- Spring 2023 Honors Faculty Fellows
Spring 2023
In this course, we will ask: What elements of music in a given work make it unique, interesting, and expressive? How do these elements differ from one artist to the next? How were artists (and their music) influenced by race, socio-economic status, culture, gender, and sexuality? How did the development of various instruments influence the “birth” of rock? What new methods of performance were a result of these developments? Many artists unknowingly signed-away the rights to their music for a few dollars; how have copyright laws in America progressed?
James Conder, Professor, Geology
The Earth Around You is geology applied to living. We will examine how geologic processes and hazards influence human activities (and the reverse) and the geologic aspects of economic pollution, and waste disposal problems. The most effective way to learn about the Earth and its processes is to observe it first-hand. We will have the opportunity to discover and observe the geologic processes, structures, and treasures that shape the world around them through a study abroad opportunity in Costa Rica. The country lies in a subduction zone making it prone to earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. At the same time, the volcanic soils and topography ranging from the coast to the volcanic highlands, make for a diverse ecology and agriculture. For example, bananas and coffee grow in different climes of which Costa Rica has both. The diversity in ecosystem range from rainforest to cloud forest to desert to estuaries and coral reefs. The country is a leader in renewable energy - primarily hydropower, but the development of Lake Arenal for hydropower has come with its own environmental costs. Travel to Costa Rica will occur over Spring Break and we will be meeting before and after the travel to prepare, reflect on, and analyze. Time TBD based on the cohort. Cost: app. $3400.
Atheana Meadows, Lecturer, Communication Disorders and Sciences
People with auditory processing disorders face certain challenges in communicating with others. They may have difficulty in "hearing" small differences in language (auditory processing disorders), continued listening in a noisy environment, or "making sense" of the words they hear. In this course, we will learn to identify and understand auditory processing deficits and their implications for how children acquire and process language and literacy. Understanding communication disorders is a universal skill, useful not just for teachers and health professionals, but in any walk of life. Designed for majors across campus, this seminar does not require any previous understanding of communication disorders. All you need to bring with you is your curiosity about how intricate and complex is our ability to communicate with others.
Charles Ruffner, Professor of Forestry, School of Forestry and Horticulture
Pyrogeography is the study of the history of fire on planet Earth integrating plant and animal evolution, global ecologies, and human-social developments through time, leading into modern issues of climate change and loss of biodiversity. Students will be exposed to the extremely long history of fire here on Earth that has shaped ecosystems as well as fostered our own human development and evolution through reading current literature and discussing modern issues of firestorms through mixed media presentations and videos. While the study of fire has a long history, this new field is exciting and integrates so many fields of scientific inquiry that surely students will find the course engaging, timely, and expansive to their breadth of studies here at the University.
Jean-Pierre Reed, Associate Professor, Sociology
Social Movements is intended to give students a broad understanding of social movement analysis and issues. It specifically sets out to answer the following questions: What is a social movement? In what ways do they change society? Under what conditions do social movements emerge? What are the objective and subjective conditions that make political contention possible? To answer these questions, UHON 351 sets out to study the civil rights movement and the various analytical theories and concepts associated with the study of social movements.
Kenneth Stikkers, Professor, College of Liberal Arts, School of History and Philosophy
This course will (a) survey the extent of wealth disparity in the U.S.; (b) identify the causes for it, both within deep-rooted attitudes and social patterns in American history (e.g., capitalism, the Protestant ethic, social Darwinism, the Horatio Alger myth, and the American dream) and in more recent events, such as changing tax policies, increasing global competition, the decline of unions, and the changing American labor force; (c) consider the various consequences of such wealth inequality, such as its effects upon education, health, American democracy, and feelings of insecurity; and (d) offer philosophical and ethical principles of justice by which students can critically examine various proposals for reversing the growing inequality of wealth, such as tax reform, wage limits, reestablishment of unions, drawing from Native American gift economies and the highly successful Mondragon economic model in the Basque region of Spain.
Bobbi Knapp, Associate Professor of Sport Studies, Kinesiology and Daniel Mahony President, Southern Illinois University System
Intercollegiate athletics has been referred to as the front porch of the modern U.S. university. What started out as student-run sport clubs at elite private institutions eventually became recruiting and marketing tools for colleges and universities throughout the U.S. This course will chart the history of intercollegiate athletics from its start on the playing fields of Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and other private institutions as student-run, student-played, and student-coached sporting clubs to the development of the Power Five Conferences and football coaches who make over $8 million dollars a year. As part of this exploration, the course will also examine the impact of systems of socio-economic class, race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, disability on the intercollegiate athletic experience. We’ll also cover topics such as amateurism, labor unions, activism and protests, academic scandals, sport-industrial-military complex, and reform.
John Shaw, Adjunct Professor, Director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.
This course will examine the quality of statesmanship in the public affairs of the United States. It will examine the essential qualities of statesmanship, consider its importance in American history, and ask what can be done to restore the ethos of statesmanship in the United States. Statesmanship will be essential if the nation is to address such historic challenges as health care reform, deficits and debt, and climate change. Especially in the area of climate policy, the absence of statesmanship could have catastrophic consequences for the United States and the world.
Mehdi Ashayeri, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, College of Arts and Media, Architecture
In recent years, advances in new technologies of information and communication technology (ICT), internet of things (IoT), big data, and artificial intelligence (AI) have dramatically changed how we experience city life and the ways in which it is still being transformed. It is now possible to plan cities with a degree of information and coordination not possible before. In this course, we will study how these technological advances may be used to design cities that center the human experience, are environmentally sustainable, and capable of responding to an uncertain future. You will learn about contemporary explorations in designing smart and sustainable cities, the challenges they face, and what is currently possible. You will be introduced to methods employed by city planners, such as data visualization and using AI and big data to predict and model. This is an introductory course designed for students across different majors. No previous knowledge of urban planning is necessary, only your imagination about what city life can be.
Elizabeth Donoghue, Assistant Director, University Honors Program
Learn about the world of opportunities that may support and enrich an undergraduate or graduate education. This course is an introduction to the process of applying for major scholarships; to the elements of writing style for major scholarship applications; and to other aspects typical of scholarships, graduate, and professional school applications. This class will guide you through this process of self-reflection as you craft essays, develop interview skills and discover research opportunities.
*Participation is highly selective and requires an application essay.
Contact Elizabeth Donoghue at Elizabeth.donoghue@siu.edu or stop by her office at Morris 184D.
- Fall 2022 Honors Faculty Fellows
Fall 2022: Faculty Fellows for UHON 351 COURSES
Darryl Clark, Assistant Professor, Musical Theatre and Dance, College of Arts and Media
This course will delve into the historical roots and development of Tap, Jazz, and Hip-Hop and trace their close links with the African American community. Through the process of learning about these dance forms, including a few workshops in dance, students will discover the interrelation between these three dance idioms. We will also see the full weight of the impact of these dance practices on contemporary forms of popular entertainment.
Francesca Dennstedt, Assistant Professor, Languages, Cultures and International Studies, College of Liberal Arts
This course is an analysis of the experience of the U.S./Mexico border from the perspectives of racialized immigrants, refugees, and other minoritized groups as represented in fiction, film, art installations, and other artistic forms. Using these different forms of cultural production as case studies, we will examine the border region as a site of labor, exchange, the construction of citizenship, and discourses of otherness. The questions animating this seminar are: How does the US contribute to shaping contemporary migration (policies, attitudes, longer history of immigration)? How do art and literature represent migration? Can cultural production be a form of caring and resistance?
