Behavioral Sciences

PSYCH 1300.001H: Introduction to Psychology

T/Th 9:30-10:50

Mary O’Boyle, V-S 303

Class #4374

Broad introduction to psychology as a behavioral science withpecial emphasis on cognition, development, learning, social, personality, physiological and clinical psychology (psychopathology and psychotherapy). Special Honors Seminar, limited to 20 Honors students.

ANTH 1321.002H: First Year Anthropology Seminar Critical Thinking and Scientific Reasoning in Archaeology

Location & Time: to be determined

In this seminar students will learn critical thinking skills using scientific reasoning and logic to evaluate a variety of assertions about the human past. The course will start with a discussion of the epistiology of science, the principles of scientific reasoning and logic, and the application of these principles in archaeology. Throughout the rest of the course, the students will critically evaluate pseudo-scientific claims, hoaxes, and other spurious arguments relating to archaeology. Their weekly reading will include textbook summary chapters, primary reading from each pseudo-scientific claim or hoax, and scholarly work on the subject. Each week the class will discuss the week’s reading, assessing the legitimacy of the arguments in relation to their adherence to scientific reasoning and logic. Weekly discussion topics on Blackboard will help guide their reading and prepare them for discussions in seminar. As a final project, each student will select a scholarly debate from archaeological publications. Using the principles of scientific reasoning discussed in class, the students will prepare a paper critically examining both sides of the debate and providing their own assessment of the debated question. They will present their papers the final weeks of the seminar.

Readings:

• Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries:cience and Pseudoscience in Archaeology, 6th ed. (2007), Kenneth Feder.
• The Dion-Haunted World:cience as a Candle in the Dark (1997), Carlagan.

*Limited to 15 First Year Honors students.

SOCI 2377-002H: Markets and Culture

T/Th 9:30-10:50

Linda Stearns, Dallas Hall 149

Class #4592

A general introduction to economic sociology emphasizing the ways in which values and other beliefs influence social behaviors.

History & Art History

HIST 3310-003H: Problis in American History: The Study of Culture

T/TH 12:30-1:50

Alexis McCrossen, Dallas Hall 102

Class #4377

This course introduces students to the study of cultural history in the United States. It is an intensive discussion course for students in the University Honors Program. Each week we will explore a different approach to cultural history. Students will write several short papers as well as a term paper in which they use the interpretive skills germane to the practice of cultural history to think about a particular aspect of U.S. history. 

Readings:

• Raymond Williams Keywords
• Keywords for U.S. Cultural Studies
• The Cultural Turn in U.S. History

ARHS 1308.001H: The Epic of Latin America

T/Th 3:30-4:50

Adam Herring, Greer Garson Theatre 3531

Class #5245

An introductory survey of Latin American art for Honors First and Second Year students. Covers a wide range of historical periods and styles, from the art of the Aztec and Inca to the Post- Modern Art of Latin America. We will cover such topics as Machu Picchu, Colonial Cathedrals, Sante Fe adobes, Frida Kahlo, and contiporary video art. Small group sessions will allow for individual attention and an informal learning environment. Emphasis on visual literacy and tools of spoken and written exposition: you will learn how to look at, talk about art, and write on art.

*No prior coursework in Art History necessary. Reserved for First and Second Year Honors students

ARHS 4322: Museum Theory: Cultural Crises, Social Change & the Shifting Role of Museums

Th 2:00-4:50

Amy Buono

Class #1245

Surveys indicate that more Americans visit museums every year than attend sporting events, a statistic that seems to surprise everyone, especially the museums. Museums and collections today are in a state of flux. Their social functions are mutating rapidly under social, political and economic pressures. Traditional roles of curator, educator and administrator are blurring. Museums are under increasing pressure to expand the size and variety of visitorships. Among the impacts of globalism is an increasing urgency to deal with issues of cultural patrimony and its political, legal and museological aspects. Museums are taking on an ever more active role, both in local communities and on a global scale, actively shaping the ethics of various communities in the process.

