Spring 2027 Courses

Sections: 13
Locations: Multiple
Professors: Multiple

HNRS 1010 recognizes co-curricular activities and reflection as part of a unique and valuable honors education, awarding academic credit for the activities that ambitious and active honors students regularly pursue.

Students will repeat HNRS 1010 for a maximum of 3 credit hours to complete the HCE requirement. A student may enroll in multiple sections of HNRS 1010 per semester, though the students should be sure they can complete the requirements of the course before enrolling.

To complete the HCE requirement, students submit proof of completion and respond to reflection questions via Moodle.

Sections: 7
Locations: Multiple
Professors: Multiple

Using Justice by Michael Sandel as a framework, students will engage enduring ethical questions about fairness, accountability, and civic responsibility while developing a deeper understanding of Louisiana’s dynamic physical environment and the challenges shaping the state’s future.

Drawing in part on Home of the Happy by Jordan LaHaye Fontenot (the college’s Shared Read for 2026–27), HNRS 2000 will examine the 1983 kidnapping and murder of a South Louisiana banker and the lasting impact of the case on families and communities in the bayou country of Evangeline Parish. Through this story, students will consider how local histories are preserved through storytelling, faith, and family ties, and how questions of justice and responsibility unfold within close-knit communities.

T TH 4:30-6:00 p.m., 1005 East Laville
Professor: Dr. Taylor Santaloci

Learn how to write about scientific topics through a journalistic lens! This class will help you improve your scientific thinking and communication skills while also learning about Nobel Prize-winning discoveries.

The goals of this course are to provide a background to better understand science, to demonstrate how science functions as a way of knowing, and to provide tools to evaluate scientific issues in the media more critically and accurately. Upon completion of the course, students will have an enhanced appreciation for the relevance of science in general everyday life; the beauty of physical sciences, as reflected at the level of the atom to that of the whole universe; and how science interacts with and shapes public policy and affects society at large. This will be accomplished through lectures, readings, movies, and discussions of current, controversial science issues. 

M W F 8:30-9:30 a.m., 135 French House
Professor: Achim Herrmann

** Requires participation in Naples, Italy Spring Excursion during Spring Break**

A physical science course with an immersive Spring Break Excursion to Naples, Italy. This program is for non-science majors. Learn about, and then discover and experience, the powerful geological forces like volcanism and earthquakes that have shaped the Earth and human civilization in a course that includes a required experiential spring trip. Learn about, and then explore how, Earth materials influence art, architecture, and daily life in Southern Italy. Experience the cultural and scientific significance of iconic sites like Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii, and the Bay of Naples through hands-on learning. From ancient ruins to modern museums, you’ll gain a fresh perspective on how humans perceive and interact with the dynamic Earth beneath our feet.

M W F 9:00-10:30 a.m., Barnes Ogden School of Art and Design (BOSAD) 1430
Professor: Tabetha Boyajian

What does the origin of the elements have to do with the mug on your desk? Can you throw a pot on the International Space Station? This honors seminar uses the potter's wheel as a laboratory for the process of science.

Students learn wheel-throwing from scratch while investigating the physics (and astrophysics) embedded in every stage of ceramics: the cosmic and geological origins of clay, the forces and rotational dynamics at work on the wheel, and the ways pots fail.

No prior physics or ceramics experience is required. Curiosity and willingness to get muddy are.

T TH 10:30-12:00 p.m., 200 French House
Professor: Craig Harvey

Have you ever encountered a business activity as a customer and thought, "Wow, that could be done better!"? Lean systems address how to improve processes to satisfy customers’ needs.

Companies around the world use lean systems. Whether you are an engineer, a scientist, an accountant, a human resource professional, etc., you will likely someday be involved in lean systems. Lean systems are used in many industries including manufacturing, healthcare, and technology. 

T TH 1:30-3:00 p.m., 1220 West Laville
Professor: Michael Kaller

This seminar will introduce how individual and societal values, attitudes, and beliefs affect perception, understanding, and engagement with the wildlife and fish. The world around us is shaped by human actions and inactions. The goal of this seminar is for students to understand how decisions are made regarding engagement and appreciation of wildlife and fish by individuals and groups and how all people can strive to reinforce positive decisions and reduce negative decisions regarding the environment.

