Fall 2022

Honors Seminars (first and second year students)

BWS 201.1 – Comparing Medical Professions Cross-Nationally – Randy Quaye
Is medicine dying as a profession? How is the professional power of physicians developed in different kinds of societies? Are the forms taken to strengthen or limit professional power different in societies with different contrasting political economies? Is state power central in the analysis of professional power? What is the relationship between the state and the medical profession and where are doctors better off? In this tutorial we will examine the changing status of the medical profession in six countries - the United States, Britain, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands and Canada. We will explore the extent to which nation states have singled out the profession guilds for control. Readings will include McKinley’s and Hafferty’s The Changing Medical Profession, Kruase’s Death of the Guilds, and OECD’s Internal Markets in the Making.

Honors Courses (open to all honors students)

ENG 105 H – College Writing Seminar – Patricia DeMarco
In this Honors section of Freshman Writing, students will learn a range of techniques to create more strategically structured paragraphs and more forceful, stylish sentences. Students will read the essays of other writers regularly and will read and comment on other students’ work. Through both experiences, students will develop their awareness of different writing strategies and writerly voices. The course will also provide an introduction to the specialized resources of a university library, increasing students’ confidence in their ability to find the best scholarly sources for future research papers.

PHIL 310  – Special Topics: Free Will and Responsibility – Erin Flynn
This course will introduce students to the major themes of the contemporary free will debate, including especially the implications of that debate for moral responsibility.

Honors in Course (honors students can enroll in H option)

CLAS 122 – Classical Mythology – Henry Blume
This course is an introduction to mythology in the classical (Greek and Roman) world. Primarily we will be concerned with the mythology of Greece, as the Romans did not have much of a mythology of their own. Mythology from the ancient world is accessed via literary texts that have been handed down to the modern era. For us these pieces of literature will come in various genres of poetry (epic and tragedy). We will think through major questions in these texts for their literary and cultural, and “philosophical” value. The primary objective of this course is to instruct students in strategies of literary analysis and to aid in reading comprehension. Over the course of our investigation, we will think through the ways that mythology, as a literary and cultural nexus, impacted both the classical and modern world. The themes that will be explored in this course are ethics, justice, societal formation, emotion, and human growth and independence. Obtaining an honors in the course will require students to read additional ancient works and to discuss them with the professor in addition to completing a longer research paper on a question of scholastic interest that the student will arrive at during the course of the semester.

CLAS 310 – Archaic and Classical Greece – Henry Blume
This course offers an exploration of various aspects of Greek civilization and culture. Due to the timespan of “Classical Greece” and the lack of evidence for many of the Greek city-states a serious investigation into Greek society, as a whole, is impossible. Societies are in nearly constant development; Greece was no different. Consequently, if we are to make any type of meaningful attempt to understand Greek civilization, we need to narrow our focus. For this course, we will primarily focus on the culture and civilization of 5th century (B.C.E.) Athens, for which the best evidence survives. We will examine a wide range of sources in this course, but literature (i.e. the writings of the ancient Athenians themselves) will predominate. The sources that we will primarily use for this course are largely concerned with politics, ethics, war, and religion. For this reason, those topics will loom large for this course, but other aspects of Greek culture will be emphasized as well. This course is designed to enable students to gain a good understanding of the concerns and values of ancient Athenians, and perhaps, by proxy, the other city-states of Classical Greece. The hope is that this understanding will allow those enrolled in the course to both gain a better grasp of a culture both removed in time and space and enhance their understanding of western society as well. An honors in course will require the student to complete additional readings and to meet regularly with the professor. The student will be tasked with completing a research paper on at topic that they will arrive at in discussions with the professor.

REL 342 – Women and Gender in Islam – Susan Gunasti
Through the categories of gender and sexuality, an examination of the tension that exists between an Islamic textual tradition and the everyday lives of Muslims. The contrast between the social lives of Muslims and the Islamic tradition and the way in which Muslim societies have negotiated these tensions will be a recurring theme in the course. Broadly speaking, the course will take a chronological approach to the study of women. The first part of the course will provide an overview of Islamic history - with an emphasis on women - as well as an introduction to important Islamic sources. We will then take a thematic treatment of issues regarding law, sexuality, politics and feminist reinterpretations of the Islamic tradition. We will also read literature and watch films that address the issues we cover in class. No prior study of Islam is necessary.

SPAN 300.11 – Remembering the Dirty Wars in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay – Andrea Colvin
In the 1970s the countries that make up the Southern Cone of the Americas (Argentina, Chile and Uruguay) experienced military coups followed by dictatorial regimes that were extremely brutal in the persecution of their own citizens, giving rise to the term “dirty wars.”  Today, over 40 years later, the societies of these countries are still affected by the events that transpired and continue to wrestle with how to remember and how to come to terms with the past.  Both literature and film have played an important role in creating a collective memory of the events as well as shining a light on difficult questions about truth and remembrance, identity and responsibility, justice and reconciliation.  In this course, we will study how writers and filmmakers have chosen to depict the traumatic events that occurred during the military dictatorships and their impact on society, both from the point of view of those who witnessed the events as well as the younger generations.  Together we will critically examine these questions and discover their continued relevance in today’s world.

