Nebraska Honors Program | 189H Seminars - Fall 2009
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All students in the University Honors Program are required to take one 189H seminar in the fall semester of their first year at UNL. These seminars are intended for a generalist audience, which is to say that no special preparation is necessary: the student interested in the sciences would be perfectly comfortable and successful in a Music seminar and the student interested in art is prepared for and would benefit from a Political Science seminar.
The following course descriptions will acquaint you with each of the 189H seminars for 2009. Most students should be able to register for their first choice, but some will have to register for their second or third choice.
Creativity 101
Creativity isn't just for artists. Creativity-flexible, imaginative, innovative thinking-is vital for anyone who wants to compete and work effectively in a complex, interconnected, rapidly changing global society.
This course will give you practical strategies to help you be a more effective professional, engineer, scientist, researcher, writer, entrepreneur and human by helping you to:
*Learn how to think, not what to think;
*Ask more interesting questions to generate more powerful ideas;
*Integrate the analytical and the intuitive;
*Develop a creative mindset.
In this course you will learn:
*What creativity is and how to develop yours;
*How to become a more flexible, fluent and powerful thinker;
*How to overcome obstacles, minimize resistance and stop procrastination;
*How to develop the creativity habit and apply creativity to your work and life.
Be prepared for thoughtful reflection, active discussion and hands-on exercises and individual and group projects.
Communication Ethics in Popular Culture and Everyday Life
News, films, television, politics, sports, internet, conversation, and other daily activities provide an endless array of examples of people communicating ethically-or not so. Some situations are funny, some disgusting, some tragic, but all are instructive examples of communicating about right doing/wrong doing, getting caught/getting away with it, accepting responsibility/shifting blame, being forgiven/punished. After an introductory unit presenting principles, concepts and models of communication and ethics, we will analyze recent examples of the following: Integrity: You can count on me (or not); Lies, Truths, Truthiness: facts, deceptions, spins; Gossip, Secrets: I shouldn't tell but...; Caught in the act: Denials, justifications, apologies; Non-verbal behaviors: I didn't say it.; Humor, Insult: I thought it was funny; Arguing: I'm right so you must be wrong; Listening: What you thought you said vs. what I thought you meant.
A survey of basic learning theory integrated with an exploration of the history, philosophy and culture of American higher education. Assignments and class discussions will emphasize the application of learning theory in the development of individual strategies for maximizing academic achievement and personal growth during the undergraduate experience. Additionally, the course will impart a comprehensive understanding of the higher education learning environment. Exercises are designed to develop critical thinking, analytical reasoning and academic writing abilities. Each student will research and write a major term paper on some aspect of American higher education that is of particular interest to her/him, and also present a summary to the class.
The purpose of the course is twofold:
To develop an understanding of basic learning theory, cognitive processes, identity development and ethical decision-making in college students.
To develop a critical understanding of the history and culture of American higher education and its role in society.
Participating actively in lively class discussions, a critical research project, and a substantial writing component are all parts of the 189H experience. To accomplish that goal, we will read a number of love stories-some famous and familiar, some not-and pursue their evolutions across the centuries. At times I will provide the 20th century versions, and at times you will be responsible for seeking those out. Together we will attempt to discover what in these stories draws us, why we persist in retelling them in various forms and permutations, what issues and archetypes are so compelling, and how we decide on those variations. We will examine cultural and social influences as well as literary and artistic ideas. In addition to the reading, you will need to plan time outside of class for viewing films, some of which will be on reserve in the Honors Office, others of which you will be required to find on your own. Other requirements will include regular response papers, a book review, and one longer critical or research project.
Literature and Politics: From Imperialism to Globalization
This seminar will examine literature's relationship to imperialism and globalization through the lens of one historically significant region, the African Congo. The surprising diversity of prominent foreigners who traveled through or wrote about the Congo over the past century exemplifies the global interconnectedness that we will attempt to fathom. The depths of passion evinced in their writings about events in the Congo underlines those complexities of colonialism and decolonization that we will critically engage. We will study, in whole or in part, travelogues, novels, plays, films, essays, comic books, and government reports, from authors as far flung as Joseph Conrad (born in Tsarist Russia), Mark Twain (born in the U.S.), Ernesto "Che" Guevara (born in Argentina), and Aime Cesaire (born in the Caribbean). A chief aim of your own writing will be analyzing and assessing the differing strategies of literary and non-literary texts. A focus on the Congo will also provide, paradoxically, a fresh perspective on the U.S.'s role in our postcolonial and globalized world, for a literary history of the Congo can't be told without featuring U.S. newspapers, U.S. presidents, U.S. novelists, the C.I.A., and Oprah's Book Club.
