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Honors Seminar (HSEM) Courses

Academic Unit: University Honors Program

HSEM 2009H - Contemporary Art and Politics: From Marcel Duchamp to Ai Weiwei [GP]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This course will discuss the subject matters and practices of major contemporary artists all over the world - including Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, Ilya Kabakov, Jasper Johns, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ai Weiwei, Shirin Neshat, Marina Abramovic, Kara Walker, etc. ? whose creative work frequently intertwines with commentaries on contemporary politics. As a strategy of being, these contemporary artists seem to use art to engage their audiences in a dynamic dialogue concerning certain aspects of contemporary life. These and other artists want to interpret political reality in order to change it; that is, to bring about social and political transformation through aesthetic means. This course will provide an overview of the ideas, strategies, and work of the artists as a critical lens for viewing the changing cultural and political landscape of an increasingly technological and globalized world. This course will take a comparative studies approach to the development of contemporary art in its historical, its social and political contexts, the increasing influence of the Western art in Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world, and the cross-cultural communication customs and protocols of international art practice and art criticism. Methodologically, this course first aims at integrating four major disciplinary approaches in discussing art history from post-WWII to the present day: historical studies, sociological studies, psychoanalytic studies and cultural studies. Such an integrated approach will provide a framework and a reference point for us to describe and understand contemporary art in certain historical and political contexts.
HSEM 2026V - The Watershed Workshops [AH WI]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
We are made of water. We are connected to each other by water. A watershed is a community of living being held together by the water that flows through them. In this class we explore many ways of knowing water, and we will experiment with ways of writing about ourselves, our relationships, and our communities. In this class you will learn how to write creatively in conversation with scientists, conservationists, cultural critics, and many other types of experts.
HSEM 2041H - Greece and the Eternal Questions of the Liberal Arts [CIV]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
Throughout history, communities have grappled with the same questions: how do we govern the community? What stories do we tell about ourselves that give meaning to our lives? How do we persuade each other? How do we express our values and identity? Are there roles proper to men and women? Does life have meaning after life ends? Ancient Greek society was a particularly intense location for considering those questions. These are questions fundamental to the liberal arts and fundamental to being a contributing citizen of a democracy in a globalized world. This class examines and critiques the ancient Greek answers in order to gain perspective on how to answer those questions for our own lives and our community.
HSEM 2043H - Finding the Corporate Soul: Corporate advocacy, social responsibility, and community engagement
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
As the corporation has replaced government and the church as the dominant social institution in the industrialized world, the use of organizational advocacy as a means of persuasion has predictably increased. One reason for this increase is that stakeholders expect and demand corporations act in accordance with social and cultural norms. Advocacy messages provide organizations with a tool for promoting change, forming attitudes, and furthering dialogue about substantive issues. By engaging in advocacy, organizations enter into a public dialogue about issues that it views as significant in the realization of its goals and objectives. This seminar seeks to answer questions such as: What contribution does organizational advocacy make to public dialogue? How does corporate advocacy represent the goals and needs of the organization and society? What are the social implications of organizational advocacy? Our goal is to understand organizational advocacy beyond a single issue, campaign, or corporation. To achieve our goal, we will examine a variety of communication theories and international, national, and Minnesota-based campaigns.
HSEM 2053H - The Psychology of Paranormal Phenomena
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Research has shown that most Americans hold one or more supernatural, paranormal, or pseudoscientific beliefs. These include beliefs in mind reading, fortune telling, psychokinesis, remote viewing, therapeutic touch, out-of-body experiences, alien abduction, and cryptozoology (Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, etc.). This course has two goals: The first is to introduce students to critical thinking and behavioral research methods. The second is to critically evaluate the evidence for a variety of supernatural, paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Students will design and carry out their own experimental tests of these claims. The course will also include a guest lecture and demonstration by a local psychic. Reading per week: 40 Pages. Three written papers (3-5 pages each), one group presentation, and 4 quizzes.
HSEM 2064H - Sex, Gender, and the Digital Body
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
We perform gender throughout our online lives: Instagram selfies, dating profiles, and TikToks, are just a few genres in which we craft different identities according to the rules of the platform. This course examines both influencers and everyday social media users who use their gendered and sexual bodies to launch cultural trends and make political statements. Moving between US and international contexts, we see how dance challenges, feminist activists, fashion blogs, and misogynistic Reddits reimagine gender and sexuality online to build micro-cultures that are distinctly digital.
HSEM 2065H - Making Museums
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Museums are a significant, international growth industry. Where museums of the past sought simply to educate their visitors, today?s museums also promise to entertain, move, and provoke them, to express identities, unsettle certainties, question histories, and consolidate communities. How do museums follow through on that promise? What techniques do curators use to shape visitor experience? And when do museums? ambitions to create culture also court controversy?
HSEM 2069H - Film as Art: Global Practices
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
?Film as Art? offers a selective overview of the most influential Non-Anglo-American ?film authors? in post WWII art film history: Federico Fellini, Luchinothe Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Vittorio De Sica, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Giuseppe Tornatore (Italy); Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Claude Chabrol, Costa-Gavras (France); Ingmar Bergman (Sweden); Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Volker Schlondorff, Wim Wenders (Germany); Andrei Tarkovsky (Russia); Luis Bu?uel, Pedro Almodovar (Spain); Krzysztof Kieslowski (Poland); Theodoros Angelopoulos (Greece); Abbas Kiarostami (Iran); Yasujirō Ozu, Shindō Kaneto, Akira Kurosawa (Japan); and Hou Hsiao-hsien (Taiwan). Throughout the course, we will learn the definitions of ?art film? and ?film author?, filmmaking as high art practice, major art film movements in the world: Italian New-Realism, French New Wave, New German Cinema, New Taiwanese Cinema, etc. and their influence on the American filmmaking. We will develop a historical appreciation of art film based on cinematic traditions contained within narrative, documentary, and experimental forms, and acquire a critical, technical, and aesthetic vocabulary relating to particular filmmakers. In particular, we will examine and evaluate the importance of genre and the legacy of individual ?auteurs? throughout the history of post-war cinema. We will study the individuality of the filmmakers and their contribution to our understandings of politics, society, and human relationship.
HSEM 2073H - Radical Environmentalism in the United States [HIS]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Equivalent courses: HIST 1366W
Our current climate crisis calls for a rethinking of the way humans interact with the environment, but such efforts are not new. This course examines how different groups of people understood and responded to environmental degradation in North America, from the l8th century through the 21st. The focus will be on those who made urgent calls for a change in human behavior toward nature, from Indigenous peoples past and present to ecocentrist groups like Greenpeace and Earth First! Topics include protests against ecological damage and loss, experiments in minimalism, the call for wilderness preservation and national parks, environmental racism and the environmental justice movement, and various forms of environmental activism. Students will develop historically informed positions about an array of ecological experiments, activists, organizations, viewpoints that preceded and shaped current forms of environmentalism.
HSEM 2074H - Tabletop Philosophy
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
Role-playing games are strange: Like a play, they ask you to inhabit the mind and spirit of another person. But, like a game, they also set goals and tasks for you. And, they are centered around the co-creation of a world and its story, like, well.. like nothing else. In this class, we?ll study role-playing games, not only as games, but also as ways of learning about ourselves and the world we (in fact!) inhabit. Along the way, we will play these games, with an eye toward answering our many questions.
HSEM 2208H - Housing Matters [DSJ]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring; may be repeated for 6 credits; may be repeated 2 times)
Housing directly affects our physical and mental health, children's educational attainment, our economic opportunities, our transportation patterns and dependencies, and the environment. However, not all people are able to achieve the same levels of well-being because of disparities due to race, ethnicity, and class as they seek to obtain stable, secure, and affordable housing in supportive neighborhoods and communities. We will explore issues of power and privilege that contribute to those disparities. Public policy at the local and national levels will be examined as it both creates and minimizes social inequities in housing.
