Honors Courses Spring 2024

First-Year Seminars

Forging Culture (EXP-Lit)

T/TH 10:30am-12:10pm

Dr. Megan Isaac

This course will examine children’s and young adult literature as a pivot point for cultural, political, and historical identity in the United States. Children and the issues related to them are often the focus of cultural conflicts in the U.S. Members of the class will explore these overt and covert conflicts as they appear in children’s literature. We will investigate how books for children and young readers help shape the values that provide us with a cultural identity and a sense of community. Simultaneously, we will examine the complicated or contentious ideas embedded in books for children and young adults. Beginning with authors from the late 19th century and working our way forward, we will explore ideas of intellectual freedom and censorship, nostalgia and innovation, didacticism and entertainment, and the constant tension between conservative and subversive trends in books for young readers. Our study will center on books (both textual and visual elements) but include a consideration of production, distribution, and merchandizing methods as well. Ultimately, we will work to understand the ways ideas about childhood, story, books, and U.S. cultural identity are produced and contested.

Intellectual History (CIV)

T/TH 12:30-2:10pm

Dr. Michael Carignan

This course is designed to provide students opportunities to critically understand the historical nature of our own important ideas by examining the ways in which ideas have evolved through the last 300 years of European history. In order to understand the major, modern intellectual movements—Enlightenment, Romanticism, Developmentalism, Fin de Siecle, Modernism, Existentialism, and Deconstruction—we will read classic works ranging from philosophy to history and literature from the major figures who have asked and/or responded to the very deepest questions that have captivated modern, Western civilization. Threading many of the movements will be the enduring themes of freedom, critique, historical consciousness, the “death” of God, and the inescapable disappearance of certainties. Writers include: Kant, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Darwin, Nietzsche, Kafka, Freud, Sartre, Camus, Derrida, and Borges.

Disease and Healing in World History (CIV)

M/W 2:00-3:40pm

Dr. Wasim Kasim

Human experiences of diseases and healing vary profoundly across time and place. The course evaluates these experiences from ancient times to the present through a global lens. We will explore medical traditions and examine the ways in which humankind responded to major public health emergences including plague, smallpox, cholera, and influenza. We will study the globalization of disease and the emergence of scientific medicine after 1450, then turn to the interrelated histories of health and disease in the modern era. Turning to healing, we will analyze the ways in which Africans responded to health challenges, defied neat categories, and located healing arts in multiple and overlapping social, corporeal, and spiritual realms. Throughout, we will attend carefully to how biological aspects of health and disease have shaped human experiences, while exploring the powerful mediating role of social, cultural, economic, and political factors – from religious beliefs and dietary practices to inequality, poverty, em ire, and war – in determining the myriad ways in which health disease and healing have been responded to and understood.

Sophomore Seminars

Mathematical Fiction (EXP, SCI-non lab)

M/W 2:00-3:40pm

Dr. Margaret Chapman and Dr. Alan Russell

Mathematical fiction is a course based on creativity theory that combines creative writing with the study of mathematics. We will look at writers who use mathematics as inspiration for their work and study the habits of creative and divergent thinkers to assemble a toolkit for creativity, which will be useful for your Elon career and beyond. You’ll learn more about math concepts like cardinality, infinity, and prime numbers, and read writers including Luis Borges, Pamela Zoline, and Rita Dove. We will also theorize about how and why mathematics inspires creativity. Expect to create a number of new works (including short stories, poems, and experimental forms), workshop your writing, and revise pieces for publication.

Reincarnation of Yoga (EXP, SOC)

M/W 2:00-3:40pm

Dr. Julie Lellis

Now a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S., the spiritual and physical practice of yoga was first recognized and celebrated in India more than 5,000 years ago. Students will critically examine how communication and media influence the public perception of yoga, encourage trends in the practice and meet the demands of popular consumer culture. Theoretical foundations of marketing, public relations and advertising will be introduced to support students in producing individual research projects. Students will simultaneously engage in significant study of the ancient traditions of yoga and the texts that contextualized the discipline and apply them to their modern-day lives. Students will participate in a physical yoga practice and/or reflection period each week.

