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Honors Seminars
Only freshmen and sophomores may enroll in 2xxx-level seminars, and only juniors and seniors may enroll in 3xxx-level seminars. Students who have a late registration date or who find their chosen seminar closed should come to the Honors office and reserve a spot on the waiting list. Waitlisted students must attend the first day of class to have a chance of gaining admission to a closed seminar.
Spring 2010 Honors Seminars
Learning Anthropology Through Science Fiction
Perceptual Illusions
Einstein: Master of the Universe
Climate Change: Myths, Mysteries, and Uncertainties
Medicine, Memoir, and History
The Physiological and Lifetime Benefits of Exercise
East/West, West/East: Interrelationships from the 18th to the 20th Centuries
Cinema and Utopia
Inventing Childhood in Modernity
Radicalism in Early America
Communicating Between Cultures: Linguistic Variation
Flexible Thinking: Cognitive Neuroscience Views
Understanding the Evolution-Creationism Controversy
Issues in Bioethics
Foreign Relations Law and the U.S. Constitution
HSem 2008H Learning Anthropology through Science Fiction
Science fiction has been one of the most popular genres of literature over the last century and a half. Despite its great popularity, however, many fans of the genre do not realize how much it has in common with the discipline of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of what it means to be human in all times and places. Science fiction, for its part, explores human existence in equally diverse contexts, except that those imagined contexts frequently have not yet happened. Despite this similarity, anthropology is extremely poorly known compared to science fiction. This seminar uses the stimulating and entertaining literature of science fiction to expose students to anthropology who otherwise might leave university without experiencing the power of the discipline's perspective on humanity. Through individual pairings of anthropology texts and science fiction stories, the course explores the relevance of biological anthropology, social anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology to humanity's future. The course's juxtaposition of anthropological literature to science fiction stories is designed to provide students with the ability to see how our future is more dependent on how humanity works (as anthropology understands it), than merely what the next technological invention has to offer us.
Associate Professor Gilbert Tostevin is a Paleolithic archaeologist and paleoanthropologist who has taught at the University of Minnesota since 2001. His research uses the material culture remains of past human behavior to understand the evolution of humanity during the period when anatomically modern humans replaced archaic Homo species, such as the Neanderthals, 40,000 years ago. His research includes stone tool analysis and the excavation of Paleolithic sites in Central Europe, the Near East, and Central Asia. His interests in material culture range from the earliest cutting edges to the Turing machines at the heart of modern computers. This wide angle approach to human behavior naturally draws him to the comparison of what both anthropology and science fiction tell us of humanity's future.
HSem 2054H Perceptual Illusions
Humans constantly receive and process a vast amount of sensory input. While sensory information processing is amazingly efficient and accurate, sometimes what we perceive is different from the physical reality. When this happens, we perceive perceptual illusions. The study of the conditions under which perceptual illusions arise and their mechanisms will help us understand how perception normally works. In this course, we will discuss many types of illusions (with an emphasis on visual illusions) and their implications. Students are encouraged to report their own observations and propose possible explanations with the goal of cultivating the habit of careful observation and critical thinking. We will also discuss potential individual and group (including cultural) differences in perceiving illusions. Students will be required to write a paper describing one of their own "illusory" observations, and to propose a plausible explanation for the illusion based on principles of sensory processing and perception. They will receive feedback on a draft of their paper before turning in the final version.
Sheng He is a Professor in Psychology. His research interest is in mechanisms of visual perception. He regularly teaches a 5000 level course "Cognitive Neuropsychology". His work is centered in the psychology department's Vision and Attention lab, where Professor He and several graduate students are exploring the neural basis of human vision, visual attention, and visual awareness.