T TH 12:00-1:30 p.m., Location TBD
Professor: Dominique Homberger

This course reviews:

1. The physical and ecological characteristics of this earth
2. Salient anatomical, physiological, and behavioral characteristics of the human species
3. The geographical expansion and cultural-technological adaptations of the human species
4. Ecological effects by humans
5. Ethical considerations of modern human society, including the role of personal and collective responsibility and choice.

T TH 10:30-12:00 p.m., 221 French House
Professor: Malinda Sutor

This course is designed to foster a greater connection with the natural world and understanding of the practice of Natural History research and how important it is to understand current environmental issues and how they are intertwined with human communities.

Through the course, students will also learn how to participate in citizen science projects and how to create these projects and analyze data from them and how to share the results with the wider
community in the form of a website.

The course is service learning with the Baton Rouge Louisiana Master Naturalists. The service learning activities will include a mix of volunteer work at different events, attending workshops, and contributing to the City Search iNaturalist project for the Master Naturalists. The final course reflection will include a reflection on the service learning component.

T TH 4:30-6:00 p.m., 1244 Patrick F. Taylor
Professor: Abbie Fish

Throughout history, people have been captivated by infectious diseases and their origins. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has heightened curiosity about how these diseases spread and the ways we can prevent and treat them. This course explores the history of some of the world's most devastating epidemics and examines their lasting influence on modern approaches to infectious disease management and treatment.

M W F 11:30-12:30 p.m., 218 French House
Professor: Michael Dettinger

** Requires participation in Honors in Berlin Spring Excursion during Spring Break**

As part of the LSU/Honors in Berlin spring excursion program, this course will introduce students to the surveillance states of Germany during the National Socialist period as well as during the years of former East Germany. Students will more closely examine the concept of these totalitarian (“Big Brother”) societies as they are portrayed in the films The Lives of Others (von Donnersmarck, 2007) and Triumph of the Will (Riefenstahl, 1935).

Moreover, students will also analyze multiple scholarly writings on each topic as well as the text 1984 by George Orwell, which represents a fictional interpretation of these surveillance/“Big Brother” states.

Students learn about Germany’s history during the Nazi and East German periods, through scholarly articles, texts, and films. After studying the role of totalitarian control and surveillance in Germany, the class will visit Berlin during Spring Break to gain firsthand experiences with the ways the German government implemented total control, as well as how citizens reacted and, in some cases, resisted.

Site visits will include: Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Hohenschönhausen Prison Memorial, the German Historical Museum and DDR Museum, the Topography of Terror, the Berlin Wall, and more. The excursion will provide experiences that deepen students’ understanding of the historical and cultural contexts studied in the course.

M W, 5:00-6:30 p.m., 221 French House
Professor: Tim Landry

A study of the life, career, and legacy of Richard Milhous Nixon is as Ronald Reagan described the man himself—complex and fascinating, a worthy pursuit for a university Honors student. You will learn not so much what to think, but how to think. A rigorous university History course will impress upon you that historical figures such as Nixon are much more than “hero” or “villain.” They are incredibly complex human beings and politicians.

Applying the lessons of the history you learn here will lead you to becoming a valuable informed and thinking citizen—no matter your political persuasion or philosophy. The critical thinking skills you learn here—objectively examining historical issues, conflicts, and personalities—will be valuable in your future career—be it law, medicine, the arts, or whatever field you choose.

T TH 4:30-6:00 p.m., 221 French House
Professor: Tim Landry

While this course will emphasize the impactful presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, this is primarily a cradle-to-grave study of the 36^th President of the United States and the 20^th century world in which he grew up and greatly shaped. One cannot properly understand American history without comprehending Lyndon Johnson’s Texas Hill Country and its history as an American frontier, Lyndon Johnson’s family legacy, and how this shaped him into the man and politician he became.

An ongoing theme throughout the semester is the constant tension in Lyndon Johnson’s life and career “between political expediency and getting things done for the American people.” He was the ultimate politician and the original (and best) practitioner in American political history of the “art of the deal.” Learning about Lyndon Johnson the political dealmaker not only increases our understanding of American History but provides lessons—both dos and don’ts—for students' future careers in politics, law, medicine, or wherever their ambitions take them.

This course, like Professor Landry’s course on Richard Nixon, will contain elements of a history graduate school-level seminar, in that students will be expected to read, write, discuss, and contribute original thought to the discussion and not simply regurgitate factual material. However, this course contains more traditional lecture sessions than the Nixon course.