HSEM 2231H - How ?Green? is ?Green? Energy: Environmental Protection vs Sustainable Energy Initiatives [ENV]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
Northern Minnesota has long been an area of interest for both its natural beauty and its mineral resources. Prior to colonization, it was home to the Anishinaabeg. Today, northern Minnesota is home to a diverse community and environment that includes Indigenous Nations, a thriving tourist industry, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and mining companies. Currently, there is intense debate around the establishment of new mines in northern Minnesota to exploit the metals necessary for the manufacturing of technology, specifically the metals needed to sustain green energy initiatives. This seminar will address the question ?How green is green energy? by exploring the delicate balance among resource availability, societal energy needs, ethical land management, and ultimately climate change and long-term sustainability. To gain perspective on this complicated balance we will first learn about the Earth System, climate change, and energy resources. We will then review the geologic processes that formed mineral resources in northern Minnesota and how the exploitation of these resources has impacted local cultures and economies. The last part of the semester will focus on the current debate about mining in northern Minnesota and the broader framework of sustainable energy. Through readings and discussions, you will gain an appreciation for the multidisciplinary and multicultural perspectives related to human interactions with our environment, energy needs, and the importance of effective communication.
HSEM 2232H - Improvisation and Mental Health
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
The ability to tolerate ambiguity is essential to mental health. In this course, students will explore this premise by learning the fundamentals of improvisation and discovering how these skills can enrich their lives and make them more flexible, effective, and empathic, both personally and professionally. Through dynamic exercises and personal feedback, students will understand how an improvisational mindset can deepen communication skills, reframe negative self-talk, reawaken a sense of play, and strengthen awareness of mind-body connections. At the same time, students will reflect on our experience as a group, one that is guided by improvisational tenets. Our time in class will be primarily experiential, and students will be given the chance to give presentations about various psychological topics?cognitive schemas, positive psychology, mindfulness and its benefits, group development, creativity and cognition, play theory and polyvagal theory, and ethical development?as well as read studies about improvisation and the ways it can guide psychological growth.
HSEM 2233H - The Histories of Student Activism [HP]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
College students do a lot of things. They study. They are part of clubs, sports teams, and organizations. They work. They build lives outside the institution. They also protest and look for ways to change the world. This is a course that explores the history of student activism. Students have taken part in some of the most important social movements in the world, most obviously the civil rights movement and protests against wars. Students have also turned their attention inward to demand that the university change or expand in one way or another. In all of these ways, students are engaging in civic life and thinking through the ethics of many public problems. Through a focus on the United States and particular attention paid to the University of Minnesota itself, students will think deeply about questions of activism and reflect on the actions of their direct historical counterparts. We will examine how various student groups debated ethics and made decisions about how to engage with the broader body politic. In this interactive honors seminar we will be learning and discussing how world events shaped college students and how college students shaped the world around them.
HSEM 2241H - Climate Change and Diseases
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
Climate Change and Diseases aims to help students understand the basic concepts of climate change and its impact on health. The course will explore the causes and trend, and organismal and ecosystem responses, to climate change and extreme weather, identify the links between climate change and various diseases, and evaluate the challenges and vulnerabilities of different populations to climate-induced health problems. The course will specifically examine a series of topics to demonstrate the impact of the climate change on environment, disease vectors, zoonotic diseases, and their increasing risks for novel emerging epidemics or pandemics. Emphasis will also be placed to assess how the changed climate may have profound impact on food security and nutrition-related illnesses, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, cancer, mental health, aging, and management of the chronic illnesses that have been critical for global health governance of the modern society. The course will encourage students to contemplate the challenging topics, explore public health strategies to mitigate the negative impact, and prepare students to develop skills for raising public awareness and promoting policy advocacy in building a resilient health system.
HSEM 2244H - Brain Medicine for Everyone
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
This course is tailored for non-physicians who are interested in exploring brain medicine. It will start with some introduction of brain functionality and a friendly approach to the anatomy of the brain. As we move on with the curriculum a deep understanding of some common brain injury related pathologies will be discussed including concussion, severe brain injury, and dementia. The focus will be around what students need to know regarding basic brain pathologies and how to care for a loved one with brain pathology. A discussion to involve diversity and inclusivity with brain care will also be considered throughout this course. Real cases will be introduced to allow the student to use their metacognitive skills and think out loud on how to approach various scenarios.
HSEM 2318H - Lies, Deception, and Persuasion in the Modern World [SOCS CIV]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
Deception and persuasion are important facets of human communication. This honors seminar will draw on theories of deceit and persuasion to answer questions such as: Why do we lie? Is it easy to tell when someone is lying? How do we use deception to influence others? Is it always wrong to lie? And how has the internet and rise of social media changed the landscape and political impact of persuasion and lies? This course will challenge students to reflect on the ethical boundaries of lying and social influence. We will examine lies and persuasion in politics, the consumer marketplace, and in online environments. We will also study the impact of mis- and disinformation campaigns on society and learn strategies to resist deceptive persuasion to become more thoughtful consumers and responsible citizens.
HSEM 2321H - What is College For? Exploring the Purpose and Value of American Higher Education [CIV]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
Recent poll data suggests that many Americans are questioning the value of higher education. For example, 2/3 of those surveyed stated that colleges are stuck in the past and not meeting the needs of today?s students. What is the purpose of college? Should a 4-year degree be accessible to all? Does a college education lead to attaining the ?good life?? In this interactive honors seminar, we will address these questions and more. Students will have the opportunity to examine their own objectives as it relates to pursuing higher education and explore important issues impacting higher education (e.g., student debt, access, and admissions). Students will engage in regular reading, writing, and discussion around critical issues in higher education. Small group interaction, presentations, media analysis (e.g., podcasts, films), and ongoing reflection will be features of this seminar. The course will be organized around three main units, each guided by a specific question that we will aim to address. Unit 1 will address the question ?What is the history of higher education, and what are the reasons for pursuing a degree? Unit II explores: ?What are key current topics in higher education that deserve exploration?? As a part of this unit, we will discuss trends and issues that address the mission of higher education, especially post-pandemic. Unit III will examine the question, ?How do your own experiences in college align with your own personal and professional objectives??
HSEM 2325H - Fantasy: A Ghastly, Wicked Introduction [GP]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
This seminar is a ghastly wicked ride through main genres and formats of fantasy literature for adolescents and young adults. Fantasy is explored as a literature of possibilities and empowerment. The focus is on eight principal genres and on the role of fantasy in nurturing moral imagination, creative thinking, and the human potential.
HSEM 2413H - Insights, Ideas, and Innovation
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This course is designed to introduce students to techniques for discovering everyday problems and fashioning potential solutions to those problems. Because the course material deals with ideas and idea generation, it is designed to be helpful to many future careers and callings by unlocking individual creative thinking skills. During the semester we will explore the genesis of ideas and the relationship between deep insight, empathy, consumer problems, ideas, and innovation. Specific topics to be covered during the semester include the role of insights, ethnography, and discovery techniques; individual and group creativity; the creative process and where ideas come from; innovation and the value thereof; and effective communication of ideas. This course seeks to provide students with the skills, tools, and mindsets to enable them to discover other people?s problems from which potential solutions might be built. These solutions include services, products, and potential businesses.
HSEM 2512H - The Mathematics of Elections and Social Choice [MATH]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This course will focus on the mathematics behind Voting Theory, apportionment, and fair division. Whether it is choosing a student association representative or ranking NCAA sports teams, there are a variety of selection methods that could be employed, but which is best? This course will use mathematics to study the strengths and weaknesses of different ways to tally votes or hold an election. Voting methods to be studied include single ballot vs instant-runoff (also known as a ranked-choice), as well as point-based rankings. This course will also explore the mathematics behind apportionment (and how it can lead to paradoxes), and how mathematics is used to evaluate the fairness of congressional districts in the context of gerrymandering. Finally, we will investigate ways to measure power differences between coalitions, and how to approach problems of fair-division like rent-sharing.
HSEM 2515H - Experiencing Local Environmental Solutions
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This is a topical, field-trip-based course. This seminar will address some of the solutions to the environmental problems that affect our society by examining the science and by experiencing the solutions that are used on campus or in the neighboring community. Each week will focus on a solution to a different environmental issue (see schedule below). We will visit the places designed as environmental solutions, hear from the experts, and discuss the engineering and human aspects of these solutions. We will go to areas of campus that you would normally not visit or be able to visit. The field-trip destinations are accessible by campus bus, city bus, or train. The class will involve weekly reading and writing assignments. There will also be a semester-long, hands-on project to devise a realistic, potential solution to an environmental issue.