HSem 2530H Einstein: Master of the Universe
In this seminar we examine the work and life of Albert Einstein (1879-1955). The use of mathematics will be kept to a minimum. You will need no more than some basic high-school algebra and geometry. We begin by studying the special theory of relativity (1905) and some of its famous predictions such as time dilation, the twin paradox, and E=mc2. While working our way through this material, we will also look at elements of 19th-century physics that played a role in the development of special relativity. We continue to pursue a historical approach when we turn to the general theory of relativity (1915), the theory that makes gravity part of (curved) space-time. We trace the development of this theory from 1907 till about 1920. Einstein worked intensively on this theory living in Berlin during the first World War (1914-1918). For this period, we shall also take a close look at Einstein's personal life and at his tentative first appearances on the political stage. Finally, we cover Einstein's role in the development of quantum physics, both his early pioneering efforts in this field and his later opposition to quantum mechanics as formulated in the mid-20s. By the end of the course you should have a good understanding of some of Einstein's most revolutionary ideas, of how he arrived at them, at what personal price, and in what broader socio-political and cultural context.
Michel Janssen (PhD, History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 1995) is a historian of science specializing in the relativity and quantum revolution in physics in the early decades of the 20th century. Before coming to the University of Minnesota in 2000, he was an editor at the Einstein Papers Project, responsible for the presentation of papers, letters, lecture notes, and research manuscripts dealing with general relativity in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. He has published widely on the history of both special and general relativity and, more recently, the history of quantum mechanics. He is co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Einstein (in preparation).
HSem 2630H Climate Change: Myths, Mysteries, and Uncertainties
Climate change is the norm, not the exception. Geological and archaeological records are rich with evidence of a climate system that is dynamic and non-steady state. Yet we face the challenges of understanding the complexities of this system in order to better manage resources for the future. This course examines the theory of climate change and explores environmental signals that are used to diagnose climate variability. The Myths, Mysteries, and Uncertainties about the climate record and the biophysical feedback processes operating in the Earth-Atmosphere system will be discussed.
Tim Griffis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Soil, Water and Climate at the University of Minnesota and is an Associate Editor of Journal of Geophysical Research – Biogeosciences and Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. His research has focused on the carbon and water cycles of arctic and boreal ecosystems in Canada and agricultural ecosystems of the Upper Midwest, United States. His current research projects include: Measurement and modeling of land-atmosphere isotopic CO2 exchange; Experimental and modeling study of ecosystem-atmosphere oxygen isotopic fluxes and discrimination mechanisms; and Investigation of carbon cycle processes within a heavily managed landscape: An ecosystem manipulation and isotope tracer approach.
HSem 2702H Medicine, Memoir, and History
Physician memoirs and writings are an important way of understanding the evolving role of the physician in society and what it means to be a physician. This course will begin with a discussion of the ethical foundations of medical practice as seen through the Hippocratic Oath and the Oath of Maimonides. We will then continue thematically-training, experience, practice, birth, life, death, war, prejudice, and ways of knowing. Readings will include, among others, Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis and writings by William Osler, Kate Marsden, William Carlos Williams, Rosalie Morton and contemporary physician authors such as Atul Gawande, Lori Alvord and Pauline Chen. Screen portrayals of physicians, for example Sydney Poitier in No Way Out and Lionel Barrymore in One Man's Journey, will also be used to discuss the shaping of the popular image of the physician.
Peter Kernahan, M.D., M.S., FACS, graduated with an A.B. in Anthropology from Harvard College and an M.D. from Northwestern University. He completed a residency in Surgery at Stanford University Medical Center and practiced general surgery in St. Paul MN. He has been a Sloan Fellow at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. A former head of the HealthPartners Surgery Department, he began working towards a PhD in the history of medicine in 2004. His particular research interest is the development of surgery in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
HSem 2714H The Physiological and Lifetime Benefits of Exercise
This 3-credit Honors Seminar is a critical thinkers' paradise for practical applications of cross-over disciplines which will hopefully result in a better understanding of how to live a healthy, energetic, and productive life into old age. The concepts and paradigms include exercise physiology, behavioral psychology, up-stream medicine, health promotion, and disciplines of relevant interest to each student. You will be required to attend class, learn to discuss ideas, make logical arguments, accept new ways of thinking and problem solving, make PowerPoint presentations, and expand your perspectives on lifestyle and health. You get to select four relevant presentation topics of your choice. This course will open your eyes to many academic and career options in medicine, exercise physiology, sports medicine, exercise medicine, physical therapy, public health, and others.
