they do, and how best
defend their beliefs.
Psychology 203H: General Psychology—01/William Wozniak
This course is an in-depth introduction to the field of Psychology, touching upon the
following topics: Neuropsychology, consciousness, development through the life span,
sensation, perception, learning, memory cognition, language, intelligence, motivation,
emotions, stress, health, personality, social psychology and psychopathology. Basically
the course is a review and introduction to the entire field, but a bit deeper than most
Introductory courses. It will be reading-intensive and cover most of the textbook
Exploring Psychology, 10th ed., Ed. by David G. Myers and C. Nathan DeWall. An extra
line of topical coverage will focus on the textbook Fifty Great Myths of Popular Psychology
by Scott Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio, and Barry Beyerstein. In the context
of the Introductory course we will address some questions such as: Do people use only
10% of their brains? Are some people rights-brained and left-brained? Does playing
Mozart boost infant intelligence? Does human memory work like a video camera?
Does our handwriting reveal our personality? Psychology is fraught with inaccurate
myths and we will learn to assess them, like Myth Busters of Psychology.
Political Science 388H: The Politics of Love—01/Peter Longo
Love is a topic of study in a wide variety of academic disciplines, including biology, the
fine arts, literature, philosophy, and psychology. These disciplines and their insights
and perspectives inform our understanding of why and how we love and the objects of
our love, particularly: love of country, love of humanity, and love of God—and the
social and moral obligations that people derive from religion. This course will focus on
the intersections of those disciplines’ studies of love with political science, and consider
how the knowledge and approaches of those disciplines on the concept of love relate
and can inform the concerns of citizens. The course will examine: 1) notions of good
governance; 2) how conflicts can be peacefully resolved;