SPAN 300.12 – Spanish Bilingualism – David Counselman
This course will focus on the linguistic aspects of language acquisition and bilingualism, with a focus on Spanish and Spanish-English bilingualism. Topics to be covered include how humans acquire language, how humans acquire a second language, how learning language in adulthood compares and contrasts with learning a language as a child, how humans process language cognitively, what it means to be bilingual, and how bilinguals' language processing may differ from that of monolinguals. Spanish will be the language of instruction and communication in the course. Students will be expected to prepare for class and participate in class discussions. Students will be evaluated based on their preparation and participation, as well as their performance on quizzes, tests, and a final project.

WGS 354 – Black Queer South – Antron Mahoney
Both a proclamation and exploration, this course declares and exams black queer culture, history and politics in the South.  Black queer (or LGBT) life is frequently overlooked, understudied, and/or misrepresented in the often -urbanistic queer studies, -white southern queer history, and -essentialist notions of conservative southern practices and politics.  Thus, this course will employ the geographical place and conceptual space of “the South,” primarily the US South but also making connections to an Afro-diasporic global South, as an entry point for exploring black queer possibilities—race, class, gender and sexual struggle and resistance from “the bottom.”

Seminars required in conjunction with the Honors Research Project (490H) to meet requirements to Graduate with Honors

HONS 300.11 – Honors Research and Inquiry Seminar – Susan Gunasti & Eric Gangloff
This course is designed to be taken the semester preceding the senior honors project (490H). In this course, students will first identify an area of inquiry and a faculty member who will serve as their honors research mentor. Students will begin to formulate a research thesis or define a creative project and learn how to conduct relevant background research in different disciplines. The seminar will culminate in an honors project proposal to be submitted to the honors program that is developed in collaboration with a student’s thesis mentor. The process will include peer- review from fellow honors students in the seminar.

HONS 300.12 – Honors Capstone Seminar – Andrew Busch & Christopher Modica
This course is taken in the same semester as the senior honors project (490H). Students will meet weekly to share their progress and their scholarly work with fellow honors students. This course allows students to practice their oral and written communication skills about their scholarly or creative works to a diverse audience without close knowledge of their discipline. The course also provides opportunities for students to practice scholarly discourse across disciplinary boundaries.


Spring 2023

Honors Seminars & Tutorials (first and second year students)

HONS 201.1 – Time – Barbara Andereck
Time. Everyone knows what it is, but nobody can define it. We won’t succeed in defining time in this tutorial either, but we will investigate many attributes and associations of time: how time has been measured throughout history, time as a fourth dimension, time dilation, the arrow of time, the history of time, the reversibility of time, time travel, time perception.

BIOL 190 7 – Plant Signal Transduction (Tutorial) – Chris Wolverton
Plant seeds are amazing structures that can protect the embryonic plant for hundreds of years, but as soon as germination begins, the plant is fully committed to living or dying wherever it finds itself. To aid the young seedling in becoming rooted and established, plants perceive cues from their surroundings and adjust their growth direction and rate accordingly. Some of the signals perceived by plants include gravity, light, and moisture levels. In this tutorial, we will investigate how plants sense these cues and convert them into signals that result in growth responses. Students will use computer image analysis to collect data on the growth of plants with mutations in genes important in signal sensing and growth responses. Students will also monitor gene expression in plants using confocal microscopy. Along the way, students will gain valuable experience in laboratory techniques, including the cultivation of plants, tissue culture, media preparation, and basic recombinant DNA techniques. No previous experience is necessary or expected. 

FLMS 190.1 – Women Directors in Latin America – Eva Paris-Huesca
Latin American women filmmakers have achieved unprecedented international prominence in recent years. Despite the fact that female directors in general and Latina filmmakers in particular are still being undervalued and under-appreciated around the world in systemic ways, figures such as Argentine Lucrecia Martel, Peruvian Claudia Llosa and Brazilian Anna Muylaert have enjoyed global acclaim from critics and festival audiences alike. This class explores the works of Latin American women directors, including Hispanic and Lusophone geographical regions. We will study their cinematic texts and how they engage with discourses of gender, politics and aesthetics in relation to intersecting notions of identity. A fruitful way to understand the works of these authors is through the exploration of issues that pervade in the countries and communities they belong to or that are explored in their films.

This class counts as group a for Film Studies majors and minors. While no specific academic background is required to succeed in this course, an interest in film in general, and in Latin American cinema and culture in particular, is expected. Writing option.

Honors Courses (open to all honors students)

ENG 176 – Utopian and Dystopian Literature – Mark Allison
In this course, we will read a variety of classic and contemporary texts from the Western tradition of utopian literature.  Reoccurring concerns will include the meaning of social justice, the role of gender and the family, and the place of wealth and technology in the ideal society.  Other topics will include the relationship of utopia to its near cousins, satire and science fiction, as well as its dark twin: dystopia.  Finally, we will consider several “real world” utopian experiments, from the American Shaker communities to the Occupy Wall Street protest movement.

