FHC Sections 25-31

Freshman Honors Colloquium Sections 25-31 (Descriptions Below)

HONR    10197    25    Uhrig, Karl    05:30 pm - 06:45 pm     M W

Discourse and Agency

Who gets to tell someone’s story? How do they construct reality through the way they tell it? What can we learn about our relationships to ourselves, each other, and society by looking closely at human agency and discourse?

This course is based on 1) the study of human agency, or the ways in which people have the ability to assert control over their circumstances, and 2) discourse analysis, the study of the ways in which humans construct understanding of their place in the world through language. Through the lenses of discourse and agency, we will read short stories, poems, and plays by authors from around the world and analyze them through discussion and writing. In addition, I will have you choose your own texts to analyze (any book, news story, movie, music, podcast, TikTok video, etc. that interests you).

Learning the concepts that comprise discourse and agency will take us a very short time, after which our discussions will take off and become extraordinarily interesting. These discussions will provide plenty of material for you to use to write the required essays that focus on specific concepts and specific texts. You will present your own ideas and engage in the ideas of your classmates. By the end of this course, not only will you have the tools to engage in any text with a critical, analytical eye, but you will also have the tools to better understand what’s going on in society, in the news, in popular culture, and in your own life.

Texts:

• Northanger Abbey – Austen,
• Boule de Suif – de Maupassant
• The Poisonwood Bible – Kingsolver
• Things Fall Apart – Achebe. 

Movies:

• Brokeback Mountain
• Parasite
• Spirited Away

HONR    10197    26    Roman, Christopher M    12:30 pm - 01:45 pm      T R 

Making Comics 

This course will teach students how to make comics in a variety of genres. Comics are a unique medium that combine word and picture and are used in a number of settings. Students may be acquainted with superhero comics, but comics are used in a number of fields such as schools, hospitals, and labs, along with the more personal: exploring one’s own life in the form of memoir. As well, comics are useful in making arguments, structuring stories, inviting advocacy, and framing historical events. Throughout the year, students will produce a number of kinds of comics. We will focus on telling your own story through memoir comics, experimenting with the superhero genre, research and writing a historical comic, writing a comic to explain a concept, and learning how to write scripts. Along the way, students will learn about framing, narrative arcs, panel use and page design, scripts and storyboarding, and a little history of comics studies in the academic field. By the end of the two semesters, students will have produced a portfolio of various comics. You do not need to have a background in drawing; as we will discuss and examine, anyone can make comics.  

Fall Texts:

• Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics
• David Small, Stitches
• Tillie Walden, Spinning
• Lynda Barry, Making Comics
• Greg Rucka, Batwoman: Elegy
• Jeph Loeb, Batman; The Long Halloween

HONR    10197    27    Hall, Elizabeth A    09:55 am - 10:45 am     M W F 

The Literary Transformations of Queen Bees and Wannabes: That’s So Fetch!

It’s likely you have heard of Mean Girls or even watched one of the movie versions—but have you read Queen Bees and Wannabes? How about William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls?  This is your chance to learn about the origins of Mean Girls and how, besides what you might have heard, the phenomenon has evolved. In addition to a broader cultural studies approach, we will contemplate these ideas:
Medium, Genre, and Audience Shifts — Tina Fey took Rosalind Wiseman’s parenting book and turned it into a comedy film. Since 2004, Mean Girls itself has been transformed into other fictional works, including a musical. Despite these shifts in medium and genre, does the original intention of Wiseman’s book remain? How exactly has the “message” changed from one “text” to the next? What kind of “weight” or “authenticity” does each carry—and does it matter how much the “facts” of Wiseman’s “rhetorical situation” are represented? As the subtitle of Wiseman’s work indicates, the work is meant for parents of daughters who want to help them maneuver their social realm. Fey’s choices to “recast” the book and place in front of a larger audience—that is, all moviegoers—calls into question who really should be the recipient of Wiseman’s original message. 
Shakespeare, Popular Culture, and “Pop Shakespeare” — Shakespeare wrote for the masses, but now his work is considered canonical literature and most worthy of academic study. Though adaptation of Shakespeare’s work has happened frequently in popular culture, Doescher’s “Pop Shakespeare” series offers a fascinating approach. Is it worthy of academic study? What other parallels do you see between Shakespeare’s plays and works in modern popular culture?

