Spring 2007 Honors Courses
HUM 200 H, E Pluribus Unum: American Democracy in
Theory and Practice (Required for all Honors Students; 3 Hours Credit)
| HUM 200HA |
E Pluribus Unum: American Democracy in Theory and
Practice MWF 10-10:50 Dr. Michael Bailey |
| HUM 200HD |
| E Pluribus Unum: American Democracy in Theory and Practice TH
9:30-10:45 Dr. Erik Sands
|
|
Course meets these requirements:
- Required course for all honors students
- General Education core requirement (200 level) for Government and
International Studies.
- May also count as the fifth humanities elective, if government course
requirement has been met by other means (e.g. AP credit).
Course description:
America 's
leading statesmen such as James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson,
Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt understood that popular government is
extremely difficult to sustain. They understood what we largely have
forgotten: Democracy, like all forms of government, comes with its own set
of challenges and pathologies. These lessons about democracy are best expressed
by Alexis de Tocqueville, a critic, albeit a friendly one, of American democracy
who thoughtfully and forcefully articulated the dangers facing the emerging
democratic world. This course will use Tocqueville's Democracy in America to
illustrate the perpetual issues and problems of democracy--many of which are
still very real despite our being blind to them---and we will also draw on works
of literature, philosophy, film, and theology to give concrete meaning to these
problems as they are manifested in American political and social life.
English 102, The Rhetoric of Analysis and Argumentation, Honors
(3 Hours Credit)
| ENG 102 HS |
Rhetoric and Writing TH 12:30-1:45 Dr. M.E. Cooley
Location: EVA 103 |
Course meets these requirements:
- An HON 250 course (3 of 9 elective required hours for all Honors
students)
- General Education core requirement in Communication (3 hrs credit)
Course description:
The course focuses on developing
analytical and critical thinking and writing skills in argumentative and
persuasive prose for academic and professional audiences. Four essays and a
revision essay are required; all final drafts require several rough drafts.
Class is a combination of lecture and workshop activities. Current event issues
are used as the basis for readings and discussions which then become topics for
writing.
English 102, Rhetoric and Writing, Honors (3 Hours
Credit)
| ENG 102 sections TBA |
Rhetoric and Writing TH 12:30-1:45 & 2:00-3:15 Dr.
Laura Whelen |
Course meets these requirements:
- An HON 250 course (3 of 9 elective required hours for all Honors
students)
- General Education core requirement in Communication (3 hrs credit)
Course description:The purpose of the course is to prepare students to become
knowing and productive participants in academic, cultural, or civic discourse.
Students will learn to use multiple and sustained modes of critical inquiry to
build arguable perspectives within particular cultural contexts and
conversations. These modes might include writing to learn, report, review,
criticize, clarify, convince, persuade, or negotiate. In addition, students will
be coached in the rhetorical concepts of persona, ethos & pathos, argument
structure, counterargument, and logical fallacy. By the end of the course,
students will be able to summarize, evaluate, and synthesize multiple sources in
order develop a critical perspective and advance a thesis of their own. Students
will also receive guidance in the evaluation and appropriate documentation of
print and non-print sources (e.g., online databases, world wide web, film,
photography, television, etc.).
Honors 250, The Social Construction of Reality (3 Hours
Credit)
| HON 250 sections TBA |
MWF 11:00 Dr. Basil Englis
|
Course meets these requirements:
- An HON 250 course (3 of 9 elective required hours for all Honors
students)
- General Education core requirement in Behavioral Science (Sociology) (3 hrs
credit)
- May count as one of the two free electives, outside of major/minor, required
for graduation.
Course description:
A central theme of the course is that
people interact as part of a social system that involves the progressive
institutionalization of social roles. In the process, meaning also becomes
institutionalized in a process that results in the production of human cultures.
Peoples’ knowledge and conception of reality becomes embedded in this
institutional fabric and is thereby socially constructed. The course also
examines the roles of mass media, marketing and advertising as agents that
amplify the process of constructing social reality. To understand these
phenomena, our journey will take us into such issues as the sociology of
knowledge, media studies, aesthetics, stratification, signification, and
consumption symbolism. Students will be expected to read, critique, and
participate in discussion of selected works, and to develop one or more of these
perspectives into a research project where they will explore some aspect of
popular culture (e.g., Elvis, Thanksgiving, body decoration, etc.) in terms of
its deep socio-cultural meanings and embedded assumptions about social reality.
Class is conducted as a seminar; there will be little or no lecturing.
Instead students will discuss assigned readings during class. Students will also
critique assigned readings in verbal and written forms and complete a term
project that explores an aspect of popular culture in terms of its social
meaning(s) and the role that mass media, marketing and advertising play in
"constructing" meaning(s).