Lively class discussions, a culturally relevant topic, and individual research involving substantial writing: every 189H seminar aims at these goals, and this one is no exception. We will consider many aspects of immigration, including our own individual and collective experience as immigrants of various sorts, to explore the many varieties of immigrant experience (not all of them voluntary) that are part of American culture, and to consider issues of displacement, incorporation, and ostracism that have historically been part of the immigrant experience. What does it mean to be an immigrant? How (and why) do evolving cultures include (or exclude) immigrants, both as individuals and as groups, at various moments in history? And with what benefits? And what costs? We'll read in a variety of documents (some of them literary); we'll pursue individualized research projects; we'll ask hard questions and face the tough answers, both in our discussions and in our writing. You'll write occasional brief response papers and reports, but your major product will be the research project you design. Our subject is both perennial and pressing, but the success of our work will depend on each of you playing a meaningful part in the community we will develop.
Art, Culture, and the Search for Meaning in American Life
This course will explore how we can make sense of our lives through creative works by looking at American cultural products in the past one hundred years. Because we are a diverse society composed of various ethnic groups, most of them immigrants or descendants of immigrants, our cultural maps are crucial to our sense of national and personal identity. In part because technology has progressed by leaps and bounds over the past century, these cultural maps tell us a particularly vivid story of how we cope with change, conflict, uncertainty, mortality, family, love, and many other issues at the core of our lives. This course will examine a variety of American artists, literary and visual as well as musical, as they attempt to make sense of a century of vast change.
Requirements include an oral presentation by each student on a work of art chosen by the student. This work may be in the field of film, visual art, music, or literature. Students will also be asked to write responses to the material covered in class and to write two longer papers as a way to develop critical thinking about art and culture.
Texts: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume II. (Various poets and fiction writers) Kindred by Octavia Butler (a neo-slave narrative in the science fiction genre)
A graphic novel to be determined
Humans, Water and the Environment (MEETS ON EAST CAMPUS)
Don't be scared off by the science! This course will introduce students to the basic concepts of water and related environmental issues, and human impacts to and by the environment. Content will include very basic, everyday science--similar to what you'd learn by a careful reading of a news magazine. Class will be conducted as a community task force addressing environmental issues. Students will explore personal learning and working styles, and characteristics of effective teams. Consideration of environmental ethical, civic and stewardship issues will be woven throughout the course. This class is guaranteed to have you well-acquainted with your classmates, embroiled in lively class discussions, and thinking about your role in the world. Assignments will include oral presentations, team projects, and a variety of written assignments, including development of proposed content for UNL's water web site, water.unl.edu.
Through readings in primary sources, students in this seminar will study the genesis of modern political institutions and social values. Between the late seventeenth century and the middle of the nineteenth century, traditional political and social structures in Europe were challenged and eventually overwhelmed by radical new ideas. Modern forms of political organization, i.e., representative government, and modern social structures, i.e., egalitarian values, emerged at this time. We will trace the course of the titanic struggle between tradition and innovation by reading selections of works by John Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Kant, Adam Smith, the Encyclopedists, Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Burke, Prince Metternich, and a host of others.
Not all history is academic; common people create their own histories as they observe secular and religious holidays, visit historical monuments, historically significant sites, and theme parks. Memory, while subjective and sometimes intensely personal, works together with history's broader and often deeper fabric to provide context and give meaning to the past. This course will explore the history and theory of public memory, commemoration, and popular history to help us better understand the significance of such sites of memory as Salem, the Alamo, Gettysburg, Little Big Horn, and even Disneyland. The creation of each site of memory is its own complex chapter in a larger story. Stories that do not simply relate the particular event's details in bronze and granite-and as we shall see, some do that better than others-but also tell of the intricate processes behind the creation of each memorial. When carefully unraveled, these stories reveal both how an event is commemorated and how local, regional, and national public memory is negotiated and shaped by many competing voices over time. Each student will formulate an individual research project which examines in depth a particular historical celebration or commemoration, historic site, or other public attempt to shape American historical memory, and will write an original essay based on research in primary sources.
