AH 101 Section 3, Introduction to Western Art
This course is designed to introduce students with no prior experience in the study of art to various styles of Western art. Two-dimensional media, such as painting, drawing, printmaking, and photography will be explored. Three-dimensional media, such as sculpture and architecture, will also be studied. Finally, the history of art will be surveyed from prehistoric art through contemporary art. Students successfully completing this course will be able to: Analyze the basic vocabulary of visual elements (line, shape, light, value, color, texture, mass, space) and principles of design (proportion and scale, unity and variety, balance and rhythm, and emphasis and focal point); recognize and discuss materials (media) used to make art; place works of art in their historical context based on a general timeline and identify different styles and movements in art. Students will explore the University museum’s collection and compare and contrast artworks using the skills of formal analysis. The Honors section of Art History 101 will aim to develop oral presentation skills throughout the semester, as well as writing essays related to artworks belonging to different time periods.
Arab 412 Section 1, Upper-level Arabic Conversation
Students engage in conversations on a wide-range of topics touching upon: the Arab family, Arab women, Arab food, education in the Arab World, illiteracy in the Arab World, religion and society, the Hijab in Islam, the Arabic language and its dialects, customs and traditions, Bedouins, Arab cultural identity, the question of Palestine, Arab media, Globalization, and others. Students are asked to write on each topic, engage in disucssions in the classroom and choose a topic covered in class to expand on for presentations and mid-term and final papers.
Bisc 104 Section 8, Inquiry into Life: The Environment
Bisc 104 is a course designed for non-biology majors in which we explore the diversity of life and the natural world that supports life. Topics include the evolution and taxonomy of life on Earth, the ecology of microbial, plant and animal life, and contemporary environmental issues as well. As a Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College section, the class size is small and allows for extensive student participation and engagement compared to the more typical large lecture format. In this class, we will take multiple class periods to discuss news or current events that are relevant to or complement course topics, and also, students will be required to present research about an environmental issue to the class at the end of the semester. The intent is to bring attention to and better understand the natural world and our relationship to it.
Bisc 104 Section 8, Inquiry into Life: The Environment
This is a biology survey course, intended for non-biology majors. BISC 102 is the prerequisite. Associated with BISC 104 is the lab BISC 105, although a student does not have to take the lab in order to take the course. The goal is for students to better understand the basic principles of evolution and ecology and to have a growing familiarity with the diversity of life on earth. Students will demonstrate mastery of content, conceptual understanding and application of content during class participation and on tests. As an honors course, there is more student-instructor interaction, more class discussion, and more opportunity to explore current issues in science. After completing this class, students should be able to explain the evidence for evolution, some of the mechanisms of evolution and some of the history of evolutionary thought. In addition, students should demonstrate knowledge of the basis for classification, and an understanding of the major categories of life on earth.
CHIN 418 Section 1, Introduction to Classical Chinese
This course is designed to provide students an introduction to basic classical Chinese syntax and vocabulary that are still commonly used in Modern Chinese. The students will be exposed to authentic classical Chinese texts, such as Confucius’s Analects, Mencius, and Tang poetry. The culture contained in the classical texts will also be discussed throughout the course in order to provide students historical backgrounds of traditional Chinese values.
CHIN 450 Section 1, Domain Mentorship
Chinese 450 is a content-based and domain-specific course. It is designed for students who have achieved advanced levels based on the ACTFL scale. The purpose of this course is to prepare Flagship students for their Capstone year abroad, and the content of this course is tailored to meet student’s need. All course materials are authentic materials. Students are expected to attend each meeting with thorough preparation before the class, to participate in discussion with a domain mentor actively, and to complete all required assignments fully.
CHIN 512 Section 1, 21st Century China
Chinese 512 is designed for students who have achieved advanced mid/high levels based on the ACTFL scale. This is a content-based course, designed to increase students’ Chinese proficiency levels and most importantly, their Chinese cultural awareness. Course materials are all authentic materials from news clips, lectures, and talk shows. The topics include economics, societal issues, technology, and sciences of the twenty-first century China. The tasks to be covered include supporting opinions, discussing abstract topics, hypothesizing, and producing appropriate formal and informal texts based on the settings.
