All course descriptions posted below are for Honors College Perspectives/Colloquium/Seminar classes only. For Honors elective course descriptions, please consult the course's catalog entry at ozone.ou.edu
For information about a class's general education standing, please consult the General Education Plannes at ou.edu/genplanner
NOTE: Class schedules and descriptions are subject to change
"Perspectives" is a three-credit, interdisciplinary, introductory level seminar that explores a broad issue (or issues) from different perspectives. This course is writing intensive, requiring at least 15 pages of writing per student, and includes a component wherein each student works with an Honors College writing assistant. Specific topics vary based on the professor's area of study.
Instructor: Andreana Prichard
Day/Time: T/R 12:00- 1:15 pm
Building/Room: David L. Boren Hall RM 180
Gen Ed: World Culture
Description: Travelers to Africa—including early scientific explorers, National Geographic journalists, aid workers, politicians, and celebrities—have long documented their experiences for audiences back home: 19th-century Christian missionaries returned with tales of "heathen barbarians" who practiced slavery; Edward D. Morel published scandalizing photographs of the "Red Rubber" atrocities in the Belgian Congo; and Sara Baartman, a.k.a. the 'Hottentot Venus', was taken from South Africa and traveled Europe as star of a traveling "naturalist" exhibit. Indeed, Westerners have for centuuries relied on just such images, as well as on media publications, scientific exhibitions, aid workers' reports, and Hollywood films to introduce them to, and to help them make sense of, Africa and Africans. And in many cases, such images of Africa and Africans directly shaped historical events on the African continent, and the lives of Africans. In this course, we will seek to understand the power of particular images of Africa to create and shape change on the African continent and in the lives of ordinary Africans. What, for example, was the relationship between Western beliefs about the African body and the development of the trans-Atlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades? How did "scientific" knowledge about Africans living in the Great Lakes Region of Africa shape ethnic identity before the Rwandan genocide? Together we will consult the works of Western explorers, anthropologists, tourists, journalists, cinematographers and aid workers produced between the 18th and 20th centuries and ask how these representations effected change on the continent. In each case, we will look at "images" of Africa and Africans through the lens of the scholarly history of African cultures in an attempt to better understand Africa and the rich, complex and diverse history of Africans.
Instructor: David Song
Day/Time: T/R 10:30-11:45 am
Building/Room: Cate Center 1 RM 101
Gen Ed: Social Science
Description: Just what is ethnicity? What is race? What is the relationship between the two? This course is about defining these concepts, particularly in relation to colonialism and imperialism, gender, nation, power, social class, the state, and everyday life. Such a task is necessary for addressing issues of activism and organizing, identity, inequality, oppression, and emancipation, and cultural practices such as art, literature, and student clubs. This course will confront students with addressing these questions, through various lenses of social science, ethnography, history, critical theory, and literature.
Instructor: Zeynep Aydogdu
Day/Time: T/R 1:30 - 2:45 pm
Building/Room: CCD1 RM 201
Gen Ed: Western Culture
Description: This interdisciplinary seminar examines how Americans have used various forms of cultural productions (e.g. literature, film, visual art) to define themselves and “others.” Interrogating how these cultural productions, representations, and stories of being American have varied over time and across space, we explore how “markers of social difference” often privilege some and exclude others. In particular, we will examine categories such as identity, history, place, citizenship, belonging, security, and progress. Attention is given to how these categories are transformed when we consider the relationship between political and economic structures and processes on the one hand and markers of difference, such as race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, and nation, on the other. In so doing, we will destabilize categories and classifications often assumed as value-neutral and taken-for-granted. Through a close, careful, and critical consideration of the kinds of stories we tell each other and to ourselves, and the contexts in which these stories take on meaning, we will use literature, film, and artistic productions to learn about multiple American experiences. In this course, we will consider how the cultural productions examined in this class reflect or challenge the residual categories of social difference, the contemporary patterns of privilege and exclusion, and the ongoing transformation of American society and identity.