HSEM 2516H - Slow Death by Rubber Duck: Chemicals We Use and Their Effects on the Environment and Us
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring; may be repeated for 3 credits)
We use chemicals every day. We bathe in chemicals. We apply chemicals to our lawn. Chemicals are sprayed to control insects. While chemicals are an important part of modern life, these chemicals wind up in the environment and in our bodies. This seminar will examine how our use of chemicals drives our exposures and ultimately, where these chemicals wind up in the environment and what their impacts are. This seminar is designed for you to look at how you use chemicals in your daily life and how this influences your exposure to chemicals, environmental releases of chemicals, and the impact of chemicals on humans and the environment.
HSEM 2528H - The Quantum Century
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This seminar has a STEM and a humanities component. The STEM component consists of a rigorous but algebra-based introduction to the basic formalism of quantum mechanics. This formalism is much easier to learn than most of its applications in physics (which typically require a fair amount of calculus). And mastering this basic formalism suffices to understand some of the key ideas behind such exciting recent applications as quantum computing and quantum cryptography (which will also be addressed in this seminar). The humanities component consists of a critical review of the history of the debates over the foundations of quantum mechanics from the late 1920s to the present. The seminar thus has two main objectives. The first is to introduce students with a wide variety of backgrounds to an exciting area at the intersection of physics, mathematics, and computer science challenging our understanding of the physical world but at the same time suggesting new ways of harnessing nature for our purposes. The second is to combat simplistic views of "The Scientific Method" by tracing in a concrete and engaging example how science is actually done?warts and all.
HSEM 2529H - Explanation and Evidence in Crime Fiction and in Science
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Sherlock Holmes, in solving his cases, is relying on a pattern of reasoning known as Inference to the Best Explanation (acronym: IBE). Holmes?s explanation of how some crime was committed tends to be so convincing that it counts as evidence that it was actually committed that way. Although our use of it is seldom as clever as Holmes?s, we rely on IBE all the time in everyday life. So do scientists. In science, however, IBE tends to be less reliable. That a theory explains a range of phenomena does not make that theory true. In other words, we cannot simply take a theory?s explanatory power as evidence for it. Yet, scientists tend to put great emphasis on their theories? explanatory power if they want to convince others of it. Which raises the question: What exactly is the relation between explanation and evidence in science? In this seminar, we will examine this relation, using examples from everyday life, crime fiction and the history of science (involving such luminaries as Copernicus, Newton, Darwin and Einstein). To improve our understanding of IBE we will contrast it with a probabilistic account of evaluating evidence known as Bayesianism.
HSEM 2540H - Understanding the Russian Land [ENV HIS]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
Encompassing more than 6.5 million square miles, Russia is an immense and ecologically diverse country. The environment of the frigid and heavily forested heartland of early Russian civilization, as well as that of the "wild field" (the Eurasian steppe) on its border, have posed a series of challenges to Russians and have left an indelible mark on modern Russian culture. In this interdisciplinary seminar, we will study how Russians have conceived of and used nature from the medieval period to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Articulating a particular approach to nature has been integral to several ideological and cultural projects in Russian history, including the formation of a literary tradition, the establishment of a multi-ethnic empire encompassing several biomes, and the development of a vision of Soviet science conquering and reshaping nature and the world. In the period we will study (the fifteenth century to 1991 Russia) underwent several profound epistemological shifts, and a particular focus of this course will be how the ways Russians created natural knowledge changed over time. Knowledge is power, and we will study how natural knowledge was used to strengthen and expand the state in the medieval, imperial, and Soviet periods. Another major focus of this course is the ravages that nature and humankind have inflicted on one another, and we will study how the environment influenced the development of Russia's form of agricultural slavery, serfdom, as well as the history of environmental degradation, including deforestation, the establishment of heavy industry, and nuclear disaster.
HSEM 2541V - Campus Obscura: A University of Minnesota Cabinet of Curiosity [WI HIS]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This course examines the history of science, technology, and medicine through physical objects - maps, rare books, artifacts, instruments, specimens, manuscripts and considers how they are used to write history, produce public exhibits, and create identities. Short readings will introduce ideas about how experts have used these materials to write history, to produce public exhibits, and to create identities, and the focus of the course will be on objects themselves and having students do research that facilities their understanding of historical context. The University of Minnesota has many significant collections of artifacts and other items that are rich resources for the exploration of historically significant material culture, and continue to shape the University of Minnesota. Students will visit the Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine, the Goldstein Museum of Design, the University Archives, the Weisman Art Museum, and the College of Biological Science?s Conservatory, among other sites.
HSEM 2606H - Microbiomes and Society [GP]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
The microbiome - the communities of microbes living in humans, plants, animals, and the environment, plays indispensable roles in the way they function. This relationship, rooted in the origin of life, has played a role in every aspect of our biology and the way we interact with the specific environment we live in. We live in a globalized, highly- interconnected world; now, more than ever, it is easier to expose ourselves to different cultures, places, and peoples; please join me in a journey beyond our borders to understand how different global perspectives help us learn more about ourselves and our society in the current world order, all thorough a microbiome lens. In this class, we will travel to different places around the world to discuss how a microbiomes provide us with a unique lens to understand diverse societies and cultures. From the moment we evolved as humans, to the origin of the first civilizations, we will learn how microbes have been involved in the most complex global social issues, including public health, global politics, and social justice.
HSEM 2621H - Environmental Futures: Climate Change Impacts and Strategies for Building Resilience
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
?Climate change is the most serious challenge that humanity has ever faced,? (Amitav Ghosh). This seminar will focus on the future of climate change, its emerging and far-reaching impacts on social and ecological systems, and the development of innovative strategies to address this challenge. The multidimensional problem of climate change will be examined through a variety of lenses, including the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and the perspectives of indigenous peoples, environmental justice, and future generations. The emphasis is on the human dimensions of climate change. Throughout the course, a variety of techniques and exercises developed by futurists will be used to explore possible, plausible, and preferable environmental futures and develop environmental foresight expertise among attendees. Students will be challenged to build robust, agile and resilient policy options to achieve valued climate change outcomes. The purpose of this course is to prepare students to anticipate and design alternative climate change futures and create effective decisions and policies to achieve them.
HSEM 2635H - Germs and Civilization
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This course explores the interaction of human, animals, and microbes and examines how microbes, pathogenic microbes in particular, have influenced human evolution and civilization. The course expects to expose students to the thinking from a historic and interdisciplinary perspective that microbes, especially those causing pandemics and epidemic for centuries, may have played critical roles in influencing human history and shaping modern civilization, although social, cultural, technical, and other factors have been major players. Emphasis will be placed on a few microbes, such as plague, smallpox, yellow fever, malaria, tuberculosis, retrovirus, and influenza and their impacts on important events in human history. Microbes may also impact human evolution as a fraction of human genome is from retrovirus and some genetic diseases including cystic fibrosis in humans may arise from resistance to epidemics of deadly microbes. Knowledge of general microbiology will be introduced but is not a requirement.
HSEM 2637H - Small but Impactful: Insects and the Environment [ENV]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson referred to insects and other invertebrates as the `little things that run the world?. Insects may be small but are numerous, diverse and present almost everywhere ? as humans we encounter them not matter where we are and what we do! In this course, Honors students and the Instructor will jointly explore influences of insects as pollinators, `recyclers?, and as invasive species that lead to environmental pollution; adaptations that enable insects to handle diverse environmental conditions including climate change; and impacts on humans of insects on planet earth. The course will include brief interactive lectures, select readings and videos for providing background and context related to a specific topic. Students will then explore each topic by engaging in open conversations, small/large discussions using active learning approaches such as think-pair-share, jigsaw discussion groups, and debates for sharing their perspectives based on individual backgrounds/major/interests.
HSEM 2707H - Battling the Bugs: Anthrax, Ebola, and Everyday Life - PubH Strategies for Prevention & Control
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
We share the planet with a myriad of living things. The smallest of those are the ones that may impact our lives the most. These creatures are in the news nearly every day: Ebola virus in Western Africa, measles outbreak among visitors to Disneyland, foodborne outbreaks on cruise ships, Zika virus precautions for pregnant women. This course will focus on the importance of infectious disease prevention, control, and treatment to the health and well-being of the global community. Students will explore the many facets of public health response operations and decision-making which are often behind the scenes and not well understood by the general public.
