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 Planner 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 10:30-11:45 AM
Building/Room: David L. Boren Hall RM 180
Description: Oral sources, or what some scholars refer to as "the heritage of the ears," are central to efforts to recreate the African past, and to better understand its present. Historians value personal recollections and reminiscences, oral traditions, songs, and linguistic data, among other oral sources, for the sophisticated picture they help to paint of the past. This course will introduce students to the theory and method of oral history by allowing them to grapple with how practitioners 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: Daniel Mains
Day/Time: TR 9:00- 10:15 AM
Building/Room: David L. Boren Hall RM 180
Description: This course examines international development as a set of discourses and practices that have been directed towards poor nations, primarily in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, presumably with the intent of improving the quality of life and alleviating poverty. We begin by exploring the historical emergence of development out of colonialism following World War II. Different theories of development will be compared and discussed in terms of their implications for economic change and relations of power between the global north and south. In the second portion of the course, we will examine critiques of development projects in relation to issues of gender, environmental sustainability, non-western cultural knowledge, and power. During the final portion of the course, we will read full-length case studies of development interventions in Uganda and West Africa in order to better understand the complexities of development as they play out in day-to-day life. Additional goals for the course are to explore the relationship between power and development and to consider alternative ways of conceptualizing the desired result of development.
Instructor: Marie Dallam
Day/Time: M/W 1:30- 2:45 PM
Building/Room: Cate Center RM 101
Description: The United States is an especially diverse society, where thousands of specific religious groups have emerged from a small number of well-established faith traditions. One can always point to "majority" and "minority" faiths in our culture; every religious group has, at some point, experienced the minority position, and many have found their social status flux repeatedly. Sometimes groups find themselves in a minority position because they have a small number of members, while other times it is because their beliefs and practices are out of sync with those of the dominant culture. Additionally, some people would take offense at being considered a minority religion, while others proudly embrace a marginal status.
This course will examine American religious history in relation to the concept of marginalization. We will focus on individual religious groups that have faced circumstances in common. In addition to following the basic history, we will seek to answer questions including: What can we learn about religious groups when they exist on the margins of social acceptability? When is "marginalized" status a good thing, and when does it lean toward negative consequences? How does peoples' behavior change when they perceive themselves to be in a position of religious weakness? How is the group affected, and how are individuals affected? What kind of responses emerge from the dominant society? As we will see, these questions do not remain consistent from group to group in every situation, thus complicating any easy understanding of power dynamics in the history of American religion and culture. We will seek to engage with this messy history and do our best to think about it from multiple perspectives.
Instructor: Robert Lifset
Day/Time: T/R 12:00- 1:15 PM
Building/Room: Cate Center 1 RM 214
Description: This course uses the prism of energy to examine the history of the United States from the colonial period to the present. We will consider how energy has affected and is affected by, American society, culture, science and technology, politics, diplomacy, and the environment.
Four broad, thematic questions will recur throughout the semester. First, how has increasing energy use transformed American social life, the economy, and politics? Second, what are the relationships between energy consumption and environmental change?
Third, what are the relationships between scientific discoveries, technological innovation, and social change? And finally, how did the Unite States grow to be the largest consumer of energy in the history of the world? Addressing these questions will reveal the fundamental ways in which energy has shaped American history.
Instructor: David Song
Day/Time: M/W 1:30 - 2:45 PM
Building/Room: Cate Center 1 RM 214
Description: What is ethnicity? What is race? How are the two related? Are the two concepts the same thing? How is it that people use these concepts in everyday life (often with serious consequences), but struggle to define them? In this course, students will learn how to define ethnicity, race, and other concepts relating to identity, oppression, and people of color. Students will study ethnicity and race through various lenses, including: slavery, and capitalism in the United States, colonialism and settler colonialism, Asian American panethnicity, multilingualism, post-Civil Rights politics, intersectionality, and the modern nation. The course focuses mainly on the American context, with some international perspectives. Main assignments consist of writing summaries of readings, short response papers, and a final paper.
Instructor: Ralph Beliveau
Day/Time: M/W 3:00- 4:15 PM
Building/Room: Cate Center 1 RM 214
Description: This course explores how notions of media literacy are framed in different cultural contexts to come to an understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses of highly mediated cultures. At the center, this course asks how does the interaction of media and culture effect empathy. How does that interaction support cultural aspirations? Alternately, how can it create effects that increase or decrease empathy?
