An exploration of the open-ended question-asking and interdisciplinary discussion which characterize the Honors Program. The course ranges widely over philosophical, psychological, literary, and anthropological texts, as well as works of art, which propose competing definitions for human nature. Students are asked first to understand and then to criticize each perspective in turn and finally to formulate their own understanding of human nature. Readings, which may be drawn from Aristotle, Margaret Fuller, B. F. Skinner, Jesus, Nietzsche, Kenneth Burke, John Milton, or Margaret Mead, are also adopted as the course proceeds based on student suggestions.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with a wide variety of perspectives on one of the most catastrophic periods in human history and its relationship to historic and contemporary events. By grappling with the difficult questions raised by the Nazi Holocaust and the nature of prejudice, students will be able to answer to some extent these crucial questions: How could such uncivilized behavior occur in the midst of the 20th century? and What role does prejudice play in precipitating such behavior? Historians continue to pursue these and other questions, and students, too, will be able to employ their methods in their search for reliable data and some degree of understanding. Emphasis will be placed on helping students view the phenomenon of prejudice in their own lives and time and glean the lessons of the Holocaust for the future. Diverse materials, in particular, primary sources, will help students to perceive the Holocaust as a microcosm of history that encompasses several timeless and universal issues. Among the required readings are Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler (Nemesis, 1936-1945, 2000) and the Definitive Edition of The Diary of Anne Frank. Literature, poetry, film, drama and song will also provide insights along with the students' own research.

Explores how we use "mathematical thinking" to analyze such important social problems as the fair distribution of "goods" (wealth, services, products) and "burdens" (poverty, taxes, military service) in any society. It develops the implications of certain modern areas of mathematics, such as Game Theory, Voting Systems, Apportionment Methods, Fair Division Methods, Optimization Methods, and Methods of Actuarial Mathematics. We use (very simplified) elements of these methods to discuss the fair distribution of social costs and benefits, a problem which every society must resolve in day-to-day practice. The course requires only a high-school proficiency in mathematics.

What makes the difference between good and bad art? By studying examples of art considered to be "bad taste," (which often turns out later to be "good taste") the course tries to develop a deeper understanding of the bases of aesthetic judgment. Readings drawn from major aesthetic manifestoes of the twentieth century and from philosophical reflections on aesthetics.

From the Almagest to superstring theory it has been illustrated that advances in our fundamental understanding of nature could not have taken place without mathematics. The course examines these two disciplines and their interconnectivity, and shows how the language of science is mathematics, and how mathematics has been largely created to serve the needs of science. We will trace the history of mathematics from showing, among other topics, how Greek mathematics influenced the astronomy of Ptolemy and how the calculus was created to allow the advance of Newtonian mechanics. We will show how probability and statistics allowed the formulation of kinetic theory, and why non-Euclidian geometry was a necessity for the general theory of relativity. Finally, we will see how quantum theory allows imaginary wave functions to be combined into real solutions to problems on the sub-atomic scale.

Film and the serious study of it can contribute significantly to understanding the world of human experience and values. The general purposes of this course are to:
1. develop the skills of analysis, criticism, understanding, and appreciation of film through an exploration of the unique qualities of the filmic elements of image, mis en scene, motion, editing, and sound;
2. provide opportunity for disciplined, creative, serious study of the ways in which film as an art form reveals and reflects cultural similarities and differences between the Western and Non-Western worlds.

By exploring the basic building blocks of classic narrative film, students will become more aware of the complexity of film art, more sensitive to its subtle nuances, rich textures, and varied rhythms, and more perceptive in "reading" its multilayered blend of image, motion, and sound. Through comparing and contrasting exemples of expressionistic, classical, and realistic English language films with examples from Japan, Russia, and India, students will become more cognizant fo the significant political/social/cultural implications that are implicit in the film medium.

Is the world found or made? To what extent do humans construct themselves, their culture, society, and values? How much of the natural world is our own product? Does scientific activity investigate or invent natural objects and relations?