Danc 200 Section 1, Dance Appreciation
Dance Appreciation is a one-semester course, which investigates dance in relationship to culture, as it correlates to ritual, religion, courtship and the performing arts. The main content areas include: Dance as Ritual; Dance and Courtship/Sexuality; The function of Art and Theatrical Dance in contemporary society; Dance as an Art Form, The Creative Process; and The History & Aesthetics of the major dance genres (ballet, modern, jazz/tap).
Edci 353 Section 1, Planning & Teaching Strategies for Effective Classroom Practice
This course introduces candidates to teaching strategies and models including direct instruction, discovery/inquiry, and cooperative/collaborative learning. Focus will be on teaching in a developmental-constructivist context. Participants in the Honors section of this course will be required to teach multiple days from an original unit plan developed during the course. They will use the information gathered from developing and teaching the unit to create a Teacher Work Sample which examines the impact their teaching had on K-12 students’ achievement of stated learning goals.
Edsp 327 Section 4, Classroom Management & Behavioral Interventions
This course focuses on effective classroom management and behavioral principals including evidence-based models of classroom discipline, proactive strategies to prevent misbehavior, effective responses to problem behaviors, and ethically appropriate discipline procedures for students with disabilities. Participants in the Honors section of this course will develop in depth schoolwide, class wide, and individual behavior management plans practicing data driven decision making.
Eng 223 Section 13, Survey of American Literature to the Civil War
The history of English-speaking people in the New World has been a history of storytellers. Living in a newly colonized hemisphere produced new literary forms, templates which still define American culture to this day. English adventurers, Puritan settlers on the Massachusetts frontier, New England preachers, French expatriates, and eighteenth-century printer’s apprentices all created new kinds of texts examining new notions of American identity and society. We will read, examine, discuss, and write about the colonial accounts, Native American captivity narratives, Jeremiads, devotional poetry, sermons, autobiographies, and short stories that they produced, re-evaluating the expressive texts of our shared American pasts and presents. This course aims to be a more discussion-based, writing-intensive, creative, and rigorous alternative to the super-sized American literature lectures.
Eng 223 Section 24, Survey of American Literature to the Civil War
This section of English 223H concentrates on the rise of imaginative literature in the antebellum United States, paying particular attention to historical and cultural influences in the first half of the nineteenth century and to the role of place in shaping individual experience. The course has at least two goals. First, it engages questions of national identity as they came to be expressed in literature and charts the gradual evolution of an “American” self, at the same time complicating any singular idea of “American” by considering both canonical and noncanonical texts by writers from a variety of backgrounds. Second, it introduces students to the basic emphases of literary study, exposing them to different methodologies and building a vocabulary for the critical discussion of literature. Among the authors we will read are Frederick Douglass, Louisa May Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John P. Parker, and Walt Whitman. Unlike a regular section of this course, in which students are typically in a large lecture hall, class will be a mixture of short background lectures and student-generated discussion. Assignments will include regular in-class essays, two papers, a group presentation, and a final examination.
Eng 324 Section 2, Shakespeare
This course will give students a thorough grounding in Shakespeare’s plays and major poems, with particular attention to the various critical frameworks that have become dominant in recent scholarship. Thus our readings will include critical essays that deal with the place of the humoral body in understanding the plays; how ecology and the environment are implicated in Shakespeare’s works; the role of material objects in determining the “world” of the plays; insights into the varied cognitive models we find shaping characters and their behaviors; how representations of animality inform Shakespeare’s understanding of “the human”; and the ways that disability appears on stage to trouble assumptions about identity and “ablebodiedness.” Students will write responses to the readings, complete a set of writing assignments to culminate in a longer research paper, and give a brief presentation on their research during the semester.
Eng 352 Section 3, Studies in Contemporary Literature
This reading-intensive and writing-intensive class will focus on contemporary stories and novels written in the last forty years, with a special focus on the literary community of Oxford. We will read works by local writers and non-local writers with ties to Oxford, as well as visitors such as Jonathan Lethem (Grisham Visiting Writer 2018), Catherine Lacey (Grisham Writer in Residence 2017-2018), and Garth Greenwell (Grisham Writer in Residence 2018-2019,) as well as Oxford Conference for the Book authors.