T TH 1:30-3:00 p.m., 218 French House
Professor: Granger Babcock

**For LASAL Scholars only**

Students will study the root causes of poverty in Louisiana, and the daily challenges that children who live in poverty face. Students will study the root causes of wetlands loss in coastal Louisiana and the impact of sea-level rise related to climate change. The State of Louisiana is a foundational course for LASAL Scholars.

T TH 11:30-12:30 a.m., 135 French House
Professor: Kerri Tobin

Homelessness in the United States is a significant social problem, but there are ways we can understand the issue more deeply, and there are approaches that have worked and are working to get individuals and families into permanent housing. In this course, we will explore experiences and public perceptions of homelessness and how policymakers have responded.

T TH 3:00-4:30 p.m., Location TBD
Professor: Daniel Felty

This honors seminar explores the philosophical and theological dimensions of good and evil, particularly in relation to the existence of God.

The course begins with an introduction to basic metaethics, addressing questions about the nature of moral truth and the foundation of ethical judgments. Students will then examine moral theories concerning God, exploring how metaethical theories relate to theism. Finally, the seminar delves into the problem of evil and criticisms of theism from a moral perspective.

The seminar encourages critical thinking and rigorous development of personal perspectives on these complex issues.

T TH 12:00-1:30 p.m., Location TBD
Professor: Peter Cava

Queerness can serve as a lens through which to theorize social differences—not only sexuality and gender, but also race, nationality, neurocognitive functioning, dis/ability, and class.

Moreover, loved experiences of queer sexualities and genders depend on how those social differences intersect with the others. Too rarely does educational curriculum promote empathetic engagement with queer intersections, despite many students and their loved ones embodying them.

This course will survey how queerness can shape knowledge and experiences of Blackness, Indigeneity, Israel/Palestine, autism, poverty, and more.

T TH 1:30-3:00 p.m., 200 French House
Professor: Craig Harvey

This course will examine the ethical issues surrounding engineering and technology systems that serve society. Emphasis will be placed on the importance of ethical decision-making when designing and implementing systems that affect people and communities. Case studies, including the Challenger disaster, will be used to highlight real-world ethical challenges and lessons learned.

The Ethics in Engineering course will include case study presentations and discussions, student-led dialogues on ethical issues in technology, and in-class reflective writing exercises. Additionally, students will complete a final paper on ethics that incorporates their personal ethical statement and its application to their future career.

This course is well-suited for students in engineering, science, and mathematics, as well as anyone interested in exploring how ethics shapes our technological world. No technical background is required. Students from all academic disciplines are welcome; various perspectives will enrich class discussions.

W 3:30-6:30 p.m., 1220 West Laville
Professor: Wayne Parent

While the early 20th century was marked by a great migration of African Americans away from the American South, the last 50 years have been defined by a dramatic reversal of that trend. Atlanta and other parts of the south have become black migration magnets and centers of social, cultural and economic black prosperity.

What is so attractive about these places? Why Atlanta? Why Dallas? Why Houston? Why Charlotte? What other places or types of places in the south are changing or are likely to change in this way? This course will examine those trends and the impacts on black politics and the politics of the south as a whole.

T TH 9:00-10:30 a.m., 218 French House
Professor: Darius Spieth

The objective of this colloquium is to give students an opportunity to
explore in-depth the interrelationship between art and the Western colonial conquests in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia between 1750 and 1950 from a variety of perspectives (art history, political economy, social studies, etc.).

Students will investigate in particular Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian Campaign (1798-1801) as an example for how art reinforced the cause of colonialism at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Texts by contemporary post-colonial thinkers, such as Edward Said or Alain Grosrichard, will provide the intellectual framework for discussions. This theoretical side of the seminar will be supplemented by hands-on experience with authentic visual documents from the time of Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt, preserved at Hill Memorial Library.

Completion of this course will earn students credit equivalent to English 2000.

T TH 12:00-1:30 p.m., 203 French House
Professor: Allison Young

In Louisiana, it is not difficult to observe what many scholars have referred to as the "afterlife of slavery" or the persistence of "plantation futures," phrases that encapsulate a nexus of contemporary social and environmental conditions that extend the antebellum era's systematic exploitation of both land and human populations. This class looks deeply at such phenomena through the lens of art, visual culture, and critical theory. 

Using these creative and intellectual sources as our guides into history, students will examine the ways in which the past continues to be legible in our commemorative, industrial, and carceral landscapes—in other words, how debates about our collective history manifest in issues such as monuments and memorialization, the petrochemical economy, and systems of mass incarceration and policing. 

