Featured Courses

SOCI 2260: Science, Medicine, and Race (Conversion Opportunity)

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[UConn Storrs]

Instructor: Matthew Hughey

While this is not an Honors course, Prof. Hughey welcomes Honors students of all majors and would be happy to offer Honors conversions for interested students.

An introduction to science, medicine, and the construct of “race.” We will encounter the development of medical sciences, colonialism, eugenics, & Darwinism; modern notions of biology & species; the causes & consequences of health inequities across the color-line; genetic & genomic research; and DNA & ancestry testing.

A critical class for students interested in the role of race, truth, facts, methods, and inequality in the genetic age.

Questions? Contact the instructor:
Matthew W. Hughey, PhD
Professor of Sociology
matthew.hughey@uconn.edu

DMD/HRTS: Human Rights Archives I: Documenting & Curating Community Memory

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[UConn Storrs]

HRTS 3540-002 (Topics in Human Rights Practice)
HRTS 5351-001 (Topics in Human Rights Practice)
DMD 3998-007 (Variable Topics)
DMD 5998-010 (Variable Topics)

Instructor: Catherine Masud

While the undergraduate courses (HRTS 3540, DMD 3998) are not Honors courses, Prof. Masud welcomes Honors students of all majors and would be happy to offer Honors conversions for interested students. Seniors may also choose to register for the graduate courses (HRTS 5351, DMD 5998), which act as Honors credit so long as you earn a grade of B- or higher.

This is the first part of a two-semester practice-based unit. Designed to introduce students to the use of human rights archival materials in documentary storytelling, Human Rights Archives Part I will focus on methods and best practices of collecting and managing digital visual and audio-visual archival assets. Students will engage with existing human rights-related archival collections, both private and institutional, to develop an appreciation of the “living” archive and its importance both as a repository of witnessing and memory and as a vehicle for the continuous retelling of history in the present moment. A series of relevant readings, films, and short storytelling exercises will help to provide context and connections. Later in the semester, students will apply what they’ve learned about human rights archives, digital asset management, and storytelling by documenting and digitizing the family stories and artifacts of an immigrant community that bears the multi-generational scars of genocide and displacement, following some of the strategies of the History Harvest model. The assets collected through this collaborative community-centered project will form the basis of an important new collection that students will be involved in processing, organizing, and cataloguing. This collection will be a primary resource for the visual storytelling work in the second course of the unit. Part I, however, is not considered a prerequisite for Part II.

University Honors Laureate: This Variable Topics course will count toward the Arts & Humanities category.

UNIV 1995: Honors Human Flourishing (Special Topics)

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[UConn Storrs]

Instructor: Sierra Trudel

1 credit course

Honors Human Flourishing is aimed to engage students in well-being research and how to then apply the research in a meaningful way to their own lives. Each course topic will include a week of analysis of pertinent research followed by a workshop style class to put the research into action. Students will learn meaningful strategies in the areas of meaning and purpose, relationships, character strengths, positive emotions, engagement, and achievement, to promote personal and professional development. Ultimately, the goal of the course is to provide students with the knowledge and skills to foster well-being to support them throughout their undergraduate academic journey.

Please email sierra.trudel@uconn.edu with any questions.

HIST 3510: Civil War America

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[UConn Storrs]

Instructor: Prof. Christopher Clark

The Civil War (1861-65) was the direst crisis to face the United States since its founding in the American Revolution. The secession of eleven southern states to form the Confederate States of America would, if it had been sustained, have permanently divided the nation. As it was, it took a four-year-long war and the loss of probably more than 750,000 lives to bring the Confederacy to an end.

Using contemporary documents and recent historical works, we’ll explore the war’s origins, events, and outcomes; explain the creation and eventual defeat of the Confederacy, and why the war lasted so long; examine the abolition of slavery and the postwar legacies of Reconstruction, civil rights, and race-based repression; and look at how the war changed the course of U.S. history, affected Americans of all kinds, and has been marked ever since in national memory.

ENGL 6750: Seminar in Language & Literature

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Section 2: Labor, Utterance, & Meaning in the Maritime World

[UConn Storrs]

Graduate courses act as Honors credit, as long as you earn a grade of B- or higher.

Instructor: Mary K. Bercaw Edwards

For as long as history has been recorded, sailors have stepped on shore with a tale to tell. Until the laying of telegraph cables across oceans finally outpaced sailing ships in carrying messages in the 1850s, the sight of a sail on the horizon might be the first herald of news of many kinds: political, cultural, financial, or personal. The figure of the sailor as a storyteller stretches back beyond the earliest written records. The gulf of ocean between the sailor and the port and the events or circumstances that sailor described lent a paradoxical mix of authority and doubt regarding stories sailors told. The writers we will consider in this course inherited willingly or unwillingly the long heritage of these sailor storytellers. This course will examine the chronological development of a literature wherein the sea functions as physical, psychological, and philosophical setting. The course will begin by investigating early uses of the sea in literature and ways in which early works influenced later writings. It will continue with the use of the sea in contemporary literature and literature by writers of color. Through the use of literary theory and maritime history, the course will establish the context in which these works were produced as well as closely examining the works themselves. The requirements for the course will include presentations, several short papers, and a longer final essay.

