HON - Honors

Taught on a variety of topics, these interdisciplinary seminars focus on cultivating student skills in reading, writing, critical thinking, oral presentations and information literacy in a small group setting.

Prerequisite: FYS 101H. A colloquium on a selected topic each year in which students explore one or more specific issues arising from the general theme introduced in the first semester colloquium. Emphasis is on collaborative, as well as independent, learning and examination of works from the humanities, sciences and social sciences.

Prerequisite: HON 102, or admission to the Honors Program as a sophomore. This course takes a global perspective on the world and asks students to consider topics such as how and why different societies construct institutions, art, literature and regional and cultural identities.

Prerequisite: HON 201. In this course, students design and participate in a service-learning project that addresses a social or intellectual problem of the student’s choice, includes an experiential and a research component and makes a positive contribution to the local community. Each student makes a culminating presentation of her/his experience and research.

Prerequisite: Open to sophomores, juniors or seniors in the Honors Program, or with permission of the instructors. An interdisciplinary study of issues of gender in art, religion and society, with emphasis on the major cultural traditions of West and East. The course examines images of women from prehistoric times until about 1500 and considers the way in which these images change from period to period and from culture to culture.

Prerequisite: Open to sophomores, juniors or seniors in the Honors Program, or with permission of the instructor. An interdisciplinary study of the Third World that uses aspects of literature, culture, politics, biology, demography, history and economics to understand how the world works for most of humankind. The course features field trips, guest speakers and a team approach to investigating problems of the developing world.

Prerequisite: Open to sophomores, juniors or seniors in the Honors Program, or with permission of the instructor. This course examines the historical and contemporary aspects of censorship in America, paying particular attention to government and societal attempts to repress speech, press and the arts.

Prerequisite: Concurrent enrollment in ENSP 210 and ENSP 212 or permission of instructor. Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors in the Honors Program. The natural history of the Chesapeake Bay region will be examined in the context of society’s exploitation of a natural system. Scientific topics will be combined with historical, sociological, and economic perspectives to form a coherent portrait of the interplay between society and the environment.

Prerequisite: Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors in the Honors Program, or with permission of the instructor. An interdisciplinary study of the institution of motherhood and its representations in modern cultural productions of the Western world. Students will examine the myth and reality of mothering by analyzing readings in social, political and psychoanalytical theory as well literary and filmic texts. This course may be used for credit in the women’s studies minor.

Prerequisites: Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors in the Honors Program, or with permission of the instructor. This course analyzes great political trials that have reflected the political controversies of their time. Western tradition of law and legal analysis through trials held in the United States, France and England will be examined and contrasted and compared with trials held under socialist, Islamic and indigenous political systems.

Prerequisite: Prerequisites: Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors in the Honors Program, or with permission of the instructor. Through analysis and discussion of works of great literature, students will examine questions concerning human nature and ethical responsibility. Authors may include Tolstoy, Greene, Hurston, Marx, Golding, Camus, Sophocles and C.S. Lewis.

Prerequisites: Completion of the Scientific Thought and Philosophical Inquiry areas of the Core. Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors in the Honors Program or with permission of the instructor. This course examines basic advances in genetics, reproductive medicine and in combating infectious diseases and explores their ethical implications, particularly for non-Western cultures. Students use a case study approach to consider topics like genetics, epidemics, euthanasia and reproductive technology from a global, non-Western perspective.

Prerequisites: Completion of the Literary Analysis and the Visual and Performing Arts areas of the core. Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors in the Honors Program or with permission of the instructor. In this class we will survey the writings of philosophers, artists and other figures who attempted to explain why music appeals to us and what the musical experience says about human nature. Readings will be taken from antiquity, the distant past, and the present day. Our goal will be: (1) to study how philosophers have attempted to explain what the musical experience says about human nature; (2) to study what these explanations say about the time periods and cultures from which they came.

Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors in the Honors Program, or with permission of the instructor. Exploration of the legal and technology issues that arise with the emergence and use of digital technologies throughout society. Topics include: relevancy, investigation, prosecution and enforcement and jurisdiction of existing laws in cyberspace, online vices, internet bullying, identity theft cyberterrorism, hacking and digital forensics.

Prerequisites: One course from the Scientific Thought section of the Core. This course takes a philosophical and scientific approach to understanding current ethical issues in medicine and covers topics such as abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering, genetic testing, informed consent, organ transplantation and experimentation with human subjects.

Prerequisite: Open to juniors or seniors in the Honors Program, with permission of the instructor and the Honors Director. An opportunity for juniors or seniors in the Honors Program to assist instructors in FYS 101H, HON 102 or HON 201 by attending classes, helping to lead discussions and assisting with class-related projects and peer review. May not be repeated or substituted for required courses in the Honors Program. Grading is on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.

Prerequisite: Sophomore, junior or senior standing in the Honors Program, or permission of the instructor. How does the American landscape function in our imagination, our policies, our lives? This reading-intensive course covers a wide range of environmental works: political, scientific, philosophical, autobiographical. Authors include Thoreau, Emerson, Aldo Leopold, Leslie Marmon Silko, Annie Dillard, Gary Snyder, Jack London, and William Faulkner. (H2, CT)

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Independent work in a topic selected by the student and faculty adviser. Conferences.

An upper-level special topics course offered at the discretion of the department. The content and methods vary with the interest of students and faculty members

Prerequisite: Open to juniors or seniors in the Honors Program or with permission of the instructor. Considers recent global fiction that transcends boundaries of nation and language. Raises questions about race, gender, religion, political allegiance, violence, memory, history, and East/West relations. Authors may include Achebe, Gordimer, Salih, Endo, Nabokov, Ishiguro, Ondaatje, Roy, Lahiri, Rushdie, and Coetzee. (H2, CT)

Prerequisite: Open to juniors and seniors in the Honors Program. May be repeated once under a different topic. Advanced interdisciplinary study of a topic of interest to senior Honors students and faculty. Class discussion will be supplemented by independent research, collaborative projects, student presentations and guest speakers.

Prerequisite: Open to seniors in the Honors Program. As an alternative to a departmental honors thesis, students in Hood’s
Honors Program may elect to complete a 6-credit interdisciplinary Honors paper. The interdisciplinary honors paper is a two-semester senior-year program designed for students who wish to pursue intensive research or special projects in close coordination with faculty advisers.