HSEM 2709H - Climate Change: Indisputable Science, Unprecedented Consequences, and Transformative Responses
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
Climate change presents an almost unimaginable crisis to our existence. Its profoundness is coupled with an urgency to find solutions that contribute to collective and transformative actions. There is scientific consensus that the existence of human beings (and many other species) on the planet is in danger because of fossil fuel emissions. Human activity has led to increasing greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) and a warming planet. A warming planet has negative consequences in terms of environmental degradation, extreme weather events, and social disruption?all of which have health and economic consequences. While the basic problem is acknowledged by scientists in diverse fields, many of the proposed responses to the current and projected climate-related changes are contrary to powerful political, cultural, industrial, and economic interests. The challenges posed by these interests, as well as the complexity (and sometimes imprecision and uncertainty) of the science, make it difficult for individuals to clearly understand the threats and the opportunities that must be addressed in the next several decades if the earth is to remain habitable for almost 9 million species. Hearts and minds must change quickly. Public and professional educational efforts must be massive, with clear messages of hope, urgency, and direction. Local, national, and global adaptation and mitigation responses must thus be palatable and accessible to diverse communities as well as to powerful economic and political entities. Policies, programs, services, and educational efforts must necessarily be created by multidisciplinary teams using community-focused approaches. These efforts must reach all affected individuals and entities, especially those who are most vulnerable to the negative sequalae of climate change. They must also effectively address the many political, social, and cultural barriers to the kind of transformative actions that are necessary to maintain the habitabi
HSEM 2718H - The Diabetes Experience
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
The number of people living with diabetes is growing in the United States. Diabetes is a complicated condition that impacts patients in different ways. This course is designed to explore the complexities of diabetes treatment, including navigating the US health care system and accessing and interpreting medical information. Students will gain foundational understanding of the endocrine system, the pathophysiology that leads to different types of diabetes, and the pharmaceutical and lifestyle interventions for management. Students will participate in two different week-long simulations. The first simulation will be of a person living with type 1 diabetes where the student will both track their carbohydrate intake and calculate appropriate insulin doses. The second simulation will also be of a person living with diabetes and in this simulation students will need to respond to various challenges related to health system navigation and patient autonomy. In addition to simulation activities, students will debate controversial topics surrounding the care for patients with diabetes. This is an online-based course and will be discussion based. These topics will be discussed among students across each week with a strong presence of the instructional team within each small group.
HSEM 2719H - Mass Incarceration and Public Health: An American Crisis
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Mass incarceration is one of the major public health challenges facing the United States. Each year, millions of people cycle through the criminal justice system. Justice-involved people experience far higher rates of chronic health problems, substance use, and mental illness than the general population. Further, our country's prisons and jails are often ill-equipped to handle these complex health conditions, perpetuating health inequities. Mass incarceration contributes to powerful health disparities in the United States, affecting the health of entire communities and across generations. This course will examine the intersections of mass incarceration and public health. We will explore individual and community-level health impacts of incarceration, with a focus on the relationship between mass incarceration and health disparities, particularly in communities of color. This course will consider specific populations at particularly high risk, including detained youth, pregnant incarcerated women, and the elderly. Students will have an opportunity to tour local correctional facilities and hear directly from experts in the field, including formerly incarcerated people.
HSEM 2719V - Mass Incarceration and Public Health: An American Crisis [WI]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Mass incarceration is one of the major public health challenges facing the United States. Each year, millions of people cycle through the criminal justice system. Justice-involved people experience far higher rates of chronic health problems, substance use, and mental illness than the general population. Further, our country's prisons and jails are often ill-equipped to handle these complex health conditions, perpetuating health inequities. Mass incarceration contributes to powerful health disparities in the United States, affecting the health of entire communities and across generations. This course will examine the intersections of mass incarceration and public health. We will explore individual and community-level health impacts of incarceration, with a focus on the relationship between mass incarceration and health disparities, particularly in communities of color. This course will consider specific populations at particularly high risk, including detained youth, pregnant incarcerated women, and the elderly. Students will have an opportunity to tour local correctional facilities and hear directly from experts in the field, including formerly incarcerated people.
HSEM 2721H - Introduction to Medicine
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This is a course designed for undergraduate students who are interested in medicine. Students will get a broad introduction to the field of medicine via core lectures, book reading, movies, and interactive group discussion, group presentation, and writing a review paper on pain medicine. Emphasis will be placed on pros of cons of medicine as a career, medical school admission requirement, research projects, simulation lab visit, hand on ultrasound experience, understanding the life of a physician and medical student, and practice opportunities in various specialties. Students will meet with medical students, physicians, and clinical scientists who will share their experiences. In addition, the student will have opportunities to explore research in a medical research laboratory. NOTE: Course is taught First Half of Term only
HSEM 2724V - The Sex Talk You Should Have Had: Controversies in Sexual Health [WI CIV]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
Reproductive and sexual health is an increasingly important topic in community settings. Pharmacists can play a vital role in promoting safe and healthy practices that will improve the health of their communities and are an important source of reproductive and sexual health information and advice. This course is designed to expand and enhance community-based reproductive and sexual health knowledge and skills while preparing students to be informed and active participants in ethics driven debates surrounding reproductive and sexual health. The Sex Talk You Should Have Had covers three important sections in sexual health that interface in the community pharmacy setting. These topics include the HPV vaccine, contraception, and Sexually Transmitted Infection/Disease (STI/STD) testing and treatment options. Each of these sections is addressed in weekly modules that provide thorough introduction to the topic, an overview of how the treatments or medications work, and related contemporary topics of debate. This is a hybrid course with extensive online discussion with limited in-class meetings.
HSEM 2801H - Think Like a Lawyer: The Art and Adventure of Torts [CIV]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Law is the foundation of modern society. The ability to understand our legal system is invaluable in any profession, ranging from business and health to science or art. This seminar offers an introduction into legal thinking: Not merely what the laws are, but why we have them and, more importantly, how we come up with them. As a focus, we will be grounding ourselves in torts, a fundamental area of legal education that covers the civil wrongs. Students will have an opportunity to get a feeling for the law school experience as we use the case method, along with some Socratic method and ample discussion. We will focus on the basics of legal analysis, and learn how to apply that to critical thinking. Students successfully completing this seminar will be mentally armed and dangerous.
HSEM 2802H - Cinematic Representations of American Law [DSJ]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
Representations of American law in 20th century American films offer unique perspectives that help us understand the larger context in which the legal system operates--and offer a visual supplement to traditional ways--case law and statutory interpretation of reading the law. This course will discuss how cinematic interpretations of American law have been perceived and accepted inside and outside Hollywood, inside and outside the legal community, and inside and outside the United States. The course will begin by teaching and discussing some fundamentals of American law, using legal films to illustrate the doctrinal concepts and processes involved in civil procedure, criminal law and procedure, jury trials, evidence, contracts, torts, constitutional law, the First Amendment, legal ethics, professional responsibility, etc. Using clips from of cinematic masterpieces, we will visualize and discuss sophisticated legal concepts. This interdisciplinary approach-teaching law through film-- will engage students visually, to help them better understand and discuss legal concepts. It will also help students appreciate the broader humanities and arts context in which legal discourse evolves, especially in a today's global era. Course readings will include statutes, legal cases, historical documents, novels, and commentaries. Viewings will include classic legal films.
HSEM 2803H - Making Your Voice Heard on Climate Change
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Climate change will be a part of the rest of your life. No matter where you live, climate change will have an impact. No matter your career, adapting to a new climate will be part of it. How can you make your voice heard to help your community and workplace adapt to, and mitigate, the effects of climate change and associated Grand Challenges? And how can you do so in a fair and equitable manner? Everyone is aware of young activists like Greta Thunberg. Whether you want to be organizing large activism campaigns or become an effective advocate for local issues, this course will go over some of the basic frameworks for advocacy and change-making. Basics of climate change will be covered. The course will feature guest speakers from various campaigns and organizations. Students develop their own advocacy campaigns as a way to center theoretical learning. The focus of this class is on climate change but these basic tools and frameworks are useful for any issue.