We will discuss how different cultural formations frame the desires and the practices of using media, including educational contexts, child development, and ideas of cultural or community citizenship. This includes gaining an understanding of changes in media in the intersections of technology, economics, regulation, and aesthetics.
To do this we will consider many different examples, including films, streaming, online, written, and other examples. We will discuss ideas from Renee Hobbs, Douglas Rushkoff, Patricia Hill Collins, Bell Hooks, Bonnie Brennen on qualitative media research, Nancy Tuana on 'epistemologies of ignorance', Howard Segal on 'technological utopianism', Henry Giroux and Helen Reiss on 'The Empathy Effect'. We will also consider the history that led us to where we are now, including historical perspectives on notions of media literacy and American culture, from the philosophies behind the establishment of the information models of journalism, radio, and documentary (John Dewey, Walter Lippmann, Jack Ellis, Bill Nichols, Robert McChesney, and Patricia Aufderheide) to the development of U.S. critical pedagogy with Henry Giroux, Ira Shore, and Charlotte Jacobs.
We will visit with national and international media literacy people as guests in the class (in person, on zoom, etc.) to enhance and broaden the number of perspectives in the class on what counts as media savvy.
In addition to writing arguments, we will explore these notions through the production of podcasts, making short films, and developing other media modes.
Instructor: Ben Alpers
Day/Time: T/TH 1:30 - 2:45
Building/Room: David L. Boren Hall RM 180
Description: This is a different kind of Perspectives course. Like other Perspectives courses, you'll be learning about ideas and the American past while developing your writing skills. But unlike other Perspectives classes, you'll be doing these things through role-playing. Reacting to the Past is an innovative pedagogy that uses role-playing to put students in the shoes of historical actors at key moments in history.
Over the course of the semester, we will play three Reacting games. We will start with America's Founding: The Constitutional Convention of 1787, a game in which students will have the opportunity to debate and frame the U.S. Constitution. Next, we will be playing Peacemaking 1919: The Peace Conference at Versailles. Finally, we’ll be playing Chicago 1968, which reenacts the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Though set in different places and times and focused on decisions of radically different scope, each of these games explores the meaning of democracy and the challenge of rethinking institutional and political orders in situations in which the participants profoundly disagree on matters of importance.
Each of these games will begin with about a set-up of phase, a week of more-or-less traditional classes during which you'll study the historical background and major issues of the game. You will then be assigned a role and, for the next several weeks, you will play out the events of the game. Unlike in a traditional history course, the outcomes of these events are not decided in advance. How the events play out will be up to the students. And persuasion largely determines the outcome of Reacting games. Through writing and speaking – always in character and reflecting the knowledge you will gain of the person you are portraying – you will try to persuade your fellow students to support your positions in the conflicts that lie at the center of each of these games. After each game concludes, there is a brief post-mortem phase, during which the winners of the game are announced, students leave their roles, and the class returns to a more traditional format to discuss the game and to consider what really happened in the event that we've been studying.
In addition to learning about the past and improving your writing, Reacting will help you hone public speaking, leadership, and team-building skills.
If you want to find out more about Reacting, see this pedagogical introduction (PDF), which explains how Reacting games work in a little more detail.
Readings will include: Student Game Books (including primary readings) for America's Founding, Yalta, and Changing the Game.
Instructor: John Banas
Day/Time: M/W 1:30- 2:45 PM
Building/Room: Cate Center 5 RM 180
Description: This course is intended to provide you with an understanding of the role of humor in communication. By reading the original source materials, you will be able to learn and draw your own conclusions about theories and ideas related to humor and its effects on a variety of issues, including: relationships, persuasion, identity, media, teaching, and health. In addition to reading and discussion, creating and performing humor will also be required in order to give you an opportunity to express yourself and learn through doing. All of these practices combined will hopefully allow you to gain insight into humor and communication in a way that illuminates important issues in your own life.