Dan Halvorsen is a world renowned physiologist specializing in bioenergetics, exercise physiology, clinical exercise medicine, elite sports performance and gifted-talented curriculum development. As a professional athlete in tennis and basketball he traveled and competed world-wide. He serves on national committees for health reform and the National Physical Activity Plan 2010; and regularly lectures world-wide on Exercise Medicine, Bioenergetics, and Health Reform. Dan serves as the team physiologist for the Gopher teams, Olympic athletes, and local professional sports teams as well as area musicians.
HSem 3012H East/West, West/East: Interrelationships from the 18th to the 20th Centuries
By using each class session (a two hour format each week) to examine key texts that provide evidence of the interrelationships between East and West students will be exposed to aspects of cultural assimilation, transference, and absorption by seeing how art works reflected cultural and aesthetic ideas. Key art works from the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (with some classes held inside the museum in front of key objects) will foster further understanding of how Chinoiserie, Japonisme and European influence on Japan will emerge, since these are key movements in this era of time. Occasional use of MIA Curators, as guest teachers, will assist the course.
As a faculty member since 1985, Dr. Gabriel Weisberg has been engaged in research on ties between East and West, especially with regard to the tendency/theme known as Japonisme-the ways in which Japan influenced European art and thought and the reciprocal ties between the West on Japanese development. He has published widely on this theme. He has organized international loan exhibitions including one at the Van Gogh Museum (2004) on "The Origin of L'Art Nouveau: The Bing Empire," an exhibition and publication that focused on the ways in which Siegfried Bing (1838-1905) an art dealer and collector, valued, promoted, and popularized Japanese art in the West.
HSem 3022H Cinema and Utopia
The search for utopia or an ideal place serves as a powerful resource for literary and cinematic imagination worldwide-whether that is in fantastic fables that project into the future, satires that expose the wrongs of society in order to imagine change, or even tragedies that show how things might be by reflecting on their desolation in the present. In this course, we will explore the idea of utopia by looking at the ways it has been presented in the visual language and narrative content of cinema. Through a range of films from a variety of filmmaking traditions, the course will aim to provide students with an encounter with the utopian imagination.
Keya Ganguly teaches film, cultural studies, postcolonial theory, and the sociology of culture; she has recently finished a book on the "art house" cinema of the Indian director Saytajit Ray (forthcoming from the University of California Press) and is writing another on nostalgia and mainstream Hindi cinema (Bollywood).
HSem 3028H Inventing Childhood in Modernity
In this honors seminar we will study the emergence and construction of the concept of the child and childhood in France. Focusing on particular contextual moments, we will elaborate ways of reading the diverse sites of childhood as they emerge in literature and cultural history. As we identify the registers, idioms, and images though which childhood is symbolically articulated in modernity, we will examine representations of the child's experience of language, memory, and identity as well as the child's relation to the permeable and shifting borders between public and private culture. Readings and discussions are to be divided into three 'sites': 1) Representations of the Child in History 2) Literary Sites of the Child in Modernity, 3) The Child in French film.
The semester course includes lectures and discussions as well as the viewing of selected films. The weekly workload consists of 70-100 pages of reading. Two papers (of 8 and 15 pages respectively) and a midterm examination in essay format are required. Grading distribution is as follows: the two papers (50%), the midterm examination (20%), class participation (10%) and presentations (10%).
Professor Maria Brewer's teaching and research interests are in modern literature, theater and performance, and literary and cultural theory. She has published on the cultural legacies of narrative in postmodernity, feminist theory and narrative, fiction and historical reference, and performance and theatricality. She is currently working on projects dealing with questions of incommensurability, memory, history, and the social bond in literature and performance in modern France. She is Editor, with Daniel Brewer, of L'Esprit Créateur.
