University
Honors Program
Fall 2004 Schedule of Classes
THEA 1380
701H Mirror of the
Age
(access #: 1994) Monday 6:30-9:20 PM 2105 OFAC Gretchen Smith
While many of us
attend performance events as SMU, in Dallas, or elsewhere, we often take for
granted or, worse, can’t appreciate the work of the various artists who
collaborate to create a single production.
In Mirror of the Age, the various roles in the theatrical collaboration,
including playwright, director, designers, actors, and audience members, are
discussed in detail; guest lecturer-artists will lend their first-hand
experience. In-class and homework
assignments will allow students to experience first-hand the work of actors,
designers, and playwrights. Students
will attend performances given by the Division of Theatre, as well as other
Dallas area theatres, and, as part of the course, students will write reviews
and participate in in-class styles of theare, including comedy of manners,
tragedy, and melodrama. Assignments
also include a research paper on a theatre topic chosen by the student.
ENGL 2308 001H Doing
Things with Poems
(access #: 3452) T/TH 9:30-10:50 AM 351 Dallas Hall Willard
Spiegelman
Introduction to the
study of poems, poets, and how poetry works, focusing on a wide range of
English and American writers with some attention to matters of literary
history. Students will learn to write
concisely and well. This means eliminating
the unnecessary, the vapid, the empty, and the inessential. Each student will commit to memory 100 lines
of poetry during the term.
One-paragraph responses will be due every day as a starting point for
discussion.
PHIL 1305 001H Introduction
to Philosophy
(access #: 2968) MWF 9:00-9:50 AM 107 Hyer Eric Barnes
To do philosophy is to
participate in a dialogue about the most fundamental issues that affect human
beings. The purpose of this course is
to enable students to enter this dialogue by substantially increasing the students’
capacity for rigorous philosophical thinking.
We will cover a variety of philosophical issues (examples might be the
fundamentals of logic, the immortality of the soul, the relationship between
soul and body, the metaphysics of identity, the nature of knowledge, issues in
applied ethics, and the relationship between language and thought).
PHIL 1318 006H Contemporary Moral Problems
(access #: 2979) T/TH 11:00-12:20 PM 102 Hyer Steven Sverdlik
This
course will introduce students to philosophical ethics and its application to
some of the most controversial and pressing problems confronting contemporary
society. Students will investigate
different ethical theories, and apply them to several contemporary issues. The issues to be studied will be taken from
the following: abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, animal rights,
affirmative action, world hunger, racism, sexism, drug legalization,
censorship, sexuality, economic justice.
Student will be encouraged both to understand how traditional ethical theories
apply to contemporary issues and to develop their own views. Class discussion is an important component
of the course, as is reading and writing about ethical issues.
RELI 3319 001H Introduction to Hebrew Bible
(access #: 3319) MWF 3:00-3:50 PM 106 Hyer Serge Frolov
Introduction to the Old Testament and to the religion and
history of ancient Israel. Special
emphasis will be given to the ancient Near Eastern roots of biblical religion
and to the modern interpretation of biblical myth, epic, and prophecy.
HIST 2311 002H Out
of Many: US History to 1877
(access #: 2880) MWF 9:00-9:50 AM TBA David Doyle
This course follows the history of the United States from
its earliest known inhabitants through European conquest, American
Independence, up through the Civil War and Reconstruction. The emphasis of the course throughout will
be on the many different peoples and traditions that together constitute out
United States. Toward this
understanding, political, economic, and social history will all serve as
important ways for use to recognize historical trends and change over
time. By paying close attention to
gender, race, class, and region as organizing tools we will begin to the many
different elements that have contributed to our history.
ECO 1311 001H Principles:
Consumers, Firms, and Markets
(access #: 2713) T/TH 9:30-10:50 AM 243 ULee Rajat Deb
ECO 1311 002H Principles: Consumers, Firms, and
Markets
(access #: 3377) T/TH 8:00-9:30 AM 243 ULee Rajat Deb
This microeconomics course enables a concerned citizen to
make an intelligent appraisal of current controversies relating to consumers
and producers. Much smaller class size
than non-Honors economics, more understanding rather than memorization
based. Excellent perspective choice for
pre-Business Honors students.
PLSC 1320 004H Introduction to American Government
and Politics
(access #: 3023) T/TH 9:30-10:50 AM 301 Florence Joseph
Kobylka
This course will provide you with three types of
knowledge. First, you will come out of
this class with a basic knowledge of the American political and governmental
system. This will include examination
of governmental processes and institutions, but we will also treat relevant
aspects of American political history and culture in an attempt to explain how
the American political system operates.