Main Fall Texts:

• Olga Mecking’s “Why Parenting Books Are Not Really Written for the Parents” (2021)
• Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees and Wannabes (2002)
• Meda Chesney-Lind’s “The Meaning of Mean” (2002)
• Mean Girls [film script and movie] (2004) 

Main Spring Texts:

• Elizabeth Abele’s “Introduction: Whither Shakespop? Taking Stock of Shakespeare in Popular Culture” (2004)
• Ian Doescher’s William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls (2019)
• Carlin Borsheim-Black’s “Reading Pop Culture and Young Adult Literature through the Youth Lens” (2015)
• Mean Girls [transcript and musical film] (2024)

HONR    10197    28    Hall, Elizabeth A    11:00 am - 11:50 am     M W F

The Literary Transformations of Queen Bees and Wannabes: That’s So Fetch!

It’s likely you have heard of Mean Girls or even watched one of the movie versions—but have you read Queen Bees and Wannabes? How about William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls?  This is your chance to learn about the origins of Mean Girls and how, besides what you might have heard, the phenomenon has evolved. In addition to a broader cultural studies approach, we will contemplate these ideas:
Medium, Genre, and Audience Shifts — Tina Fey took Rosalind Wiseman’s parenting book and turned it into a comedy film. Since 2004, Mean Girls itself has been transformed into other fictional works, including a musical. Despite these shifts in medium and genre, does the original intention of Wiseman’s book remain? How exactly has the “message” changed from one “text” to the next? What kind of “weight” or “authenticity” does each carry—and does it matter how much the “facts” of Wiseman’s “rhetorical situation” are represented? As the subtitle of Wiseman’s work indicates, the work is meant for parents of daughters who want to help them maneuver their social realm. Fey’s choices to “recast” the book and place in front of a larger audience—that is, all moviegoers—calls into question who really should be the recipient of Wiseman’s original message. 
Shakespeare, Popular Culture, and “Pop Shakespeare” — Shakespeare wrote for the masses, but now his work is considered canonical literature and most worthy of academic study. Though adaptation of Shakespeare’s work has happened frequently in popular culture, Doescher’s “Pop Shakespeare” series offers a fascinating approach. Is it worthy of academic study? What other parallels do you see between Shakespeare’s plays and works in modern popular culture?

Main Fall Texts:

• Olga Mecking’s “Why Parenting Books Are Not Really Written for the Parents” (2021)
• Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees and Wannabes (2002)
• Meda Chesney-Lind’s “The Meaning of Mean” (2002)
• Mean Girls [film script and movie] (2004)

Main Spring Texts:

• Elizabeth Abele’s “Introduction: Whither Shakespop? Taking Stock of Shakespeare in Popular Culture” (2004)
• Ian Doescher’s William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls (2019)
• Carlin Borsheim-Black’s “Reading Pop Culture and Young Adult Literature through the Youth Lens” (2015)
• Mean Girls [transcript and musical film] (2024)

HONR    10197    29    Wagoner, Elizabeth A    11:00 am - 12:15 pm      T R  

Come for the glow in the dark cats and neurotic AIs, stay for the discussions of ethics, philosophy, and pop cultural representations of science! This section explores major issues in science fiction, as well as issues raised by popular discussions of science today, through themed units focusing on larger philosophical, ethical, and theoretical ideas. Each unit will contain works from literature, comics/graphic novels, film, and nonfiction science writing. Science-fiction issues covered in this course include:  

• Science Fiction as a Genre – Contested, Lowbrow, Beloved, and now Quite Difficult Due to the Speed of Innovation  
• Progressivism – Is humankind advancing toward a more evolved or better state of being through technological innovation?  
• Space Travel – The Science Required to take us to Mars and Beyond.  
• The Apocalypse in Science Fiction – AI, Viral, Nuclear, and Climate Disasters  
• Science vs. Superstition – Pseudoscience, Logic, and the Battle for the Human Mind  Examining the ways scientific ideas are framed through these texts, we will gain a richer awareness of major issues in science fiction and science today. In addition to weekly writings and discussion, there will be several researched essays, and film analysis.  

Fall Texts:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke   and   2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick.  
• Binti: The Complete Trilogy, Nnedi Okorafor, and Interstellar, Christopher Nolan.

Spring Texts:

• The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Silent Spring – excerpts, Rachel Carson.  
• Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb, Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, and Dune: Part One by Denis Villeneuve.