HSem 3038H Radicalism in Early America
Radicalism in early America (through the 1850s) took many different forms as radicals variously challenged traditional family structures, arrangements of property, relations of gender, race, and class, notions of the self and self-governance, ideas about the divine and about humanity's relationship to a Supreme Being, the boundaries of social communities, and the sovereignty of political nations. The course develops a conceptual framework for radicalism, investigating why certain goals and strategies appear radical in their historical contexts. The course is not a survey of all radical movements in early America. Instead, we will focus on three broad groupings of radical reform efforts and investigate the impact of those movements on society more broadly: Religious visionaries, including Puritans in 17th-century New England, evangelicals in the Great Awakening, and deists in the 18th-century, 2) Political revolutionaries during and after the American Revolution, 3) Radical social reformers in the 19th century such as abolitionists, women's rights activists, utopianists, and transcendentalists. An important theme throughout involves violence, both the systemic violence that spurred radicals to take action against it, as well as the violent measures some radicals themselves deployed. Religiosity also permeates much of the history of American radicalism, and Evangelical Protestantism in particular played a prominent role in movements for social change.
Kirsten Fischer is an associate professor of history. Her interests include colonial and revolutionary America, U.S. social and intellectual history, and race and racial ideologies in early America. She is the author of Suspect Relations: Sex, Race, and Resistance in Colonial North Carolina (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002) and co-editor of Colonial American History in the series Blackwell Readers in American Social and Cultural History (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 2002).
HSem 3046H Communicating Between Cultures: Linguistic Variation
We use language to do things. We use it to express our emotions and attitudes, to give our ideas and opinions, to complain, to gain acceptance or approval, and to receive and transmit information. Essentially, it is a means of cultural communication. There are different ways we can communicate. Linguistic variation expresses and reflects social factors. The goal of the course is to prepare students with the understanding of sociolinguistic variants and how they differ from culture to culture and how they are actually used in real settings. The students will develop skills and understanding of appropriate ways of successful cross-cultural communication.
Indira Junghare holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Texas. Her publications are in the diverse disciplines of linguistics, literature, philosophy, and religions. She has been recognized as a CLA distinguished teacher and has received an Outstanding Faculty Award from the CLA Student Board, at the University of Minnesota.
HSem 3054H Flexible Thinking: Cognitive Neuroscience Views
This seminar will examine recent research findings from the cognitive, brain, and social sciences to arrive at a better understanding of the conditions that foster, or impede, flexible thinking. A recurrent theme will be that creatively adaptive thinking depends both on automatic (intuitive/perceptual) mental processes and more controlled or deliberate processes, and most often emerges from a combination of these two modes of processing. Representative topics will include: the search for evidence and jumping to conclusions, including research on delusional thinking, and automatic thinking; the effects of reinforcing variable rather than habitual behavior; the role of goals, and adaptive changes in goals, in the creative development of ideas; the need for both highly specific and more abstract ways of accessing our knowledge and memory for experiences; the ways in which emotions may enhance or impair flexibility in thought; and the importance of mentally stimulating environments in adaptive cognition and behavior, and the brain changes that both accompany, and support, flexible thinking. We will read original research papers from several disciplines and multiple methodologies so as to arrive at a broad, integrated, and empirically informed view of flexible thinking.
Dr. Wilma Koutstaal's research on human memory, thinking, and judgment focuses on factors that influence how and when we successfully 'use what we know,' particularly the levels of detail at which we encode and use information, and how this contributes to effective problem solving and creative thought. Research in her lab draws on many methodologies: cognitive-behavioral studies both with healthy young and older adults and neuropsychological populations (e.g., global amnesia, semantic dementia), clinical psychology (e.g., effects of depression on thinking and judgment), and brain imaging (functional magnetic resonance imaging). Dr. Koutstaal also teaches an upper year seminar course on Memory, Belief, and Judgment (Psy 5960), and the Psychology of Human Learning and Memory (Psy 5014).