Jane E. Dougherty, Associate Professor, English, College of Liberal Arts
This is a student-generated course, developed at the request of an Honors student desiring to go deeper into children’s literature. In this course, we will engage with a range of juvenile literature and other media, aimed at readers from the ages of 0-18. We will establish the behavioral, psychological, and educational advantages of reading to very young children, examine the development of literacy in children and adolescents, and explore how juvenile literature socializes and acculturates children and adolescents. We will determine what makes a successful children’s book and write our own, revisit the books we knew and loved when we were young(er), and consider a variety of juvenile genres, including non-fiction, horror, comedy, poetry, and fantasy.
Chad Drake, Associate Professor, Psychology, School of Psychological and Behavioral Sciences
This seminar explores evidence-based approaches to behavior change, with a particular focus on applying these tools in ways that facilitate personal growth. One might think of this class as a “hands on” experience in developing skills to enhance personal motivation, attention, cognitive flexibility, self and social awareness, emotional maturity, and life engagement. We will draw on insights from behavior therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy; all of which emphasize personal values and mindfulness skills, among other things, to build psychological flexibility. Students will become familiar with the historical backdrop of these technologies and will explore their relevance to the stresses and challenges of ordinary life problems.
Maria V. Johnson, Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology, School of Music, College of Arts and Media
This course provides introductions to both yoga and to the healing science of sound. While learning basic alignment principles and core poses of yoga, students will experience first-hand yoga's health benefits and the healing effects of sound/vibration on brain and body. How can yoga and sound practices help foster clearer thinking, emotional equilibrium, a sense of peace and well-being, balance, flow and ease in navigating your life? How can yoga and sound practices facilitate greater awareness, compassion, empathy, presence, and deeper interpersonal communication? How can practices of yoga and sound create safe spaces that nurture internal processes and a sense of feeling at home in your body while fostering a sense of community and belonging? This course challenges the student not only to think across disciplinary divides but also to integrate the creative and the scholarly, the embodied practices of yoga and sound with the scientific principles and concepts behind them.
Jyotsna Kapur, Professor, Cinema and Media Studies & Director University Honors Program, SIUC and Eric Ruckh, Associate Professor, History & Director University Honors Program, SIUE
From the famous paleolithic cave paintings, from approximately 35,000 to 40,000 years ago, humans have been making art, that is both representing the world and inventing other worlds. This drive is one of the definitive features of our species, of who we are and how we think. It seems an unavoidable necessity—the reason why we can be described both as homo faber (as maker) and homo ludens (as playful). Is the artistic impulse an impulse to preserve or to play, to waste or to wonder? Is it how we grasp the reality of our existence or how we delude ourselves away from it? Is the artistic impulse liberatory or does it socialize us into structures of exploitation? In this seminar, we ask: why do humans make art and how art makes us human?
Kavita Karan, Professor, School of Journalism & Advertising, College of Arts and Media
The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the need to understand health issues, preventive, and safe health practices. Understanding the challenges and practices of communicating about health has never been more important than now. This course aims to increase the health literacy in understanding various issues relating to healthy lifestyle and behaviors. It will address the following questions: What are the global and large-scale health threats within the United States and other countries? What are the health communication campaigns and strategies being used to promote better lifestyles, prevent communicable disease adopt better health behaviors? How are new media and mobile technologies influencing and impacting health information and health practices? What are some major health issues of six-eight countries and the integrated efforts used to prevent or control diseases? How to plan a health communication campaign to promote a health issue of concern?
Grant Miller, Associate Professor & Lingguo Bu, Associate Professor, School of Education
Creativity matters. So does community engagement. In this seminar, students will learn about a basic concept in design thinking, i.e., Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and how it may be used in freeing the creativity of children and making the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fun for elementary school children. In this theory-practice seminar, students will study the history, development, and curricula related to Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and try out what they have learned with children. We will design toys and exercises to make these subjects fun and meaningful, in the process, discover the joys of both learning and teaching. This seminar brings together some of the best Saluki traditions, i.e., the legacy of Buckminster Fuller’s contributions to design thinking and the SIUC commitment to enriching the local community.
Lesley Shawler, Ph.D., BCBA, Assistant Professor, Behavior Analysis and Therapy, School of Psychological and Behavioral Sciences
The prevalence of autism has been on the rise over the last two decades. People with autism may face deficits ranging from social, emotional, and communication skills. They have different of ways of learning, paying attention, or reacting to things. Care for people with autism cannot be left at the individual, familial or clinical level alone but must be a social and community endeavor. Community support will enrich not only the lives of people with autism and their families but society, making it more inclusive and richer. This seminar aims to educate students on evidenced-based strategies when working with individuals with autism as an effort to address this gap in community knowledge. This course will also discuss how collaboration across professional disciplines can be beneficial for individuals with autism and their families. This course is unique in that students will have the opportunity for both classroom and direct clinical experience in applying learned skills at the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders (CASD) on campus.
Joseph Sramek, Ph.D., Associate Professor with Ryan Jurich (History and Honors), School of History and Philosophy, College of Liberal Arts
The Victorian era (ca. 1830-1900) in Britain saw massive economic and social transformations brought about by industrialization and the emergence, for the first time, of a modern class society. Government itself was transformed during this period, as parliament found itself having to grapple with national issues such as poor relief and the Irish potato famine in the mid-1840s, and an intense contest over whether the economic policy of free trade capitalism ought to prevail. Questions of suffrage and democracy, of women's rights, and of the rights of labor, came to the fore. The era saw the interplay of major modern political ideologies such as conservatism, classical liberalism, Utilitarianism, radicalism, and socialism. This seminar will engage this history in a sustained interactive manner through the use of two full-length Reacting to the Past games, one written by Dr. Sramek and another by Ryan Jurich (an Honors student) under his guidance. Reacting to the Past emphasizes experiential learning. Students grapple with major works and ideological conflicts by playing a real historical character and advancing their character's ideas and goals through both cooperative and competitive game-play.
- Spring 2022 Honors Faculty Fellows
Spring 2022: Faculty Fellows for UHON 351 COURSE
In this course, we will: 1. Ask what elements of music in a given work make it unique, interesting, and expressive, and how these elements differ from one artist to the next. 2. Investigate how artists (and their music) are influenced by systems and structures like race, socioeconomic status, culture, gender, and sexuality. 3. Trace the development of various instruments and their roles in the “birth” of rock. What new methods of performance were discovered through these developments? 4. And, we will be looking at how copyright laws in America have changed over the years. You may be surprised to learn how many artists unknowingly signed away the rights to their music for just a few dollars.
Wesley Calvert, Associate Professor, School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences
We are living on the precipice of an answer to the most existential question ever asked in the history of our species: Will humanity survive the rapidly changing climate edged on by the consequences of our industrial global ventures? There are few historical comparisons of this weight and magnitude, fewer mutual burdens of uncertainty that the whole species could ponder on. But how do we begin to answer this question? With resolve! And the patience to face the thousands of other questions we must answer first: As global temperatures change, does the world react gradually, or with sudden shifts? How could an increase in temperature give us not only warmer weather but weirder weather? And even with a robust hypothesis, we must still consider the uphill battle of reaching mass consensus. How do you create a change in overall public opinion? How can we make sound, testable, and persuasive mathematical models that let us predict how the world works? In this course, we will attempt to discover methods by which some of these questions might be answered.