HSEM 3017V - Writing and Reading in the Ancient World [WI]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Writing is the fundamental technology of civilization. It sets an imaginary boundary between history and prehistory, between educated and not, even between civilized and primitive, in the common way of thinking. Writing is ubiquitous today ? I am doing it right now, and you are reading what I am doing ? to the point that we take its nature and value for granted. This seminar scrutinizes our most universal technology and our ideas about it, by inquiring into the origins, development, disappearance, and decipherment of different writing systems. Why and how was writing invented? What difference did it make to society once it was invented? Who learned to read and write in antiquity, and what did they write? When people learned a writing system, did they write in their own language, or did they learn to write in the language of the people who invented the system? And how did modern scholars figure out how to read what people once wrote in long-forgotten, extinct writing systems? These are among the questions to be explored in the seminar. We will focus on writing systems developed in and around the ancient Near East: cuneiform in Mesopotamia, proto-Elamite and linear Elamite in Iran, hieroglyphics in Egypt, the alphabet in the Levant, Linear A and B in the Aegean, Anatolian hieroglyphics, Old Persian cuneiform, and Meroitic. The class will also examine writing systems developed in other parts of the world in antiquity: the Indus Valley, China, and Mesoamerica. You will learn about the origins and development of the script, how it worked, what language(s) it was used to write, and what kinds of texts people wrote. In the case of extinct scripts, you will also learn the story of its decipherment ? or of attempts to decipher it, in the case of scripts such as the Byblian syllabary, Cretan hieroglyphics, and Linear A. Meanwhile, we shall discuss how ancient cultures of western Asia, northeastern Africa, and the Mediterranean influenced each other in developing their variou
HSEM 3021H - Cinema and Utopia
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring; may be repeated for 9 credits; may be repeated 3 times)
The question of ?utopia? has been an important resource for thought ? ever since the appearance in the early sixteenth century of Sir Thomas More?s tract about an imagined, ideal community in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Centered on the idea of a perfected world, utopian thinking has motivated a wide variety of political and social movements as well as literary and cultural practices. In this course, we will explore the ways that utopian ideas find expression in cinema. We will examine the conceptions by means of which utopian longings are given cinematic form ? from satires that expose the wrongs of society in order to imagine change, and culinary fantasies about the fulfillment of the senses, to the role of humor in conceptualizing change. To this we should also add the importance of considering how the visual image intimates the future ? by not showing as much as by showing. We will look at formal film language as well as narrative concerns in order to grasp various aspects of the ideal of utopia as expressed in cinema. Through an encounter with a range of American and European films, our goal will be to consolidate an overall understanding of the politics of utopian thinking. Please note that prior familiarity with film or cultural theory is not required, but all students taking a 3xxx-level honors course are expected to demonstrate their ability to think critically, write well, and make good arguments (regardless of disciplinary location).
HSEM 3023H - Race: The History of an Idea in North America [SOCS DSJ]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This Honors seminar explores the roots and rationales presented when constructing and upholding the idea of race. This class examines processes of racial formation in science, law, history, immigration policy, education, leisure, adoption, marriage, and medicine. The course investigates how Americans came to mythologize, understand, identify, and codify the importance of race since the mid-nineteenth century. Racial formations and classifications shift according to political climates, such that immigration debates, changing gender norms and concerns over interracial marriage transform how we imagine racial groups. We will also look at how race has been used to pathologize, eroticize, vilify, fetishize, and medicalize purported `problem people,? like immigrants, the poor, and the sick. For instance, seeing people of color as particular hazards during pandemics, like the 1918 Influenza or 2020 COVID-19 crises, has deep roots in longstanding racial theories. Using memoirs, legal cases, history of medicine, laws, photographs, oral histories, and secondary source readings, this class traces the history of America?s fascination with race and how race came to define so many aspects of American life during the twentieth century.
HSEM 3025H - Food, Clothing, Shelter: The Culture and Politics of Simple Living [CIV]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
At a time of rising income inequality, in which billionaires grow richer while millions struggle to survive, this course will examine the social, environmental, economic, and ethical aspects of consumption and poverty through the lens of three basic needs: food, clothing, and shelter. It seeks to help you answer three key questions: what should you eat, what should you wear, and where should you live, so that others might do the same? We will begin by exploring the historical roots of simple living in the monastic traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, as well as the ?voluntary simplicity? of such secular figures as Henry David Thoreau, Helen and Scott Nearing, and E. F. Schumacher. In the central portion of our course, we will consider several contemporary forms of simplicity, such as Slow Food, permaculture, and urban homesteading; visible mending, thrifting, and online reselling; and camping, #vanlife, and tiny houses. We will then compare these practices to the ?basic needs? approach to economic and social development, which seeks to alleviate the ?involuntary simplicity? of poverty in developing countries, as well as various attempts to address poverty in the U.S. through social welfare programs (such as SNAP, WIC, and HUD programs) and nongovernmental organizations (such as food shelves, soup kitchens, thrift stores, and homeless shelters). In our exploration of simple living and basic needs, we will address major issues in sustainability studies, including ecosystem services, the gift economy, and theories of value; the positive psychology movement; the Sustainable Development Goals; and antiwork and living wage campaigns. We will also consider a range of literary and historical perspectives on food, fashion, and architecture, such as Bill McKibben?s ?Deep Economy,? Marie Kondo?s ?The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,? Sarah Susanka?s ?The Not So Big House,? and the documentary films ?The True Cost? and ?The Minimalists.? Requirements will in
HSEM 3049H - Dice: History, Mathematics, Philosophy, and Culture
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
In this course we will explore the world of dice. After a brief (one-lecture) survey of the history of dice prior to the 17th century, the course will be divided into four sections (although the material from each section will overlap with earlier sections): 1. We will explore the mathematical revolution that occurred during the 17th Century that led to the development of the modern mathematical theory of probability, and we will pay special attention to the probabilistic analysis of dice games. 2. We will explore the various philosophical puzzles that arise when we try to understand what probability claims ?really mean?, and examine a number of different philosophical interpretations of probability. 3. We will explore the recent 20th and 21st century enthusiasm for tabletop and roleplaying games, and the role that various kinds of dice play in such games. 4. We will return to the mathematics of dice, exploring what have come to be called ?crazy dice? ? non-standard dice that have various unexpected properties.
HSEM 3054H - Minds, Brains, and Innovation
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring; may be repeated for 6 credits)
This seminar course will examine recent research findings from psychology and cognitive neuroscience to arrive at a better understanding of the conditions that foster, or impede, flexible thinking or 'mental agility.' Two key questions will be examined throughout. First, what are the relative roles of predominantly controlled or deliberate modes of cognitive processing versus more automatic (or spontaneous) processes in enabling and sustaining creatively adaptive thinking? Second, how do mental representations at differing levels of specificity highly abstract versus highly specific contribute to flexible thinking?
HSEM 3059H - The Neuroscience of Music and Language
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
Music and language are fascinating products of the human brain and universal human abilities with many similarities in their acoustics, structure, evolutionary history and social expressive functions. This seminar highlights modern brain research studies on the associations and disassociations between music and language and the implications for intervention for various clinical populations. We will examine music and language in all aspects of structure and use in comparison with social bonding in animal communication systems to inform our understanding of the biology and evolution of human music and language. We are especially interested in how infants acquire their linguistic and emotional expressive power and how the early learning experience alters the brain, thereby affecting an individual?s future perceptions and actions. Both historical perspectives and current research will be introduced and discussed.
HSEM 3065H - Trust, Technology and Human Communication
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Trust is a central component of our lives. Without trust, we could not function as individuals, and we would not have functioning social and civic systems. How and why do humans trust? Whether face-to-face or mediated by technology, one-on-one or in groups, the basis for how we build trustworthy, durable relationships is our communication. For millennia, this communication took place with our bodies: via gestures, facial expressions, sounds, movements, and eventually, through spoken language. Later, writing and its technologies supplanted earlier forms, creating new opportunities for trust. In this seminar, we will explore the relationship between trust, technologies, and human communication by a) reviewing research from sociology, rhetoric, psychology, and other fields to understand the nature of trust; b) exploring the history of communication technology, from the oral cultures to the first forms of writing to the printing press to the Internet; c) investigating trust, technology, and communication in specific contexts, with a focus on social media and the Internet and key features such as the confirmation bias and the changing nature of expertise. These contexts will include medical/health communication; social actions; online communities; political and scientific reporting.