To caricature philosophy for a moment: If a tree falls in the forest when no conscious observers are present, does it make a sound? If the answer is "no," then what does that say about the mind-independent nature of the material world? Our focus in this course is the increasingly popular (though, as we shall see, very old) notion that human beings, individually or corporately, actively construct, in part or in whole, the world. This is a notion that transcends disciplinary boundaries, finding expression in such diverse fields as biology, philosophy, psychology, physics, anthropology, sociology, mathematics, theology, literary theory, and linguistics.

These constructive activities are variously individual or collective, partial or complete. At one extreme rests the relatively trivial view that some aspects of reality are constructed by individuals, as I make a cake or you create a work of fiction. At another extreme we find the more radical view that the world -- all of it -- is a construction of either one or a set of individuals, as I become a self-sufficient "world maker," or together we use language or thought to construct a world that satisfies our collective needs, values, or preferences. In between we find a potentially unsettling mix of views reducing what once seemed stable or permanent to historically specific, mutable, and perhaps arbitrary human constructs -- including our concepts of race, gender, sex, human nature, knowledge, (material and moral) truth, physical objects and their properties, and God.

An examination of the major economic plants of the world. It is an ideal interdisciplanary subject, drawing together the fields of botany, biology, history, and anthropology. This course introduces the student to the plants of the world and their influence on various cultures. Topics to be discussed include: economics of plants (positive and negative on society), influence and spread of plants by various cultures, world-wide problems due to the movement of plants, and the future of plants in relationship to humans and society.

The course will consider the social implications of the human practice of constantly moving plants with them as they travel around the world. The chief societies that have been responsible for many of the introductions to other parts of the world are the Europeans, Asians, and the Polynesians. The impacts have been both positive and negative on society being a source of food, medicine, shelter, and horticulture.

A new course offered in response to requests from Honors students for a course in professional ethics.

Examines ethical issues that affect workers and professionals: lying and deception, privacy and confidentiality, whistle blowing, social responsibility and justice. Discussions will make reference to case studies from a number of different professions, including medicine, law, business, politics, the military, and education. We will also examine more theoretical questions about the nature of professionalism, including the moral nature of the relationship between professionals and their clients, and the contrasting natures of ordinary and occupational morality.

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution raises two significant ethical questions: first, if species were modified by competition in the struggle for existence, how is cooperative behavior possible? Second, if humans evolved from hon-human primates, how did the human sense of right and wrong arise? The course deals with the way that scientists have attempted to answer these questionis as their knowledge has increased from Darwin's time to our own.

As with any period of cultural history, the Renaissance may be legitimately approached from any number of different directions. This course will concentrate on the new spirit of "optimism," scepticism, and conjecture about a larger, more open-ended world, all of which animated much of Renaissance thought. The course will include some attention to European art and architecture of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, and it will devote some attention to the literature of that same period. However, the majority of the readings and class discussion will revolve around the infusion of new concepts into intellectual history.

With the Enlightenment, the modern (n.b. not the post-modern) world assumes its distinctive characteristics: constitutional government becomes the norm; the emancipation of the individual is a thing solemnly declared in or or another declarations of rights; the term "revolution" ceases to pertain exclusively to the heavenly bodies; the social sciences begin the process of becoming disciplines in her own right; disbelief leaves the elegant drawing rooms of the jaded nobility and makes its way down to the streets; art criticism and the novel are invented; pornography liberates itself from any (overt) concern with the moral, political or pedagogicalâ?|â?|.and the list goes on. This course will examine and analyze some of the essential texts from this most significant period of Western history.

Informs students of the terminology associated with the study of political and social thought. They will learn the fundamental principles upon which defenders or critics of the Revolution based their conclusions. Students will emerge with the working knowledge of the history of the Revolution and an aquaintance with its more renowned architects. This course should allow students to improve their skills in rational thinking and intellectual problem-solving. Students should gain a broader understanding and appreciation of intellectual history.

A study of important ideas, figures, and documents generated by a movement which is widely considered to be the most powerful intellectual and artistic force in the past two centuries. Embracing a range of poets, composers, political leaders, psychologists, and painters -- from the radical poet William Blake to the committed reactionary Ezra Pound, embracing Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, and profoundly affecting contemporary popular culture (MTV, comic books, rock and roll) -- the Romantic Movement remains a giant influence on most of the dimensions of the late twentieth century.