While students will study global and regional histories—particularly of the Middle Passage, Indigenous displacement, and enslavement—they will do so through the lens of what Jacques Derrida has called "Hauntology," a term meant to express how our modern age remains "haunted" by an unresolved and persistent past.

T 4:30-7:30 p.m., 135 French House
Professor: Gwendolyn Murray

This course will provide an overview of modern Brazilian cinema the period of democratization of the 1980s to the new wave of contemporary Brazilian cinema (retomada) of the 1990s to the present. The course will analyze selected films as art and cultural production as well as their representational properties that speak to the sociopolitical context in which they were produced. Films selected for this course are all oriented around the central themes of poverty, race, violence, and gender, and where possible, the intersection thereof.

M W F 11:30-12:30 p.m., 127 Coates Hall
Professor: Touria Khannous

Students will gain not only an expanded knowledge of a broad range of films from around the globe but also an increased understanding of films’ aesthetic approaches to the theme of the body.

Main topics are gendered bodies, digital bodies, bodies and trauma, bodies of the disappeared, black bodies, disabled bodies etc.

Students will read essays on the screened films as well as theoretical essays which serve to familiarize them with key theoretical concepts in film studies. 

Sec. 61: T 3:00-6:00 p.m., B0035 Allen Hall
Sec. 62: TH 3:00-6:00 p.m., B0035 Allen Hall
Professor: Henry Goldkamp

Pack your biggest shoes and reddest nose: This class operates under the belief that clown is an integral part of the human condition, and that stupidity is a valid form of meaning-making. Our job as a collective is to come together to celebrate this often-overlooked part of ourselves, through equal parts theory and praxis.

Students will read highbrow academic work on lowbrow gags and jokes. Students will wear red noses and stupid costumes and embarrass ourselves in front of our peers through original absurd performances, both improvised and scripted.

Students will study the gag as cultural artifact, the semiotics of clown makeup and costume, as well as investigate and analyze the way clown is represented by famous and lesser-known works of literature, cinema, and pop culture. And then students will close the semester’s curtains in the form of a giant clown show finale, the epitome of testing our ability to control chaos.

This honors class is for the material, cross-genre thinker who would like to learn erudite concepts as they pertain to a whoopie cushion, squirting daisy, or banana peel. It is for the champion of paradoxes who finds sacrilege sacred, knows the tragic as comic, and takes their silliness seriously.

M W F 8:30-9:30 a.m., 221 French House
Professor: Brett Boutwell

Music has inspired revolutionary movements and reactionary ones alike. It has been used to build nations as well as to undermine them. It has been wedded to state power, yet it has also revealed the limits of that power. Music can hold a mirror to society, reflecting its political divisions; it can also act upon those divisions, fanning the fires of politics or helping to extinguish them.

In this honors seminar, we will explore music’s entanglement with politics across a variety of geographical and historical settings, examining such themes as censorship, protest, state patronage, colonization, and nation building. Our goal is to use the world’s music to learn about other people, their values, and their nations—and, in doing so, to learn about ourselves.

The course’s prerequisites include curiosity about other cultures, openness to new listening experiences, and tolerance toward difference—including political difference. No background in
music is required.

T TH 3:00-4:30 p.m., 220 French House
Professor: Jeffrey Perry

The American Experimental Tradition in music derives from the work of John Cage and the New York School in the 1950s and ‘60s, and includes work by the Fluxus group. The tradition connects music with theater, dance and performance art in novel ways.

Students will engage in performances of experimental works whose scores comprise text, rather than music notation; they will explore the context of such works in the avant garde milieu of the middle and late 20^th century and beyond.

No musical background is needed for this music that rejects conventional notation and virtuosity.

Sec. 900: T TH 10:30-12:30 p.m., 129a Music and Dramatic Arts Bldg. Sec. 901: T TH 3:00-4:30 p.m., 135 Music and Dramatic Arts Bldg.
Professor: Brett Duggan

In this course, students will learn, practice, and analyze the transferable skills learned from improvising theatre, including gaining a broader understanding of Improvisation in theater history, modern culture, and the business world.

By studying and applying the principles of spontaneous problem-solving, listening, and teamwork, students will gain a strong foundation in how this artform can improve one's work and social life. The various improv tools and step-by-step techniques will help students overcome self-consciousness while discovering how to analyze outcomes in a proactive and impersonal way. Lessons will be experiential, and as the course continues, the complexity of the experiments will deepen.