James Conder, Professor, Geology
The Earth Around You is geology applied to living. We will examine how geologic processes and hazards influence human activities (and the reverse) and the geologic aspects of economic pollution, and waste disposal problems. The most effective way to learn about the Earth and its processes is to observe it first-hand. We will have the opportunity to discover and observe the geologic processes, structures, and treasures that shape the world around them through a study abroad opportunity in Costa Rica. The country lies on a subduction zone making it prone to earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. At the same time, the volcanic soils and topography ranging from the coast to the volcanic highlands, make for a diverse ecology and agriculture. For example, bananas and coffee grow in different climes of which Costa Rica has both. The diversity in eco-systems ranges from rain forest to cloud forest to desert to estuaries and coral reefs. The country is a leader in renewable energy - primarily hydropower, but the development of Lake Arenal for hydropower has come with its own environmental costs. Travel to Costa Rica will occur over Spring Break and we will be meeting before and after the travel to prepare, reflect on, and analyze. Time TBD based on the cohort. Cost: app. $3400.
Liliana Lefticariu, Associate Professor, College of Agriculture, Life, And Physical Sciences
The “Future of Space Exploration” is a seminar course in which you will learn about the past, ongoing, and future space exploration missions led by NASA, ESA, and other space agencies, as well as, by private companies or mixed state-private endeavors. Also pertinent to our theme is the physical exploration of space by unmanned robotic space probes as well as the human spaceflight of the planets, moons, and asteroids in the Solar System. This course will also provide you with a general overview of the origin of the solar system, the composition of the planets and moons of the Solar System, and the variety of extraterrestrial objects that will become a major source of natural resources. We will discuss the latest technologies to be employed for the colonization of Moon and Mars including in areas of extraterrestrial water and mineral mining, soil augmentation, and food production, and technologies developed for solar and other forms of energy necessary for sustainable Moon or Mars colonies. Additional discussion will include the legal aspects associated with space exploration. We’ll be covering a broad range of subjects, and this course is designed to stimulate intellectual excitement, pique your curiosity, and inspire valuable independent thinking. The 21st Century is the century of space exploration and colonization of new planets! It’s an exciting time to witness!
Bobbi Knapp, Associate Professor of Sport Studies, Kinesiology and Daniel Mahony President, Southern Illinois University System
Intercollegiate athletics has been referred to as the front porch of the modern U.S. university. What started out as student-run sport clubs at elite private institutions eventually became recruiting and marketing tools for colleges and universities throughout the U.S. This course will chart the history of intercollegiate athletics from its start on the playing fields of Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and other private institutions as student-run, student-played, and student-coached sporting clubs to the development of the Power Five Conferences and football coaches who make over $8 million dollars a year. As part of this exploration, the course will also examine the impact of systems of socio-economic class, race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, disability on the intercollegiate athletic experience. We’ll also cover topics such as amateurism, labor unions, activism and protests, academic scandals, sport-industrial-military complex, and reform.
Kenneth Stikkers, Professor, Department of Philosophy
It’s the end of the world as we know it! Or as a few people have imagined it. In this class, we’ll peer into the history of one of humanity’s most macabre and fascinating quandaries. We’ll ask: What are some of the main ways in which the end of civilization or the end of humanity have been envisioned throughout much of Western history? And how do current concerns and fears regarding climate change compare and contrast with previous concerns and fears in the West regarding the end of civilization, humanity, and the world? What connections can we make by the contemplation of one's own death compared and contrasted with contemplation of the death of civilization and humanity?
Jennifer Smith, Associate Professor and Chair, Spanish and Jyotsna Kapur (Professor, Cinema and Media studies, Director University Honors Program, SIUC)
This course considers Latin American Third Cinema in relation to its ongoing impact on socially committed art in our time. Third Cinema grew out of the militant anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggles of the 60s and 70s in Latin America and is known for its radical interventions in cinematic form, content, and transformation of the conception of the cinema spectator. We will look at founding texts, filmmakers and theorists, including Patricio Guzmán, Santiago Álvarez, Fernando Solanas & Octavio Getino, Julio García Espinosa, Fernando Birri, Mikhail Kalatozov, Glauber Rocha, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, and Jorge Sanjinés and consider its legacy both in terms of its investigations into art and politics as well as how it has now surfaced in the radical media produced by social movements employing a range of media technologies, from video to the Internet. In bringing together cinema studies with history, culture, and political activism, this course attempts to deepen our understanding of culture in the broadest sense.
Healing begins from a state of relaxation. This statement is deceptively simple and incredibly profound. As a society, we are far from relaxed. We normalize stress and glorify sleeping less; we value productivity over life quality and balance. This course introduces students to the practice and study of Yoga as a way to create and sustain a lifelong practice of self-awareness and healthy living through a focus on the Yamas and Niyamas, and Hatha Yoga. This course asks, how can I relax when I'm so busy? What is Yoga? Meditation? The Yamas and Niyamas? Pranayama? Why do I need to learn how to breathe when I'm already breathing? How can knowledge and practice of Yoga philosophy benefit me? How do I incorporate strategies for living at my fullest?
Physical and mental imbalance is one of the biggest obstacles to self-realization. This course, Yoga for Self-Realization, introduces Ayurveda as a way to bring our systems back into balance while juggling the demands of being a University Honors Student. Ayurveda is a holistic system that emphasizes the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of health and well-being, and it utilizes diet, lifestyle regimens, yogic practices, and meditation as methods of wellness. In this course, students will learn how to determine their individual Ayurvedic constitutions and the foods, yoga poses, and lifestyles best suited to their unique, personal make-up. This course asks, what is Ayurveda and how can it facilitate holistic well-being? What are the subtle body and its relationship to my physical body? Why do certain foods impact my emotional and mental states? How do I create a lifestyle for holistic health & self-realization.
- Fall 2021 Honors Faculty Fellows
Fall 2021: Faculty Fellows for The Earth and Us
What is art and why do humans make it? Why do we seek it out and spend time (and money) to experience it or acquire it? From the famous paleolithic cave paintings, stretching across the entirety of Southern Eurasia from approximately 35,000 to 40,000 years ago, to the latest Banksy, humans have been making art, that is both representing the world and inventing other worlds (sometimes at the same time). This drive is one of the definitive features of our species, of who we are and how we think. It seems an unavoidable necessity—the reason why we can be described both as homo faber (as maker) and homo ludens (as playful). If it is so important, what is it? And how does it express itself? Is the artistic impulse an impulse to preserve or to play, to waste or to wonder? Is it how we grasp the reality of our existence or how we delude ourselves away from it? Is the artistic impulse liberatory—an expression of a drive to free ourselves and others from exploitation—or does it rest on structures of exploitation? Or does it both at the same time? In this seminar, we will explore these questions, while navigating their tensions and contradictions. We will put the ancient world in discussion with the contemporary, while considering thinkers, artists and movements as part of a multi-cultural historical archive that holds these dynamic tensions in context.