HSEM 3071H - People, Pines, and Fire: Shaping the forested landscapes of Minnesota and the Great Lakes [ENV]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Wildland fire as an agent of renewal, vegetation change, and maintenance has been a critical process in the pine forests of the Upper Great Lakes. The vast pineries, so sought after by settler-colonialists as a commodity evolved over millennia with fire. Fires were both `natural?, ignited by lightning strikes, and fire was applied judiciously by Native American groups to manage landscapes and improve resources. It was an act of reciprocity: carefully tending the land to keep it healthy, while utilizing resources in return. However, the advent of effective fire suppression to protect forests first as a commodity and later for recreational enjoyment has led to substantial changes in forest communities while at the same time erasing an important cultural activity from the landscape. This seminar course explores the deep connections between fire and the emergence of Great Lakes forests, as well as the cultural use of fire as a tool. In this course, we will explore the development of effective fire suppression, the emergence of fortress-ecology/conservation, and the impacts of reduced fire activity on forest resilience. We will also discuss the concept of `wilderness? and traditional ecological knowledge and the relationship with fire management today, particularly within the framework of a changing climate. This course is meant to merge interdisciplinary topics in ecology, climatology, and geography to explore the important connections between humans and their physical environment in the Upper Great Lakes pine landscapes. The course will be discussion based with frequent visits from resource professionals and the instructor?s Indigenous research collaborators.
HSEM 3072H - Leonardo da Vinci: Between Art and Science, History and Myth [AH]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
This course is designed to introduce students to Leonardo da Vinci the historical man, and to his rich body of work produced during his lifetime from 1462-1519. It is also designed to consider as well how a mythic understanding of Leonardo da Vinci was also fashioned from this same historical foundation, turning him into an almost supernatural icon of the universal creative genius. Especially noteworthy in the mythic idea of Leonardo is his seeming transcendence of the imagined ?Two Cultures? divide between the Arts and the Sciences, and his identity as a virtuoso artist in multiple domains simultaneously (painting, scuplture, architecture, and the visual arts overall) a pioneering figure in science, engineering, and the history of technology in fields ranging from anatomy to hydraulics and engineering to physics. How, this course will ask, did each of these aspects of Leonardo?s work come to be a part of his historical life and accomplishments, and how after his death was his fully historical life and work refashioned into our contemporary mythistorical understanding of Leonardo as a singular universal genius and seemingly supernatural "Renaissance Man"? The course will pursue these topics in three parts. Part I (Weeks 1-7) will be devoted to the historical Leonardo, and during spring break (March 3-12) we pursue Part II by traveling to Italy to experience Leonardo?s Italy as it exists today, and to start connecting the historical life with the imagined legacy of it. In Part III (weeks 12-15), we will consider the invention of the mythistory of Leonardo in the centuries after his death, especially the forging in the modern era (after 1870) of his contemporary identity as a seemingly magical and superhuman creative genius who defies interpretation in ordinary historical terms.
HSEM 3077H - Myths and Legends of the Polar North [LITR]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This course is a global comparative investigation of the traditional myths, legends, and folktales that have been produced by diverse communities ringing the northern polar regions; we will draw a circle around the top of the world (approximately the 58th or 60th parallel) and see what we find. Thus, we will study many cultures and their literatures and beliefs that are not often combined: the indigenous cultures of North America and beyond; the Russian and Baltic regions; the Scandinavian countries and Finland; Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales. We will draw attention to similarities and differences in these literatures and cultures; we will examine the phenomenon of cultural contact and the migration of stories and beliefs across cultures; we will explore the world of traditional oral folktales and poetry. We will also survey a broad time span: although some of our tales were only first written down and recorded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, much of our material reaches back into the premodern past.
HSEM 3078H - The Search: Life, Death, and Meaning
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
Does life have a purpose? What does it mean to say that a life has been lived well or poorly? Those of us who are troubled by such questions see them as critical to the practical decisions we must make about how to live. What counts as meaningful work? How are love and friendship related to a well-lived life? What does it mean to live authentically? Is the existence of God necessary for life to have meaning? This course will use philosophy, fiction, and film to explore larger questions around the meaning and purpose of life, with special attention to their relationship to digital technology, politics and medicine.
HSEM 3079V - Art and Revolution [AH WI GP]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This class will explore the relationship between political revolution and artistic expression. The primary focus will be on the Soviet Union and Mexico, both famous for the dramatic artistic developments that accompanied their radical political transformation. As secondary points of comparison, the class will also study the art arising from other revolutions in other countries, including the United States, France, Cuba, and Algeria. The main concern with be with the visual arts, especially cinema and painting, although some consideration will be given to sculpture, printmaking, architecture, and design, as well as to literature. To frame the overall topic, we will also do some readings that address the historical and conceptual issues associated with the idea of revolution.
HSEM 3084H - Analysis of the Intersection of Communication and Sport
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
This course is designed to explore in depth the relationship between communication and sport. We will examine theories of communication and connect them to sport. This course will not be a discussion of sport for sport?s sake, but instead ask important questions about how we use sports as a means to create community, define gender and race, and promote or refute political ideologies, among other things. Readings will examine the interrelationship of sports and these critical topics. The purpose is to ask questions that help illuminate the symbolic nature of sports in our or any culture.
HSEM 3085H - Why They Can't Go Home: The Housing Crisis in the United States
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Communities across the country are experiencing symptoms of the housing crisis--neighborhoods segregated by race and class, decrepit inner-city and rural housing, soaring home prices and apartment rents, renters and assisted-living residents evicted, longtime residents displaced by gentrification, overcrowded shelters, and people living in tent cities or on mean streets. To probe the housing crisis, this course examines three geographic areas as case studies: Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, and Bedford-Stuyvesant (in Brooklyn, New York). The mechanisms we will study include restrictive racial covenants, white violence, redlining and mortgage lending, white flight to suburbs, eviction, and gentrification. We will differentiate the individual, institutional, and systemic levels of racism and classism that contribute to the patterned inequality of housing in the United States. In addition to the housing crisis, this course will help you understand the different genres that present information. You will analyze creative nonfiction, scholarship, law, videos, and photographs. They use different modes -- such as words or images, stories or statistics, dialogue or description -- to convey meanings that foreground and background different aspects of any given issue.
HSEM 3087V - History through Memoir [WI]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Memoirs?non-fictional life stories?offer an intriguing lens into the past. They vividly portray personal experiences, but they also raise questions about the reliability of the narrator. What kinds of histories are memoirs? Is the memoirist responsible to the historical record in the same way as a professional historian? What kinds of memoirs do historians write? We will examine memoirs written in the last two decades that explore ethnicity, identity, migration, memory, and belonging, and that use individual experience to illuminate a broader social and political history in the United States. We will attend to the narrator?s voice and writing strategies. In addition to writing short analytical and reflective pieces, you will research and write your own (8-10 page) personal narrative, placing a personal experience into its historical context and creating a sense of specific time and place. Seeing history through the lens of memoir shows how lives are shaped by specific historical circumstances, even as people make choices about how to frame and narrate their experiences.
HSEM 3089H - Worlds of Conflict and the Arts
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
War has been part of human history as well as a central subject of ethical inquiries and artistic expression since ancient times. In this course we will explore worlds of conflict through literary and artistic works that respond to acts of war and reflect upon the ethical issues thereby engendered. We will engage ancient epics from India, Greece, Mali, and Japan; first-hand accounts and philosophical debates pertaining to European colonialism, as well as the ever-expanding warring world of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Throughout our journey, we will investigate interrelated notions of `just war?, heroic codes, and propaganda, as well as artistic reactions to human suffering or triumph. We will be looking at art, viewing theatre performances and films, and listening to music as a means of engaging with the moral dimensions and tragic consequences of human conflict.