Students will read and compare renowned improv practitioners' and teachers' writings in conjunction with the classwork. Improv is a truly an art-form and a way into experiencing Theater and Performance without a dictator of the script.

Students will be asked to research a specific theatrical genre (for example, Chekhovian Magical Realism, Southern Gothic, or Brechtian) then analyze it. Assigned class teams will be asked to present their findings to the class in presentation and incorporate this research into practical application through Performance.

Sec. 902: T TH 1:30-3:00 p.m., 1005 East Laville
Professor: Jennifer Lau

This course explores music in society and its cultural relevance and is designed to increase the students’ appreciation of music as well as enhance their listening skills. Students will use classical music as a starting point for developing listening skills by examining Western classical art music of the Medieval Period to the 21^st century.

Students are introduced to various periods, styles, and composers of music from various cultures and times. By placing individual pieces, techniques, and composers into context, we can observe how individuals innovate or disrupt the norm to create lasting change. There are many different kinds of music, and all music has value. Students will have several opportunities to apply their new knowledge and analysis skills to their favorite kinds of music.

This course will also provide an introduction to the fundamentals of music and musical notation.

M 3:30-6:30 p.m., 1005 East Laville
Professor: D.J. Sparr

In the Music Composition for Non-Majors course, students will explore methods for crafting musical works, utilizing composition to learn the fundamentals of music. This process follows a "discover, drill, create" technique, where students uncover musical concepts with guidance from the teacher, practice through improvisational exercises using those concepts, and finally, compose original pieces employing these newfound skills.

There will also be study of important historical pieces in many genres. Students will write a paper and do a presentation on one of these pieces. Each class will commence with a listening and discussion session centered around significant classical or art music pieces, incorporating the study and critique of compositions from both historical and contemporary periods.

In addition to weekly composing assignments, students will undertake a "final composition project" and be required to write a paper and deliver a presentation on a historically significant piece of "art music.”

Upon completing the Creative Music Composition course, students will gain enhanced knowledge and skills in music composition, a deeper understanding of music history, and proficiency in collaboration, presentation, critical thinking, & discussion.

Sec. 905: W 3:00-6:00 p.m., 1005 East Laville
Sec. 904: W 6:00-9:00 p.m., 1005 East Laville
Professor: D.J. Sparr

In Songwriting, students will learn methods to craft their own songs (lyrics, melody, and chords). The course presents songs from the past and present for analysis. Students engage in weekly “roundtable” discussions workshopping their songs.

There are no required pre-requisites for the course. A typical class will start with group singing and musical exercises such as solfeggio (aural skills) while talking about musical fundamentals. From there, we will present and discuss “hit” songs where we will analyze lyrics, chord progressions, and historical/social context.

Class then becomes either group work on your own songs or the performances of your own songs.

T TH 9:00-10:30 a.m., 200 French House
Professor: Jeff Liechman

In this course, students will read exemplary texts from the French Enlightenment that each borrow the voices of non-Europeans to articulate critiques of European society. Students will look at how Native American, Middle Eastern, and Pacific Islander perspectives are mobilized in order to skirt the prohibition on directly criticizing the institutions and traditions of a highly conservative European society undergoing a revolution in its conception of freedom and equality.

Students will read works by Lahontan, Montesquieu, Graffigny, and Diderot that all articulate strikingly modern ideas around religion, political rights, gender equality, and sexuality – but do so exclusively in the voice of a foreign other. The goal is to grasp how these authors simultaneously challenged European hegemony through comparison to other civilizations, while perpetuating a tradition of cultural ventriloquism.

T TH 4:30-6:00 p.m., Location TBD
Professor: Daniel Felty

This honors seminar investigates one of the most fundamental questions in philosophy: what kind of thing is a human person? The course focuses on philosophical theories of the soul, the mind–body relationship, personal identity, and the possibility of survival after death. Students examine historically influential accounts: from Plato and Aristotle through Aquinas, Descartes, and Locke, alongside contemporary challenges from materialism and neuroscience.

Rather than surveying views at a distance, the course emphasizes close reading of primary philosophical texts, sustained discussion, and comparative argumentation. Students are expected to actively engage with competing models of the human person, reconstruct arguments charitably, and defend or critique positions through structured philosophical dialogue. No religious belief is presupposed; the course is grounded in philosophical reasoning and critical evaluation.

