[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.

[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.

[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.

[UConn Storrs]

Instructor: Etan Markus

Prerequisites: (1) ENGL 107, 1010, 1011, or 2011; (2) PSYC 1100; (3) PSYC 2100; (4) PSYC 2200 or 2500 or 3201 or 3552; (5) a good knowledge of statistics

Permission number required. Request a permission number using this form.

Remember how you got to class today? a bad experience? learning to ride a bike? What parts of the brain are involved in these different types of behaviors? How can one examine these questions in the laboratory rat? This hands-on laboratory will provide students with an opportunity to conduct experiments using modern behavioral techniques. The ability of rats to carry out different types of tasks will be related to different brain structures.

This is a serious lab designed for students interested in continuing to graduate or medical school.

• This is a hands-on lab, most of the time we will only have a brief classroom session. Instead, on about half the weeks students will be training animals for about 1-2 hours/day for 3-4 days a week.
• On occasion you will have to come in on the weekend to care for your animals.
• This is also a “W” class, and I’ll be working with you on your writing (& re-writing).

W.

[UConn Stamford]

Instructor: Richard Watnick

Honors students are able to enroll without a permission number. Non-Honors students will need to request a permission number by emailing Professor Watnick with the name of a faculty member who would recommend your participation. 

This seminar has multiple faculty session leaders from different departments. There will be a guest session leader for approximately 10 of the weekly meetings, and the other meetings are for open discussion. The topic of the course for Fall 2021 will be Ideas and Actions. Professor Watnick organizes the course and attends all meetings. Each session leader, still to be identified for fall 2021, assigns reading material ahead of time and then presents before opening up discussion.

Fall 2020 Sample sessions (Topic: Resilience): 

• Jerome Sehulster, Professor of Psychology, The concept of Resilience in the field of psychology
• Susan Herbst, President Emeritus and Professor of Political Science, American Political Institutions:  How Resilient Are They in 2020?
• Shanelle Jones, Honors Student, University Scholar, Day of Pride Scholar, POLS & Human Rights, Untold Stories of the African Diaspora: The Lived Experiences of Black Caribbean Immigrants in the U.S
• Mark Boyer, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Geography, Adapting to Climate Change 
• Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, Resilience in litigation and negotiation
• Jeff Schlosser, National Supply Chain Lead Partner, Strategy and Transactions, Ernst & Young LLP and Kelly Stals, Senior Manager, Operating Model Effectiveness, in Ernst & Young’s International Tax and Transaction Services Group “Supply Chain Resilience – Responses to Disrupted Supply Chains in the COVID-19 Era”
• Joel Blatt, Professor of History, Fred Roden, Professor of English and special guest Roland Tec, On the work of Nechama Tec, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, The Resilience of Polish partisans during the Holocaust
• Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Professor of History, Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity 
• Vicki Knoblauch, Professor of Economics, Analyzing responses to the pandemic through game theory
• Gregory Pierrot, Associate Professor of English, The Haitian Revolution: a global, artistic, and cultural legacy 
• Fred Roden, Professor of English, Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning 

50% of your grade is based on the open discussion in class and on HuskyCT as well as the additional discussion of the topic on your final exam. The other 50% of your grade consists of a term paper or project on a topic in your major under the supervision of a faculty member in your major. You and your faculty supervisor will decide upon the topic and nature of your project so that you can progress in your area of interest. Your faculty supervisor will determine this portion of your grade. Professor Watnick and Kaitlin Heenehan will help you connect with a faculty member if needed.