Instructor: Ralph R Hamerla
Day/Time: M/W/F 8:00-8:50
Building/Room: CCD5 RM 180
Gen Ed: Western Culture
Description: I want to change the way you think about science! Most of us accept science and scientific knowledge as a privileged form of understanding with powerful implications for the way we live. There's absolutely nothing wrong with such a view, BUT I want you to enable you to think more critically, or more analytically, about the creation of scientific knowledge, the operation of scientific institutions, and the culture of science in general. To do this we will read a number of books and articles that examine the nature of the scientific enterprise locally, nationally, and globally over time. This literature focuses on science as an evolving and contingent body of knowledge, as a dynamic and powerful way to explore the world, as a professional community, as a culture with its own idiosyncratic conventions, and as a contested source and object of political power.
Instructor: Trina L Hope
Day/Time: T/R 3:00-4:15 pm
Building/Room: CCD1 RM 101
Gen Ed: Social Science, in progress
Course Description: this course takes on some of the most common myths about crime and criminal justice from the perspectives of Criminology, Criminal Justice, Media Studies, and Sociology. Examples of topics include the social construction of crime myths, along with myths about missing children, organized crime, drugs and crime, the utility of punishment/deterrence, and capital punishment. The focus will be on separating myths from empirical evidence, the interests served by myths about crime, and how to critically evaluate information about crime and criminal justice, especially stories from popular media.
Instructor: James J. Zeigler
Day/Time: T/R 10:30-11:45 am
Building/Room: CCD5 RM 182
Gen Ed: Artistic Forms
Course Description: This course investigates how the graphic novel and the comic book autobiography have become respected literary genres. We will focus on smart, challenging, innovative picture books that represent events of world historical importance. With secondary sources about the events, we'll verify the research that informs the graphic narratives and consider how these long-form comics include reflections on historiography (i.e. How is history written up, by who, and for whom?). Key readings will include nonfiction works such as Art Spiegelman's Maus about the Holocaust, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis about the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ho Chee Anderson's biography King (on Martin Luther King Jr.), and Kyle Baker's Nat Turner on the title character's 1831 revolt against slavery. For historical fictions, we'll study Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth, which revisits the Chicago World's Fair of 1893; Jason Lutes's Berlin, a graphic novel about the rise of National Socialism in 1930s Germany; Emil Ferris's My Favorite Thing is Monsters, which is set in multiethnic Chicago during the late 1960s and Richard McGuire's Here, which is both a climate fiction (i.e. cli-fi) about Earth history and an origin story for the United States. No prior experience with comic books is required.
Instructor: Sarah Tracy
Day/Time: T/R 1:30-2:45 pm
Building/Room: CCD1 RM 214
Gen Ed: Western Culture
Description: What makes an interesting life? What makes a good biography? In “American Lives” students will explore both the genre of biography and the history of the United States (with special reference to Oklahoma) as they consider how life in America has changed over the previous hundred and fifty years and how the criteria for a “good biography” have likewise evolved. Once derided by social historians for the telling the “exceptional stories of exceptional men,” biography today seeks to tell larger stories about the political, social, economic, contexts in which one life – not necessarily a human one –was led. The life of Will Rogers, for example, can tell us something about the nature of humor and the entertainment industry in America, as well as the politics of the Progressive Era and New Deal. The life of the race horse “Seabiscuit” similarly offers readers much more than a glimpse into the thoroughbred racing industry during the Depression. It offers interesting insights into the American character.