In this course, students will create narratives in the same vein as in a traditional creative writing class, but they will be combining this already complex task with a variety of other forms of knowledge acquisition, including technological, professional, social, and aesthetic. They will answer questions such as, how is storytelling relevant in a digital world? As well as, how does a storyteller engage with a digital audience? Students will learn how to cut audio and video, access a diverse audience of readers and listeners, adapt to publishing for multiple modern platforms, use innovative software, gain professional skills such as marketing and branding -- all the while engaging in complex and creative thinking, writing, and analysis. Visual storytelling in the form of virtual reality, video games, and other visual formats will also be included.
- A Revolutionary Analysis of Numbers and Data
Amid the deluge of information and big data, it has become critical to be literate in fundamental mathematical principles. This course will introduce students to a revolutionary theory in mathematics that developed in the early 19th century and is relevant to analyzing phenomenon in several fields, not just in science such as physics, computer science, biology, chemistry, but also non-sciences such as economics, psychology, sociology, finance, business. The goal of the course is to empower students and to encourage inquisitiveness about numbers as a way of being human and a route to understanding human knowledge in multiple disciplines.
- Healthcare Meets Virtual Reality
The health care industry is the fastest growing employment sector in the United States. The aging workforce, legislative movements, and the pandemic have demanded new ways of providing health care services. Drones, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality are just a few forms of innovation and technology that have entered patient care environments. It is vital that all consumers of health care services understand the how these forms of technology can improve patient care, especially in rural health environments. It is also important that we understand the ethical issues related to the use of innovation and technology. This course will take a hands-on exploration of virtual reality (VR) applications, including medical simulation; telemedicine, medical and healthcare training for nurses and other health professionals; and pain control, visualization aid for surgery, rehabilitation in cases such as stroke, phobia and trauma therapies. Students will participate in storyboard development of a case scenario and apply it in a VR environment.
- Design Theories of Buckminister Fuller
The seminar will introduce students to the ideas, concept, and theory and design approaches of R. Buckminster Fuller. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) is the renowned inventor of the geodesic dome, the world game, and a new system of mathematics called synergetics. He was a polymath whose writings and lectures touched upon every aspect of the human condition. He was a “new-former” pointing out, exploring and prototyping designs in numerous, previously uncharted areas of science and humanity. His greatest writings were Critical Path, Synergetics, and, posthumously, Cosmography. Since his death a class of recently discovered allotropes of carbon, the fullerenes, have been named in his honor.
- Hashtag Feminism: Globalization, Social Media, and the Future
Can the revolution be tweeted? In this course, we will delve into how social media and other Internet-based applications have become a political force in our global world, shaping social movements and our future. Taking a feminist lens, this course will analyze social complexity from bottom up, from specific locations, such as Latin American feminist movements to understand global themes such as neoliberalism, globalization, and resistance. What can social media tell us about our social complexity? How are we formed as political subjects in this global, digital era? What is the future of feminism? These are some of the questions that we will tackle during this course. By the end of the class, you will have a grasp over the uses of social media, a set of theoretical tools that you can employ in the future, and a practical view of feminism.
- Exploring Children's Literature
This is a student-generated course, developed at the request of an Honors student desiring to go deeper into children’s literature. In this course, we will engage with a range of juvenile literature and other media, aimed at readers from the ages of 0-18. We will establish the behavioral, psychological, and educational advantages of reading to very young children, examine the development of literacy in children and adolescents, and explore how juvenile literature socializes and acculturates children and adolescents. We will determine what makes a successful children’s book and write our own, revisit the books we knew and loved when we were young(er), and consider a variety of juvenile genres, including non-fiction, horror, comedy, poetry, and fantasy. Among the issues we will discuss in relation to our chosen texts are: the history of children’s literature, language and visuals, diversity and inclusion, attachment and separation, sleep and dreams, animals and other avatars, culture and identity, achievement and history, schooling and family, myths and revisions, classics and contemporary blockbusters, audiences and fan culture, maturation and adolescence, Harry Potter and the children’s literature genre, sexuality and romance, graphic novels, and juvenile television, film, and digital platforms.
- Meditation Theory And Practice
Meditation is a practice of sustained concentration that calms the body and quiets the mind. Research has shown that meditation can reduce stress-related issues such as anxiety, chronic pain, and sleep disorders. In this course, students will cultivate a developed personal meditation practice, enhancing their own well-being and excluding peace to those around them. This course addresses the following questions: What is meditation and what is supposed to be “happening” while I’m meditating? How will meditation help me in my daily life and with my career? Who am I? What is my purpose in life? And why do these questions relate to meditation? How do I meditate if I have racing thoughts? What happens when I regulate the relationship between thinking and breathing? How will my personal meditation practice bring benefit to others around me?
Yoga Nidra is a state of expanded mental awareness and deep physical relaxation accessed through guided meditation and visualization. While in the state of Yoga Nidra, deep healing is possible, creativity is enhanced, and the capacity to manifest one's goals and visions is maximized. In this course, students will experience the documented benefits of a consistent, weekly Yoga Nidra practice with an emphasis on the art of letting go and the development of a sankalpa, a long-term intention. This course asks: 1. What does it mean to consciously create my reality, and how do I do that? 2. How do we "let go" of, or be non-attached to, the things we love and fear, and how is "letting go" (non-attachment) not the same, as not caring? 3. What is the role of forgiveness in Yoga Nidra and Letting Go? 4. How are the concepts of selflessness and selfishness important in creating reality and resolving karma?
How can yoga and sound practices help foster clearer thinking, emotional equilibrium, a sense of peace and wellbeing, balance, flow and ease in navigating your life? How can yoga and sound practices facilitate greater awareness, compassion, empathy, presence, and a deeper interpersonal communication? How can practices of yoga and sound create safe spaces that nurture internal processes and a sense of feeling at home in your body while fostering a sense of community and belonging? What is the power of yoga, sound/music, and other expressive arts?
What is art and why do humans make it? Why do we seek it out and spend time (and money) to experience it or acquire it? From the famous paleolithic cave paintings, stretching across the entirety of Southern Eurasia from approximately 35,000 to 40,000 years ago, to the latest Banksy, humans have been making art, that is both representing the world and inventing other worlds (sometimes at the same time). This drive is one of the definitive features of our species, of who we are and how we think. It seems an unavoidable necessity—the reason why we can be described both as homo faber (as maker) and homo ludens (as playful). If it is so important, what is it? And how does it express itself? Is the artistic impulse an impulse to preserve or to play, to waste or to wonder? Is it how we grasp the reality of our existence or how we delude ourselves away from it? Is the artistic impulse liberatory—an expression of a drive to free ourselves and others from exploitation—or does it rest on structures of exploitation? Or does it both at the same time? In this seminar, we will explore these questions, while navigating their tensions and contradictions. We will put the ancient world in discussion with the contemporary, while considering thinkers, artists and movements as part of a multi-cultural historical archive that holds these dynamic tensions in context.
