ENG 105 H – College Writing Seminar – Patricia DeMarco
In this Honors section of Freshman Writing, students will learn a range of techniques to create more strategically structured paragraphs and more forceful, stylish sentences. Students will read the essays of other writers regularly and will read and comment on other students’ work. Through both experiences, students will develop their awareness of different writing strategies and writerly voices. The course will also provide an introduction to the specialized resources of a university library, increasing students’ confidence in their ability to find the best scholarly sources for future research papers.
BWS 201 – The Dying Profession: Comparing Medical Professions Cross-Nationally – Randolph Quaye
Is medicine dying as a profession? How is the professional power of physicians developed in different kinds of societies? Are the forms taken to strengthen or limit professional power different in societies with different contrasting political economies? Is state power central in the analysis of professional power? What is the relationship between the state and the medical profession and where are doctors better off? In this tutorial we will examine the changing status of the medical profession in six countries: The United States, Britain, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands and Canada. We will explore the extent to which nation states have singled out the profession guilds for control. Readings will include McKinley’s and Hafferty’s The Changing Medical Profession, Kruase’s Death of the Guilds, and OECD’s Internal Markets in the Making.
PG300.37 – Public Opinion – Brianna Mack
This course explores the structure and dynamics of public opinion, providing an in-depth introduction to the factors that shape citizens’ social and political attitudes in the United States. We will focus our analysis in three major areas: definitions of public opinion and theories of opinion formation, how public opinion is influenced by external factors and how public opinion is collected and analyzed. The class will create a public opinion survey and collect responses from the OWU community. Our analysis will draw heavily both on readings in public opinion and current research in political behavior which will allow us to examine important political phenomena from a variety of perspectives.
ENG 346 – 18th Century Literature in the Digital Age: Gender, Genre, and Engagement – Stephanie Merkel
Before Wikipedia, there was Diderot’s massive Encyclopédie. Long before social media, there were social networks of letter writers. And before Salon.com, the salons of Madame Necker and Madame Geoffrin. In this course, students inhabit the drama of Enlightenment thought through digital projects. Our approach to studying the cultural age emphasizes participation over a nomenclatural approach. In addition to reading major authors and genres, we consider the cross-cultural friendships and collaborations of thinkers, writers, and artists—both the privileged and the powerless.
In seminar-format classes, students explore the relevance of 18th-century studies for understanding 21st-century problems, questions, and issues. Students read Catherine II, Voltaire, Mary Wollstonecraft, Diderot, Rousseau, Germaine de Staël, Lessing, Sterne, and Goethe, as they actively seek out under-represented participants and forms of participation, such as female virtuosity in the genre of letter writing. Coursework requires students to apply digital tools in the humanities to eighteenth-century studies. Student “Encylopédistes” will move between the digitized 28-volume Encyclopédie and Wikipedia, as they participate in a Wiki Education project, researching, writing, and editing Wikipedia entries relating to under- and misrepresented authors, genres, objects, and concepts. Final project in the course is a public-facing, collaborative project to create a media-rich documentation/visualization of female participation and virtuosity in the genre of letter writing.
SPAN 300.13 – When a Woman Runs the Show: Early Modern Hispanic Theatre on the Contemporary Stage – Glenda Y. Nieto-Cuebas
This class will study how contemporary female directors and playwrights are reimagining early modern Hispanic plays for the contemporary stage. Students will analyze original 17th century texts side by side contemporary productions to determine: How these creators are transforming Hispanic theatre of the 17th century? What discourses are they highlighting? What challenges are they facing as women in a predominantly masculine field? How does their work follow or depart from the original texts and what do they achieve? How are these creators transforming the stage into platforms that discuss current social issues? Some of the texts and some productions that will be analyzed are: El perro del hortelano (Lope de Vega), La vida es sueño (Pedro Calderón de la Barca), and Valor, agravio y mujer (Ana Caro), among others. Course readings and theatre productions will be supplemented with secondary sources, including interviews, works of art, and other forms of modern media. The course will be taught in Spanish. Prerequisite: Three courses at the intermediate level (SPAN 226, 250, 310, or 350) or permission of the instructor.
SPAN 350 – Artistic Expressions of the Hispanic World – Glenda Y. Nieto-Cuebas
This intermediate-advanced level course will introduce students to a variety of artistic texts (including literature, painting, and cinema) as well as other cultural materials from the Spanish-speaking world. This will allow students to gain a greater appreciation for the artistic expressions of the Hispanic world and the historical context to which they belong, while building their linguistic, communicative, critical and analytical skills. Prerequisite: SPAN 225 or placement above 225.