T TH 10:30-12:00 p.m., 220 French House
Professor: Leonard Ray

Progress is a core belief in the modern West, but not one without skeptics. This course is constructed around the contrast between the dramatic technological and scientific progress that has marked the 19^th and 20^th centuries and the corresponding record of social upheaval, ideological extremism, and violence that accompanied these technical feats.

From the steam engine to the microchip, technological innovation has produced a cornucopia of innovations to make humanity more productive. But this bounty comes at a cost. The eclipse of agriculture by industry, and of industry by services, continually scrambles the social order and the political systems built upon it. Scientific advances in biology, physics and computing alter the way we imagine our species relates to the world, empower us to end civilization at the push of a button, and challenge our place as the most intelligent beings on the planet.

The course concludes by considering the prospects for the 21^st century, in which the modern world must adapt to new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and genetic engineering. Can existing social systems adapt? Will these innovations lead to new forms of social organization, such as surveillance capitalism and a technology oligarchy?

T TH 9:00-10:30 a.m., 220 French House
Professor: Sue Marchand

This course offers students to read and ruminate about some of the greatest European novels of all time, and to understand these works of fiction against the backdrop of the rapidly-changing (but very different) societies of nineteenth-century France and Russia.

Students will also have the opportunity to write their own historical novellas on a subject of their choosing, but set in nineteenth-century France or Russia.

T TH 1:30-3:00 p.m., 203 French House
Professor: Herman Kelly

This course will survey the development of The Civil Rights Movement in America and its impact on present day society.

In recent years, people have developed an interest in The Civil Rights Movement. Many of the icons have left the scene and it is necessary to maintain the legacy. Between 1953 and 1968 there was an intense effort, employing a set of methods, aimed at a set of goals, and involving a wide array of groups, and charismatic leaders. This movement began with the bus boycott in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This community was active in the Civil Rights era, and therefore this experience is important for students to understand and articulate the importance of this narrative called The History of The Civil Rights Movement.

Students will discuss and explore the Rhetorical Traditions of this movement and the persons and events that led to this historical movement in this country.

T TH 12:00-1:30 p.m., 113 Acadian Hall
Professor: Andre Pagliarini

Nationalism shapes who belongs and where—as well as who doesn’t—in the modern world. This honors course explores how nations are imagined and nationalisms contested in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia, tracing the creation of “us” and “them” through history, literature, and political thought.

Students will analyze how myths, symbols, arguments, and movements have forged belonging and exclusion across time and place, leading up to the resurgence of nationalist politics in our tumultuous present.

T TH 3:00-4:30 p.m., Location TBD
Professor: Douglas Scully

In 1927, one hundred years ago, The Jazz Singer was released and audiences demanded that the future of film be SOUND, but in the decades before sound took over, silent films were reaching new artistic and technical heights that still reverberate today.

Throughout this course, students will analyze a host of silent films that feel very modern in their use of imagery, theme, and messaging. For example, students will recognize the jokey-action-packed antics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Safety Last! (1923), the political nature of rising filmmakers like Boots Riley in Battleship Potemkin (1925), and the feminist body horror of films like Teeth (2007) and The Substance (2024) in The Unknown (1927).

Students will go beyond just surveying these films from the silent era, seeking to recontextualize them in 2027, one hundred years after many proclaimed them obsolete.

T TH 10:30-12:00 p.m., 135 French House
Professor: Josh Grimm

Horror has been unfairly maligned and dismissed as a disposable genre, reduced to broad criticisms of perceived emphases on shock, violence, or sensationalism. However, this marginal status has allowed horror films to be among the most innovative and culturally responsive works in American cinema, filled with artistry and insight. Precisely because horror operates outside the boundaries of prestige filmmaking, it has repeatedly served as a space where social anxieties, cultural tensions, and unspoken fears can be explored with unusual, refreshing directness. 

Rather than offering escapism alone, horror functions as a diagnostic genre, revealing what a society fears, suppresses, or struggles to articulate.

This honors seminar uses American horror films to explore how fear reflects cultural, historical, and social anxieties. From Cold War monster movies to contemporary horror, the course examines how horror evolves to mirror what societies fear most.

Students will watch one film per week outside of class, keep a handwritten film journal to capture immediate reactions, engage with critical readings, and participate in guided discussions. Rather than focusing on a single "meaning" of a film, the course emphasizes interpretation, close attention to scenes, and the ways fear circulates through culture. The semester culminates in an independent final paper analyzing a recent horror film to argue what it reveals about contemporary fear. 