HONR    10197    30    Trzeciak Huss, Joanna    11:00 am - 12:15 pm      T R

Losing Innocence: the Joys, Trials and Triumphs of Childhood

This colloquium will be centered on the delicate moment in childhood in which one confronts the wider world. Through literature and film, we will see the world in all the freshness, rawness, and newness that it possesses when viewed through the eyes of a child. Childhood experiences do not determine who we become, but they are something we always carry with us. Through reading, viewing, discussion, writing and student presentations, we will explore the tension between the formative effects of childhood experiences, how they stay with us throughout life, and the power each of us possesses to probe and examine those experiences to take ownership of our lives and ourselves. Ever mindful of the conventions, constraints and possibilities of genre, we will set our sights on developing a multi-dimensional understanding of the phenomena of childhood and the loss of innocence as depicted in novels, short stories, poetry, and film.  

Fall texts:  

• Leo Tolstoy, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, trans. Judson Rosengrant
• Isaak Babel,“The Story of My Dovecot”
• Olga Tokarczuk, E. E.
• Zuzanna Ginczanka, selected poems
• Film: Volker Schlondorff  The Tin Drum  
• Wisława Szymborska, selected poems
• Tadeusz Różewicz, selected poems
• Film: Andrei Tarkovsky, Ivan’s Childhood
• Film: Mikhail Kalatozov, Cranes are Flying
• Film: Elem Klimov, Come and See
• Film: Roberto Benigni, Life is Beautiful
• James Baldwin, Go Tell It On the Mountain  
• James Baldwin, Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone
• Clarice Lispector, select short stories

Spring texts:

• Film: Louis Malle, Au Revoir Les Enfants
• Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
• Film: Stanley Kubrick, Lolita
• Film: Charles Laughton, Night of the Hunter
• Film: Satyajit Ray Pather Panchali  
• Kenzaburo Oe, “Prize Stock”
• Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
• Yann Martel, Life of Pi
• Film: Ang Lee, Life of Pi
• Han Kang, Human Acts
• Film: Richard Linklater, Childhood

HONR    10197    31    Washbourne, Kelly   5:30 pm - 6:45 pm      M W

Wanted: seekers. 

Education should fuel the brain, but also the mind, soul, and heart. This course searches civilizations present and past for the wisdom to lead a good and flourishing life. We start with self-knowledge (passing first through a self-unknowing). Then, how do we connect to higher selves, presence, flow, nonduality, creativity, and compassion? And to communities: What ways of being in the world have people known? "Local to Global: Wisdom and the Self" reads around the world in the service of fashioning oneself through attentive encounters with 'the other'. Wisdom is knowing self but also cosmopolitan consciousness: imagining others—the empathic imagination, including nature-human bonds and obligations. If we are woven into nature, what is wise to do about it? We will also explore the role of others’ languages in shaping our knowing and self-knowledge: What is in lak’ech, the Mayan “I am another you, as you are another me”? How is eudaimonia more than mere happiness? When we learn of Pratityasamutpada, we learn too to see the interdependent arising of all phenomena. An inner and outer journey from ancient sutras to the solarpunk manifesto, from the African creation myth “A Dream Dreaming Us” to the Aboriginal “Dreaming the World into Being”, from the stillness at the center of the Tao Te Ching to the chaotic cybernetic labyrinths of Jorges Luis Borges’ identity parables. We travel from ecstasy to empathy, from the human to the ecological posthuman, and to the wonder of sacred geometry. The re-enchantment of the world starts at home.

Fall texts:

• Cohen, G.L., Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection
• Jackson, W.J., Heaven's Fractal Net: Retrieving Lost Visions in the Humanities
• MacFarquhar, L. Strangers Drowning
• Rumi, Daylight
• Singer, P., The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution and Moral Progress.

Spring texts:

• Abram, D., The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-human World. [excerpts]
• Bridle, J., Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence
• Martusewicz, E., and Lupinacci, J. EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse, Democratic, and Sustainable Communities. [excerpts]
• Roszak, T., Where Psyche Meets Gaia. Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind.
• Theise, N., Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being. [selections: chs. 3-9 + afterword]
• Treanor, B., “Introduction: The Human Place in the Natural World.” Being-In-Creation: Human Responsibility in an Endangered World, eds. B. Treanor, B. Ellis Benson, and N. Wirzba.