University Honors Program

University Honors Program

Spring 2007 Schedule of Classes

Exciting Honors Opportunity:

CF 3353 The Pilgrimage: Experiencing the Christian Medieval Road

(access #: 5694)

Bonnie Wheeler (Medieval Studies), Jeremy Adams (History), Jo Goyne (English), Donna Mayer-Martin (Music), and Annemarie Carr (Art History).

What drew people by the millions to go on pilgrimage from their small villages through hazardous countryside almost a thousand years ago? This course concentrates on an actual trip down European medieval pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela from March 9 to March 18, 2007. The spring-break trip will be part of a 3-credit course (separate from the 3-credit Pilgrimage spring-term course.) Two nights in Paris; brief visits to several important sites, including Toulouse in France and (on the way to Santiago) Burgos and Leon in Spain. You’ll experience first-hand the result of pilgrim devotion in the Middle Ages and the modern world. Come read vigorous poems, absorb the images of magnificent architecture, hear stories of popes and peasants, and listen to (perhaps even sing) music written for the places we visit on the powerful pilgrimage road. Pre- and post-trip class meetings; course-specific readings and music; trip journal; final paper.

First Year Honors Rhetoric

ENGL 2306 The Ethical, the Catastrophic, and Human Responsibility

This course confronts profound ethical questions through considerations of history, literature, psychology, philosophy, and sociology. Beginning with a story by Flannery O’Connor that poses questions about ethical conduct, students explore texts and events that challenge the foundations of philosophical and religious ethical systems. The course also addresses contemporary ethical questions regarding individual freedom and responsibility and the meanings of “community.”

MWF

9 am: 001H (access #: 3039)

Nina Schwartz: VS 303

Tom Stone: VS 203

10 am: 002H (access #: 3268)

Diana Grumbles: VS 303

Vanessa Hopper: 120 DHall

Tom Stone: VS 203

11 am: 003H (access #: 3271)

Diana Grumbles: VS 303

Vanessa Hopper: 138 DHall

Ann Shattles: VS 203

12 pm: 004H (access #: 3273)

Diana Grumbles: VS 303

Diana Howard: VS 203

1 pm: 005H (access #: 3276)

Vanessa Hopper: 137 DHall

Diana Howard: VS 203

2 pm: 006H (access #: 3629)

Vanessa Hopper: 105 DHall

TTH

9:30 am: 007H (access #: 4024)

Jo Goyne: VS 203

11:00 am: 008H (access #: 5705)

Nancy Hodge: VS 203

I. Literature

All English 2000 Level courses require English 1301, 2305 or Professor’s permission

ENGL 2312 Fiction TTH 12:30 pm

Sudan: DHall 137

(access #: 3074)

Analysis, interpretation, and appreciation of fiction, with attention to critical theory.

FL 3340 001H Semiotics and Interpretation TTH 2 pm

Bill Beauchamp: Clements 120

(access #: 5566)

Semiotics is the study of how meaning is produced and communicated. This course uses semiotic approaches to the interpretation of the most complex of all human communications – literary (artistic) texts. It is designed for folks who would like to explore – with a small, select group of like-minded students – how interpretation works and why there is often so much disagreement about whose meaning is right and whose isn’t. The texts studied will be drawn from a variety of national literatures, mostly twentieth century, and attention will be divided equally among prose narrative, poetry, and drama/theatrical performance. (Advanced language students may work on certain texts in the French or Spanish original.) While focusing on “classical” literary semiotics (as elaborated by Barthes, Lotman, Jakobson, Eco and others), the course will also draw on complementary approaches as well: feminist, Marxian, psychoanalytic, and deconstructivist. Semiotic studies can play a major role in the learning of interpretive skills. Their application to literature will suggest insights and strategies for the interpretation of other, non-literary texts as well. By way of example, we will explore a news story (at the end of the section on prose narrative), a print ad (at the end of the section on poetry), a TV show and Madonna Pepsi commercial (at the end of the section on drama/performance).

II. Art

MUHI 3340 002H Jazz: Tradition and Transformation TTH 3:30- 4:50 pm*

Dean Jose Bowen: OFAC 2130

(access #: 5707)

Bunk, Bird, Bix, Bags, and Trane. From blues to bop, street beat to free jazz. A study of the people and music from its African, Euro-American origins through the various art and popular forms of the 20th century.

Honors students will meet weekly with the professor and will lead discussion groups of the non-Honors class.