Fr 211 Section 4, Intensive Intermediate French
French 211 is an intensive sequence for beginning students. French 211 aims to develop students’ four skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) up to the B2 proficiency level on the CEFR scale. French 211 is taught through a task-based approach. This methodology entails exclusive use of French in class and focuses on communicative skills, fostering a highly interactive class in which the language is contextualized and emphasis is placed on meaning as well as forms.
Hon 399 Section 1, Special Topics in Honors (Film and Social Problems. Register for 3 credit hours)
This is a course that probes that role feature films have played in exploring as well as bringing light to social problems and issues, whether in the stories of individuals or groups caught in the mesh of those issues or through dramatic events those issues helped create. Film will be discussed against the backdrop of how other art forms—painting, music, literature—have addressed these issues. The so-called “Hollywood Social Problem” film has been defined as one that “combines social analysis and dramatic conflict within a coherent narrative structure (distinguished by) its didacticism” (Roffman and Purdy). This course will include such films but also reach beyond to examples from German Expressionist film and Film Noir where no edifying solution may be offered but rather the depiction of an underlying truth or hard-boiled reality.
Hon 399 Section 2, Special Topics in Honors (Human Trafficking–Law and Society. Register for 3 credit hours)
In this course, students will study closely the global factors that cause Modern Slavery (otherwise known as Human Trafficking) to be among the top markets in the world. Despite efforts to curtail this atrocity, demands for human bodies (for labor, sex, etc.) remain incessant. The United States is far from immune from this plague. In fact, domestic human trafficking is growing rapidly in unlikely parts of the United States. For this reason, the problem requires global as well as national solutions. In this course, students will spend the first few weeks learning about the make-up and structure of the human trafficking market, as well as the relevant international and domestic laws that try to destroy it. Students will then work closely to research local regimes in the United States and their effectiveness at preventing/stemming the flow of human trafficking. Among others, the course covers the following topics: labor trafficking; sex trafficking of minors; sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion; state, federal, and international responses; remedies and services for human trafficking victims and survivors; and corporate accountability. Specific laws and prevention regimes include the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act (“TVPA”); federal, state, and local criminal prosecutions of traffickers; assistance for victims and victims’ rights issues; and issues of international cooperation and conflict. The course also reviews the role that law enforcement, the United States government, and non-governmental organizations play in combating human trafficking, and the collaboration that takes place between state/national and international law enforcement. The goal of this study is for students to gain a solid foundation of relevant international, federal and state laws and their limitations. In the process, students will explore practical ways for more effective legislations/other measures for preventing rise of trafficking. As a result, the course will culminate in a collective class report– informed by the students’ individual research papers on trafficking in the South of the U.S.
Hon 399 Section 3, Special Topics in Honors (Is American Democracy beyond Debate? Register for 3 credit hours)
The course will be enriched by a special two-week visit to our campus to teach this class by Janet Brown, executive director for the past 30 years of the Commission on Presidential Debates. Though her work is largely behind the scenes, she has been described as “one of the most powerful people in politics.” She has been in charge of negotiating with candidates and establishing the sites and ground rules for every presidential debate since 1988, including the 2008 debate at Ole Miss. Curtis Wilkie, an associate professor of journalism and a former newspaper reporter who covered each debate between 1976 and 2000, will serve as instructor for the entire semester. Honors 399 is designed to explore the importance of political debate in a democracy. It will touch on the early concepts of debate in the period of Greek/Roman intellectual dominance, but the class will move quickly to the role of American debate – from the Constitutional Convention to Lincoln-Douglas to Congressional arguments leading up to the Civil War. The class will learn that political vitriol is nothing new, and that the nation has prevailed despite bitter disagreement. For most of the semester, the course will focus on modern presidential debate in America. Debates lay dormant for nearly a century after the Civil War and were not resumed until the first-televised Kennedy-Nixon confrontations in 1960. After another interval of 16 years, debates were revived by Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976 and have become a regular feature of every campaign since then. Each of the modern debates will be studied. In lieu of a textbook, students will be assigned relevant articles and books to read throughout the semester. Instead of tests, students will be required to turn in several papers of at least 1,500 words — and a final one that is at least 3,000 words. The course will also call for lively classroom discussion – and perhaps a debate.
