Honors Course Archive

This course is a research-intensive learning experience designed to help students to explore social justice through an engagement of theo-ethical reflection on race, gender and sexuality. The course draws upon the most current developing work available, including the acclaimed “Under My Skin: Artists Explore Race in the 21st Century” exhibit at Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum of the Asian American Pacific Experience, the forthcoming volume, Lovely Tents of Jacob: the Vagina in Scripture by Erica L. Martin (November 2013), and the very recently published Rainbow Theology: Bridging Race, Sexuality and Spirit, by Patrick Cheng (2013).
Each week students engage assigned texts in preparation for discussion-intensive classes that allow students to develop the necessary theological vocabulary of concepts to intended deepen and clarify their analyses of the perspectives being explored. 


There is an ethnographic research component to the course. Students will interview a member/s of a community whose views do not mirror their own in order to demonstrate thoughtful understanding of a system of values around race, gender or sexuality not identical with their own, and to do so in a manner consonant with the theological ethics/values established within class at the start of the course. 

Graded work:
1) 5-7 minute video interview (or 15 minute video clip, if students decide to form a group to work with other class mates) representing the perspective of the community the student has chosen to engage,

2) 5-page double-spaced written reflection describing and engaging the theological worldview of the subject/s interviewed.

5-minute video of student reflecting on the interview experience and the overall course learning. To be included as an artifact in student’s Honors Portfolio

What are the opportunities for education in prison? What are the benefits to students and what are the constraints of the institution? This class will be centered around a series of visits we will make to the Twin Rivers Unit of the Monroe Correctional Complex (about 30-40 minutes outside of Seattle). We will study collaboratively with a group of prisoners there, and we will tour the facility and meet with the prison’s administrative staff and correctional officers; some of these staff members will come to our class on campus before we take our first trip to the prison. The class will also hear from other guest speakers and from UW faculty who are engaged in providing educational opportunities inside prisons.

Students must receive clearance from the Dept. of Corrections in order to enter the prison facility; class size will be limited to 15 students. More details will be available at the information session scheduled for Friday, May 24, at 3:30 in MGH 206. Please contact the instructor, Claudia Jensen (cjensen@uw.edu), for more information or if you can’t attend the information session.

This class is both a “historiography” class in that we will be doing primary and secondary research towards building a personal biography of Steven Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers, but also a critical look at the modern technology from the social, economic, environmental, global, labor, gender and political lenses. Students are expected to produce a final biographical paper of Steven Jobs (length: 12 pages and above) that incorporates as many of these different elements as possible; interwoven together into a sustained and clear argument. Did Steven Jobs change the world? Did his benefits outweigh any possible social costs? Is he a good role model for young male and female entrepreneurs? There are regular readings, some short papers, two quizzes and a final. The emphasis in the class is on discussion, active learning, group activity and also regular class debates on Thursdays.