Honor Scholar Program - Current Seminars
Fall 2026 Honor Scholar Seminars
Reading Courses
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred
HONR 200-1: Honor Scholar Reading Course (0.25 credits) with Prof. Farah Ali
Tuesday: 7:00-8:30 pm
How does our knowledge of the universe intersect with the reality of the human experience? Using Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s The Disordered Cosmos as our guide, this course offers a deep dive into the intersection of physics and society. Through this interdisciplinary lens, we will interrogate the macro-structures of colonialism, the systemic exclusion in STEM, and what it means to do science in a biased world. Through weekly reflections and student-led discussions, we will investigate the ethical frontiers of modern discovery, challenge the myth of scientific neutrality, and invite students to consider not only how our understanding of spacetime is shaped by human stories, but also whose voices are heard and whose are erased.
The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn (Selected Readings)
HONR 200-2: Honor Scholar Reading Course (0.25 credits) with Prof. Susan Anthony
Monday: 7:00-8:30 pm
"I pray God save the King and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor more merciful prince was there never.”
These were the last words of Anne Boleyn, second Queen of Henry VIII, seconds before she was beheaded--at her husband’s command. The story of Anne Boleyn has fascinated the public for five hundred years, but she remains a mystery. She was accused of witchcraft, poisoning, adultery, and incest. Yet, supporters claim that she was a victim—guilty only of being an intelligent, outspoken woman, a politically astute religious reformer, and a wife who would not accept her royal husband’s infidelities. Arguments about her deeds and her fate have raged over the centuries, and her story has continued to inspire art, fiction, literature, plays, music; and film. This course will examine the many faces of Anne Boleyn as presented in histories, fiction, plays, operas, films (Anne of the Thousand Days, The Other Boleyn Girl), television series (The Tudors, Wolf Hall, 1536), Donizetti’s opera (Anna Bolena), and Six, the musical to analyze how-- and why-- representations of this historical figure have changed over time.
Adam Morgan, A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls: Margaret C. Anderson, book bans, and the fight to modernize literature
HONR 200-3: Honor Scholar Reading Course (0.25 credits) with Prof. Kayla Birt
Wednesday: 7:00-8:30 pm
Censorship and self-determination are at the forefront of many of our current conversations around free-speech. Margaret C. Anderson faced similar cultural acceleration and backlash when she fought to get James Joyce's "Ulysses" published, which would lead to her arrest and trial for obscenity. She helmed a woman-led publication,"The Little Review", that defied social norms and expectations of decency in the early twentieth-century, and was an early advocate for women's suffrage, access to birth control, social justice, and sexual freedom. She felt she was portrayed as "a danger to the minds of young girls" and regressive officials sought to shame her to repress "unruly women". This class will learn about how a female publisher and artist, along with a community of other writers and artists, dared to make trouble in pursuit of free-speech and human rights, and what that informs us about the state of free-speech and censorship today.
Mary Gauthier, Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting
HONR 200-4: Honor Scholar Reading Course (0.25 credits) with Prof. Ron Dye
Monday: 7:00-8:30 pm
This course will explore Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting, Mary Gauthier’s 2021 memoir about the craft of songwriting, healing, and the shaping of lived experience into art. We will approach the book through a number of disciplinary perspectives, including literature, philosophy, and cultural studies. We will also consider what psychology and neuroscience science reveal about sound, memory, addiction, and recovery. These multiple lenses will help illuminate how songs emerge from experience, collaboration, and revision, and how creative expression can connect individual lives within broader social contexts.
Sex, Lies, and Letters: Laclos’s Dangerous Liaisons
HONR 200-5: Honor Scholar Reading Course (0.25 credits) with Prof. Cheira Lewis
Wednesday: 7:00-8:30 pm
This course is a deep dive into Dangerous Liaisons, Choderlos de Laclos’s sharp novel about seduction, manipulation, and power. Told entirely through letters, the book follows a pair of aristocrats who treat romance like a competitive sport and other people like pieces on a chessboard. It’s witty, unsettling, and surprisingly modern in its portrait of reputation, performance, and emotional strategy. Beneath all the flirtation and intrigue, Laclos exposes how fragile social status can be, and how language itself becomes a weapon.
Over eight weeks, we’ll read the novel and use our weekly meetings to unpack how it works. We’ll look closely at voice, perspective, and the epistolary form, and consider how the novel constructs power through storytelling itself. The course will end with a mini-symposium in which students share a short critical or creative response inspired by the novel. Rather than treating it as a period drama, we’ll approach it as a meditation on desire, performance, and the seductive power of language itself.
Interdisciplinary Seminars
History, Lineage, and Impact of Sound in Black American Music
HONR300A-1: Arts & Humanities Area Seminar with Prof. Steve Snyder
Monday/Wednesday/Friday: 12:30-1:30 pm
An examination of the history and lineage of select African American artists and music through the lens of sound and its influence on generations of creators in American music. A project in sound creation will serve as the culmination. We will listen to artists who have had a profound influence on the way music sounds and explore how creativity, eclecticism, social movements and technology have contributed to the soundscape of America and the world. Synthesis and the component parts of sound creation will offer an opportunity to explore your own creativity.