Hon 420 Section 1, Honors Experiential Learning (Fake News and How to Fight It. Second Spring Term; register for 2 credit hours)
This course, taught by Greg Brock, the senior editor of the New York Times, will examine the clash between journalism and misinformation in an era of social media and entrenched political partisanship. Students will survey the origins of fake news and the spread and life span of such articles online. They will interact with career journalists and fact-checkers, including David Mikkelson, the founder of Snopes.com, the largest fact-checking site on the Internet, and regarded as an online touchstone of rumor research. Students will also undertake real-time fact-checking projects with Snopes.com (named after Faulkner’s characters, incidentally) and learn about other tools being developed to separate reality from fiction. Through readings and exercises the course will survey such topics as overseas media mills, the psychology of belief and bias, information networks and how news reaches consumers — all with an eye toward exploring how the news industry will evolve and what challenges await this next generation of journalists.
Hon 420 Section 2, Honors Experiential Learning (Affordable Housing in Oxford, MS. Register for 3 credit hours)
For the majority of low-income American families, housing is their biggest expense, and often their biggest stressor. Research is clear that the dynamics of housing exert an enormous influence on one’s health, job stability, educational success, and other matters we deem important to well being. Debates about how to provide affordable and secure housing for all are widespread, and heated. This course examines these issues, first-hand, through the collection and analysis of original data in the Oxford-Lafayette County community. Over the course of the semester, students will help design, implement, and then assess a housing survey for residents of our county. The survey centers on the following questions: To what degree do different groups in our county face housing insecurity? To what degree is housing insecurity occurring alongside other stressors? How do different groups view local housing concerns and challenges? Results from this survey will be shared with county supervisors, real estate developers, residents, and other members of Lafayette-Oxford-University (LOU) communities.
Hon 551 Section 6, Honors Advanced Study in Law II (Honors College version of Law 709, Entertainment Law)
This course seeks to examine the contracts, intellectual property, employment, free speech, and antitrust issues associated with entertainment industries like music, movies, television, theater, books, videogames, and visual art. The course will include discussions not just of the current state of the law but also of the underlying policies at issue to provide opportunity for debate on how new and emerging digital technologies affect the creative industries. If you’ve ever wanted to debate Beyoncé songs and comic books, this is the class for you.
HST 130 Section 13, Introduction to US History to 1877
This course will present an overview of American history from initial European exploration through the Civil War. By examining the interactions between diverse groups of peoples, including Native Americans, Europeans, European Americans, and African Americans, we will explore the changing meanings of freedom, equality, citizenship, democracy and American identity. Along the way we will cover such topics as the rise of slavery, the American Revolution, the development of a political party system, the emergence of market capitalism and the reasons behind the Civil War; approaching these topics through such categories of analysis as race, gender, and class. Special emphasis will be given to the multi-layered complexities and myriad perspectives of the many pasts and historical actors that give American history its richness. In addition, students will learn how to read primary sources as historical documents and, in turn, discover how historians interpret history. The intensive discussion of primary sources, the debating of key events and themes in American history through Reconstruction, and the assigning of essays asking students to craft their own interpretations of the American past, will allow students in this honors course to become historians for a semester. Along the way, students will burnish their critical reading, analytical writing, and oratorical abilities—pushing them to become more persuasive and eloquent, and allowing them to master a basic but essential set of skills demanded of several different potential professional tracks that they may in the future pursue.