Students in this course will be asked to read a selection of important biographies, as well as essays and monographs on the evolution of biography and the nature of writing biography. Like any historian or storyteller, biographers must make decisions about which aspects of their subjects’ lives are important and which are trivial. Writers of biography also wrestle with the ethical issues posed by examining both the professional and personal milestones of their subjects; and biographers often have to deal with their subjects’ living family members and intellectual descendants. Writing the lives of those still living presents still more opportunities and challenges. Participants in this class will address these issues and others as they explore what makes a good biography, and as they conduct research on a figure of their own choosing
Instructor: Zeynep Aydogdu
Day/Time: T/R 12:00 - 1:15 pm
Building/Room: CCD1 RM 201
Gen Ed: Western Culture
Description: This interdisciplinary seminar examines how Americans have used various forms of cultural productions (e.g. literature, film, visual art) to define themselves and “others.” Interrogating how these cultural productions, representations, and stories of being American have varied over time and across space, we explore how “markers of social difference” often privilege some and exclude others. In particular, we will examine categories such as identity, history, place, citizenship, belonging, security, and progress. Attention is given to how these categories are transformed when we consider the relationship between political and economic structures and processes on the one hand and markers of difference, such as race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, and nation, on the other. In so doing, we will destabilize categories and classifications often assumed as value-neutral and taken-for-granted. Through a close, careful, and critical consideration of the kinds of stories we tell each other and to ourselves, and the contexts in which these stories take on meaning, we will use literature, film, and artistic productions to learn about multiple American experiences. In this course, we will consider how the cultural productions examined in this class reflect or challenge the residual categories of social difference, the contemporary patterns of privilege and exclusion, and the ongoing transformation of American society and identity.
Instructor: Robert Scafe
Day/Time: T/R 9:00- 10:15 am
Building/Room: CCD5 RM 180
Gen Ed: Western Culture
Description: In his book The Science of Liberty, Timothy Ferris contends that "the democratic revolution was sparked... by the scientific revolution, and that science continues to foster political freedom today." This course invites students to test such claims about science and democracy by investigating moments in recent American history when science informed—or conflicted with— public participation. Topics include the popularization of cosmology by media personalities such as Carl Sagan and Neil Degrasse-Tyson, the "Climategate" scandal, and the recent resurgence of "citizen science" in the United States.
Instructor: Doyle Dodd
Day/Time: M/W/F 1:00-1:50 pm
Building/Room: CCD1 RM 201
Gen Ed: Social Science in progress
Description: Ergonomics is a field of engineering that studies how design principles can facilitate the efficient functioning of the human body. This course introduces students to the scientific foundations, principles, and applications of ergonomics with a focus on the design of human work. Topics in physical ergonomics are addressed including muscular work, anthropometry, and measurement of human physical capabilities. Topics in cognitive ergonomics are also addressed including human information processing, task analysis, and human-computer interaction. Topics are presented from a systems perspective focusing on foundational knowledge and functional design.
The "Colloquium" is a three-credit, interdisciplinary, discussion-based advanced seminar on a specialized topic, and is best suited for juniors and seniors. The colloquium is writing intensive, requiring approximately 30 pages of writing per student, and the assignments will also involve library research. Topics vary based on the professor's area of study.
Instructor: David Song
Day/Time: T/R 9:00-10:15 am
Building/Room: CCD1 RM 101
Gen Ed: Social Science
Description: What's going on with today's diasporic, immigrant, marginalized, and poor communities, particularly the ones that might fall into – clearly or not – the category of "Asian America?" How do these communities relate to American institutions such as capitalism, the family, immigration policies, schools, and linguistic and racial classifications? How do people from different social origins form communities with each other, in unexpected or unseen ways? This course engages students with contemporary Asian America, through a sociological lens. Themes include: (1) panethnicity and racialization; (2) migration, assimilation, and transnationalism. (3) schooling and family socialization; (4) multilingualism; (5) sexuality; and (6) poverty and social mobility.
Instructor: Andreana C Prichard
Day/Time: T/R 10:30-11:45 am
Building/Room: CCD5 RM 180
Gen Ed: World Culture
Description: Oral sources, or what some scholars refer to as "the heritage of the ears," are central to efforts to recreater the African past, and to better understand its present. Historians value personal recollections and reminiscences, oral traditions, songs, and liguistic data, among other oral sources, for the sophisticated picture they help to paint the past. This course will introduce students to the theory and method of oral history by allowing them to grapple with how practioners have used oral sources to write about a range of African actors, from historical elites to marginalized individuals such as rural dwellers, migrant workers, and women; it will also introduce students to the power of oral history as a tool for community development and the advancement of social justice. Legal and ethical issues, the role of digital media, and oral history as activism are central to the contemporary practice of oral history and will be discussed throughout the course. Students will work with African narrators of various backgrounds to produce oral histories for public consumption. Students do not need to have completed any prerequisites in African studies or oral history to be successful in this course; they only need to come to the class with an interest in hearing others' voices.