CLAS 319 – Alexander the Great – Hank Blume
With the possible exception of Julius Caesar, Alexander III of Macedon, more commonly known as Alexander the Great, is the most well-known figure from the classical (Greek and Latin) world. However, the sources for the life of Alexander are lacking compared to many other periods in classical history. What is more, because of the fame that he had already achieved in the ancient world, our sources are “corrupted” by the legends surrounding Alexander. For this reason and for other more modern ones (the cultural diversity of these legends and subsequent invasions of the territories conquered by Alexander), it makes more sense to approach this course as a critique of the legend of the king rather than as history of the king and his conquests. So, in this course we will begin by reading some of the historical sources on Alexander before transitioning to more folkloric sources that have shaped much of the image of the king across various cultures over the past two millennia.
WLC 260 – Hispanic and Latinx Voices in U.S. Culture, Literature, and Film – Andrea Colvin
In this course students will be introduced to cultural productions by Hispanic, Chicano/a and Latinx artists, writers, and scholars. Authentic literary, filmic and other cultural/artistic expressions will be used to explore topics such as identity formation in terms of language, race, gender, sexuality, and class; issues related to immigration and the border; activism and art; media representation and Latinx pop culture.
SOAN 358 – Society, Politics, and Social Movements – Paul Dean
How do we build a better world? This course examines social justice movements, forms of activism and advocacy, power, and models for building more socially just societies. Through a comparison of different social movements for racial, gender, and economic justice, it analyzes various alternatives for organizing society and theories of social justice. It discusses the nature and inter-relationship of capitalism, socialism, democracy, the state, and civil society. We draw upon different social movement theories and examples to analyze when and why social movements emerge, what factors influence how and why people engage in activism and collective action, how movements promote change, and what tactics have been successful. Through course projects, students will analyze contemporary social movements (e.g. Black Lives Matter), observe and reflect on campus activism, and develop skills as an activist and agent of change. No prerequisite.
HONS 300.11 – Honors Research and Inquiry Seminar – Susan Gunasti & Franchesca Nestor
This course is designed to be taken the semester preceding the senior honors project (490H). In this course, students will first identify an area of inquiry and a faculty member who will serve as their honors research mentor. Students will begin to formulate a research thesis or define a creative project and learn how to conduct relevant background research in different disciplines. The seminar will culminate in an honors project proposal to be submitted to the honors program that is developed in collaboration with a student’s thesis mentor. The process will include peer- review from fellow honors students in the seminar.
HONS 300.12 – Honors Capstone Seminar – Andrew Busch & Christopher Modica
This course is taken in the same semester as the senior honors project (490H). Students will meet weekly to share their progress and their scholarly work with fellow honors students. This course allows students to practice their oral and written communication skills about their scholarly or creative works to a diverse audience without close knowledge of their discipline. The course also provides opportunities for students to practice scholarly discourse across disciplinary boundaries.
HONS 201.1 – Time – Barbara Andereck
Time. Everyone knows what it is, but nobody can define it. We won’t succeed in defining time in this tutorial either, but we will investigate many attributes and associations of time: psychological and sociological norms related to time, how time has been measured throughout history, time as a fourth dimension, time dilation, the arrow of time, the reversibility of time, time travel, and time perception.
HONS 190.1 – Latin American Cinema Directed by Women – Eva Paris-Huesca
Latina and Latin American women filmmakers have achieved unprecedented international prominence in recent years. Despite the fact that female directors in general are still being undervalued and under-represented around the world in systemic ways, figures such as Argentine Lucrecia Martel, Peruvian Claudia Llosa and Brazilian Anna Muylaert have enjoyed global acclaim from critics and festival audiences alike. This class explores the works of Latina and Latin American women directors, including English and Lusophone geographical regions. We will study their cinematic texts and how they engage with discourses of gender, politics and aesthetics in relation to intersecting notions of identity. A fruitful way to understand the works of these authors is through the exploration of issues that pervade in the countries and communities they belong to or that are explored in their films.
PHIL 349 – From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Struggle for Self-Determination – Erin Flynn
A study of 19th-century philosophy focusing on Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. The course will emphasize their conceptions of the human being and human experience, including especially ideals of self-determination and being authentically oneself, particularly in light of the recession of traditional sources of authority, most notably religious and aristocratic.