Government/Sociology/Women's Studies 387/ Honors 250, Gender, Law, and
Society (3 Hours Credit)
| HON250HC |
Gender, Law and Society TH 9:30-10:45 Dr. Carrie Baker
|
Course meets these requirements:
- An HON 250 course (3 of 9 elective required hours for all Honors
students)
- Women’s Studies, Sociology or Government elective requirement (3 hours)
- General Education core requirement in Behavioral Science (Sociology) (3 hrs
credit)
- May count as one of the two free electives, outside of major/minor, required
for graduation.
Course description:
This course is an interdisciplinary
exploration of the legal status of women and men in the United
States historically and today, particularly
focusing in the areas of employment, reproduction, education, the family,
sexuality, and violence. We will examine how the law has reflected, reinforced
and shaped ideas about appropriate gender roles and how race, class and other
aspects of identity intersect with gender to shape legal rights. In the class,
we will discuss and debate the meaning of concepts such as equality, human
rights, and the role of the state in regulating the family.
The class will be conducted in a lecture and
discussion format. Students will take three tests and write an
essay.
English 428 / Honors 250, Gay and Lesbian Studies and Literature (3 Hours
Credit)
| HON250 Sections TBA |
Gay and Lesbian Studies and Literature MWF 10-10:50 Dr.
Bucher Location: GRE 110 |
Course meets these requirements:
- An HON 250 course (3 of 9 elective required hours for all Honors
students)
- A required "Studies" course or an upper-division elective for English majors
- An elective requirement for the Women’s Studies minor with a substitution
form
- As a 200 literature requirement for general education courses
- May count as one of the two free electives, outside of major/minor, required
for graduation.
Course description:
While “homosexuality” as a word did not enter
the English language until the late 19 th century, same-sex love, desire, and
relationships have existed and been written about since the beginnings of
recorded human history. The formal study of same-sex love in literature found
its beginnings in conjunction with the development of women’s studies courses
and programs in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This course will explore gay and
lesbian literary studies by focusing on three areas: (1) a basic introduction to
gay and lesbian (and queer) literary theory as well as a history of their
development (2) gay/lesbian readings of traditional canonical texts and (3) a
historical survey of gay and lesbian writers, primarily in the Anglo-American
tradition. Students should expect to read and discuss literary texts, as well as
examine and discuss the historical, sociological, psychological, and political
contexts which have helped to create this thriving field of literary studies.
**Note: this course will not debate the morality of gay and
lesbian identity nor search for “causes” of homosexuality; it will offer an
interdisciplinary introduction to the field of gay and lesbian literary studies.
The class will be discussion-oriented with substantial
readings and a series of short and mid-length writing assignments.
Communication 429 / Honors 250, Digital Media, Demos & Distributed
Society (3 Hours Credit)
| HON250 Sections TBA |
Digital Media, Demos, & Distributed Society TH
12:30-1:45 Dr. Brian Carroll |
Course meets these requirements:
- An HON 250 course (3 of 9 elective required hours for all Honors
students)
- COM major elective
- COM major, journalism concentration course
- May count as one of the two free electives, outside of major/minor, required
for graduation.
Course description:
The objective of this course is to enhance and extend students’ understanding
of online (or virtual) community, citizen journalism, and the potential of
networking and self-organization in digital environments. We will look not only
at technologies for community building, such as wikis, podcasting, blogs,
portals and social networking sites, such as MySpace.com and Facebook, but also
at documented attempts at online community building on a large scale, such as
The Well and Blacksburg (Va.) Electronic Village. In examining these large-scale
online community efforts, we will pay special attention to how social capital
and knowledge capital are created, made manifest, shared, transacted, and lost.
Embracing an interdisciplinary approach, we will attempt to define
“community,” using historical, commercial, sociological, and technological
terms. We will look at communities of practice, communities of faith, wired
physical communities, and learning communities, among other operationalizations
of the term. We will explore what is lost or restricted in these various
operationalizations, including difference, conflict and conflict resolution, and
personal privacy. Helping us in our explorations and analyses will be social
capital theory, social networking theory, and news flow theory.
Class will be conducted as a seminar. Students will discuss readings during
class, sometimes leading or co-leading discussion. Students also will critique
readings, both verbally and in written form, and they will do research on and
write a paper about a topic that explores some aspect of online community. A
class blog will extend our discussions and help prepare us for each
presentation. Participation in discussions and on the class blog will be
considered in grading.
Honors Thesis
Register for HON 450H if you are starting your thesis.
Register for HON
451H if you completed HON 450H last semester.
You will need an
authorization form signed by your thesis director, department chair, and the honors director.
Honorization of Courses
“HONORIZING ” a course or a course within a major.
As you know, an honors student may request to change a “regular” course
within a major into an honors course. Follow the procedure below.
BEFORE you begin attending the course, during registration, meet with the
instructor. Print and take the form with you (see Forms on the Honors Web page);
this form has guidelines for you and your instructor. Discuss with the faculty
member your interest in receiving “honors” credit for a particular course. He or
she will define the nature of the honors work to be completed.
Honorizing any course is NOT Permitted after the first week of classes.
Complete your part of the form and return the form to Dr. Cooley.