Concentrates on nation-states as social and historical creations. The course examines the forces and actors that produce national culture and the invention of tradition, memory, place, and peoplehood. It investigates gendered, ethnic, and religious dissent and transnational migratory processes. It analyzes the politics of cultural representation as it appears in literature, film, and popular culture. Examples are drawn from the United States, Ireland, Israel, Tanzania, China, India, and more.

With a focus on visual art, this course examines the society and culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (1850-1920). The art will be studied as an historical record during a time when artists portrayed emerging urban-industrial societies in France and the United States. Beginning with French Impressionist painters (Monet, Renoir, Degas, Manet, Caillebotte) and their depiction of late 19th century Parisian society, the course will explore parallels with social evolution in the northeastern United States captured in scenes by American impressionists and realists (Chase, Sloan, Hassam, Glackens, Metcalf, Robinson). Finally, the course will concentrate on the Early Modern period as reflected in the work of Paris and New York art communities (Picasso, Matisse, Prendergast and "291") during the years surrounding World War I.

Explores the roots of atheism in philosophical inquiries into the nature of reality and belief. Beginning with the attack on religious enthusiasm and superstition by the Enlightenment philosophes, the course follows the development of philosophies of atheism through the "Death of God" movement of the twentieth-century.

1.1 Ethics: We all subscribe, at any point in time, to a certain set of moral propositions (some of which we can specify). For example, someone might assent to all of the following statements:

(1) Tolerance is good.
(2) Abortion is wrong.
(3) Suicide is morally permissible.
(4) Sexual harassment is wrong.
(5) Eating cows is morally permissible.
(6) Killing whales for profit is wrong.

Ethics is not a unique form of reasoning; rather, it involves giving moral reasons to support the moral choices we make. Ethics therefore entails a number of questions: Are our reasons objectively valid (that is, do they hold true for all persons in relevantly similar situations)?...are our reasons reducible to custom (cultural relativism), to subjective feelings (emotivism), to self-interest (egoism), or to religion (theism)? What is the role of consistency or coherence in ethics: Should the defender of (1) tolerate someone else's defense of sexual harassment or abortion? Can the defender of (5) make sense of his or her commitment to (2) or (6)? Is relativism defensible? That is, is relativism self-reflexively inconsistent?

These very general axiological (value-based) questions serve as the starting point for our consideration of Ethics and Animals. Of course, the earth and its various creatures do matter to some extent to all of us, but the more narrow, yet still complex and important, focus of this course is "how much ought these living beings (including humans) to matter to us and why?" Can we identify a universal set of basic moral obligations to the animal world? Will these obligations ever vary along cultural, ethnic, geographical, racial, historical, or gender-based lines? And, given certain inevitable conflicts that will arise within any coherent set of valuations, what kinds of tradeoffs are we justified in making? For example, if we grant some morally relevant similarities between many human and nonhuman animals, are we ever morally justified in advocating or engaging in forms of scientific experimentation that are designed to benefit humans alone? Or, more generally, what justification can we offer for consuming non-human animals as food or as raw materials?

A survey of the science of signs with attention to the cultural interpretation that may arise in different areas of cultural activity: rock music, media, clothing, politics. The course will begin with a survey of the growth of semiotics as a field of study and conclude by looking at various cultural sign systems (film, television advertising, professional wrestling, men's and women's fashion, the Michael Jackson phenomenon) for their structure, internal dynamics, and broader engagement with other signifying systems of cultural meaning.

This course examines the suppression of speech for moral, ideological or political reasons at personal-psychological and social-cultural levels in spoken, written and electronic communications. It also features a multidisciplinary approach to speech restrictions in the workplace, schools, art, popular culture, television, film and print media.

An initiation into the various kinds of biblical narrative. Concentrating on the Pentateuch, selections from apocalyptic literature, a sampling of prophetic literature, and the synoptic gospels, the course seeks to cultivate insight in the narrative patterns, motifs, and strategies the biblical authors use to establish the authority of their texts. The course also features limited consideration of modern theories of myth, history, and literature.