NOTE 1 EXTRA CREDIT OPTION – CLICK HERE (***Extra section held Tuesdays 2pm-3:20pm in OAC 1050)

MUHI 3341 001H Women and Music TTH 9:30 am

Donna Jean Mayer-Martin: OFAC 2040

(access #: 2072)

This course introduces students to the rich traditions of musical women and to the variety of roles women have played in both "art" music and popular music. The course also introduces feminist and gender theories as related to the music of women and men.

*Meets Human Diversity Co-Curricular Requirement

III. Politics/Economics

PLSC 1380 003H Intro to International Relations MW 3:00-4:20 pm

Joel Westra: FOSC 152

(access #: 5437)

A basic survey of the elements of international relations, including the nation-state system, international organizations, international law, diplomacy, foreign policy, and various nonstate actors such as multinational corporations.

PLSC 1340 003H Intro to Comparative Politics TTH 9:30 am

Michael Lusztig: Hyer 110

(access #: 3092)

Analyzes and contrasts different patterns of national political development in Western, Marxist-Leninist, and Third World countries. Political dilemmas confronting each type of system will be examined.

PLSC 1320 001H Intro to American Government TH 9:30 am

Dennis Ippolito: Florence 302

(access #: 2862)

The organization, functions, and processes of our national government, with particular attention to parties, pressure groups, and other forces that influence its course. Attention will also be given to the Texas Constitution.

ECO 1312 001H Principles: Inflation and Recession TTH 9:30 am

Rupinder Saggi: ULEE 303

(access #: 2591)

The second term of a liberal arts education sequence discusses issues such as inflation, unemployment, and growth from both national and global perspectives. Tools of economic analysis include models of open economies.

Prerequisite: ECO 1311.

IV. History/Art History

HIST 3307 001H The U.S and the Cold War MWF 10 am

Tom Knock: DHall 101

(access #: 5286)

An examination of major events in American foreign policy since World War II, emphasizing policy toward Western Europe, the Soviet Union, Asia, and Latin America.

HIST 1321 003H First Year Seminar: Native American History TH 2-4:50 pm

Sherry Smith: DHall 106

(access #: 5251)

Offers the beginning student an opportunity to explore particular topics in American history intensively in a small class setting. This course will introduce students to the study of native americans in the United States and to the discipline of history. We will use Indian biography and autobiography as vehicles to explore this distinctive angle of vision on American history. Topics range from the early English efforts to establish a colony in Virginia to the creation of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the emergence of pan-Indian activism in the 1960s. Readings and class discussions will range across the centuries and the various regions of the nation, from the south to the midwest, from the great plains to the southwest. By rooting the study of Indian-European/American relations in the perspectives of actual indian people, the class will humanize the subject. It will also give students practice "doing history" through a class project dealing with Indian boarding school newspapers and yearbooks available in the DeGolyer Library. Readings include: Camilla Townsend, Pocahontas; Black Hawk's Autobiography; Mountain Wolf Woman; Francis La Flesche, The Middle Five; Black Elk Speaks; Lakota Woman; and a biography of a 20th century Navajo woman and tribal council member.

HIST 3318 001H The Human History of Natural Disaster in America

MW 3:00-4:20 pm

Benjamin Johnson: DHall 157

(access #: 5291)

The devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and its environs provides an opportunity and motive for SMU honors students to examine the pressing social and historical issues raised by this disaster. This course will explore so-called “natural” disasters in American history, including the vexed histories of New Orleans, the Mississippi River, and the region’s race and class formations. The premise of this is that although “natural” disasters may be in part random acts of God or of a capricious nature beyond our prediction or control, they are also deeply human events, often caused or complicated by social practices. Disasters may be disruptions of normal life, but they are also intensifications of it. An informed examination of their role in modern history is a powerful way of understanding such issues as the rise of international markets, racialization, the social welfare state, the racial geography of modern cities, and the creation of scientific knowledge about society and nature.

ARHS 3362 Picturing Children: European Art 1848- 1916

Janis Bergman-Carton

T / Th 12:30pm – 1:50pm Owens art history faculty offices

This class is an introduction to modern European art between 1848 and 1916 through the lens of the changing history of children in this period. It provides students with the same foundational history of modern art (from Realism to Dada) they would encounter in a traditional survey, but anchored in a socio-political narrative that foregrounds one of that history’s most fertile subtexts and models the disciplinary protocols of the social art historian. The thematics of children and “the innocent eye” will guide the selection of artists and works of art emphasized in this class. We will look closely, for example, at the iconography of children in the work of figures like Sargent, Renoir, Cassatt, Munch, Kandinsky, and Munter in relation to changing patterns of public education and artistic training; early psychological studies of children’s cognitive abilities and developmental biology; the flourishing children’s book trade; exhibitions of children’s art; and the discourse of ‘Primitivism’ with which it regularly was conflated. We will also consider the cultivation of a deliberately awkward or naïve style and juvenile handwriting effects by Symbolist, Cubist, and Dada artists for whom the ‘child-like’ served as mnemonic device or anti-naturalist trigger. The notion of reclaiming a fresh and uncorrupted vision associated with childhood strongly informs the work of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century artist, particularly those associated with the rupture between representational and non-representational art.