ENGL 2605. Capitalism, Literature, and Culture

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[UConn Storrs]

Instructor: Clare Eby

Prerequisite: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

In this section dedicated to Honors students, we’ll read some of capitalism’s most influential theorists (such as Adam Smith and Karl Marx) and look at some of its most ardent defenders (including Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand). The primary focus, however, will be on twentieth- and twenty-first century novels and a few films that raise questions about whether capitalism is indeed the best, much less the inevitable, way of structuring the economy—and so many other aspects of our lives. We will consider if there is a racial component to capitalism and also the possibility of a new form of surveillance capitalism emerging in the digital age. The reading list for this course is still a work in progress, but will likely include such novels as Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Dave Eggers’s The Circle, Colson Whitehead’s Zone One, and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. In addition to a substantial amount of reading, course requirements include a 15-minute presentation on a full scholarly book, a short paper, a research paper, spot quizzes—and lots of lively discussion. I love working with Honors students, and expect this course to be a blast.

If you have any questions, including about waiving the prerequisite, feel free to email me (clare.eby@uconn.edu).

CA 1.

HDFS 3141-H71: Developmental Approaches to Intergroup Relations and Victimization

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Instructor: Alaina Brenick

Prerequisites: Open to sophomores or higher.
Recommended preparation: HDFS 2001

Developmental, social-ecological, and social psychological theories of the fundamental processes involved in intergroup relations; cognitive, affective, and social underpinnings of intergroup dynamics; critical issues of diversity and social justice in the lives of children and families; experiences of intergroup discrimination and victimization such as bullying and exclusion; theoretical approaches to improving intergroup relations and tolerance.

CA 2, CA 4.

 

SOCI Conversion Opportunities

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Instructor: Phoebe Godfrey

While these are not Honors courses, Prof. Godfrey welcomes Honors students of all majors and would be happy to offer Honors conversions for interested students. 

SOCI 2705: Sociology of Food (Conversion opportunity)

Prerequisite: Open to sophomores or higher. Recommended preparation: SOCI 1001.

This highly interactive and engaging student-centered course explores in creative ways the social factors shaping the industrial food system, as well as a social analysis of viable alternatives. Readings come from a variety of texts, including academic and activist works, as well as poetry and fiction. Students are evaluated on personal reflective journals, discussions (live or online) and group projects that involve experiential, timely and innovative research into all aspects of the food system.

SOCI 2701: Sustainable Societies (Conversion opportunity)

Prerequisite: Open to sophomores or higher. Recommended preparation: SOCI 1001, SOCI 2709.

This highly interactive and engaging student-centered course explores in creative ways the sociological perspectives on the concepts of sustainability. Taking an intersectional theoretical perspective, this course focuses on the cultural roots of climate change and environmental destruction and looks to non-Western cultures both past and present for models of sustainability and equity. Typical STEM solutions as emblematic of sustainability are critiqued in favor of those that promote social justice and cultural transformation. Readings come from a variety of texts, including academic and activist works, as well as poetry and art. Students are evaluated on personal reflective journals, discussions (live or online) and group projects that involve experiential, timely and innovative research into all aspects of what can create more just and sustainable societies.

SOCI 2709W: Society and Climate Change (Conversion opportunity)

Prerequisites: Open to sophomores or higher; ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011. Recommended Preparation: SOCI 1001.

This highly interactive and engaging student-centered course explores in creative ways the sociological perspectives on the social, economic, political, and environmental causes and consequences of anthropogenic global climate change. Taking an intersectional theoretical perspective, this course focuses on the cultural roots of climate change and environmental destruction and seeks to enable students to see them as inseparable from racism, sexism and other forms of social inequality. Readings come from a variety of texts, including academic and activist works, as well as poetry and art. Students are evaluated on personal reflective journals, discussions (live or online) and Service Learning (SL) based group projects that involve experiential, timely and innovative research into understanding and addressing global climate change. These SL projects form the basis of students individual or group W papers.

CLCS 1101: Classics of World Literature I (Conversion opportunity)

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[UConn Storrs]

Instructor: Fiona Somerset

While this is not an Honors course, Prof. Somerset welcomes Honors students of all majors and would be happy to offer Honors conversions for interested students. 

In this course we will study the world through its literatures, starting from the earliest written sources and selecting a range of writings up to around 1600 CE. Rather than trying to tell an overall story about cultural change in this period, we will consider how a range of cultures across the world used writing, and how it was a means to convey the imaginary. We will focus especially on writings about travel, since this will help us to understand that the world has always been interconnected, and has always involved contact between people different from each other, even when movement from place to place was generally slower than it is now.  

CA 1. CA 4-INT.

CLCS 1102: Classics of World Literature II (Conversion opportunity)

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Instructor: Fiona Somerset

While this is not an Honors course, Prof. Somerset welcomes Honors students of all majors and would be happy to offer Honors conversions for interested students. 

In this course we will study the world through its literatures, focusing on the period from about 1600 to the present. Rather than trying to tell an overall story about cultural change in this period, we will compare five genres and think about who writes them and what they are used for across the world: we will study drama, persuasive prose, lyric poetry, excerpts from novels, and short stories.

CA 1. CA 4-INT.