HSEM 3205H - Environmental Justice and Climate Futures: the Mississippi River Corridor
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring; may be repeated for 6 credits)
The urgent pressures for equity and justice, and for a response to the changing climate, are complex, intertwined, "wicked problems." The Mississippi River, a storied part of the American landscape that is literally and figuratively the center of the North American continent, provides a profound space to explore how the river and American society have shaped each other. The seminar uses an Environmental Justice lens to examine the past, present, and potential futures of the river's biological, physical, and socio-cultural systems in a changing climate. The seminar will bring together knowledge from a number of academic disciplines, as well as community and cross-sector professional and agency perspectives.
HSEM 3231H - It's Giving...: Queer and Feminist Approaches to Hip Hop [DSJ]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
This course examines our current moment in hip hop wherein there are a number of high-profile women and LGBTQ+ rappers, and it also provides insight into the long history of queer and feminist practitioners in?as well as queer and feminist analyses of?hip hop. We will learn about and analyze hip hop music, music videos, films, novels, dance, art, and other related Black cultural performances in order to examine and highlight what?s politically at stake when we approach hip hop through queer and feminist lenses. The goal is to: 1) Explore the people who, and practices and moments that, made/make our current era of hip hop possible and 2) Speak to how the racialized political foundation and ongoing import of hip hop will always be tied to queer and feminist politics and visions.
HSEM 3232H - Honors Research in London [GP]
(6 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Summer)
This course provides Honors students with the opportunity to undertake a research project in the context of their international education experience. The course is structured as 5 weeks of reading and discussion, followed by 7 weeks primarily devoted to research in London. Students will be guided towards London research opportunities in consultation with the Learning Abroad Center, instructional faculty at UMN and in London, on-site partners, and shaped by local resources and expertise. Students will be introduced to core research concepts and will develop research skills through designing, executing, writing, and presenting their own research project within frameworks appropriate to their discipline. The topics students explore will be consistent with majors and individual interests and exploit the unique opportunities available in London.
HSEM 3241H - Human Impacts on Earth?s Natural Resources
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
Humans? ability to be sustainable and live in harmony with nature is being challenged by their uncontrolled consumption of natural resources leading to resource scarcity, social conflicts, and other destabilizing social pressures. It is hypothesized that a failure by humans to change course will put the Earth?s inhabitants on track to severe and potentially catastrophic implications. The support for the hypothesis comes from the pioneering work of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and others, arguing that all natural resources are irreversibly degraded when put to use in economic activity. Paul Ehrlich, in his bet with Julian Simon, had an opposing perspective that resource depletion may not be a problem for the future of humanity. Others said the following: ?We write with the conviction that knowledge and technology, applied with wisdom, might allow for a good, or even great, Anthropocene?. These statements provide evidence both in support of and against the hypothesis. Students registered for this course will learn resource consumption dynamics and distribution from both perspectives. The information presented in this course will be valuable to the policymakers, stakeholders, and administrators working with human resource consumption. The specific aims are the following: (1) Introduce the distribution and regulation of Earth?s natural resources. (2) Explain the human pressures that decouple resource consumption from resource regeneration (in support of the hypothesis). (3) Discuss the social aspects of resource consumption in the Anthropocene (against the hypothesis). (4) Work on Group research projects based on the opposing views of resource consumption.
HSEM 3242H - Food As A Cultural Good
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
Food is considered a nutritional good when it is so much more. In this Honors Seminar, we will explore our personal values, ethics, and social, cultural, and religious aspects of food production and consumption. We will examine some core issues faced by producers, suppliers, and consumers around the world. Questions regarding the relationship of agricultural and ecological processes, roles of individual farmers and agribusiness, religious and cultural considerations, personal choices, and nutritious and satisfying meals will challenge each of us to construct a personal framework around food. Guest lecturers of different backgrounds and interests will be engaged throughout the course. For example, we will tap into many stakeholders, including but not limited to academics, activists, community leaders, and religious groups who have expertise in food production and consumption. Soil scientists will explain how rocky soils and steep slopes have challenged Central American agricultural practice. Veterinarians will help us understand how their relationship with the farmers and animals have helped shape their vocation and the surrounding food production systems. Environmental scientists will explore the implications of modern agriculture on environmental sustainability. This course adopts interdisciplinary perspectives. Students will read, think about, and discuss materials sourced from disciplines such as environmental science, geography, economics, anthropology, and history. This Honors Seminar will help us appreciate the landscapes and ecosystems, human labor, and socio-economic infrastructure needed at the local level to fulfill the task of putting food on the plate and become aware of what occurs at a global scale to feed the world while being both economically and ecologically sustainable. At the completion of the Honors Seminar, each of us should be able to explain that not only is food a nutritional good but also to understand, in a global context, the signi
HSEM 3247H - Philosophy on the Rocks
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
Strength, play, flourishing, character, artifice, accessibility?all of these are philosophical topics. In this course, we?ll study them through their embodiment in a particular practice: rock climbing. We?ll divide our studies into three units: Sport, Wellbeing, and Social Construction. We begin with the most concrete: Sport. Is climbing sport? Play? Both? What does it take to be a sport? How do we define play? How are these related? Here, we consider C. Thi Nguyen?s recent book Games: Agency as Art and various philosophical works on the philosophy of sport. In this section, we?ll also begin our exploration of disability within climbing, beginning with a lecture from local adaptive climbing professionals. As we shift our attention to Wellbeing, we will consider the role of play and movement in a life well lived, the possibility of resistance through joyful activity, and the creation of communities and communal spaces. We?ll also learn about quiet resistance from Prof. Tamara Fakhoury and hear about the creation of movement patterns from setters at our local gym, the Minneapolis Bouldering Project. Finally, we consider social construction. The development of climbing has brought us from unstructured play in the wilderness to Olympic competition in carefully graded, pristinely crafted problems set with plastic holds on artificial, almost featureless walls. We have created fine-grained rating systems that categorize the difficulty of climbs that purport to provide objective measures, even as we know that they don?t map on to the different bodies and preferences of different climbers. We?ll look at these phenomena through the lens of social construction to understand what they mean and the role they play in our society.
HSEM 3248H - Conspiracy Theories
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
This course focuses on conspiracy theories in the U.S. from the early twentieth century up to the present day. Utilizing an interdisciplinary, historically-grounded approach, we will consider how conspiratorial thinking has shaped U.S. politics, society, and culture with an eye toward understanding the contemporary circulation of misinformation. We will discuss a variety of conspiracy theory-related topics, ranging from aliens/UFOs and the assassination of JFK to 9/11, Q-Anon, and Covid-19. Our sources will include documentary films, popular culture, news stories, and scholarly articles and books. Together, we will ponder how conspiracy theories originate and proliferate; what conspiracy theories tell us about notions of citizenship, identity, and belonging; and the ramifications of how and when these theories are put into practice.
HSEM 3414H - Setting Prices on the Priceless -- The Moral Arithmetic of Pricing Prescription Drugs
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall; may be repeated for 3 credits)
In the 1930s, antiwar activists used the epithet ?merchants of death? to denounce armaments manufacturers and their financiers. In a curious twist, today it is the turn of what might be called ?merchants of life? ? for-profit drug companies which have saved hundreds of millions of lives ? to be a pariah industry. The rage against drug companies is bipartisan. In the 2016 Presidential race, Trump said that drug companies were getting away with murder and Clinton charged that they were making a fortune out of people?s misfortune. The main complaint against drug companies is, of course, that they are price gougers. They abuse their government-enforced monopolies to charge extortionate prices that deny some Americans access to treatment for life-threatening illnesses, bankrupt middle-class Americans, and place intolerable strains on state budgets. This seminar will use a cure for hepatitis C (Sovaldi) to evaluate the claim that drug companies charge exorbitant prices and (optimistically?) to try to answer the question of what is a just price for a life-saving drug. Or, in other words, how should we price priceless goods? Note: In fall 2022, this course will be offered as an A-Term 2 credit course.
HSEM 3511H - Science Court: Strengthening Democracy through Rational Discourse [CIV]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Science Court is a mock trial system designed to promote democratic norms by investigating controversial societal issues, based on facts and sound scientific research, in front of a judge and jury of citizens. Students work together in three teams (Science, Legal and Media) to plan, research, execute, and report a SciCourt case.