T TH 4:30-6:00 p.m., 200 French House
Professor: Christina Rothenbeck

Ghostly visitors, creepy houses, mythical monsters—there's nothing Americans love more than a good fright! But the Gothic tradition in America isn't just about the maximum chills; it's also an expression of our deepest cultural fears and anxieties, our repressed desire and guilt—the messy, complicated emotions lurking at the heart of the American experience. 

As students read and discuss a variety of texts in the American Gothic tradition, they will also consider what the texts say about America's fears and realities.

T TH 1:30-3:00 p.m., 221 French House
Professor: Will Puente

This course introduces students to appellate advocacy through simulation of moot court proceedings. Students will examine constitutional law issues, write legal briefs, and develop oral argument skills. To meet HNRS 2030 Humanities expectations, the course integrates foundational texts and themes from The Federalist Papers and Enlightenment-era philosophy on natural rights and due process (the principle that one cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law).

Students will also analyze freedom of speech through art, focusing on how U.S. courts apply the Miller test in obscenity cases. This includes examining whether a work lacks serious Literary, Artistic, Political, or Scientific (LAPS) value. Exploring the LAPS framework will help students understand how constitutional law intersects with cultural debates over art, morality, and free expression.

M W 12:30-2:00 p.m., 218 French House
Professor: Anmol Soni

This course is designed to give Honors undergraduate students a basic understanding of different statistical techniques.

As generative AI and other tools make it easier to automate certain procedures, the ability to critically examine data, choose appropriate methods, evaluate and communicate the results remains important. This course takes a practical, hands-on approach to introductory statistics, building an intuitive understanding of basic and intermediate techniques, and learning to conduct analysis with and without software tools.

Each class session will combine an introduction to a method, its real world use cases, a deep discussion of the techniques, and a practical exercise to apply the approach in the class setting. Where appropriate, the in-class session will also include automated approaches where students can use generative AI tools to test their own analyses with automated responses. Students will also learn to design and execute a group project on a real-world data set.

T TH 10:30-12:00 p.m., 218 French House
Professor: Christopher Sullivan

This course focuses on government-sponsored violations of human rights, such as civil liberties restrictions, torture, political killing, and genocide. 

The course begins with an attempt to define human rights violations. From there, students will explore issues related to the development of international human rights standards. Students will attend to why human rights violations continue in both newly emergent states and advanced democracies. The final section of the course will focus on different efforts to curb human rights abuses, examining domestic and international institutions as well as the efforts of human rights NGOs.

W 3:30-6:30 p.m., 220 French House
Professor: Nancy Laguna-Luque

In this seminar, students will explore the cultural practices and social experiences that have given shape to the identity of the other person in our country.

T TH 3:00-4:30 p.m., 200 French House
Professor: Wonik Kim

This honors course provides an overview and critical analysis of the Korean Wave (also known as hallyu), the spread of the global popularity of South Korean pop cultural products, such as k-pop, TV dramas, movies, literature, culinary customs, and more. Hallyu is not just a Korean but a global phenomenon, so this meteoric ascent of Korean culture must be studied through a global perspective.

The relationship between hallyu and globalization is complex and multifaceted. Discussions will be multidisciplinary, based on cultural, historical, sociopolitical, economic, aesthetic, semiotic, technological, and philosophical dimensions. In studying Korean pop culture, students will delve into global problems of representation, capitalism, and nationalism.

No previous knowledge of Korea is required, so anyone interested in contemporary cultural globalization or Korea is welcome to enroll in the course.

Times and locations: multiple
Professors: multiple

Stand at the edge of the abyss-in good company. Explore how works from the Book of Job, Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Hardy, and more have wrestled with despair, doubt, and the search for meaning.

Times and locations: multiple
Professors: multiple

This course will examine the "great conversation" that has long existed between the seemingly very different arts of writing and music. Why have so many writers argued that music, and not their own literary pursuits, mark the highest achievement of human creativity? Why have so many musicians, in turn, drawn deep inspiration from the words of poets, novelists, and philosophers? To explore these questions we will consider both pieces of music that draw their inspiration or even their words from great works of literature, and likewise great works of literature that dwell on the theme of music. Some possible works explored include Romeo and Juliet and its musical descendants, the devil's bargain story Faust in both its literary and musical forms, and Ian McEwan's Amsterdam.