- Spring 2021 Honors Faculty Fellows
Spring 2021: Faculty Fellows in the Cluster on Cradle to Cradle
Tao Huang, Assistant Professor, School of Art and Design
- Desigining Sustainability
What have the visionaries such as Buckminister Fuller and William McDonough discovered as the new directions for the future of our society? How do we create visible and actionable solutions for sustainable development? How have various industries responded to the triple-bottom-line challenge despite their constant needs to generate profits and grow economically? What are some of the most innovative and novel ways of responding to various environmental crisis? What is systems theory? How does one conduct "life cycle analysis"? What skill sets or tools can you prepare yourself with to build a more sustainable future?
Darryl Clark, Assistant Professor, Theatre
The Maternal in Movement will answer questions like how the maternal has been interpreted through dance idioms such as ballet, modern and contemporary. How have these interpretations been informed by ongoing developments in the areas of psychology and women’s studies? How can we come to a deeper understanding of role of the mother in western culture as it has been impacted by technology? How has the idea and interpretation of motherhood impacted the child in the words selected for study? How have the interpretations been informed by/inform other forms and works of art and entertainment? This course will promote a greater understanding of the history and development of dance forms for the theatre. The course will also show the contributions made to dance by women dance artists and artists of color.
Kenneth Stikkers, Professor, Philosophy
- The Myth of Progress, and Why it Undermines Sustainability
Whereas throughout most of human history, time has been experienced as an ever-turning cycle, a distinguishing feature of the West has been its linear, progressive conception of history, On an individual level it is the process of moving from cradle to grave. On a cultural level it is the story of continuous and inevitable ‘progress.’ How did such a nation arise in the West? What are the main roots? How does it contrast non-Western experiences of time as circular? What have been its most influential articulations? What have been some of its main expressions and consequences? How has it affected the way in which we experience death in the West, and especially in America? How does it govern our understanding of education? How has it influenced Western views of economy? How has it influenced Western understandings of nature and contributed to environmental degradation?
Logan Park, Associate Professor, Forestry Recreation and Park Management
- Self-Cultivation in Local Sustainable Development: The Evergreen Community Model
The Evergreen Community Model course is designed by Forestry & Natural Resource students and professors with the purpose to facilitate a comprehensive learning experience for an interdisciplinary class of honors students as they seek to apply themes in sustainable development, landscape planning, and culture-environment interactions to real-world problems at Evergreen Terrace Apartments. This class will act as a place-based education model, informing the scope of class projects with the self-identified needs of Evergreen Terrace’s multicultural population. A synthesis of formal and nonformal learning opportunities will blend personal introspection with the study of natural, physical, and social sciences - applying the different perspective lenses as we engage in field visits, community capacity building efforts, and a series of guest lectures. Students will walk away with new meaningful relationships, impactful projects, and a uniquely-tailored educative experience.
Other Honors Courses
The Mississippi River: History and Culture
The Mississippi River defines central North America and the SIU campuses. For thousands of years, the river has shaped the environment, economy, and culture of its watershed and the people who lived in it. Yet the river often goes unnoticed—a quiet part of our infrastructure—until it overtops its engineered banks to assert its fundamental nature. This seminar will focus on the Mississippi River as a crucial but little-understood actor in history. We will engage with the river’s environmental, economic, and cultural histories. The river also serves as a launching point for deeper questions about the relationship between humans and our environment: Can humans control nature? If so, at what cost? Is our economy fundamentally rooted in nature? Does the natural environment determine culture?
At the conclusion of this seminar, you will: understand environmental history approaches and methods, including how humans shape, and are shaped by, the environment; understand the history of the Mississippi River and human settlement in its watershed, from prehistory to the present; and be able to analyze major questions in human-environmental relations using interdisciplinary methods.
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Scott McClurg, Professor, Journalism
- Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World
This course draws information from http://callingbullshit.org, and is co-taught through Political Science and Journalism lenses. What do we mean, exactly, by “bullshit” and “calling bullshit”? Bullshit involves language, statistical figures, data graphics, and other forms of presentation intended to persuade by impressing and overwhelming a reader or listener, with blatant disregard for truth and logical coherence. Calling bullshit is a performative utterance, a speech act in which one publicly repudiates something objectionable. The scope of targets is broader than bullshit alone. You can call bullshit on bullshit, but you can also call bullshit on lies, treachery, trickery, and injustice. In this course we will teach you how to spot the former, and effectively perform the latter.
Kamal Ibrahim, Associate Professor, School of Biological Sciences
What are the major religious groups’ views and positions on evolution? Is there necessarily a conflict between religion and evolutionary biology? What is its nature and how has it evolved? What is the current status of the debate over “scientific creationism” and “intelligent design”? How common is religious belief among scientists and how do they reconcile belief and science?
Kavita Karan, Professor, Journalism
- Health Communication: Theory, New Strategies and Campaigns
This course explores the urgent need to understand good health practices for healthy behaviors and survival strategies for leading a healthy lifestyle. What are the methods of communicating with people at different levels in the health care industry? How can we study health risks and problems of 8-10 countries across the world and how they have tackled the issues through effective plans and communication strategies? How should campaigns be planned to communicate healthy practices, prevention and control of health issues and diseases? How is the internet and new media technologies, including social media, supporting health information?
John Shaw, Adjunct Professor and Institute Director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute
- Restoring American Statesmanship
This course will examine the quality of statesmanship in the public affairs of the United States. It will examine the essential qualities of statesmanship, consider its importance in American history, and ask what can be done to restore the ethos of statesmanship in the United States. Statesmanship will be essential if the nation is to address such historic challenges as health care reform, deficits and debt, and climate change. Especially in the area of climate policy, the absence of statesmanship could have catastrophic consequences for the United States and the world.
Diana Tigerlily, Associate Professor of Practice, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
- Meditation Theory And Practice
Meditation is a practice of sustained concentration that calms the body and quiets the mind. Research has shown that meditation can reduce stress-related issues such as anxiety, chronic pain, and sleep disorders. In this course, students will cultivate a developed personal meditation practice, enhancing their own well-being and excluding peace to those around them. This course addresses the following questions: What is meditation and what is supposed to be “happening” while I’m meditating? How will meditation help me in my daily life and with my career? Who am I? What is my purpose in life? And why do these questions relate to meditation? How do I meditate if I have racing thoughts? What happens when I regulate the relationship between thinking and breathing? How will my personal meditation practice bring benefit to others around me?
A sister course to Yoga for Harmonious living, this course asks: What are defining elements of Yoga and Ayurveda? How can they facilitate my holistic well-being? What is the subtle body and its relationship to my physical body and higher self? Why do certain foods impact my emotional and mental states? How can I utilize the study of my Doshas (energies) to enhance holistic health? How do I create an optimal lifestyle regimen for holistic health and self-realization?
UHON 111 - HONORS COLLOQUIUM (BY INVITATION ONLY)
The Honors Colloquium (Becoming an Honors Scholar) is an introduction to the world of opportunities that may support and enrich an undergraduate or graduate education. This course is an introduction to the process of applying for major scholarships; to the elements of writing style for major scholarship applications; and to other aspects typical of scholarships, graduate, and professional school applications. This class will guide you through this process of self-reflection as you craft essays, develop interview skills and discover research opportunities.
Participation is highly selective and requires an application, essay, and interview. For more information on this course, contact Elizabeth Donoghue at elizabeth.donoghue@siu.edu or stop by her office at Morris 110C.