HSEM 3515H - Infrastructure and Society [CIV]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This seminar explores the social, economic, and cultural significance of public infrastructure. Drawing on examples from transportation and communication, the seminar will expose students to questions of design, political economy, and expected/unexpected outcomes of infrastructure. The seminar will allow students to visit local sites (in our local infrastructure project), work collaboratively with other students, and critically examine an important but often-overlooked set of built forms. Types of infrastructure examined will include: bridges, subways, water systems, telecommunications, mobile communications, and `informal infrastructure? (when citizens or collectives engage in shared infrastructure-like projects for the common good). The goals of this seminar are to (a) introduce students to different types of infrastructure, including elements that are invisible to users, and (b) engage students in social-economic questions and debates surrounding infrastructure.
HSEM 3701H - Exercise is Medicine
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
Regular exercise is essential for good health and is important in the prevention and treatment of many diseases. The benefits of exercise and fitness, however, are frequently overlooked and under-emphasized in American health care delivery. Similar to other medical interventions, exercise has indications, contraindications, and potential complications and side effects. This seminar will explore these issues as well as related ones such as musculoskeletal concerns, nutrition, and sedentary physiology. Seminar format will include lectures, assigned readings, discussions, tests, and participant presentations. All seminar participants will research a different pre-approved aspect of exercise as medicine and present their findings at the seminar.
HSEM 3705H - Nanotechnology: A Blessing or Curse to Society [ENV]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Despite extensive commercial applications, a clear understanding of the adverse effects of Engineered Nanoparticles (ENPs) is lacking. A survey of the literature indicated the available information to be incomplete, independently unverified, and some may have been over-interpreted. Deep uncertainties currently pervade every step of the risk assessment of ENPs, making the procedure incapable of properly serving its purpose. The current conventional risk assessment strategies are not applicable for ENPs because of their unique properties and toxicity that may not conform to the norms of classic toxicology laws. Therefore, implementing some non-conventional tools in the risk assessment framework may be needed to reduce uncertainties and deliver accurate risk characterization of ENPs. This would enable current regulation to adequately reflect the risks of ENPs and protect the environment and the community. Therefore, the students registered for this seminar will learn some general features of ENPs, how the general public might be exposed to ENPs, and their potential health effects so that they can make an informed decision regarding the safe use of ENPs. With a serious information gap regarding ENPs safety, whether ENPs are a blessing or a curse is debatable.
HSEM 3715H - Doctors Behaving Badly: The Causes and Consequences of Medical Research Scandals
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This course will take students on a tour of the deadliest and most controversial research scandals in recent medical history. Some of these episodes are well-known, such as the exploitation of poor African American men with syphilis in Tuskegee, Alabama, and the injection of the hepatitis A virus into mentally disabled children at the Willowbrook State School in New York. But such well-known cases represent only a small fraction of ethically contentious medical research. In the 1960s, for example, at the world-renowned Allen Memorial Institute at McGill University, the CIA paid psychiatric researchers to use mentally ill subjects in "mind control" experiments involving LSD, intensive electroconvulsive therapy, and drug-induced comas for up to three months at a time. In 1996, during a meningitis epidemic in Nigeria, researchers for the pharmaceutical company Pfizer conducted a study of an unapproved antibiotic on children without the informed consent of their parents, resulting in eleven deaths. In 2013, two neurosurgeons at the University of California-Davis were forced to resign after authorities discovered that they had intentionally implanted bacteria in the brains of cancer patients. Today, the University of Minnesota itself is under investigation after for the case of Dan Markingson, a mentally ill young man who nearly decapitated himself after allegedly being coerced into an AstraZeneca-funded psychiatric study. In this course, we will explore questions such as: What cultural and institutional forces allowed the scandals to occur? What were the best ethical arguments in favor of allowing the research to proceed? How were the scandals exposed? What was the role of investigative reporters, regulatory authorities, and whistleblowers? Should we have confidence that research abuse is not occurring today?
HSEM 3718H - Women's Reproduction: History, Policy, and the Health Care System [DSJ]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
Understanding women's reproductive health requires consideration of the intersections of gender, race, class, culture, geography, economic status, and nation within a historical and sociopolitical context. This course will build upon our current understanding of major conditions affecting the reproductive health of women, e.g. pregnancy, parenting, reproductive control, and menopause by raising challenges from a feminist perspective and encouraging expanded models that address the complexity of women's reproductive health in today's society.
HSEM 3801H - Modern China: Law, History, and Culture [GP]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
This course will provide a comprehensive overview of law and politics of 20th and 21st-century China, in their historical and cultural contexts. It will introduce undergraduate students to distinctive paradigms and discursive patterns of law and politics in China, with the intention of fostering comparative analysis and critical thinking. The course will focus on high profile legal cases and major political events in the People's Republic of China today. The course will conclude by examining current issues in Chinese law from both sides, and by looking into China's argument for the "Beijing Consensus," essentially a new type of capitalism, without Western-style rule of law. The classes will progress by way of interactive discussion and critical readings of historical documents and legal texts. This course is designed to break through the traditional Chinese learning/western learning dichotomy and interpret legal cases, political events, and cultural phenomena from a comparative perspective. It will bring to light the hidden rationales underscoring historical and ideological narratives, and will explain how frequent misunderstandings can occur when comparing cultures. Students will be encouraged to use critical thinking to argue, to test whether the incommensurability of paradigms can be reconciled, and to explore how different political systems and cultures can communicate with each other and exchange ideas effectively.
HSEM 3804H - Women who Rock (the Boat): Leadership and the Nobel Peace Prize [GP]
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Spring)
Lawyers, nuns, social workers, and schoolgirls have won the Nobel Peace Prize. In achieving this distinction, they hone their leadership skills to a fine art. They face personal danger, inner conflicts, social challenges, and pointed criticism. Succeeding despite their flaws, their ability to inspire courageous, innovative action cuts across age-groups, decades, borders, and nationality. Students in this Honors Seminar will touch and experience that inspiration. Students will intensively study several extraordinary women from different cultures who have won the Prize; e.g., Aung San Suu Kyi, Leymah Gbowee, Sharin Ebadi, Mother Teresa, and Malala Yousafzai. What characterizes their leadership? What have they accomplished and at what price? How do they survive their successes, failures, and controversies? How applicable are their approaches to a student's everyday life and future? This highly interactive class will examine these questions through biographies, videos, lectures, writing, student presentations, and group discussions.
HSEM 3807H - Understanding Police Use of Force
(3 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall)
Police use of force incidents are at the forefront of contemporary discussions of law, politics, and culture in the United States and in Minnesota. In this course we will examine legal and cultural issues related to the use of force by police in the United States both from a historical perspective and by examining present-day cases and events nationally and in Minnesota. We will learn and discuss law enforcement use of force decision making through the lenses of the United States Constitution and the cases that have interpreted its meaning. Because all uses of force by law enforcement officers against free citizens is governed by 4th Amendment standards, we will begin with an understanding of 4th Amendment applicability and how it relates to policy, training, supervision, the decision to use force, and the evaluation that takes place thereafter by the courts and law enforcement policy makers. We will learn about the use of force investigative process and the litigation process that oftentimes results from a law enforcement use of force incident, particularly those incidents that result in death. Analysis of specific cases will involve the review of public law enforcement data which will include police body worn camera video of graphic and violent incidents as well as relevant events occurring in the aftermath of use of use of force incidents.
HSEM 3809H - Starting Up A Startup
(2 cr; A-F only; offered Periodic Fall & Spring)
This seminar will help students develop a foundation of practical business knowledge. Participants will review standard corporate documents, engage in classroom discussion, and complete supervised hands-on experiences to learn how companies conduct business activities in the real world. Students in this seminar will be expected to review and analyze academic literature explaining basic economic and legal theory to facilitate discussion and understanding. However, the course will emphasize business in practice. For example, we will: ? Detail the steps to form a new company by filing Articles of Formation for an actual Minnesota limited liability company ? Conduct a hypothetical contract negotiation with students assuming the role of various counterparties ? Host a panel of guest speakers specializing in early-stage business financing ? Observe a meeting of a corporation?s Board of Directors The amount of attention given to each of the seminar?s various topics can be tailored to the specific interests and backgrounds of the class participants.

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