PHIL 310 – Philosophical Perspectives on Institutionalized Violence and Resistance – Shari Stone-Mediatore
How is it possible that “civilized” societies have normalized and legalized systems of wide scale violence? What kind of social and cultural practices have encouraged ordinary people to participate in violent institutions? What kind of everyday thinking and cultural practices can help us to resist institutionalized violence? This course will explore such questions through a study of Hannah Arendt’s account of Nazism, Frantz Fanon’s examination of French colonialism, reflections on militarism by Simone Weil and John Glenn Gray, and analysis of the U.S. penal system by Nicole Van Cleve and Joseph Dole. As each of these authors have been immersed in and resisted the violence they study, we also will explore the interrelated social and epistemic value of situated and engaged knowledge. The course will be held at Marion prison, where Ohio Wesleyan students will form a learning community with a select group of men from the prison. Van transportation to and from the prison will be provided. (Class time includes transportation time.) Students must complete a prison volunteer form by late November in order to take the course. Any students who register for the course after the regular registration period should contact the instructor immediately to obtain the form.
Span 300.10 – Spanish Crime Fiction – Eva Paris-Huesca
The primary focus of this course is to introduce students to the origins, developments, distinguishing elements, and ideological uses of Spanish crime fiction (noir, detective, police procedural). The course includes a selection of primary works in literature and cinema from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present, as well as critical articles that analyze these genres from different perspectives (History, Sociology, Psychology, Gender). The main objectives of this interdisciplinary course are two. First, to give students a better understanding of the use of this broad genre as a cultural space to discuss, denounce, and advance social and political issues at a national and global level. Second, to provide them with the basic tools to analyze the selected works critically and logically. Particular attention will be given to gender role representation, noir aesthetics and recurrent leitmotifs. The course will include theoretical exposition, collective discussion of primary literary works and secondary readings, weekly written assignments, individual presentations, and a final group project.
CLAS 322 – Roman Empire – Hank Blume
The Roman Empire is one of the single most important forces in western history. In its broadest conception it ruled portions of the Mediterranean basin for 1500 years. At its largest extent it governed some 2.3 million square miles and a population of 120 million people. Its legal and cultural influence, among others, can still be felt in western cultures in the modern era. The purpose of this course is to look at the empire diachronically from its inception in the 20s B.C.E. to its collapse in the west in the late 400s C.E. The course will focus on the person of the emperor, as well as the cultural, administrative, financial, ethnic, and military concerns of the empire. The goal is to aid students in the critical analysis of imperialism and the management of the empire.
ENG 348 – The British Romantics – Mark Allison
The fifty years between 1785 and 1835 saw one of most significant outpourings of artistic creativity in world history. Extraordinary poets (Wordsworth, Keats, Byron), pathbreaking novelists (Austen, Mary Shelley, Scott), and a variety of literary eccentrics (Blake, De Quincy) utterly transformed British literature and gave us the contemporary meaning of some of the most important words in the lexicon: “nature,” “culture,” “imagination,” “artist,” and “literature.”
NUTR 300.11 – Human Nutrition and Metabolism – Elizabeth Nix
This course is designed to provide an in-depth understanding of food, nutrients and how nutrients are digested, absorbed and used in the body. This course builds on previous content covered in Introduction to Nutrition, but will take a more physiological and biochemical approach to nutrition processes. We will outline complex metabolic pathways as well as functions of various micronutrients. In addition, we will find and utilize current scientific literature to write a review of a specific topic related to a nutrient. Students completing the Honors requirement will use this literature review to create a research proposal based on gaps in current knowledge. Prerequisites: NUTR 100.2, CHEM 110, and BIOL 251 or permission from the instructor. Writing requirement.
HONS 300.11 – Honors Research and Inquiry Seminar – Susan Gunasti & Franchesca Nestor
This course is designed to be taken the semester preceding the senior honors project (490H). In this course, students will first identify an area of inquiry and a faculty member who will serve as their honors research mentor. Students will begin to formulate a research thesis or define a creative project and learn how to conduct relevant background research in different disciplines. The seminar will culminate in an honors project proposal to be submitted to the honors program that is developed in collaboration with a student’s thesis mentor. The process will include peer- review from fellow honors students in the seminar.
HONS 300.12 – Honors Capstone Seminar – Andrew Busch & Christopher Modica
This course is taken in the same semester as the senior honors project (490H). Students will meet weekly to share their progress and their scholarly work with fellow honors students. This course allows students to practice their oral and written communication skills about their scholarly or creative works to a diverse audience without close knowledge of their discipline. The course also provides opportunities for students to practice scholarly discourse across disciplinary boundaries.