Authenticity (SOC)

T/TH 10:30am-12:10pm

Dr. Alexis Franzese

For centuries, philosophers have debated the existence of a ‘true’ self- a self that transcends context and circumstances. The main question that will be addressed in this course is: Is there a true self? The question of a true self has been considered in varying ways over time and place. In the last century, Western society has been marked by a more conscious self-awareness. However, the concept of the self has changed over time and self-awareness may be considered as a distinctly modern topic. Sub-questions that will be explored in conjunction with this larger question include (1) How has thinking about the self changed over time? (2) How does religious thought shape and intersect with thinking about the self? (3) How has technology (over time from the printing press to transportation to the computer) shaped self-presentation and notions of a true self?, and (4) Is there an ethical imperative to present a true self, and what is at stake in presenting a fraudulent self to the world or in presenting a genuine self to the world?

What is Education For? (CIV)

T/TH 12:30-2:10pm

Dr. Scott Morrison

Students in this interdisciplinary course will explore the history and philosophy of education in the United States with a particular focus on the social and political functions of schools. Since their inception, people have disagreed over who should attend schools, how schools should be organized and funded, and what knowledge is of most worth. Students will read historical and contemporary texts, write in multiple genres, access community resources, and independently investigate an educational issue of their choosing.

Honors Courses Fall 2024

Sophomore Seminars

The Culture of Food (CIV/EXP)

M/W 2:00 – 3:40pm

Dr. Kevin Bourque and Dr. Nina Namaste

At first glance, the meaning of “food” seems self-apparent. “Food” is a monosyllable, something we’re familiar with from birth; even a baby knows what food is. Look more carefully, however, and the definition becomes more complex: what is the dividing line between a food and a medicine? Are genetically modified or highly-processed substances – say, “imitation cheese product” or Go-Gurt – still foods? How might one culture’s food be another’s taboo? This course spans human expression – including literature, the visual arts, the history of science and the history of ideas – to explore and evaluate the meaning of food. In turn, students will examine and articulate their own relationships with food, through both individual research projects and in-class tastings and activities. How might thoughtful engagement with food – and learning to taste critically – make us better eaters, thinkers and global citizens?

Growing Up Outside (SOC)

T/TH 10:30am – 12:10pm

Dr. Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler

This course will explore how the psychosocial, cognitive, and motor development of children is influenced by varying interactions with the natural world. Student will critically analyze ecological and sociocultural theoretical frameworks to facilitate their understanding of how children’s interactions in complex environmental ecologies can influence development and learning. We will use evidence from recent theory and research to evaluate claims about why spending time in nature matters for child development across multiple domains and holistic well-being. In addition, we will consider how barriers to access (e.g., disability or economic resources) can impact childhood experiences. Specific topics include: forest schools; gender and play in outdoor environments; risky play; children’s environmental stewardship; children’s acceptance and inclusion of differences.

Science of Death (non-lab SCI)

T/TH 12:30 – 2:10pm

Dr. Jessica Merricks

What is death, exactly? What is the precise moment that gives way to its terminal state? How have modern medical advances helped or hindered the transition between life and death, and challenged our definition of personhood? This course will take an interdisciplinary approach to address questions about death and dying. Beginning with a discussion of the physiological requirements for sustaining life, we will examine the mechanisms that underlie the dying process, discuss the environmental and economic factors related to methods of preservation of life, and the various issues surrounding deposition of the body. We will also search the globe for a glimpse into the diverse attitudes and beliefs towards the dead and dying. Ultimately, this class will challenge our understanding of death and provide students with the opportunity to revise their own perspectives on what it means when life is “lost”.

Vision and Difference: Art, History, and Identity (CIV)

T/TH 2:30 – 4:10

Dr. Kirstin Ringelberg

This course will explore the intersections of art objects and makers, their historical contexts, and categories of personal and group identity, particularly gender and race. Artists both work within and challenge, through subtle subversions or direct attacks, the normative identity constructs of their historical contexts. We will look at several case studies across a variety of contexts and analyze the strategies taken by both these artists and the historians who wrote about them. How can we think differently about our own contexts and identities by studying the ways that identity has been constructed, performed, and deconstructed in visual objects? Or in texts that attempt to frame and define those objects, their makers, and their periods? What relationships do seeing and being seen have to our identities, our histories, and the way we understand and learn? Much is being made of our own current context as one of heightened individual visibility in a landscape itself increasingly visually oriented; what is at stake in this supposed change, and how can art history’s focus on these very issues be deployed to understand it?