College Scholars Honors Seminars – Fall 2008
HONS 181 35 “Don Quixote and the Experimental Novel” MW 11:10-12:25
Professor Edward Friedman Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Miguel de Cervantes published Don Quixote, the novel was not only new but was in the process of inventing itself. Cervantes breaks away from the idealism of chivalric, pastoral, and sentimental romance, as he helps to develop narrative realism. At the same time, he moves in an entirely different direction, by calling attention to the process of composition. Don Quixote announces itself as a “true history,” but its fictional devices clearly show through. Spanish society is on display, but so are the literary forms of the day, to be acknowledged and often satirized. Don Quixote is, thus, a novel and a theory of the novel, brilliantly comic but profound, as well. It serves as a type of template for future novels and, accordingly, for future experiments, as texts engage and challenge tradition. Don Quixote will be the centerpiece of the seminar, and the readings also will include Mist by Miguel de Unamuno, Aura by Carlos Fuentes, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, City of Glass by Paul Auster, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.
CPLE: Humanities AXLE: Humanities & Creative Arts
Honors 182 13 Applications of Discoveries in Physics TR 9:35-10:50
Professor Joe Hamilton , Department of Physics
Discoveries in atomic and nuclear physics, such as the electron, radioactive decay, x-rays, the nucleus of the atom, quantum mechanics, the positron and nuclear fission and fusion are
discussed. The enormous impacts of the technical applications of these discoveries in our world are considered at length, including radio, TV, communications, computers, lasers, fission and fission reactors, computer assisted tomography, global positioning devices, magnetic resonance imagining, positron emission tomography and others. Each person will write three papers about a discovery and an application of that discovery and make oral presentations of two of the three papers. Special emphasis will be given to developing critical thinking in assessing the discoveries of science
CPLE: Science in Society AXLE: Perspectives
HONS 183 34 “Culture and The Mind” MW 1:10 - 2:25
Professor Norbert Ross Department of Anthropology
Culture and the Mind will provide an overview of research in Anthropology, Psychology, Linguistics and other disciplines about the interface of culture and the mind. Culture is both an abstract unit existing outside the human brain, but instead it is largely
The course explores:
(1) Differences and similarities in how people in different cultures conceive of their surrounding world and how they interact with it.
(2) Proposals from both Anthropology and Psychology about the Mind / Culture interaction.
(3)Proposals of how to best define culture and how to conduct cross-cultural research.
Readings range from materials in Neuroscience, Anthropological theory to papers in high-level cognition and linguistics. In class discussions we not only discuss the specific readings, but also link these readings to the overall goal of understanding potential mind – culture connections.
Discussions will be led by one or two students each class. For specific readings reaction papers will be assigned, which form part of the overall grade. Course materials will include readings on a basic understanding of the workings of the mind, as well as basic thought processes such as categorization and reasoning. We will discuss how knowledge is acquired and what the role of cultural difference might be. In addition to the reaction papers, each student will write a research paper. Together with class participation these writing assignments form the grade of a student.
CPLE: Social Science AXLE: Social and Behavioral Science
HONS 184 21“1968: The Year of Living Dangerously” MWF 2:10 - 3:00
Professor Michael Kreyling Department of English
In 1968 it seemed, to borrow from Yeats, that the center would not hold, that the nation would come apart under pressures nobody seemed to be able to control. The Tet Offensive in January and February led to widespread discontent with the Vietnam War and the military and policymakers. Even Walter Cronkite expressed skepticism on the CBS Evening News. After narrowly winning the New Hampshire Democratic Primary, Lyndon Johnson withdrew from the race for renomination: a sitting president “resigned” in the middle of a war. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in April; Bobby Kennedy in June. Chicago erupted in riot during the Democratic National Convention that summer – a young Hillary Rodham had come downtown from the suburbs of Chicago to see the democratic process in action. The U. S. was not the only trouble spot. Students and workers rioted in Paris, and Soviet tanks crushed the “Prague Spring.”
Before the 40th anniversary is gone, 1968 deserves a memorial. A final course plan is a few months away, but there are tentative plans. This course will be organized around fiction and non-fiction published in and about 1968: Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato, Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice; the rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy; film, television, and music.
CPLE: Integrated AXLE: History and Culture of the U.S.
HONS 185 07 “Black Holes and Time Warps” TR 1:10-2:25
Professor David Weintraub Department of Physics
The modern, astrophysical universe is full of some bizarre concepts, many of which may be right. Our goal will be to develop a firm, conceptual understanding of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity in order to understand spacetime, blackholes, wormholes, singularities, gravitational waves, and white dwarfs, among other things. In parallel, we will examine the modern astrophysical evidence for black holes, dark matter, dark energy, and other objects or ideas at the edge of what we know.
We will have one primary text, 'Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy' (Kip Thorne). Collectively, the class will read a number of other books on modern astrophysics. Each student will read selected books and report to the class in oral form and to the instructor in written form on those selections. These books will include 'The Extravagant Universe' (Robert Kirshner), 'The Elegant Universe' (Brain Greene), 'Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others' (Martin Rees), 'Our Living Multiverse' (Fred Adams), 'Wrinkles in Time' (George Smoot) and others.
CPLE: Natural Sciences AXLE: Mathematics and Natural Sciences
HONS 186 05 “Meaning of Modern Art” TR 11:00-12:15
Professor Leonard Folgarait Department of History of Art
Modern art can be challenging to look at and perplexing to think about.
With its qualities of abstraction and distortions of space and objects, it looks and behaves completely differently than art of earlier periods. This course will take that challenge seriously. We will consider the contexts in which modern art was made, from biography to wider social and political histories. We will also look deeply and carefully at the styles of modern art, in an attempt to learn how to actually look at these difficult images with a sense of discovery and understanding.
CPLE: Integrated AXLE: International Cultures