- Fall 2020 Honors Faculty Fellows
Fall 2020: Faculty Fellows in the Cluster on Cradle to Cradle
Edward Brunner, Professor Emeritus, English
The “Anthropocene” defines a time when the work of humans has devastatingly altered the planet’s environment. The results are unnerving enough to demand innovative approaches. This course studies the power of artworks in a variety of different formats (photography, painting, verse, dance, film, animation, and short fiction) to register the threat of a catastrophic future by engaging us both intellectually and emotionally. These artworks may also carry within them clues, tips, and promptings that offer alternative approaches to the crisis before us. We will ask:
When artists and writers place the global environmental crisis at the center of their work, what should we expect as a takeaway? How do some artworks present themselves as “arts of living” – encounters that both explain and guide? Where can we find artworks that serve us both intellectually and emotionally?
Marsha Ryan, M.D., School of Medicine and Tom Britton, J.D., School of Law
Bioethics is a field of study that involves the ethical considerations of scientific research and the application of scientific knowledge to humans, particularly in the practice of medicine. This course is taught by a physician and a lawyer who bring different approaches to bioethics questions. The topics covered include reproductive rights (Cradle), death and dying (Grave), medical experimentation on humans, and decision making for the elderly. As science progresses, the application of research results will raise new ethical questions, often of increasing complexity and difficulty.
Pinckney Benedict, Professor, English
This course asks students imaginatively to consider what a human diaspora from Earth to the stars might look like and what effects it might have on our conception of "humanity." Using novels, films, TV shows, computer games, podcasts, and VR experiences as our source material, the class will roleplay a multi-year galactic journey aboard a colony ship. Everyone is welcome to contribute their real-world skills, from any discipline or background, or to invent a fictional skillset. No experience in science fiction or technology is required. Coursework will consist of students' keeping detailed video and audio logs of their shipboard duties and off-duty lives; "away missions" that will involve scavenging for resources and encounters with alien lifeforms (faculty?); and finding inventive ways to live together and to cooperate in overcoming the inevitable obstacles that will crop up on such an adventure. By semester's end, we will either reach a habitable world, the cradle of a new human civilization (whatever we decide that will be), or we will drift forever, lost among the stars.
Jyotsna Kapur, Professor, Cinema and Sociology
This course is an iteration of Innovations in Sustainability, a student generated course offered in Fall 2019. We will study communities, practices, and principles that are pioneering ways of living, relating, and creating a sustainable future in the midst of the contemporary global environmental, economic, and political crises. The premise is that the new emerges from the old, both in nature and in human affairs. What are the ways in which the new is being imagined and practiced in communities around the world? How does this imaginary draw on a history of utopian thinking from the past? What is it about our nature as a species that makes us have such a destructive and creative impact on our planet? What does re-inventing our way of life mean? Finally, what are the structural reasons for our current crisis? We will find answers by drawing upon faculty from across disciplines on our campus and by students working in groups on projects that seek to build sustainable futures in the present.
Izumi Shimada, Professor, Anthropology
In the early part of the 16th century, two totally independent and disparate civilizations, the Incas and the Spanish, confronted each other. In this course, we ask: What short- and long-term consequences, regional and global impacts have resulted from the fateful encounter in 1532? How could a culture (lnca) without writing, markets, a monetary system, and other features that are commonly thought to be vital in a "civilization" attain the status of a great civilization? In fact, how did the lnca, a minority non-literate ethnic group establish and govern their vast empire? What do we mean by a civilization or a civilized society? What sources of information can be used and how can we cope with inherent biases in information and our own prejudices? What are resilient and surviving indigenous Andean cultural practices, institutions, beliefs and techniques/technologies that are relevant and beneficial to modern life in and out of the Andes? Against the lineal notion of From Cradle to Grave we will consider regeneration, invention, and ingenuity as fundamental aspects of human history. In fact, the unilineal vision of "Cradle to Grave" is essentially not applicable to the Andean civilization (and many nonindustrial societies and cultures), past and present in both material and nonmaterial senses.
Other Honors Courses
Benjamin Bricker, Assistant Professor, Political Science
The 2020 election season will be a momentous time for American democracy. The choices - both in policy and in character - likely will be stark. In this course, we will examine the 2020 election as a current political and social event. We will also examine the 2020 election in the larger context of democratic theory and comparative democratic practices.
This course will address many of the largest questions in society today: What is the nature of democracy? What are the stakes in the 2020 election? How does the 2020 election impact the future direction of environmental, economic, and social policies in the United States? Can we use the U.S. election experience to draw larger insights and conclusions on democracy worldwide, and policy worldwide? How can we ensure that democracy will endure?
Dr. Bobbi Knapp, Associate Professor of Sport Studies, Kinesiology and Dr. Daniel Mahoney, President, Southern Illinois University System
- Intercollegiate Athletics: Origins Through Contemporary
Intercollegiate athletics has been referred to as the front porch of the modern U.S. university. What started out as student-run sport clubs at elite private institutions eventually became recruiting and marketing tools for colleges and universities throughout the U.S. This course will chart the history of intercollegiate athletics from its start on the playing fields of Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and other private institutions as student-run, student-played, and student-coached sporting clubs to the development of the Power Five Conferences and football coaches who make over $8 million dollars a year. As part of this exploration, the course will also examine the impact of social class, race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, disability on the intercollegiate athletic experience. The content will also cover topics such as amateurism, labor unions, protests, academic scandals, sport-industrial-military complex, and reform.
Meditation is a practice of sustained concentration that calms the body and quiets the mind. Research has shown that meditation can reduce stress-related issues such as anxiety, chronic pain, and sleep disorders. In this course, students will cultivate a developed personal meditation practice, enhancing their own well-being and excluding peace to those around them. This course addresses the following questions: What is meditation and what is supposed to be “happening” while I’m meditating? How will meditation help me in my daily life and with my career? Who am I? What is my purpose in life? And why do these questions relate to meditation? How do I meditate if I have racing thoughts? What happens when I regulate the relationship between thinking and breathing? How will my personal meditation practice bring benefit to others around me?
Healing begins from a state of relaxation. This statement is deceptively simple and incredibly profound. As a society, we are far from relaxed. We normalize stress and glorify sleeping less; we value productivity over life quality and balance. This course introduces students to the practice and study of Yoga as a way to create and sustain a lifelong practice of self-awareness and healthy living. We will practice and study yoga postures and philosophies, including Hatha Yoga sequences for balance and renewal; The Yoga Sutras, emphasizing the Yamas (moral restraints), and the Niyamas (moral observances); and Eastern anatomies and applications for holistic health, such as the Koshas and the Chakras; and centering tools of breathing and meditation.
Jay Needham, Professor, Radio, TV and Digital Media
This course considers sound from a variety of unique perspectives. We'll learn about how we, as humans hear, communicate, and create through the audio spectrum as well as how we use technology to extend our abilities to listen in to our environment and to others. We'll also ask critical questions about sound from eco-critical perspectives, delving into the nature of our species as capable of experiencing and producing sound within a specific range of the audible spectrum. We will consider music as a defining feature of our humanity, the role it plays in our collective listening and creation of sound. From break-beats, film soundtracks and sound archives, we are all active collectors and makers of sound. Finally, we'll consider the historical and personal connections that sound has to architecture. It turns out that buildings can act as instruments and they also need voices. Where will your voice sound its presence?