T TH 3:00-4:30 p.m., 221 French House
Professor: Sherri Johnson

This class will explore how medieval people understood themselves, the world around them, and other-worldly things. HNRS 2404 will consider judgment and salvation, sex and gender, monstrosity, travel and pilgrimage, chivalry and war, authority and dissent, and the birth of the University.

Readings will feature Augustine’s Confessions, The Song of Roland, Dante, Chaucer, the Arabian Nights, love lyrics and comic tales, travel narratives from Europe and the Middle East, and Christine de Pizan.

Sec. 900: T TH 3:00-4:30 p.m., 218 French House
Sec. 901: T TH 3:00-4:30 p.m., 135 French House
Professors: Allen Ray and Gabrielle Ray

HNRS 2406 is an interdisciplinary course that explores European thought and culture between the Renaissance and the French Revolution, with a focus on the invention of the idea of the modern individual and the emerging science of nature and the state.

Classes will generally be divided into: 

1. A joint lecture by one of the instructors on the day's text and its context, followed by 
2. Text-based discussion in seminar

This course will expand and deepen the knowledge students acquired in HNRS 2000 by uncovering the historical and philosophical "backstory" of contemporary debates that are shaping life in our time.

Sec. 61: M W 3:30-5:00 p.m., Location TBD
Professor: James Stoner

Sec. 80: M W 3:30-5:00 p.m., Location TBD
Professor: Inessa Bazayev

HNRS 2406 is an interdisciplinary course that explores European conceptions of the modern during the eventful period between the French Revolution and the present day.

Classes will generally be divided into: 

1. A joint lecture by one of the instructors on the week's text and its context, followed by 
2. Text-based discussion and debate in seminar

This course will expand and deepen the knowledge students acquired in HNRS 2000 by familiarizing students with the many different ways in which Europeans have conceived the individual's rights and duties in the modern era, and weighed the achievements and challenges ushered in by the age of mass production, mass politics, hyper-imperialism, and industrialized warfare.

By engaging with some of the. masterworks of literature, art, music, and economic thought composed between about 1800-2000, students will learn to understand and empathize with great creative minds who struggled to cope with worlds and worldviews both very different and remarkably similar to our own.

T TH 12:00-1:30 p.m., 200 French House
Professor: Drew Lamonica Arms

Students will read and discuss classic discourses on leadership and ethics, from Socrates to Shakespeare, Austen to Steinem, Machiavelli to MLK. Students will evaluate the foundations of effective leadership through ancient and modern examples and apply them to their own experiences in debate, argumentative writing and a personal statement.

Designed for TRACTS majors and students applying for prestigious national scholarships, graduate and professional schools.

TH 12:00-3:00 p.m., Prescott 138
Professor: Dorota Heneghan

In this course, students will focus on the role of literature and visual arts in our understanding of health and illness.

Students will discuss how artists (many health professionals themselves) used illness and loss as a metaphor for personal and broader social issues and how they linked medical treatment as remedies for improved national 'health'.

Students will also explore how artistic expressions of body and illness engage with and respond to medical discourses and intersect with gender, sexuality, class, and race on both sides of the Atlantic since the 1850s until present.

T TH 3:00-4:30 p.m., 203 French House
Professor: Frank Anselmo

This class will be dedicated to a study of the life Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and it is through the study of his life that students will learn more about his contributions to American politics and society, global security, and scientific discoveries. Generally speaking, students will be expected to be able to do the following with this information:

• Understand and be able to discuss objectively the contributions of FDR to American politics and society during the first half of the twentieth century
• Consider how FDR's life, policies, and programs continue to have an impact (for better or for worse) on the second half of the twentieth century
• Speculate how FDR's political, social, and scientific legacy continues to affect American society (if not global society) today and into the future

T TH 9:00-10:30 a.m., 1005 East Laville
Professor: Annemarie Galeucia

This class takes an anthropological approach to understanding the human body. This course will disrupt what we think of as the common body and investigate the research and implications for several body-related questions, some examples of which are listed below:

• How does a single piece of legislation, cultural standard or governmental initiative impact a human body?
• What is a natural body? What is a manufactured body?
• Where do myths or ideals of the body and the physical body meet, and diverge?

T TH 3:00-4:30 p.m., 1220 East Laville
Professor: Joe Givens

HNRS 3800 is for any student wanting an overview of research methods in various disciplines and guidance in a variety of projects leading to a prospectus, statement of interest, annotated bibliography, and literature review, with a view towards beginning a capstone project.