Instructor: Ben Alpers
Day/Time: T/R 10:30-11:45 AM
Building/Room: Cate Center One RM 101
Description: Stretching chronologically from the seventeenth century to the contemporary United States, this introductory honors course will touch upon a wide variety of big questions that Americans have grappled with throughout our history: What is the good life? What is the good society? How do we know what we know? Underneath all of these concerns is a more local question: What should America be? We will delve into these questions by exploring the ways in which American writers and thinkers have addressed them over the last four centuries. Among the thinkers encountered will be: John Winthrop, Anne Hutchinson. Roger Williams, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Grandison Finney, Sarah Grimke. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, George Fitzhugh, Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Jackson Turner, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, William James, John Dewey, Sidney Hook, Margaret Mead, James Baldwin, Hannah Arendt, Milton Friedman, Martin Luther King Jr., Betty Friedan, Noaman Chomsky, and Samuel Huntington.
Instructor: Ralph Beliveau
Day/Time: M/W 1:30- 2:45 PM
Building/Room: Cate Center One RM 201
Description: This course explores how notions of media literacy are framed in different cultural contexts to come to an understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses of highly mediated cultures. At the center, this course asks how does the interaction of media and culture effect empathy? How does that interaction support cultural aspirations? Alternately, how can it create effects that increase or decrease empathy?
We will discuss how different cultural formations frame the desires and the practices of using media, including educational contexts, child development, and ideas of cultural or community citizenship. This includes gaining an understanding of changes in media in the interactions of technology, economics, regulation, and aesthetics.
To do this we will consider many different examples, including films, streaming, online, written, and other examples. We will discuss ideas from Renee Hobbs, Douglas Rushkoff, Patricia Hill Collins, Bell Hooks, Bonnie Brennan on qualitative media research, Nancy Tuana on 'epistemologies of ignorance', Howard Segal on 'technological utopianism', Henry Giroux and Helen Reiss on 'The Empathy Effect'. We will also consider the history that led us to where we are now, including historical perspectives on notions of media literacy and American culture, from the philosophies behind the establishment of the information models of journalism, radio, and documentary (John Dewey, Walter Lippmann, Jack Ellis, Bill Nichols, Robert McChesney, and Patricia Aufderheide) to the development of U.S. critical pedagogy with Henry Giroux, Ira Shore, and Charlotte Jacobs.
We will visit with national and international media literacy people as guests in the class (in person, on Zoom, etc.) to enhance and broaden the number of perspectives in the class on what counts as media savvy.
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: M/W 3:00 - 4:15 PM
Building/Room: Cate Center One RM 201
Description: This class is about the ethnographic study of schooling and its relation to ethnicity, race, and class in the United States. Since its origins, ethnography has been reoriented toward dominant institutions in the West: not least among them, the education system and its marginalized elements: including the working class, women and girls, ethnic-minority and racially oppressed peoples, and diasporic peoples. Through the lens of ethnography, this course promises to show students how schools function, particularly with respect to maintaining social inequalities of class and race, and illuminate possibilities of institutional change.
Students majoring in ethnic studies, public policy, and public administration will make use of this course by understanding schooling as one major area of society where ethnic, racial, and class inequalities and discourses are made manifest. Students majoring in the social sciences, particularly those considering entering graduate school, will make use of this course by understanding ethnographic research methods and social theory. Students concentrating in education (or generally considering a career as a teacher) will make use of this course by gaining theory- and research-based insights into the social foundations of schooling, as well as the opportunity to reflect upon their future practice.
Instructor: Robert Lifset
Day/Time: TR 12:00 -1:15 PM
Building/Room: Cate Center One RM 201
Description: This course is designed to introduce students to a range of issues concerning the kinds of communities—political, social, and moral—that human beings construct for themselves and the values that inform and define such communities; this course is intended to prepare students to become active and informed citizens. We will read closely texts in various traditions of argument, with a focus, on European and American traditions developed since the Enlightenment.
Instructor: Marie Dallam
Day/Time: M 5:00- 7:40 PM
Building/Room:
Description: What happens after death? No one knows for certain. However, each person's answer to this question reveals something about his/her religious beliefs. Questions about death, then, are intrinsically related to both religion and ethics.
This course will not provide you with "the answers." It will give you the opportunity to think through many of the big questions about death, dying, and grieving processes, both through informative readings and discussions with your peers. This course will not be depressing, but we are likely to have some serious moments.
