WINTER 2025 HON 42xx Seminar Descriptions

Machiavelli & Castiglione (HON 4200, CRN 24236)

Raffaele De Benedictis

Tuesday/Thursday    2:30pm - 3:45pm     CI, PL

This course is an in-depth study of The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli and The Book of the Courtier by Baldassar Castiglione. Students will learn how to understand “realtà effettuale”, the true face of reality concerning human nature in a context of power and personal gain. They will also learn how to achieve Castiglione’s “sprezzatura” (effortless mastery), which is an ideal aim which any individual aspires to achieve, as it proves to be good, advantageous and profitable for all human interactions.

Detroit’s Heyday from 1900 to 1950 (HON 4250, CRN 23114)

Tim Moran

Monday/Wednesday     2:30pm - 3:45pm    GL, HS

The jazz age, flappers and prohibition, the Great Depression, the New Deal, the rise of unionism and the advent of aviation - Detroit was at the leading edge of trends and a place where the nation looked for remarkable things.

The “Decade of Protest”: Explaining the Turbulent Global 2010s

(HON 4250, CRN 25641)

Matt Lacouture

Tuesday     2:30-5:00       GL, HS

Time Magazine declared 2011 to be “the year of the protestor”—a year that began with mass protests toppling dictators in Tunisia and Egypt and that ended with the “Occupy Movement” in New York City; spreading quickly around the world. Things didn’t end there. Between 2011 and 2020, tens of millions of people rose up in protest across the world, from Brazil to Hong Kong, and dozens of countries in-between. The decade ended with the collision of a global pandemic and the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparking the largest mass movement in modern US history. That these events all fell within a relatively short period of time invites us to stop and ask some important questions: What drove millions of people into the streets? What connected these mass mobilizations? What was unique about the 2010s? What might happen next? We will address these questions (and more) through comparative case studies and independent research projects exploring the “decade of protest”.

Conflict and Religion (HON4250, CRN 24811)

Michael Hovey

Monday      6:00pm – 8:30pm     GL, HS

This course will explore various relationships between selected conflicts and religions. Both positive and negative effects of religion on conflict will be examined: conflicts between religions; Jewish/Christian/Muslim Scriptural references to conflict; religious-based peace movements/selected literature on conflict and religion. Students will be required to visit a local museum to explore various aspects of conflict and religion.

Jews and the City (HON 4250, CRN 25674)

Howard Lupovitch

Tuesday/Thursday       1:00pm – 2:15pm        GL, HS

This course explores the dynamics of urban life during the last two centuries in Europe, North America, and the Middle East, using Jews and other urban minorities as comparative case studies. The central theme of the course will be the city as a double-edged sword for Jews and other urban minorities: on the one hand, the openness, anonymity, and cosmopolitan of a large city facilitates disaffection and drift from minority communities – often characterized as social or cultural assimilation; on the other hand, the concentration of a large minority population in the relatively compact physical space of an urban neighborhood or quarter reinvigorates a minority community by providing a constituency large enough and diverse enough to sustain a broad range of communal institutions. Thus, the City has worked both to the benefit and detriment of Jewish and other minority communities. An accompanying secondary theme will be the juxtaposition in the city of openness born of diversity and inter-ethnic proximity with inter-ethnic tension fostered, in part, by the intense intellectual foment of a city.

Study Abroad: Today’s Paris (HON 4260, CRN 24047)

Christine Knapp

Tuesday    2:30pm - 5:00pm         FC, GL

This class is focused on surveying contemporary life in Paris, France. Students will study and research cultural elements such as art, language, history, architecture, cuisine, fashion, current events, and public space, and then explore and experience these elements while traveling to Paris during spring break (March 6-15, 2025). Participating in the travel is a requirement for the course.

Study Abroad: Irish Influence in a Globalized World (HON 4260, CRN 25312) Stephanie Bundy

Hybrid: Tuesday in person & Thursday online    1:00pm – 2:15pm      FC, GL

This web-enhanced, faculty supervised study course involves a student researching a broad range of Irish cultural fields such as literature, music, art, food, sociology, economy, history, politics, and philosophy. It is taken in conjunction with a study abroad in Dublin, Ireland during spring break (March 6-15, 2025).

Belize Study Abroad: Global Healthcare (HON 4260, CRN 25830)

Christine Malinowski

Tuesday    8:30am – 11:00am                       FC, GL

This course provides students with the opportunity to explore health care challenges worldwide while examining intercultural beliefs systems. Students will explore and articulate first-hand the healthcare issues and disparities internationally. Students will also examine multiple determinants of health and issues related to health disparities among vulnerable populations in urban environments nationally. Study abroad to Belize occurs during spring break (March 8-16, 2025).