Maria Johnson, Associate Professor, Music
How can yoga and sound practices help foster clearer thinking, emotional equilibrium, a sense of peace and wellbeing, balance, flow and ease in navigating your life? How can yoga and sound practices facilitate greater awareness, compassion, empathy, presence, and a deeper interpersonal communication? How can practices of yoga and sound create safe spaces that nurture internal processes and a sense of feeling at home in your body while fostering a sense of community and belonging? What is the power of yoga, sound/music, and other expressive arts?
- Spring 2020 Honors Faculty Fellows
Spring 2020: Faculty Fellows in the Cluster on Survival
Alfred Frankowski, Assistant Professor, Philosophy
- Hip Hop, Race, Gender, and Incarceration
How does mass incarceration effect every community and every facet of our contemporary lives? How does the prison system institution perpetuate issues around race and gender? What does “survival” mean from the standpoint of the carceral state, in terms of visibility and invisibility? What does the prison make appear? What does it make disappear? How can we rethink the intersections between race, class, and gender? What are everyday aesthetics that cause us to rethink the racializing and gendering practices that support the carceral state?
David Lightfoot, Professor, Plant Soil and Agricultural Systems
- Climate Change - Mediating the Climate Crisis with Biotechnology
This course will cover the basic principles of climate change remediation technologies, including plant and animal biotechnology, using current examples. We will reflect simultaneously on environmental and ethical concerns. A seminar style class that is focused on exploration and imaging alternatives, it poses the questions: Can you think? Can you envision? Creating a new life form takes decades…are you patient?
Jean-Pierre Reed, Associate Professor, Sociology
- Politics as Survival: Social Movements and Revolutions Changing Society
What is a social movement/revolution? In what ways do they change society? Under what conditions do social movements/revolutions emerge? What are the objective and subjective conditions that make political contention possible?
Kenneth Stikkers, Professor, Philosophy
- Economic Survival in a Time of Growing Wealth Inequality
To what extent has wealth inequality in the U.S. increased in recent years? How has this increasing wealth inequality created growing feelings of economic insecurity? What are the causes, both historical and recent, that produced this inequality? How has wealth inequality affected education, health, American democracy, and gender and racial minorities? What are some strategies for reversing this trend? Upon what philosophical and ethical principles might a just economy be based? What might an economically just society look like?
Students Jacob Bolton, Senior, Forestry, and Grant Depoy, Senior, Forestry, and Logan Park, Associate Professor, Forestry, Recreation, and Park Management
This class was proposed by Honors students Jacob Bolton and Grant Depoy (Forestry), will build an international children’s garden in the university’s graduate housing complex, largely occupied by international students. This class will bring together sustainable agricultural practices with stories and narratives cultures children about forests and gardens. One of the coals of the class will be a book of children’s stories for children. Another, to turn the children’s garden into a practical school for local school children on plants and humans.
Other Honors Courses
George Brozak, Associate Director of Bands, Music
- Social History of Rock and Roll
What elements of music in a given work make it unique, interesting, and expressive? How do these elements differ from one artist to the next? How were artists (and their music) influenced by race, socio-economic status, culture, gender, and sexuality? How did the development of various instruments influence the “birth” of rock? What new methods of performance were a result of these developments? Many artists unknowingly signed-away the rights to their music for a few dollars; how have copyright laws in America progressed?
Maria Johnson, Associate Professor, Music
How can yoga and sound practices help foster clearer thinking, emotional equilibrium, a sense of peace and wellbeing, balance, flow and ease in navigating your life? How can yoga and sound practices facilitate greater awareness, compassion, empathy, presence, and a deeper interpersonal communication? How can practices of yoga and sound create safe spaces that nurture internal processes and a sense of feeling at home in your body while fostering a sense of community and belonging? What is the power of yoga, sound/music, and other expressive arts?
Liliana Lefticariu, Associate Professor, Geology
- Future of Space Exploration
What are the past, ongoing, and future space exploration missions lead by NASA, ESA, and other space agencies as well as by private companies or mixed state-private endeavors? What does the physical exploration of space look like? How do unmanned robotic space probes as well as the human spaceflight of the planets, moons and asteroids explore the Solar System? How can we explore the origin of the solar system, the composition of the planets and moons of the Solar System, and the variety of extra-terrestrial objects? Can we harness parts of space to become a major source of natural resources? What are the legalities involved in exploring space? Is colonization of the Moon and Mars, or their parts, possible?
Jane Nichols, Associate Professor, Rehabilitation Institute, Rehabilitation Counseling, and Administration
- Substance Use and Behavioral Addictions from a Sociological Perspective
What is the considerable influence of ‘sociologic’ factors on problem drinking, drug use and behavioral addictions? Are these pursuits caused exclusively by biologic traits, psychological determinants, or moral failure? How can we understand the nature of drug use and behavioral addictions? Is it necessary to understand the chemical properties of the substances at issue, the attributes of the people who use and abuse drugs, and the norms and characteristics of the society in which the substance use occurs? What are the processes by which particular conditions and behaviors are constructed as deviant? What happens to people who are identified as deviant? How can we examine and contrast a variety of legal and illegal psychoactive drugs and the determinants associated with their status? This course meets Advanced Training requirements for Illinois certification in Alcohol and Drug Counseling (CADC).
Diana Tigerlily, Associate Professor of Practice, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
- Yoga for Harmonious Living
Healing begins from a state of relaxation. This statement is deceptively simple and incredibly profound. As a society, we are far from relaxed. We normalize stress and glorify sleeping less; we value productivity over life quality and balance. This course introduces students to the practice and study of Yoga as a way to create and sustain a lifelong practice of self-awareness and healthy living. We will practice and study yoga postures and philosophies, including Hatha Yoga sequences for balance and renewal; The Yoga Sutras, emphasizing the Yamas (moral restraints), and the Niyamas (moral observances); and Eastern anatomies and applications for holistic health, such as the Koshas and the Chakras; and centering tools of breathing and meditation.
- Yoga for Self-Realization
A sister course to Yoga for Harmonious living, this course asks: What are defining elements of Yoga and Ayurveda? How can they facilitate my holistic well-being? What is the subtle body and its relationship to my physical body and higher self? Why do certain foods impact my emotional and mental states? How can I utilize the study of my Doshas (energies) to enhance holistic health? How do I create an optimal lifestyle regimen for holistic health and self-realization?
- Fall 2019 Honors Faculty Fellows
Fall 2019: Faculty Fellows in the Cluster on Survival
Cade Bursell, Professor, Cinema and Photography
- Forests and Humans: Inter-Dependecies, Imaginings, and Changemaking
This course will explore our remarkably vibrant and historically rich location – the Shawnee National Forest- to delve into the deep interdependence between humans and forests. You will be involved in creating an interdisciplinary enquiry as well as a transient learning community that will develop an understanding of the specific history of our region through cultural, historical, artistic and scientific research coupled with experiential learning activities. The work of this class consists of creative experimentation, research, development and presentation of new work that blurs the lines between disciplines, artistic practice and research. Our goal will be to imagine and map a future for this place given the economic and environmental challenges further pressured by climate change.