Instructor: Sarah W Tracy
Day/Time: T/R 10:30-11:45 am
Building/Room: CCD1 201
Gen Ed: Western Culture
Description: Does the discovery of new drugs drive the definition of disease? Is addiction a disease, a moral failing, an artifact of consumer society? Why are some drugs legal and others illegal? “Psychoactive Substances in American Culture” is a course designed to introduce students from any background to the issue of drug use in America – from chocolate to marijuana. The starting point for this course will be the realization that popular images of alcohol and drugs, government policy on the same, and expert opinions on drinking and drug use, comprise important barometers of social change in America. This spring, for the first time, we will also explore American drug policy with a comparative perspective on drug problems and policy in Europe. Students will examine the use of licit and illicit drugs from historical, economic, anthropological, sociological, and personal viewpoints. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which the market economy and global and national politics have affected competing visions of drugs, their users, and their regulation.
Instructor: Ralph R Hamerla
Day/Time: M/W/F 9:00-9:50 am
Building/Room: CCD1 RM 201
Gen Ed: Western Culture
Description: In this class we study, in depth, the Great War (1914-1918), or what most remember today as World War I or the First World War. It was a cataclysm that tore Europe apart, resulted in the death of millions, led to total collapse of the existing European order, and reshaped the entire world generally. It led to the rise of Communism in Russia, laid the foundations for the post-war growth of Fascism across much of the continent, was the death knell of the colonialism, and it catapulted the United States into the status of a major world power. It also planted the seeds of the Second World War that, in another sense, laid the foundation for the Cold War. In short, the Great War set the stage for the Twentieth Century.
Instructor: Trina L. Hope
Day/Time: T/R 12:00-1:15 pm
Building/Room: CCD1 RM 214
Gen Ed: Social Science
Description: This course takes on some of the most challenging issues facing American families from the perspective of Sociology, using monographs and deep discussion. Topics include the history of the family; the effects of economic restructuring, poverty, and race on families; the evolution of gender and gender identity in the context of families; and family policy.
Instructor: James J. Ziegler
Day/Time: T/R 1:30-2:45 pm
Building/Room: CCD1 RM 101
Gen Ed: Western Culture, In Progress
Description: This course examines cultural politics in the United States during the early years of the Cold War with a focus on the influence of the Red Scare on elections, Hollywood, gender norms, consumer habits, public intellectuals, the Civil Rights Movement, literary aesthetics, early television, and more. Several questions will organize our course. How did a constellation of government agencies, voluntary civil associations, and popular culture in the long decade of the 1950s create a "consensus culture" around the fear that Communists were living undetected alongside ordinary Americans? And how interesting and bold were the intellectuals, artists, and activists who rejected this common sense? How did the influential cultural narrative about hidden Communists function to facilitate or impede specific political interests? How did public intellectuals and literary artists affiliated with an emerging counterculture (e.g. the Beats) and the Civil Rights Movement contend with the network of Cold War tropes, arguments, and narratives that impugned non-conformity and dissent as perverse and treasonous? Required readings will be a mix of literary texts (by Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Lorraine Hansberry, and others), science fiction and film noir movies, TV episodes (e.g. I Love Lucy), the letters of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Congressional testimony, the Hollywood Blacklist (in Red Channels), Senator McCarthy's speeches, and HUAC's pamphlets on how to tell if a neighbor is a secret Communist from the way they talk, dress, and socialize.
Students wishing to graduate with Honors will need to complete nine hours of elective credit.
If there is not an elective course list that fits your schedule, or your major does not allow for the flexibility required to complete nine hours of Honors electives, you may contract a non-Honors course for Honors credit. The form can be downloaded from our Honors Forms page.
If you have questions, please contact the Honors College main office (405) 325-5291 or make an appointment with an Honors College academic advisor at iadvise.ou.edu