Muslim Personal law (HON 4260, CRN 25640)

Layla Saatchi

Wednesday    11:30am – 2:00pm                    FC, GL

Given the presence of such a large and diverse Muslim population in the metro area, this course is relevant for anyone thinking of serving the community in their capacity as a doctor, pharmacist, lawyer, teacher, entrepreneur or politician. We will begin with a deep dive into the history and methodologies of Shari’a (Islamic law), and then apply our understanding Islamic legal jurisprudence to current case studies from Muslim communities around the world and at home.

Cleopatra (HON 4260, CRN 25632)

Jennifer Moss

Monday/Wednesday     1:00pm – 2:15pm               FC, GL

Cleopatra was the head of a colonial government that controlled Egypt for 300 years. Since her death she has become the subject of a hegemonic discourse on the female body, a canvas onto which writers and artists could project their preference for whiteness in addition to their fears of female agency. This course investigates both the historical and the fictional Cleopatra in a variety of mediums.

Pronouns in Asian Languages (HON 4260, CRN 25865)

Haiyong Liu

Wednesday   11:30am – 2:00pm              FC, GL

This class surveys pronouns in human language from critical linguistic and social perspectives, with a focus on Asian languages. Students will not only study the technical components of pronouns but also how they function in today’s world, when, for example, preferred pronouns and gender identity are in the headline news.

History of Film Music (HON 4280, CRN 25264)

Eldonna May

Tuesday/Thursday (Online Synchronous)     11:30am – 12:45pm    

This course explores music encountered in motion pictures from an historical perspective, including the distinct uses of music and its effect on the experiencer, music’s ability to influence or introduce a mood or idea, to set a scene, or to contribute to a characterization. Techniques for expanding critical listening skills are developed through the study of musical elements, styles, and materials as they have emerged in the art of motion pictures. In the end, this class will examine and explain the technological, business, and social forces that helped cement film music’s position in Western popular culture.

Being Funny in America (HON 4280, CRN 24658)

Aaron Martin

Friday        11:30am – 2:00pm

This course will analyze various ways people use, or make attempts at, humor—and for what purposes people try to be funny. We’ll rely on a number of theories of comedy to help determine what makes a joke "land" or "fall flat" as well as what comes next: crying tears of laughter or outcries to “cancel.” My aim for the course is to be enjoyable and illuminating, but readings and discussions are not for “trying out” provocative material. And while we won’t shy away from a wide range of timely topics, class is not for retelling tired and offensive tropes about historically marginalized people. Additionally, this course will participate in what’s called a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) exchange with a similarly themed course offering in the United Arab Emirates. Our COIL component will allow us to foster intercultural connections using virtual tools to add greater meaning and context to our own learning about humor here and abroad.

Crime and Film (HON 4280, CRN 24754)

James Buccellato

Wednesday     2:30pm – 5:00pm

This class emphasizes critical analysis of film as it applies to crime and criminal justice. Students will examine how popular films inform our understanding of criminological theories. Instead of experiencing film as a mere form of entertainment, students will engage critically the social, economic, and political meanings embedded in crime films. 

Consent Culture in Hip-Hop and R&B (HON 4280, CRN 25657)

Ashley Woodson Walters

Wednesday    11:30am – 2:00pm

In 1991, the Senate Judiciary Committee released a report: Violence Against Women: The Increase of Rape in America 1990. Over the next nine years, the stories of Aaliyah, Anita Hill, the Central Park Five, and others would change how we talked about identity and consent in the United States. This course reflects on this historical period through milestones in hip-hop and R&B music and culture. We will develop informed critiques about how the 1990s influences conversations about survivor narratives and accountability today. This course is also an introduction to critical discourse analysis, counter storytelling, and coding qualitative data. We will each use these tools to research ideas and artifacts from the 1990s, use theory to explain the significance of our research to others, and select and analyze texts that offer depth to our explanations. 

Reproductive Health (HON 4280, CRN 25680)

James Mallare

Tuesday/Thursday    1:00pm – 2:15pm

This course explores the subject of reproductive health using an interdisciplinary approach, including social, political, and biomedical perspectives. The course covers gender differences in patterns of illness, delivery of health care, paying special attention to inequalities and disparities related to race, ethnicity, sexuality, and social class. That is, this course will have a strong reproductive justice focus. We will also examine common intervention strategies in public health when dealing  with reproductive health in local communities.