Machu Picchu to Modern Marketing: The Inkas and their Legacies
HONR 300A-2: Arts & Humanities Area Seminar with Prof. Joseph Albanese
Tuesday/Thursday: 12:40-2:10 pm
Between the early fifteenth century and 1532, the Inkas constructed the largest empire to that point in the history of the Americas. The Inkas, whose empire developed around their capital city of Cuzco, steadily expanded into territories occupied by people of other long-standing cultures. While they did so, they simultaneously spread their civilizational model, culture, and pantheon across western South America while embracing certain aspects of other religions and societal customs. In this class, we will study the visual culture of the Inka Empire, including its architecture, textiles, statuary, and linguistic devices, as well as its indebtedness to other societies in the pre-modern Americas. We will study the Inka Empire as one that is fundamentally connected to other cultures and shared histories. After the Spanish conquest, the Inka religion, artistic and sartorial practices, and customs informed Spanish colonial and post-colonial culture in South America. At present, people across South America consider the Inkas to be an integral part of their history and heritage. Therefore, in the second half of this semester, we will study the Inka Empire’s massive influence during the colonial period and up to the present day in countries such as Peru, and Bolivia. Inka influence will be studied across art, music, and in marketing. In order to form a more thorough understanding of the visual cultures of the Inka Empire and their influence across the centuries, we will read texts from multiple disciplines beyond art history, including: history, anthropology, and literary studies.
Evolution and Human Nature
HONR 300BS-1: Science and Math Area Seminar (S-competency) with Prof. Kevin Moore
Tuesday/Thursday: 2:20-3:50 pm
The Philosopher Daniel Dennett once called evolution “the single best idea anyone ever had.” If this claim has any merit, then surely evolutionary perspectives can shed light on important questions about human nature in general, and issues like cooperation, aggression, sex and gender, aesthetics, emotion, cognition, moral judgments, and environmental concerns in particular. We will look at current and historical attempts to develop scientific accounts of human nature, and examine their strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. The course offers an opportunity to explore how the “single best idea anyone ever had” can be applied to human nature and important contemporary concerns.
Inside the Enemy: Understanding Cancer from Cell to Society
HONR 300BW-1: Science and Math Area Seminar (W-Competency) with Prof. Sarah Mordan-McCombs
Monday/Wednesday/Friday: 12:30-1:30 pm
Cancer has been, and continues to be, one of the leading causes of death in the United States and around the world. Our understanding of the biological basis for the vast number of cancers has increased exponentially over the past 50 years. Even though we know so much about cancer however, there is extreme inequity in the diagnosis, treatment, and long-term prognosis for cancer patients. In this course, we will discuss the biological basis for cancer development, progression and treatment. We will also try to understand the psychological challenges faced by cancer patients and the systemic structures that contribute to the inequities present in cancer risk and cancer care.
Islamic Political Thought
HONR 300CS: Social Science Area Seminar (S-Competency) with Prof. Smita Rahman
Tuesday/Thursday: 2:20-3:50 pm
This course is an exploration of the tradition of Islamic political thought. It begins with a close examination of canonical thinkers in the Islamic tradition, then proceeds to an examination of the Islamic reformist period by looking at the encounters with European liberalism, colonialism, and the demands for secular reform. It then turns to a close analysis of key texts of political Islam and explores their impact on contemporary global politics. Cross-listed with POLS 335
Feminist Inquiry
HONR300C-3: Social Science Area Seminar with Professor Christina Holmes
Friday: 12:30-3:30 pm
Feminist Inquiry prepares students to research and write senior theses in WGSS; it is also useful for juniors and seniors planning to undertake interdisciplinary capstone research (e.g., Honor Scholars, Environmental and Media Fellows, PACS and Global Health students). This course is structured to provide an in-depth overview of both feminist methodology, including theories of what constitutes an ethics of feminist research, and appropriate methods to conduct inter/disciplinary research. We explore some of the many questions that drive feminist inquiry, such as: What makes research feminist? Does gender and sexuality matter in research and do minoritized groups have specific experiences and perspectives that can improve research and/or eliminate bias? How can intersectionality theory be operationalized methodologically?
What is at stake if minoritized groups are left out of research initiatives? Do feminist research questions require alternative research methods to get at new ways of seeing the world? You will practice different methods (e.g., interviews, survey development, content analysis and coding) in class and will conduct your own mini research project that is grounded in one of the feminist methodological frameworks discussed and that utilizes one or more of the methods outlined in the syllabus. You will also pick up helpful tools to make research and writing easier. Projects can be tailored to your interests. This course is cross-listed with WGSS 350. While there are no specific prerequisites, it is helpful for students to have had a course in WGSS or SOC prior to taking this course.
Pompeii
HONR 300CW-1: Social Science Area Seminar (W-Competency) with Prof. Pedar Foss
Tuesday/Thursday: 12:40-2:10 pm
On 24 August, AD 79, Mt. Vesuvius exploded, and wiped off the map a series of towns and villas situated along the fertile coast of the Bay of Naples in Italy. In a touch of irony, that same disaster preserved the remains of its unfortunate victims to an extraordinary degree. This class examines the site of Pompeii (and its neighbors in the Bay of Naples: Herculaneum, Oplontis, Stabiae, etc.). As the oldest continuously-excavated site in the world, Pompeii has been a laboratory for our understanding of the ancient Roman world as well as for the theories, techniques and approaches used in developing that understanding. This class studies both the sites themselves for what they can tell us about daily Roman life, and also the history of their discovery and the dissemination of objects and knowledge throughout Europe and America, as well as continuing controversies involving nationalism, authenticity and ownership. In this class, we will endeavor to 'go behind the scenes,' not just into the lives of the Pompeians, but into the work of the researchers who discover how they lived. The class mixes lectures, discussions, class exercises and student research. Students must prepare (i.e., do the readings); class participation is important, and there is independent work. Pompeii is an inherently multidisciplinary site -- it demands learning theories, methods, and data from history, classical studies, art history, classical archaeology, and diverse physical and social sciences. Library work is essential; students are expected to use interlibrary loan and on-line journal databases.