HSem 3103H Understanding the Evolution-Creationism Controversy
Although Charles Darwin announced his ideas about evolution 150 years ago, there continues to be a controversy about his ideas in the United States. Why is there a controversy? What is creationism, and why shouldn't it be taught in public schools? Why not give "equal time" to creationism? And what is "intelligent design?"
This seminar is meant to help students develop their own understanding of the evolution-creationism controversy, including its history, legacy, relevance, and key people. We will discuss a variety of issues related to the controversy, including those involving court decisions, public opinion, public education, and related issues (e.g., racism, politics, etc.). Minnesota has had a critical role in the controversy, and we'll visit local sites associated with the controversy (e.g., the church where fundamentalism was organized in the U.S.).
Many people are emotional and opinionated about the evolution-creationism controversy. Although the focus of this course is not on opinions, we will talk about why so many people feel strongly about these issues, and why the controversy persists. You'll be interested in, and probably surprised by, what you learn.
Randy Moore is a Professor of Biology in the Biology Program of CBS. His research interests include the evolution-creationism controversy and studying how students learn science. Moore, who has won several teaching awards, has written a variety of books about the controversy. He is asked to speak throughout the country about the evolution-creationism controversy, and he incorporates these experiences into the seminar.
HSem 3716H Issues in Bioethics
Bioethics concerns the identification, analysis, and resolution of ethical problems that arise in planning for the care of patients (human and other species), in biomedical research, and in relation to the natural world. This course deals with ethical problems that occur frequently in the clinical setting, in public health venues, in research, and in our physical environment. The course emphasizes the ethical responsibilities of laypersons, health professionals, researchers and policy makers in planning for and resolving bioethics issues in human and animal patient care, reproductive issues, neuroethics, death and dying, forgoing life-sustaining treatment, war and terrorism, conflicts of interest, pandemics, human and animal research, genetics, bodies and body parts, public and global health, social justice and other topics.
The course will be taught in seminar fashion with occasional presentations by guest faculty, patients or family members. A method of case analysis will be taught and used to examine real cases. Each class session will bring didactic material and the case analysis method to bear on a case pertaining to that week's topic. Teaching materials will include the textbook Biomedical Ethics by Mappes and DeGraziaa, 6th edition as well as selected readings, films, works of literature, art, and music.
Mary Faith Marshall is Associate Dean for Social Medicine and Medical Humanities in the Medical School and Professor of Bioethics in the Center for Bioethics at the Academic Health Center. She is the Director of the Ethics Consultation Service at the University of Minnesota Medical Center and co-chair of the Ethics Committee. She has taught a variety of courses in clinical ethics, the ethics of human subjects research, perinatal substance abuse, health policy, literature and medicine and related topics. She is a fellow in the American College of Critical Care Medicine, and is widely published in the field of bioethics.
HSem 3802H Foreign Relations Law and the U.S. Constitution
This course examines pivotal constitutional and statutory doctrines governing the conduct of United States foreign relations in the age of terrorism. Topics include the distribution of war powers between the three branches of the federal government, war and civil liberties, and the war on terrorism. Where relevant, we will focus on current events, such as the military detention and trial practices at Guantanamo Bay, the war in Iraq, and the NSA surveillance controversy.
David Simon, JD, has provided legal advice on international and national security law issues related to the worldwide activities and operations of the U.S. Armed Forces, including the Middle East peace process, missile defense cooperation, and arms control treaties in the International Affairs Division of the Defense Department's Office of General Counsel. He has also worked in the Refugee and Immigrant Program at Advocates for Human Rights, the Economic Crimes Unit of the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota, and the Child Protection and Violent Crimes Divisions of the Hennepin County Attorney's Office.