Honors Reading Seminars

Introduction

Honors reading seminars are small-group discussion courses normally meeting for one hour per week and following one book (classical or contemporary fiction or non-fiction) over the course of a semester. Students participate in and take turns leading discussions. Additional reading, speaking, and writing assignments may be given. These seminars are open to honors scholars (sophomore and above level) and to other students with the instructor's permission, with no prerequisites. These one-credit reading courses are intended to provide additional opportunities for academic pursuit--and bonding--for upper-class honors scholars.

Current Offerings 2008-09

Honors 461.01  Tony Carilli, Economics, Atlas Shrugged

Honors 461.02 Mary Prevo, Fine Arts, The Sistine Chapel

Offerings 2007-08

Honors 261.01  Shawn Schooling, Rhetoric,  Samuel Beckett’s Watt

Honors 261.02  Patrick Wilson, Philosophy,  Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and Critique of Practical Reason.

Honors 462.01 and .03 Victor Cabas, Rhetoric, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick

Honors 462. 02  Sarah Hardy, English,  James Joyce’s Ulysses

Offerings 2006-07

Honors 461.01:  Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.  This seminal work attempts to provide an explanation for the occasional great shifts in scientific thinking and, by extension, analogous shifts in other disciplines.  For instance, Kuhn’s work has had great influence on the social sciences. 
Taught by:  Herb Sipe, Spalding Professor of Chemistry  Offered:  Fall 2006 

Honors 461.02:  Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris.  Victor Hugo is one of the greatest of French poets and novelists, yet despite his tremendous reputation, especially in France, few Americans read his works, even in translation. While Americans do know of his work, however, thanks to the hit musical Les Miserables and the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, such adaptations convey little of Hugo’s artistic genius.
Taught by:  Joan McRae Kleinlein, Associate Professor of French  Offered:  Fall 2006

Honors 462.01  Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian
Taught by:  Victor Cabas, Adjunct Associate Professor of Rhetoric  Offered:  Spring 2007 

Honors 462.02  Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.  Wittgenstein is widely recognized as one of the most important philosophers of the 20^th-Century. In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein deals with a wide range of philosophical topics spanning epistemology, philosophy of mind, hermeneutics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of religion. The aim of the book is largely to critique the view of the mind and its engagement with the world that Wittgenstein and his contemporaries received from the Modern philosophical tradition (Descartes through Russell). Although the book was written more than half of a century ago, the Modern philosophical tradition still to a large extent shapes the worldview of Western culture. Therefore, Wittgenstein’s insights, including his attempt to shift the emphasis of theorists to the ways that language informs thought, remain fresh and relevant to readers even today. Reading this book would be of interest to students in majors such as English, Modern Languages, Classics, Mathematics, Philosophy, History, Political Science, Psychology, and Religion. 
Taught by:  Joel Schickel, Lecturer in Philosphy   Offered:  Spring 2007

Offerings 2005-06

Honors 361: Rare Earth  (a book by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee about the possibility of life on other worlds) (Fall 2005)
Taught by: Steve Bloom, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy

Honors 362: Aeschylus’ Oresteia and the political necessity of original sin (Spring 2006)
Taught by: Ken DeLuca, Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science

Offerings 2004-05

Honors 261: Don Quixote
Taught by: Susan Smith, Elliot Assistant Professor of Spanish

Offerings 2003-04

Offerings 2002-03

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