Pinckney Benedict, Professor, English
- Survival Stories: Making the Literature of Survival
This course asks students to consider, through encounters with established narratives (both fiction and nonfiction), what human being have done through the ages in order to survive. It further asks you, through the creation of your own stories, what you yourselves would do to survive, and what the term "survival" means to you. Is it simply the preservation of life and limb? The preservation of culture, of language, of dignity, of honor, of psychological health? Is it regaining well-being after a bout with cancer, or recovering from sexual and other sorts of trauma? We will make a survey of the literature of survival while writing (and recording, and publishing) our own survival narratives, both fiction and creative nonfiction. The lab component of the class will take advantage of the Creative Writing Program's new podcasting facility to make these stories concrete through audio production and, if the student wishes, to send them out into the world.
Laurel Fredrickson, Assistant Professor, Art and Design
- Survival and the Arts: Diaspora, Migration and Displacements
This course will explore the themes of diaspora, migration, and transnational identity in the work of contemporary artists, art collectives; and refugees. As a class, in groups, and individually, you will examine, describe, interpret, and analyze works of art to ask: Can art serve as a means of survival for individuals and collectivities? And, if so, in what ways? We will learn about the history and politics of migration and displacement; themes, such as, transnational identity, hybridity, and créolité; and explore art as an activist practice oriented toward personal and collective survival. Students will be introduced to New Media Art, from the digital (as in art projects that use the internet) to video, as well as art activism, environmental art installation, and performance art. Class projects will include in-class group and individual presentations, response papers, blog entries, and art projects.
Dave Johnson, Associate Professor, Classics
SIUC has half as many students as it once did. State and federal funding are in decline, and the very concept of public higher education has come under attack in some quarters. This class will make you part of the search to understand SIUC’s crisis and suggest possible solutions to it. As a current SIUC student, you have a unique perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of SIUC; you know why you enrolled here, and you are experiencing the pluses and minuses of being an SIUC student. The class will culminate with student group proposals to help SIUC survive and thrive. Groups will present their work not only in class but, in appropriate form, to the SIUC community. Where practicable, we will also invite the public to class sessions featuring outside speakers. This class will give you the opportunity to play a real part in helping SIUC survive.
Satoshi Toyosaki, Associate Professor, Languages, Culture and international Trade
- Surviving the Atomic Age: Engaging Science Through Humanity
Since people learned how to split an atom, we have been living in the atomic age. We have been using the nuclear technology/ies in various ways, ranging from the atomic bombs detonated over people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to nuclear power plants and medical radiation. The atomic age changed and continues to change how we live; it has produced a radical era of politicized uncertainty. It is an age filled with stories of survival, such as those of the victims of the atomic bombs and of cancer survivors/radiation therapy patients. This course is, of necessity, interdisciplinary as it reflects upon what is the biggest human created threat to human civilization. Beginning with survival narratives, we will seek to understand the complex relationship among science, technology, and humanity (or lack thereof), and develop our own peace messages. In so doing, we will work on creative nonfiction writing “and” auto-ethnographic writing as a means of reflection, analysis, reporting, and representation.
Jyotsna Kapur, Professor, Cinema and Photography & Director, University Honors Program
- Innovations in Sustainability: Surviving in a Changing World
In a first for University Honors, we will offer a course generated by students. University Innovation Fellows, Jacob Coddington (graduate student, Master of Business Administration) and Carly Kasicki (majoring in Biological Sciences, French, and German) initiated this course with advice from with Elizabeth Donoghue (Mentor, UHP). They are bringing together faculty from various disciplines, including Art and Design, Geoengineering, Environmental Studies, Energy, Policy, Architecture, Media, and Business to consider, in theory and practice, design as a way to conceptualize and find solutions for sustainable living. Weekly meetings will include lectures, discussions, readings and project based work.
Other Honors Courses
Getahun Benti, Professor, History
- Africa and the U.S: From Cold War to the War on Terrorism
How can we analyze US-Africa relations from the Cold War to the current War on Terrorism? What are the strategic interests of the United States in Africa? In an era of globalization, what is the response of Africans to economic, political and security challenges? What is the history of the Cold War and Africa’s role in it? What are Africa’s contributions to the War on Terror? Are there impacts on local politics and on efforts to build democracy? What countries in Africa are another battleground for war on terrorism?
Ed Brunner, Emeritus Professor, English
We begin by examining breakthrough texts from the 1980s that reposition the superhero narrative (Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns), briefly consider origin works from the 1930s to the 1970s, then turn to focus on recent material that stretches the concept in new directions (when superheroes can be immigrants or androids or pregnant, among other qualities). What special conditions make vigilante justice (which is strongly discouraged by the state) not just acceptable but honorable? Which elements in this storytelling make us take seriously the superhero product, designed as it is for commercial appeal and identifiable branding? Why is a secret identity such a large component of the superhero narrative? When superheroes present themselves as members of a group alliance, why are outsiders and marginal figures so often important to the formation of these social units? And finally, who is ready to answer the question that critic Gerald Early has asked: “Has anyone tried to present what a woman would consider heroic action?”
Dave Gilbert, Associate Professor, Automotive Technology
- History and the Evolution of the Automobile
What are the origins - historic, economic, political, technological - of the US automotive industry? Why did it go the way it did? What were the dreams, the ingenuity and inventions of the pioneers that have been submerged in history? What are the founding ideas that have now come to the forefront in recent vehicle design? How can this history offer solutions for the future? This class will include at least one trip to an area automotive museum.
Dong Han, Associate Professor, Journalism
- How to Think About Intellectual Property
Is the creative process individual, social, or both? What exactly is the target of current intellectual property (IP) regulation - is it to regulate the producers or consumers of knowledge? Can knowledge be considered private property? Who are the beneficiaries of IP - Authors/artists, or corporate interests?
Grand opera is in many ways the 19th century equivalent of movies today, bringing together music, drama, staging, lighting, and special effects. This course will be team taught by Edward Benyas, Music Director of the Southern Illinois Symphony and Music Festival, and Walter Metz, Professor of Film Criticism at SIUC and host of “SIU Reviews” on WSIU Radio. Students will watch and thoroughly study eight operas: by Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Bizet, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini and Bernstein, learning synopses, musical motives and structure, and gaining a basic musical appreciation of some of the greatest operas ever composed. What does it mean to study opera as a high art form, when it once was a popular form? How does that shift allow us to think about our own popular culture-film and television-in the early 21st century?
- Competition and Cooperation in the Global Political Economy of Food
Is the global food system up to the challenge of increasing food production by 70 percent to feed 9 billion people by 2050? Has our planet reached its ecological limits in increasing food production? Should we use tropical rainforests to increase food production? How can we lift nearly one billion people out of food insecurity/hunger? How do we end the inequality in access to nutritious foods across and within countries?
- Yoga for Harmonious Living
Healing begins from a state of relaxation. This statement is deceptively simple and incredibly profound. As a society, we are far from relaxed. We normalize stress and glorify sleeping less; we value productivity over life quality and balance. This course introduces students to the practice and study of Yoga as a way to create and sustain a lifelong practice of self-awareness and healthy living. We will practice and study yoga postures and philosophies, including Hatha Yoga sequences for balance and renewal; The Yoga Sutras, emphasizing the Yamas (moral restraints), and the Niyamas (moral observances); and Eastern anatomies and applications for holistic health, such as the Koshas and the Chakras; and centering tools of breathing and meditation.
