Academics
Honors Seminar > Course Descriptions
| 250 Human Possibility and Limitation How much control does humankind have in determining events and their consequences? What forces are beyond one’s control? The seminar will use readings from Homer, Sophocles, Augustine, Dante, Shakespeare, Darwin, Marx, Freud, and Beckett. |
251 Heroism: Tragedy and Transgression Many of our notions of the hero are still derived from early epic literature, which presents a paradox: The hero is most truly himself when he dies; the perfect fulfillment of heroism is death. While heroes are found not only in battle, cultures both ancient and modern seem reluctant to acknowledge a pure heroism: The hero is frequently a problematic and ambivalent figure, raising fundamental questions of morality and mortality. What is a hero, in different cultures and in different times? Why are heroes so closely linked to tragedy? How do the concepts of limitation, transgression, and flaw play a role in defining the heroic? These are some of the questions pursued in readings from all literary genres and in examining the discourse of such forms as opera and film. The seminar analyzes major works of Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe, Melville, and Dostoevsky, but it also engages nontraditional aspects of heroism such as female tragic figures, the anti-hero, and forms of resistance to political oppression. A study of film and detective fiction will provide an opportunity to trace the metamorphosis of heroism in popular as well as “serious” culture. Affirmation of feminist, multicultural, ethnic, and other creative (and controversial) perspectives is encouraged. The seminar strives to create productive, self-directed dialogue among students and includes student presentations as well as student-led discussions. |
252 Perfecting Humanity Are human beings and humankind perfectible? If not, why not? If so, in what ways, by what means, and with what consequences? Influential attempts, especially during the last five centuries, to address these and related questions are explored through examination of major Western works from several genres and disciplinary points of view. Principle figures planned for consideration include Pico della Mirandola, Shakespeare, Hobbes, Rousseau, Mary Shelley, Marx, Freud, and Arendt. |
365 In the Belly of the Beast: The Reality of Work in the Big City The seminar strives to make students better acquainted with the multiplicity and complexity of work as they think about careers by providing an experience of urban life, work contexts, social issues, and great thinking on the subject of work within the framework of first-hand contact with major professions and institutions in their everyday functioning. It seeks to promote the academic study of professions on the part of students who are earnestly career oriented and intellectually prepared to think about problems of work in a personal-professional but also political-societal context. From various perspectives the seminar will provide in-depth insight into what the (nonacademic) professions really do and how they go about doing it. Questions about the reality of work might include professional principles, goals, objectives, and ethos; sense of community and mission; variety and diversity; equal opportunity, affirmative action, and race and gender equality issues; workplace dynamics, overt or subtle discrimination; hierarchies; common ground and conflict; and self-image concerning the role of the profession in social, political, local, and national life. Students participate in 10 to 12 intensive visits to institutions and work sites in Chicago that typify, in dialectical terms, the workplaces, problems and issues, scope, and employment practices of the profession under scrutiny. They also engage in 10 to 12 workshops centering on the professions, to be held on campus, utilizing guest speakers as well as faculty resources for lectures, demonstrations, and discussions on pertinent issues. The professions and fields covered include law, primary education, medicine, major media, print media, government, food services, finance, public relations, art and commerce, public interest, and technology. |
450 The Eighteenth Century: The Birth of a New World View This seminar will study the eighteenth century, for it is with this century that our modern world comes into being; it is the watershed between the Medieval-Renaissance world and what has become our own. The new scientific climate established by the work of Sir Isaac Newton in the context of the political and economic upheavals at the end of the seventeenth century led to the emerging worldview of a rising middle class. This view was challenged by a generation of great writer-satirists who held fast to old values, and then was reinterpreted by a generation of Romantic writers. The age culminated in the great revolutions in America and France and the modern world had been born. Readings will include such authors as Pope, Newton, Swift, Descartes, and Voltaire. |
455 Patterns in Nature From the meander of a river to the branchings of tree and vein, from the soap bubble to the perfect spiral of the nautilus shell, from the articulate gestures of a cellist’s hand to the snowflake, our world abounds with exquisite and intricate patterns. This course explores the variety of patterns found in nature, the purposes, if any, that those patterns serve, and the principles and mechanisms upon which natural science calls to explain them. While much of early science sought explanations of patterns in models, plans, and blueprints, modern science acknowledges that such solutions merely relocate the problem rather than solve it. We’ll explore how solutions now abound in some sciences but in others are conspicuous in their absence. Ideally, the seminar will draw two types of participants, senior science majors who represent their disciplines and those interested in understanding patterns. |