Honors in Course (honors students can enroll in H option)

BIOL 201.2 – The Science Behind the Times – David Markwardt
In this seminar, students will select a topic of interest form the Science section of The New York Times. They will then develop and deliver teaching materials and guide our discussion to help the class understand the science "behind" these fascinating stories in the popular press.

CLAS 321 – The Roman Republic – Henry Blume
This course offers an exploration of various aspects of Roman civilization and culture during its period as a Republic. The Roman Republic existed for nearly 500 years and so we will focus our attention on certain points of “activity.” The sources that we will primarily use for this course are largely concerned with politics, war, and religion. For this reason, those topics will loom large for this course, but other aspects of Roman culture will be emphasized as well (e.g., sports and literature). This course is designed to enable students to gain a good understanding of why and how Rome was able to expand into an empire. The hope for this course is twofold. First, that students gain a better understanding of a culture both removed in time and space. Second, to prepare students to explore Rome during its period as an autocracy, i.e. the Roman Empire, in Classics 322. An honors in course will require the student to complete additional readings and to meet regularly with the professor. Additionally, there will be a final research paper on a question which the student will create while working with the professor during the course of the semester.

HHK 365 – Physiology of Exercise – Andrew Busch
The purpose of this course is to increase the student’s knowledge and understanding about human physiology and the adaptations that occur during exercise. Exercise physiology is a branch of physiology that deals with the functioning of the human body during exercise. An understanding of how the body responds to acute and chronic exercise is crucial for the physical educator, athletic trainer, coach, fitness expert, or exercise physiologist. Emphasis is placed on bioenergetics as well as circulatory, respiratory, and neuromuscular responses to the physical stress of exercise. The objective of this course is for the student to gain an understanding and working knowledge of how the body responds to exercise so that they may apply this knowledge to their chosen field. Indeed, understanding the interactions of metabolism, circulation, and structural adaptations in response to exercise and training are required to be an effective teaching or health care professional. Prerequisite: HHK 260, or consent of instructor. BIOL 251 or ZOOL 251 recommended.

NUTR 300.11 – Human Nutrition and Metabolism – Liz Nix
This course is designed to provide an in-depth understanding of food, nutrients and how nutrients are digested, absorbed and used in the body. This course builds on previous content covered in Introduction to Nutrition, but will take a more physiological and biochemical approach to nutrition processes. We will outline complex metabolic pathways as well as functions of various micronutrients. In addition, we will find and utilize current scientific literature to write a review of a specific topic related to a nutrient. Students completing the Honors requirement will use this literature review to create a research proposal based on gaps in current knowledge. Prerequisites: NUTR 100.2, CHEM 110, and BIOL 251 or permission from the instructor. Writing requirement.

SPAN 300.7 – Sorcerers and Witches in Spanish Literature – Glenda Nieto-Cuebas
This course will focus on the representation of sorceresses and witches in Spanish literature during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It will take into account the historical, social and religious context in which they were produced. Some of the questions that will be addressed are: Where do these characters come from? Why are they often portrayed as women? Why are they so appealing to writers and their audiences? What do they represent? Works to be studied include, but are not limited to: La Celestina, by Fernando de Rojas; El Coloquio de los perros and Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, by Miguel de Cervantes; Amazonas en las Indias, by Tirso de Molina; El desengaño amando y premio de la virtud by María de Zayas; and El Conde Partinuplés, by Ana Caro, among others. These texts will be complemented by secondary sources, including works of art, historical documents, as well as films and other forms of modern media. The course will be taught in Spanish and it will conclude with an exhibit-poster session. Prerequisite: 3Any three of SPAN 226, 250, 310, or 350 or permission of instructor.

Seminars required in conjunction with the Honors Research Project (490H) to meet requirements to Graduate with Honors

HONS 300.11 – Honors Research and Inquiry Seminar – Franchesca Nestor
This course is designed to be taken the semester preceding the senior honors project (490H). In this course, students will first identify an area of inquiry and a faculty member who will serve as their honors research mentor. Students will begin to formulate a research thesis or define a creative project and learn how to conduct relevant background research in different disciplines. The seminar will culminate in an honors project proposal to be submitted to the honors program that is developed in collaboration with a student’s thesis mentor. The process will include peer- review from fellow honors students in the seminar.

HONS 300.12 – Honors Capstone Seminar – Andrew Busch & Christopher Modica
This course is taken in the same semester as the senior honors project (490H). Students will meet weekly to share their progress and their scholarly work with fellow honors students. This course allows students to practice their oral and written communication skills about their scholarly or creative works to a diverse audience without close knowledge of their discipline. The course also provides opportunities for students to practice scholarly discourse across disciplinary boundaries.

Contact Info

Location

Honors Office
Phillips Hall #214
Ohio Wesleyan University
Delaware, OH 43015
P 740-368-3562
P 740-368-3886
F 740-368-3553