Second, the class will introduce you to the ways that political
scientists try to describe and explain political phenomena. You will being to understand and appreciate
the subtleties and complexities of developing social scientific explanations
for political life. In short, you will
not only learn “the basics,” but you will also explore the tensions within the
system and the scholarly debates concerning its operation. Third, the course will teach you to think
more critically about politics and political issues. Seldom are questions in the political world, or the larger world
in which it is enmeshed, simple or subject to simply explanations. The class will show you a variety of strong
arguments on a range of empirical and normative issues, and will force you to
deal honestly with them; not dismiss them out of hand, but subject them to
close comparative evaluation. These
critical skills of perspective and evaluation—the capacity to make sense of the
bits of information that swirl about you—lie at the heart of the liberal arts
and the idea of an educated mind.
Information is important, but any fool can look up “facts;” actual
knowledge consists of knowing what to do with the information you receive and
seek out.
*** PLSC
1340 002H Introduction to
Comparative Politics
(access #: 3890) MWF 9:00-9:50 AM 301 Florence Michael
Lusztig
*** This class is not a traditional Honors class. 8 spots of a regular class are reserved for
Honors students. The Honors students
will be required to complete additional work and will be part of a much larger
lecture-style class rather than a small discussion-oriented class. All students registering for this class will
be contacted by Dr. Doyle to ascertain that students understand the
requirements and limitations of this section.
ANTH 2302 002H People of the Earth: Humanity’s
First 5 Million Years
(access #: 4093) MWF 10:00-10:50 AM 116 Fondren David
Friedel
Human biological and cultural evolution from the appearance
of ancestral humans in Africa to agricultural origins and the rise of the
world’s great civilizations. Meets
Human Diversity Co-Requirement.
ANTH 3356 001H Before Civilization
(access #: 5992) T/TH 2:00-3:20 PM 101 Dallas Hall John
Williams
A survey of the Paleolithic archaeology of the first three
million years of human history in the old world. Emphasis
is upon adaptation and cultural change.
This course will examine the intellectual in modern European
society. It will explore major
intellectual and social issues raised by and affecting a number of figures
instrumental in shaping the European world of the 19th and 20th
centuries. Less of a history course
than an exploration of the evolution of ideas as time progresses. It should interest those concerned with the
relationship of their values and ideas to the society in which they live
today.
This course is an
examination of how the global equilibrium of 1450 gave way to a clash of
cultures and eventual European domination.
The Western Church was reformed; business grew; new states were created;
families were uprooted. Colonialism,
modern warfare, nationalism, and Marxism appeared on the world stage.
The objectives of this
course include the following: to acquaint students with some recent criticisms
of the dangers of individualism permeating American understanding and live; to
propose the communitarian dimensions of human existence from the Christian
perspective; and to help students enter more critically in to the dialogue
about the role of religion in pluralistic contemporary American society.
This theatre studies
course surveys major figures and issues in contemporary solo performance and
performance studies, acquainting students with artists, forms, and venues
ranging from the mainstream to the alternative. We will view videos and
video documentation of the work and read performance texts, performance theory,
and interviews/writings by and about the artists and their work. The two
major assignments are a research and analysis paper examining an issue related
to the course and a brief original piece applying in performance what we have
studied.
This course examines the roles Native Americans played in
the history of North America (excluding Mexico) from 1500 to the present. It
explores the history of people who lived in North America before European
contact, looks at contact and colonialism form the perspective of Indian people
from the 16th and 19th century, and examines the
histories of Native Americans to the present.
Class time will be devoted to a combination of lecture, discussion,
films and guest speakers. Course readings
will emphasize Native American points of view. Meets Human Diversity Co-requirement.
Summer Session 1
CF 3377 001H Affirming and Subverting the
Image: American Popular Drama from
1787-1997
Contact
Dr. Gretchen E. Smith
The central core of the seminar is
how dramatic literature, both in text and on stage, helped to create,
establish, and cement an image of who and what an “American” was: this was
necessary with the writing of the Declaration of Independence, the successful
end of the American Revolution, and the documentation of the United States
Constitution. IN the 1780s, the United
States of America was a new nation…but who were its people?
Theatre offered audiences located in major urban centers the opportunity to discover one medium’s answer: dramatic literature not only offered “American” characters, but those of foreigners and outsiders as well. In the course of the semester we will be reading plays that established and affirmed “American” identities as well as those that, later in our history, challenged and subverted these identities. In discussing these plays, we will consider how these plays “write” American culture or history, deploying stereotypes of gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality in order to create and support hegemonies of power. The course focuses on popular theatre—rather than literary classics—in order to explore “low culture” in its mass appeal.