Americans cherish the right to freedom of expression, a right specifically delineated in the First Amendment and interpreted in hundreds of laws and court cases since the U.S. Constitution was written. This seminar examines the benefits - and costs - of freedom of expression in various parts of American culture. The course will examine the philosophy that inspired the framers of the Constitution to write freedom of speech and of the press into the First Amendment and take an historical look at the framers' apparent intent. The course will stress that the right to freedom of expression applies to all citizens, not only to the media. Especially, we will examine case studies concerning freedom of expression on college campuses, in the media, and on the Internet. Students will be expected to do frequent writing in various formats and to make occasional oral presentations.
Only Prerequisite: A good high school mathematics background at the pre-calculus level. In this course, you will experience the beauty and power of mathematics by exploring the properties of the integers and some of their modern applications. Number Theory, the branch of mathematics which focuses on the integers, is one of the oldest and most elegant areas of mathematics, as well as one of the hottest areas of current research and applications. A central theme of the course will be the search for big primes - a problem which originated in ancient Greece and China but which is as new as today's newspaper.
Music in Film: from Birth of a Nation to Lord of the Rings
Film is one of our most prominent and influential art forms. This class will study the use of music in film from the silent era (1920s) to the present and focus on the expressive and formal function that film music serves, either as sound experienced by the protagonists, or as another layer of commentary to be heard only by the viewer, or some mixture of the two. Composers studied will include: Max Steiner, Bernard Herrmann, Danny Elfman, John Williams, and Howard Shore. We will be listening and viewing films that rely upon a range of musical styles, including classical, popular, and non-Western. This course is intended for non-music majors.
Throughout time, human beings have been fascinated with music. Research in the psychology of music has uncovered much regarding how musicians acquire the ability to convey emotional intentions as sounded music, how listeners perceive it as feelings and moods, and how this powerful process relates to social and cultural dynamics. This course addresses these broad themes, giving specific attention to topics such as: development and learning, motivation, expressivity and artistic interpretation, creativity, performance anxiety, listener preferences and emotional response, and the roles of music in society.
Personal Technology and the 21st Century Scholar/Creative Professional
While technology, and especially multimedia, is a prevalent aspect of our society, its intelligent selection (the right tool for the job) and efficient application (best practices) is often not really understood in academic and artistic settings. Personal use of technology does not necessarily transfer to effective professional application in areas of communication, collaboration, and creativity.
This course seeks to (1) develop and equip students with the skills and knowledge to use personal and multimedia technology within the context of artistic creating and scholarship and (2) be an active participant in the research/creative process of the development and deployment of new technologies. Each student will have use of an iPod touch for the semester as well as access to creativity software/hardware for music production, graphic design, and video production.
An examination of current and controversial issues in American politics. The course will address broad issues that have major implications for our government and country. The first half of the semester will focus on domestic issues, including the role of big government, our system of taxes and the calls for tax cuts, the role of religion in the government, and our use of oil. The second half of the semester will focus on foreign issues, including the war on terrorism, the war in Iraq, and the challenges posed by Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. For both domestic and foreign issues, we'll consider the implications for the new Obama administration and its agenda. This course will be a serious examination of these issues--not simply a "current events" class.
This course will encourage students to draw upon major theories and approaches in the study of Political Science to examine a number of the major issues in world politics today. These may include ethnic conflict, terrorism, globalization, global poverty, and democratization. The goal throughout will be to develop an informed understanding of these problems and to consider potential remedies.
In this course we will use the sociological perspective to examine issues related to social and cultural change and inequality. We will begin by looking at our perception of the human-
environment relationship and how it has changed over time. This will include what we believe about and how we relate to other species with whom we share the earth. We will then turn our attention to changes in the way we humans behave toward one another as we examine social conflict and existing inequalities arising from values and beliefs about ethnic groups, races, classes and gender.
Class will be conducted in the format of informed, focused discussion, with occasional "mini-lectures".
This course explores the historical development and contemporary dynamics of U.S. ethnic and racial diversity from a sociological perspective. The focus in this course is primarily upon the U.S., but we will do a bit of comparing the U.S. with Scandinavian countries like Sweden. We will examine various theories and debates about dominant versus subordinate group dynamics, race as a social construct, as well as debates over affirmative action and multi-culturalism. Particular attention will be paid to deconstructing mainstream or dominant group characterizations and histories of ethnic minorities. This course will incorporate a few lectures and a lot of seminar-style discussions to facilitate students' acquisition of course materials. This course will also explore diversity through snippets from comedy shows like The Dave Chappelle Show and Mind of Mencia (Carlos Mencia). Classroom Format: A few lectures and a lot of discussion.