HST 490 Section 2, Problems in History (Disease and Medicine in American History)
This course will introduce honors students to the field of medical history and will use disease as a lens to reinterpret the American past. Through thematic weekly readings, class lectures, and discussions, we will explore how epidemic diseases affected colonial projects in the Americas, how disease environments influenced the growth and practice of slavery, how disease shaped American political development and the progress of the Revolutionary War, how Americans conceptualized ideas about medicine and health in the nineteenth century, how disease affected western expansion, how struggles against disease during the Civil War influenced the development of the medical profession, how segregation created disparities in healthcare during the Jim Crow years, how disease became racialized in United States immigration policy, how the expansion of the federal government in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries changed public health campaigns, how the United States responded to the global influenza pandemic in 1918, how Americans have gendered and stigmatized certain diseases, how campaigns to eradicate disease following the Second World War reflected Cold War politics and society, how the United States responded to the AIDS epidemic, and, finally, what recent outbreaks of SARS, H1N1, Ebola, and Zika reveal about the future of disease in a globalized world. Throughout the course, we will pay particular attention not only to the physical and environmental effects of disease, but also to how disease has been socially- and culturally-constructed and used for a variety of political purposes. The major objectives of this course are for students to (1) learn about the impact of disease on American history, (2) develop an understanding of the field of medical history, (3) hone critical thinking and analytical skills, (4) learn how to read and analyze primary and secondary sources, and (5) improve writing skills.
HST 415 Section 2, African American History since 1865 (cross-listed as AAS 326)
In a lecture on Black Reconstruction, historian David Blight ponders the question “What is the engine of history?” He offers two probable sources: economics and politics. Economics might be imagined as the eternal competition for resources, driven by the desire to possess the fruits of this life. Politics is the equally eternal desire to bend the wills of others to one’s own or to create possibilities for others. It seems that desire—that most ancient drive—provides the fuel for both. In our survey of African American History since 1865, we will break down these drivers of change to their most fundamental elements: sex, money, and power. In discussions, readings, and activities, we will explore how these forces shaped—and were shaped by—the African American experience in the making of America and “Americanness” from the end of the Civil War to the present. In particular, we will examine the various strategies African Americans used to resist racial, sexist, and economic oppression and their efforts to gain full rights as U.S. citizens. We will also look at intraracial dynamics to explore how African Americans grappled with—and sometimes failed to meet—the challenges presented by race and identity, gender and sexuality, and class and privilege within their own communities.
Phil 103 Section 2, Logic: Critical Thinking (cross-listed as Ling 103 Section 2)
This course is intended to introduce students to principles and methods of good reasoning, with an emphasis on the analysis of everyday arguments. The course covers four main areas of logic. The first section concerns basic logical concepts, the informal analysis of statements, the nature and analysis of arguments, and common logical fallacies. The second section concerns formal logic and its uses for determining logical features such as consistency, entailment, and validity. The third section concerns categorical logic, including categorical statements, categorical syllogisms, and Venn diagrams. The final section concerns scientific reasoning, including hypothetical reasoning, evidentiary support, the discovery of causes, and standards for scientific objectivity and integrity. In addition, this honors section will develop students’ skills in using logic to advance clear and cogent arguments of their own and in producing editorial-style critical essays.
Psy 201 Section 9, General Psychology
This course is an overview of the broad field of Psychology and is designed to introduce the student to the scientific study of behavior and the cognitive and physiological processes that underlie behavior. Topics include the historical development of psychology, research methodology, brain/behavior relationships, perception, variations in consciousness, learning and memory, cognition and intelligence, emotion, personality, and social behavior. Psychological disorders and their treatment will also be discussed. This course differs from the regular sections of PSY 201 in the written and oral assignments that are built into the course. Students are required to keep a “journal” that contains reflections/observations about each chapter that is discussed. This is a way to keep a dialog going between the instructor and students about what is being learned and questions about how the topics apply to their own lives. Students are also required to give a 10-15 minute presentation in class on a topic assigned by the instructor. The topic for the upcoming semester will be a commonly held “myth” related to psychology that has little or no scientific support. Due to the small class size, examinations involve identification and short essay questions in addition to multiple-choice questions.