Course issues and central questions: This seminar examines the museum as an institution and set of cultural practices. We will think about the museum as site of ritual and a cultural and political battleground and explore the development and contours of the field of critical museum studies since its emergence in the early 1980s. Critical museum studies take museums to be central institutions in the charting, categorization, and dissemination of various forms of knowledge about man, the natural world, and culture in the modern West. We will consider museums as places where discourses or assumptions about the world play out in particular practices that revolve around the acquisition, display, and interpretation of objects. Although some of these practices now are specific to museums, and even form the basis for specialized professions, the course emphasizes the ways in which museums draw on, respond to, and alter cognate activities and sites in the wider culture, including fairs, expositions, private galleries, zoos, historic sites, shops, and the media. Through museum visits in Dallas we will use the city’s institutions as our local case studies. We will think about the ways in which museum architecture and exhibition design control the visitor’s experiences, and then switch positions and consider why visitors apparently miss the point of most exhibitions (at least from the curator’s point of view).

Religious & Philosophical Thought

RELI 1305-001H: Introduction to Primal Religions

MWF 10:00-10:50

George Barnard, Hyer Hall 106

Class #4632

An introduction to the religious world views and ritual life of such primal cultures as Australian aboriginals, African tribal peoples, and native North and South Americans, as well as the significance of the resurgence of neo-paganism in the West.

PHIL 1305-003H: Introduction to Philosophy

T/Th 12:30-1:50

Matthew Lockard, Hyer Hall 201

Class #1996

A general introduction to the central questions of philosophy: We will discuss topics from such areas as the theory of knowledge, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, ethics, and political philosophy. Typical questions might include: Can we know the world outside our minds? Is it rational to believe in a God who allows evil to exist? Do the laws of physics allow for human freedom? Is morality more than a matter of opinion? Can there be unequal wealth in a just society?

Readings:

• Classical authors such as Plato, Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Mill, as well as contiporary philosophers. The focus of the course will be on arguments for and against proposed solutions to key problems of philosophy.

*Enrollment Limit: 25

PHIL 1316-001H: Introduction to Ethics

T/Th 3:30-4:50

William Robinson, Hyer Hall 201

Class #4474

An introduction to philosophical ethics focusing on questions in ethical theory. Topics vary, but the following are representative. Is morality merely conventional--and hence historically and culturally relative--or is there an objective morality? If there is an objective morality, what is its content? And what is its basis: reason, human nature, or divine command? Why be moral? If the demands of morality conflict with our own self-interest, why should we comply with them? And what exactly is in our own self-interest: in what does human happiness or well-being consist? We will read, discuss, and write about philosophical arguments for and against proposed answers to questions like these.

Cultural Formations

(To be taken by 2nd yeartudents and above)

CFA 3309-001H: Lesbian & Gay Literature and Film

W 6:30-9:20

William Beauchamp, Clements 134

Class #4585

The exploration through literature and film of the struggles by gay men and lesbians to create social identities and achieve human rights. Study of key cultures and pivotal historical periods in the West from ancient Greece to contemporary America. Authors include Sappho, Plato, Michelangelo, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Audre Lord, Adrienne Rich, and Tony Kushner. Cinematography includes Pedro Almodovar, Derek Jarman, Maria Luisa Biberg, Sally Potter, and James Ivory.

CF 3378-001H:olo Performance

T/Th 3:30-4:50

Rhonda Blair, OFAC 202

Class #2184

This course surveys major figures and issues in contemporary solo performance and performance studies, acquainting students with artists, forms, and venues ranging from the mainstream to the alternative. We will view videos and video documentation of the work and read performance texts, performance theory, and interviews/writings by and about the artists and their work. The two major assignments are a research and analysis paper examining an issue related to the course and a brief original piece applying in performance what we have studied.

CF 3314-001H: Theocial & Intellectual History of Europe

MWF 11:00- 11:50

James Hopkins, Dallas Hall 157

Class #4797

This course will examine the intellectual in modern European society. It will explore major intellectual and social issues raised by and affecting a number of figures instrumental in shaping the European world of the 19th and 20th centuries. In a fundamental sense, however, the themes developed will be outside time and place. Consequently, they should interest those concerned with the relationship of their values and ideas to the society in which they live today.

CF 3356-001H: Christianity/Public Life

M 2:00-4:50

Charles Curran, Dallas 102

Class #4586

The objectives of this course include the following:

1. To acquaint students with some recent criticisms of the dangers of individualism permeating American understanding and life;
2. To propose the communitarian dimensions of human existence from the Christian perspective;
3. To help students enter more critically into the dialogue about the role of religion in pluralistic contemporary American society.

CF 3367-001H: The Greater Dallas Experience

MWF 12:00-12:50 (all)