Bascom Honors Program Course Descriptions - Fall 2005

The following courses are restricted to members of the Honors Program:

HONR 261-H1: Honors Colloquium. Four Sundays 6:00-8:00, dates tba. Bascom students must take two semesters of Colloquium.

ENGL 204 H1:  Honors Seminar: Writing and American Rhetoric. TTh 12:15-1:30 Professor Nickolai
This honors seminar is designed to help students develop their skills in writing argumentative essays.  Students will examine the American rhetorical tradition in texts ranging from sermons of the Great Awakening to recent Presidential addresses.  These texts will serve as models as students write arguments demonstrating their knowledge of rhetorical strategies.  Through a variety of written assignments, students will discover their own most effective voices as writers.

ENGL/HUM 201-H1: Drama of the Elizabethan World. MW 12:15-1:30. Dr. Germaine Murray
The seminar will discuss the cultural milieux of Shakespeare and his contemporaries such as Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, Thomas Kyd, Ben Johnson and others. We will consider the major cultural and religious influences on these poets with special reference to the development of Renaissance theater and its concerns such as love, war, monarchy, Protestantism, Catholicism, the Jesuits, and much more. The class hopes to bring to students an appreciation for the unprecedented creativity and literary and artistic development of Elizabethan and Tudor England.

FPAR 205-H1: Honors Seminar in Fine Arts. F 9:00-11:45. Professor tba
The course surveys the visual elements, principles of design, media, and history of art. Slide lectures, museum visits, and discussions will enhance the student’s ability to understand and appreciate art. The purpose of the course is to provide the skills to develop a critical awareness of the concepts and methods employed in art analysis

FPAR 297 & HUM 297 H1: Cultural Studies of Rock Music. TTh 10:50-12:05.
Dr. Jesse Kavadlo
For over half a century, rock music has provided inspiration and identity to three generations of people in America and around the world.  At the same time, its cultural, historical, and musical significance remains in dispute.  This course will explore rock’s origins, contexts, images, lyrics, and, of course, music itself.  What does rock music mean, or represent?  How does it create that meaning?  How does its frequent celebration of emotion and irrationality challenge our analyses? How does it continue to be controversial even as it is commercially mainstream?  How can it celebrate originality and individuality yet frequently seem conventional and imitative?  Students should expect to read history, cultural criticism, and novels about rock music, with frequent writing assignments, a listening log, and a research project tied to an in-class presentation.

GEOG 297 H1: Mythology and Folklore of North America. MW 10:50-12:05 Professor Carol Radford
What are the underlying themes in Native American creation and culture hero stories? What myths, folk tales and legends did the Europeans bring with them to North America and how were they changed by contact with Native Americans? What myths did the Africans bring, and how were these myths changed by slavery and Christianity. How were these myths incorporated into an American mythology? How has the idea of the Frontier influenced American mythology? What cultural purposes do tall tales and folklore serve? These questions and more will be the focus of a class that will interpret Americans’ conception of themselves through myth and legend.

HIST/HUM 201-H1: The 20th Century in Film. F 9:00-11:45. Dr. Linda Pitelka
Traditionally, American historians have used a variety of sources such as documents, personal diaries, letters, speeches, census records, literature and newspapers to reconstruct, analyze, and interpret the nation’s past. In recent decades, historians have added to their inventory of sources, especially in the study of popular culture. Historians new use film and television routinely as a means to understand and interpret the past. This course proposes to explore films for their ability to recreate, reflect or reveal, and make or influence U.S. history in the twentieth century. Students will study films from a variety of perspectives, using classroom viewing and discussion, special projects outside of class, readings, historical research, and writing assignments

HIST/PSCI 297 H1: Space History. TTh 3:05-4:20. Dr. Marshall King
Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids.  In fact, it's cold as hell
- Bernie Taupin
 Space History looks at the history of space exploration from the early days of rocket dreams and designs to the likely future of space travel..  We will study the dreamers- men like Tsiolkovsky and Goddard- and the astronauts (both reluctant and willing).  We will examine the German World War II rocket program and its dark side of WMDs and slave labor.  Most of our time will be spent on the Soviet and American cold war competition over space.  Science fiction conceptions of space travel will also find their way into our work.  Finally, we’ll take a long look at the likely future of space exploration.  There will be papers to write, excellent videos to view (including Fritz Lange’s Woman in the Moon), excellent books/articles to be read (including The Mercury 13 by Martha Ackmann,, Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff and Walter McDougal’s The Heavens and the Earth), and other fun stuff!
PSYC 202-H1 Thinking Like a Social Scientist. MW 1:40-2:55. Dr. Judy McGee.
Psychology is a fascinating area! Because it deals with human behavior, a number of people believe that they already know psychology, so why take a course. After all, one is human and knows a quite a few other humans! But psychology, as a social science, approaches human behavior is a specific way, through theory and then testing of those theories. In this class, we learn about those methods and see what biases may enter the research process. Once research is completed, however, the information is reported in the popular media, such as the print media, TV, and websites. But how accurate and credible are these repots and interpretations? In this seminar, we learn how to become more educated consumers of all the psychological information that comes our way everyday. Through written assignments and class discussions, student practice evaluating information and thinking like a social scientist. Hopefully, students learn that there are no simple solutions for complex social problems.

SCI 205-H1 Understanding the Universe. MW 9:25-10:40
Dr. Michael Johnson
This seminar will explore how different civilizations have tried to make sense of what they observe in the sky. For thousands of years people have tried to explain the order they see around them. We will see how these explanations of the cosmos have changed over time, ending with the current theory of the origin of the universe, the Big Bang. The course does not require previous knowledge of either physics or astronomy.