Rel 101 Section 5, Introduction to Religion
This course is founded on the assumption that a critical, yet sympathetic, knowledge of the major religions of the world will better equip you to understand the world in which you live–whether you pursue a career in the military, business, the arts, politics, or healthcare. Thus, this course will provide an introduction to the rudiments of some of the world’s major religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, & Buddhism. Our purpose is to gain basic familiarity with the rituals, beliefs, figures, sacred texts, and holy days that most generally characterize each of these distinctive traditions. In addition to the textbook, we will examine sources such as sacred texts, theological writings, and documentary films/news reports. In addition, this course will provide you with insight into the immense diversity that characterizes religion in contemporary societies, both between religious traditions and within particular traditions. To gain deeper understanding of various religions in the contemporary world, students will conduct group fieldwork observation at local religious sites (such as the Oxford mosque). Students will share their research and field experience through in-class presentations.
Soc 433 Section 1, Theories of Gender and Sexuality (cross-listed as G St 433)
This course attempts to answer fundamental questions about the power relations that structure gender and sexuality. It also addresses how gender and sexuality intersect with other social and cultural categories, including but not limited to race, religion, class, and nation. Specific topics for discussion can change from year-to-year and may include feminism, heterosexism, LGBTQ identity politics and movements, dating and relationships, sexual violence, reproductive rights, sex education, and sex work. The first part of the course introduces students to a social constructionist account of sex, gender, and sexuality. The second part of the course surveys contemporary sociological studies that consider how other social institutions such as the global economy, popular culture, communication technologies, religion, and science shape how we think about and experience sex, gender, and sexuality. This class is cross-listed with Gender Studies (GST 498), and can count as part of the Gender Studies minor. The Honors section of SOC 425/GST 425 requires students to collect original qualitative data on gender and sexuality and analyze these data in light of the theoretical frameworks covered in the course.
Span 111 Section 3, Intensive Elementary Spanish
Spanish 111 is an introduction to the language and culture of the Spanish-speaking world. Spanish 111 is designed for students to learn the skills to communicate effectively in Spanish and to develop a knowledge and appreciation for Hispanic cultures. By the end of this class, students should be able to complete basic communicative tasks in Spanish using newly-acquired communication strategies, grammar and vocabulary, and to be able to understand and speak about the diversity of the Spanish-speaking world. Students in this Spanish 111 Honors section will be exposed to authentic material (news articles, literature, movie clips, etc.) and will engage the reading and writing strategies they have learned in regular college classes when producing speech and writing in Spanish. Because the Honors College and Croft also offer a Spanish 211 section, we will prepare all students to excel in that class. In sum, Spanish 111 contributes to the Honors College curriculum not only in fulfilling language requirements but also in emphasizing critical thinking and writing by engaging original source materials, and by contributing to an interdisciplinary approach to learning.
Span 211 Section 4, Intensive Intermediate Spanish
Spanish 211, Intermediate Spanish, is a continuation of Spanish 111, Elementary Spanish, and is therefore, designed to continue the study of the language and culture in the Spanish-speaking world. By the end of this class, students should be able to complete intermediate-level communicative tasks in Spanish using the communication strategies, grammar structures and vocabulary acquired during the semester, and to understand and be able to talk about the diversity of the Spanish-speaking world. The goals of this course are based on the Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century. Students in the Honors section will have the opportunity to work with authentic material (news articles, literature, etc.) and will engage reading and writing strategies they have learned in regular classes in the production of class work and homework in Spanish. Because this Honors section will also include Croft students, who will necessarily continue to Spanish 303 and 305, we will spend more time in preparing all the students for excellence in those courses. In sum, Spanish 211 contributes to the Honors College curriculum not only by fulfilling the language requirement but also by emphasizing critical thinking and writing by using original source material, and by contributing to an interdisciplinary approach to learning.
S St 102 Section 2, Intro to Southern Studies II
This course will examine the history and culture of the American South, from the 1930s to the present, through the prism of memoirs by writers as varied as Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, Dennis Covington, and Jesmyn Ward. Through the study of memoirs written by historical and literary figures, students will examine southerners’ use of the genre of the memoir to both illuminate and obscure aspects of the southern past, including place, civil rights, gender and sexuality, religion, and family. In the course of the semester, in class discussions, critical papers, and response journals, students will read, summarize, and analyze texts with discernment and comprehension and with an understanding of their literary features and conventions—both formal and stylistic. Most important, they will identify how the memoir, as a literary and cultural text, complements or challenges the idea of Southern identity.