V. Behavioral Sciences

ANTH 1321 001H First Year Seminar: Plagues and People W 2 pm- 4:50 pm

Michelle Amoruso: Heroy 436

(access #: 5436)

Offers beginning students an opportunity to pursue a writing and specific anthropological topic in depth in a small class setting. Reading intensive. Open to First Year students only.

How have human societies shaped disease patterns and inadvertently facilitated epidemics? How have infectious diseases impacted human populations throughout the world? What can outbreaks of Bubonic plague, cholera, tuberculosis and pandemic influenza teach us about infectious disease in contemporary societies? How do we respond to emerging infections, including hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola? Are portrayals of West Nile, Avian flu, and smallpox accurately represented in popular media? In this seminar, we will examine how human populations and disease outbreaks have impacted each other, using case studies from Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

Enrollment Limit: 10

SOCI 2310 001H Introduction to Sociology MWF 11 am

Michael Cruz: Hyer 107

(access #: 3586)

The perspective and basic content of sociology, emphasizing the ways in which values and other beliefs influence social behavior.

VI. Religious/Philosophical Thought

RELI 3306 001H Introduction to the Hindu Tradition MWF 1 pm Lindquist: Hyer 107

(access #: 5557)

An exploration of the major attitudes and institutions that define the Hindu tradition, with attention to ideology, social organization, and ritual in light of both historical development and contemporary practice.

Enrollment Limit: 20

RELI 3326 001H Introduction to the New Testament TTH 12:30 pm

Chancey: Hyer 107

(access #: 3308)

An introduction to the writings of the New Testament, the formative events, and the persons who played leading roles in the origin of Christianity.

Enrollment Limit: 20

PHIL 1305 Intro to Philosophy

001H: MWF 9 am

Eric Barnes: Hyer 107

(access #: 3775)

004H: TTH 2 pm

Chuard: Hyer 100

(access #: 3433)

A general introduction to the central questions of philosophy. We will discuss topics from such areas as the theory of knowledge, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, ethics, and political philosophy. Typical questions might include: Can we know the world outside our minds? Is it rational to believe in a God who allows evil to exist? Do the laws of physics allow for human freedom? Is morality more than a matter of opinion? Can there be unequal wealth in a just society? Readings will include classical authors such as Plato, Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Mill, as well as contemporary philosophers. The focus of the course will be on arguments for and against proposed solutions to key problems of philosophy.

PHIL 1318 007H Contemporary Moral Problems TTH 11:00 am

Robinson: Hyer 102

(access #: 3008)

An examination of current moral and legal issues. Topics may include abortion, euthanasia, animal rights, affirmative action, racism, sexism, drug legalization, censorship, and homosexuality.

Cultural Formations (note: CF, CFA, and CFB all designate Cultural Formations)

CF 3348 001H 21^st Century Property Rights TTH 3:30pm

David Epstein: Dallas Hall 337

(access #: 6122)

This course will focus on reading and talking about current “property issues” such as the sale of human organs, editing nudity from the film The Titantic, and the government’s forcing people to “sell” their homes for the building of a stadium for a professional sports team. Students will study law – including reading 16 judicial opinions over the course of the semester. The focus will not be on “how to do law,” but rather on how law reflects history, and economics, and philosophy and sociology and how those disciplines effect changes in law.

CF 3311 001H Sex in America: An Introduction TTH 11:00 am

David Doyle: Boaz Hall, 4^th Floor

(access #: 3861)

This course will test the hypothesis that gender and sexuality are constructed categories. Readings in anthropology, history, literary criticism, and psychiatry will be utilized.

Enrollment Limit: 20

CF 3351 001H The Pilgrimage: Imagine Medieval Culture

TTH 11:00 am

McCord Auditorium, Dallas Hall

Interdisciplinary Pilgrimage honors course with historian Jeremy Adams, art historian Annemarie Carr, music historian Donna Mayer-Martin, and literary specialists Jo Goyne and Bonnie Wheeler.

