Honors Courses: Fall 2023
You may register for an Honors course as you would any other course - through the registration portal.
No special permission is needed - a high GPA, course pre-requisites, or prior knowledge in a content area are not required!
If you have any questions or concerns about Honors, please contact honors@weber.edu
All courses are 3-credits unless otherwise indicated.
Honors Courses in the CREATIVE ARTS
HNRS 1530: Words & Wares
| CRN 26167 | KA 307 | 5:30 - 8:10 pm | Wednesdays | Monica Linford | This course fulfills a Creative Arts Gen-Ed |
What is your Story? How might you tell your story? Writing employees symbols on a page to evoke thoughts and feelings—imparting meaning to the reader. Art can function as text as well—imparting meaning to the viewer. Explore the ways in which writing and art both work to tell your story. Discover how sharing your story through writing and art can move others to action.
This is a Community Engaged Learning (CEL) designated course.
HNRS 2020: Children's Literature: Building a Book with Art & Science
| CRN 26166 | LI 325 | 4:30 - 7:10 pm | Wednesdays | Tamara Goldbogen & Erinne Roundy | This course fulfills a Creative Arts Gen-Ed |
This course will provide WSU students with an immersive, cross-disciplinary learning experience. Students will explore and engage in the creative process as they are guided through the creation of an original children’s book.
The content for the children’s book will focus on water and connect to science and sustainability. These topics will then be explored through the creation of book art projects in conjunction with our community partners - Weber County Library and Book Arts Studio at Marriott Library. The children’s book created will serve as a valuable educational resource for students and community.
This is a Community Engaged Learning (CEL) designated course.
Honors Courses in the HUMANITIES
HNRS 1110: The Construction of Knowledge
| CRN 26163 | LI 325 | 10:30 - 11:45 am | Tue/Thu | Dan Bedford & Christy Call | This course fulfills a Humanities Gen-Ed |
This course examines how knowledge is produced, what it is used for, and what it means. We look at knowledge in the general sense but also in the specific way it is advanced by literature and science. Traditionally these areas are kept separate on campus, but this class brings them together. This alignment opens possibilities for better understanding our lives in the contemporary moment, a time which is filled with tensions about information and truth, interpretation and meaning.
Dr. Bedford's area of expertise: Climate change and related areas
Artwork & Artist: Andy Goldsworthy (anything by him)
Book: The Ministry for the Futuer by Kim Stanley Robinson
Movie and/or TV Show: The Mission and Minority Report
Song and/or Band: Better Things (live version by Dar Williams)
HNRS 1540: Hiking for Mind, Body, and Soul
| CRN 26164 | LI 325 | 1:30 - 4:10 pm | Wednesdays | Marc Nelson | This course fulfills a Humanities Gen-Ed |
"Education must teach, reach, and vibrate the whole person rather than merely transfer knowledge." This wisdom from musician Stephen Nachmanovitch is exemplified in this course that combines academic learning with local hiking and meditation. You will enrich your mind, body and soul; commune with nature; explore local trails; study philosophy; taste wild berries (without getting sick); find greater peace and relaxation; learn about how hiking and nature affect the brain and experience their effects on your whole self. The pièce de résistance will be a hiking trip to southern Utah or Grand Canyon at the end of the semester.
Dr. Nelson's area of expertise: Philosophy
Book: The Tao of Pooh
Movie and/or TV Show: Cunk on Earth
Song and/or Band: Fleet Foxes (Helplessness Blues)
HNRS 2010: Conflict Journalism
| CRN 26165 | LP 201 | 11:30 - 12:20 PM | Mon/Wed/Fri | Jean Norman | This course fulfills a Humanities Gen-Ed |
Soldiers are sent into battle by their superiors, and civilians in war-torn areas are caught in the crossfire as their homes are overrun. However, some people choose to enter war zones to bear witness to the fighting or to bring relief to the suffering. This class will explore the motivations, dangers and costs to journalists and relief workers who choose to head into harm’s way. It will explore how truth-telling can create its own form of danger. It will conclude with practical strategies for risk assessment and to protect personal safety in hazardous conditions.
Honors Courses in the SOCIAL SCIENCES
HNRS 1520: Psychoanalysis & Culture
| CRN 26169 | LI 322 | 10:30 - 11:45 am | Tue/Thu | Brady Brower & Alex Collopy | This course fulfills a Social Science Gen-Ed |
Established as a revolutionary theory of the mind by Sigmund Freud and a small group of his followers more than a century ago, psychoanalysis has continued to find useful application as a rich interpretive methodology for students of culture, politics, art, history, and identity. Today, psychoanalytic concepts are as likely to be employed by scholars of culture as they are by clinical psychotherapists. But what exactly is psychoanalysis? What makes it unique among other approaches to human psychology and other methods of interpretation? What novel insights does it provide into the nature of the self and the shared forms of human experience and meaning manifested in culture? This course will provide answers to these questions by surveying psychoanalysis through its history, theories, and applications. The course will culminate with a consideration of the ways in which scholars have put psychoanalytic ideas to use in understanding different cultural phenomena such as gender, race, class, sexuality, disability, religion, and political ideology.
Dr. Brower's area of expertise: Modern European Intellectual History
Art recommendation: Bill Morrison, The Miners' Hymns
Movie and/or TV Show recommendation: Anything by Denis Villeneuve
Band or Song recommendation: Sonny Rollins, The Bridge (album)
Dr. Collopy's area of expertise: Disability studies in education & psychoanalysis in education
Art recommendation: Everything made by the kids in the MSL Children's school
Book recommendation: To Teach: The Journey, in Comics by Bill Ayers
Movie and/or TV Show recommendation: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Song and/or Band recommendation: The National
HNRS 2050: Youth in Revolt
| CRN 26170 | LH 206 | 12:30 - 1:20 pm | Mon/Wed/Fri | Pepper Glass | This course fulfills a Social Science Gen-Ed |
What is the category of youth? How has it shifted historically? What are the problems facing young people? How do they define themselves, and how do they reimagine their worlds? This course focuses on the identities, social positions, and experiences of youth, especially as they come together as activists, goths, gamers, and other active transformers of society. We will consider these questions and more as we explore youth and its various groupings.
