Honors Courses for 2005-2006

Fall 2005

Click here for Honors course grid (pdf)

HONO 2000: The Scholar: Biography and Portraiture (3 units) What does it mean to be a scholar? How do we assess the achievements and contributions of individual figures from the past and in the modern world? This seminar will investigate the different scholarly approaches to understanding the lives of "great" people from the past and the present, including artists, writers, scientists, politicians and religious figures. Both men and women from a carefully selected and wide variety of cultures and periods will be discussed. The seminar will focus specifically on the modes of written biography and visual portraiture, leading students in a critical analysis of textual and visual sources as historical documents.

HONO 2050: The World: Issues and Interdependence (3 units) This seminar is designed to introduce students to the complex and diverse issues confronting humanity in different regions of the world. It will help increase students' understanding of global issues which influence different world regions and how these regions interact with each other. Since each region is characterized by distinct cultural traits emphasis will be on historical contextualization of the region, identifying relevant issues pertaining to the region, and how they impact at national, regional, and international scale. Throughout the course emphasis will be placed on world regions such as North America, Middle and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East and thus help students to be globally informed.

HONO 3191: The Varieties of World Religious Experience: Worldviews and practices of the Great Religions (3 units) A World's Religions course with a twist:  all the work required in the regular course but only half the semester's hours in class. The other half will be spent visiting religious sites in order to participate in their practices- a Native American sweat lodge, Hindu ritual and yoga, Buddhist meditation exercises, Jewish Sabbath worship, Christian contemplative prayer, Islamic daily prayer, Sufi invocation (and more). As these adventures will require extra and unusual hours of availability, subscribers must be highly flexible and strongly committed.

HONO 3500: Self, Community, and Service: Ethical Theory and Practice (3 units) A rigorous examination of contemporary movement in ethical theory, focusing on the essential need for moral meaning and its modern implications. Themes include questions of identity, responsibility, and perception of and relation to the "other." Critical analysis of texts and key issues will be performed and understanding of key issues will be deepened through a service component that allows for active cultivation and expression of core values in the local community.

CQ 3600: Cultural Heritage Colloquium: Global Crisis and Social Justice: Poverty, Natural Disaster and Health (9 units) In the 21st century, increasing globalization has resulted in a situation in which the problems and struggles of one nation or region reverberate in other parts of the world. In this colloquium, we will explore the important issues of poverty, natural disasters and health from an interdisciplinary and global perspective. In each of the three courses for this colloquium, we attempt to answer questions concerning the causes of these social problems, as well as how the global community might cooperate to better safeguard those populations who are most at risk. In addition, students will have an opportunity to participate in service learning and field experiences related to the content of the colloquium.

Courses in the Colloquium are as follows:
Natural Disasters: Societal and Individual Reactions to Risk CQHO 4003
Community Leadership: A Global PerspectiveCQHO 4070
Global Health Issues (to be offered in Spring 2006) CQHO 4720

HONO 3037 Terrorism and Psych of Violence (1 unit)

HONO 2999/4999 Independent Study (1-3 units)

Spring 2006 (coming soon)