(access #: 5310)

In this course you’ll get an introduction to Christian and Muslim thought in the formative years of the Medieval Ages; you’ll learn about the ideas and practices of Crusades; the power of romantic love; and the sheer beauty of medieval poetry, music, art, and architecture. Mid-term; final; readings responses and paper. Preferential sign-up for the spring pilgrimage (with or without credit) will be given to students in this course.

CF 3353 The Pilgrimage: Experiencing the Christian Medieval Road

(access #: 5694)

Bonnie Wheeler (Medieval Studies), Jeremy Adams (History), Jo Goyne (English), Donna Mayer-Martin (Music), and Annemarie Carr (Art History).

CFB 3301 Health, Healing, and Ethics: Cross-Cultural Perspectives of Sickness and Society W 6:30- 9:20 pm

Carolyn Sargent: FOSC 155

(access #: 5876)

A cross-cultural exploration of cultures and organization of medical systems, economic development, and the global exportation of biomedicine, and ethical dilemmas associated with medical technologies and global disparities in health.

Meets Human Diversity Co-Curricular Requirement.

CF 3364 Ethical Implications of Children’s Literature MWF 9:00 am

Satz: DHall 156

(access #: 3432)

Examination of the literature with emphasis on notions of morality and evil, including issues of colonialism, race, ethnicity, gender, and class.

Prerequisite: ENGL 1302 or ENGL 2306 or Departmental Approval.

CF 3401 001H The Good Society M 2:00-4:50 PM

Hopkins: DHall 137

(access #: 5373)

This course will focus on the historical construction of the concept of the “good society” in Western culture. Although the term did not enter our literature until Graham Wallas published The Good Society in 1915, we can clearly distinguish its origins in the religious, political, and intellectual traditions of Europe and the United States. Affiliated with the Center for Inter-Community Experience.

Meets Human Diversity Co-Curricular Requirement.

CFA 3334 The Politics of Change in America 1930-2000

TTH 3:30- 4:20 pm

Dennis Simon: FOSC 158

(access #: 3625)

Focusing on American politics and society from 1930 to the present, this course will examine how America has changed, explain why change occurs, and assess the consequences of these changes.

Enrollment Limit: 11

CFA 3312 001H Making History: Representations of Ethical Choices MWF 12:00 pm

Stone: Hyer 106

(access #: 3121)

Interdisciplinary course examining ethical issues associated with the writing of “historical fictions” and the production of historical exhibits. Students will complicate conventional distinctions between disciplines and genres by looking at how playwrights, novelists, filmmakers, and museum curators/directors shape their productions from the raw materials of historical data. They will explore the ways in which historical memory is created and represented, further developing and refining their own engagements with texts, films, and museums.

CF 3324 001H An Archaeology of Values: The Self and Ethics From Kant to Baudrillard

TTH 9:30 am

Dennis Foster: DHall 137

(access #: 5653)

Following a line of writers from Kant to Freud to Baudrillard, the course explores the rocky development of the self in relation to history, economic and moral values, and rapidly transforming social relations in the modern period.

CF 3313 001H The Renaissance TTH 11 am

Kathleen Wellman: DHall 101

(access #: 5371)

Sophomore standing is recommended. A history of culture in the Renaissance from the perspective of advances in scholarship and science and, above all, in appreciation if social and political contexts.

CF 3330 701H From Pew to Bleacher M 6:00-8:50 pm

Alexis McCrossen: DHall 157

(access #: 5199)

An introduction to the formation of 19th- and 20th-century American culture and civilization through the study of the Church, print culture, museums, galleries, libraries, theater, Hollywood, television, and professional sports.

CFB 3353 001H Latino / Latina Religions TuTh 2:00-3:20 pm
Jill DeTemple: Hyer 106

(access #: 5231)

An introduction to Latino/a religions and religious practices in the United States, with a special emphasis on social constructions of the "borderland".

Latino/Latina Religions is a CF course exploring Hispanic religious beliefs and practices from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Methodologies we will utilize include critical theory, cultural studies, theology, religious studies, literature, anthropology, and sociology. We will also engage the material outside of the classroom. By going to a local religious institutions and/or festivals, and working with religiously-based Latino/Latina service organizations as part of the optional service learning component of the course, we will explore how contemporary Latinos and Latinas engage in religious expression. We will also work to consider the many ways that people talk about and analyze religious life. How do sociological accounts reflect the reality we have seen differently than historic accounts, or memoirs? How do different people frame issues of identity in different times and places? How does the way we think about borderlands (as geography, as cognitive boundaries, as social spaces) affect the way we think about identity, politics and the real issues affecting all of us today?

Honors enrollment limit: 15.