This class is being offered as part of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. Class meets at the Mabel Basset Correctional Facility in McLoud, Oklahoma. Enrollment is limited. If you are interested in enrolling in the class, contact Dr. Dallam directly for more information.
Instructor: Brian Johnson
Day/Time: M/W 3:00- 4:15 PM
Building/Room: Cate Center One RM 101
Founded in 1968, The Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the English-speaking world. The Booker was originally intended to celebrate the best novels written within the United Kingdom but now considers prose fiction from all around the world. As a result, the Booker has now become a truly international prize. In this course, we will trace the recent history of literature through a representative sample of six novels that have won the Booker. If you love novels and struggle to find the time to read as much as you wish you could, consider this course. Our class texts will be the following six Booker Prize winning novels:
Contact Dr. Brian Johnson to learn more: bjohn@ou.edu
Instructor: Andreana Prichard
Day/Time: TR 1:30 2:45 PM
Building/Room: David L. Boren Hall RM 180
Description: Oral sources, or what some scholars refer to as "the heritage of the ears," are central to efforts to recreate the African past, and to better understand its present. Historians value personal recollections and reminiscences, oral traditions, songs, and linguistic data, among other oral sources, for the sophisticated picture they help to paint of the past. This course will introduce students to the theory and method of oral history by allowing them to grapple with how practitioners 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: John Banas
Day/Time: MW 4:30- 5:45 PM
Building/Room: Cate Center One RM 101
Description: This is an upper-division course designed to take an in-depth look at the applied social influence problem of the proliferation of conspiracy theories and misinformation in society. We will examine a variety of theoretical perspectives that help explain why conspiracy theories and misinformation are prevalent, and why they can be harmful, and we will explore a variety of communication-based interventions for preventing them.
Instructor: Daniel Mains
Day/Time: TR 12:00- 1:15 PM
Building/Room: Cate Center One RM 101
Description: This course examines the political, cultural, and economic dynamics of the contemporary African diaspora. We explore how and why Africans leave the continent and the strategies they employ as they seek to make new lives elsewhere. The course begins with a brief overview of theoretical perspectives concerning the African diaspora. We then examine the movements of people between Africa and Europe, giving particular attention to the implications of colonialism for identity formation and power relations, the maintenance of intimate relationships across continents, and the recent refugee crisis. The second half of the course examines case studies of Africans living in the United States, including Somali refugees in Maine, Ethiopian migrants in Washington DC, and Togolese migrants who return to Africa. Throughout the course, we seek to understand migration from the perspective of migrants and we read both fiction and nonfiction. We ask what motivates African migrants and what migration means for them.
Any course taught by the Honors College that does not fall into the Perspectives or Colloquium sections will be covered below. These courses count toward your nine hours of Honors elective credit.
These courses count toward your nine hours of Honors elective credit. Check each individual description for how many credit hours each class is worth.
Instructor: Chung-Hao Lee
Day/Time: W 5- 7:40 PM
Building/Room: Dale Hall 103
Description: In partnership with the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the Honors College offers an opportunity for first-year Honors students to participate in laboratory research. This course, the Honors First-Year Research Experience (FYRE) is open to Honors College students from all majors. Through a competitive application process, students are matched with ongoing research projects led by OU professors in numerous disciplines. Selected students will participate in active laboratory research for 8-10 hours per week, culminating in a poster presentation and awards ceremony. The application process occurs in the fall semester, and the research work occurs in the spring semester. Students earn 3 hours of Honors credit for successful completion of the course.
Instructor: Brian Johnson
Day/Time: T/R 12:00 -1:15 pm
Building/Room: Cate Center One RM 214
Description: What is good writing? How can we develop our writing skills? What struggles do intelligent students have to contend with when they are required to write essays? How can we be of service to others as they seek to express themselves through the written word? In "HON 3970: Writing Workshop," we will address these questions and more! Additionally, Writing Workshop will help you refine your own writing practices and will prepare you for work in the Honors College Writing Center
**Class requires additional permissions
Students wishing to graduate with Honors will need to complete nine hours of elective credit.
If there is not an elective course listed that fits your schedule, or your major does not allow for the felxibility 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
Spring 2025 Honors Course List (excel)