HNRS 2120 B: The Meaning of Life
| CRN 26168 | LH 114 | 9:00 - 10:15 | Tue/Thu | Marc & Katie Nelson | This course fulfills a Social Science Gen-Ed |
Ever wondered about the meaning of life? So have a lot of other people! Explore and examine with us the various answers that Western philosophers, thinkers, writers and historians have proffered to this timeless question since the Scientific Revolution right through today.
In-person Tuesdays, on Zoom Thursdays.
1-Credit Discussion Courses: BOOK & MEDIA CLUBS
HNRS 2830: Young Adult Queer Literature & Television
| CRN 26171 | LI 325 | 3:00 - 4:00 pm | Tuesdays | Richard Price | This course is an elective. |
This 1 credit-hour class will read a couple of the best titles in queer YA literature: Last Night at the Telegraph Club and Like a Love Story, in addition to watching queer stories in television! This class will investigate ways in which the genre has developed.
HNRS 2920: Vietnam in Film & Fiction - Viet Thanh Nguyen
| CRN 26172 | LI 325 | 12:30 - 1:20 pm | Wednesdays | Michael Wutz | This course is an elective. |
This 1 credit-hour class will examine the acclaimed contemporary novel, The Sympathizer, along with the classic film Apocalypse Now.
Dr. Wutz' area of expertise: Contemporary American literature and media theory
Art: Jim Jacobs and Tamara Kostianovsky
Book: The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow
Movie and/or TV Show: Moonlight
Song and/or Band: Snarlin' Yarns
Honors Courses: UPPER-DIVISION*
*Honors courses do NOT require pre-requisites or prior knowledge in a content area. Upper-division courses are not more advanced or difficult.
All students must fulfill at least 40 credits of Upper-Division [Course numbers starting with a 3 or 4] prior to graduation.
HNRS 3900: Monsters & Markets
| CRN 26173 | LI 325 | 12:00 - 1:15 pm | Tue/Thu | Cynthia Jones & Valentinas Rudys | This course fulfills an upper-division credit. |
Monsters are everywhere; they are in the stories we tell, creeping in and out of folklore and fairytales, and lurking in literature, film, and television.
What is it about the figure of the monster that both fascinates and frightens us? The term 'monster' comes from the Latin roots 'monstrare' (to reveal or demonstrate) and 'monere' (to warn), therefore the monster can be interpreted as a figure that both reveals something about us and warns. Interestingly, monere is also the root for 'money', thus linking the monster to consumption and the transfer of wealth - economics.
Can these two seemingly unrelated concepts possibly be connected? Yes! Alfred Marshall (famous economist) noted that economics is the study of man in the ordinary business of life, and as one of George A Romer's characters in 'Night of the Living Dead' pointed out "[zombies], they're us, we're them and they're us." By connecting monsters and markets, this course will be an exploration of basic economic theories, capitalism, market socialism, creation, consumption, and transfer of wealth through the pop cultural lens of vampires, werewolves, zombies, and other monsters.
Dr. Rudys's area of expertise: Economics & finance
Book: Freakonomics by Stephen J Dubner and Steven Levitt
Movie and/or TV Show: The Big Short
HNRS 4830: Organizing for Social Action & Change
| CRN 26736 | LI 325 | 1:30 - 2:45 pm | Tue/Thu | Barrett Bonella & Azenett Garza | This course fulfills an upper-division credit. |
Organizing and Social Action is a specialized course designed to illustrate the principles, concepts, and techniques of social action to induce change in institutions, organizations, and communities. Students in this course will have the opportunity to apply those lessons and organize to create social change in local organizations and communities.
This is a Community Engaged Learning (CEL) designated course.
Dr. Garza Caballero's area of expertise: Social psychology
Book: The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Movie and/or TV Show: Money Heist, Better Call Saul, Ted Lasso, Andor, Undone, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Song and/or Band: Juan Gabriel, Mon Laferte, Rosalie, Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Coldplay, Shakira
HNRS 4900: Meditation & Mindfulness
| CRN 26174 | SW 225 | 12:00 - 2:45 pm | Tuesdays | Michael Olpin | This course fulfills an upper-division credit. |
A quiet mind and inner peace are infrequently experienced, especially among college students. In this course, students will not only discover the possibility of inner peace and a quiet mind but experience their reality. Our meditative and mindful muscles can be strengthened, resulting in freedom from the drama and anxiety of everyday life. In this course, students will learn how meditation and mindfulness are two of our most powerful tools to reduce anxiety and stress and regain balance and inner peace.
Dr. Olpin's areas of expertise: Wellness of mind & body, stress management, meditation, mindfulness, performance psychology.
Book recommendation: Anything by David Hawkins or Richard Bach.
Song and/or band recommendation: Anything Baroque, Rush, Pink Floyd.
COURSE ARCHIVE
Fall 2022 / Spring 2023
Fall 2021 / Spring 2022
Fall 2020 / Spring 2021
Fall 2019 / Spring 2020
Fall 2018 / Spring 2019
Fall 2017 / Spring 2018
Fall 2016 / Spring 2017
Fall 2015 / Spring 2016
Fall 2014 / Spring 2015