Honors Course Archive

Latino contributions to popular music in the United States have too often been relegated to the margins of a narrative dominated by African and European Americans-an overly black and white view of our musical history. Latin music is often portrayed as an exotic resource for “American” musicians, as suggested by pianist Jelly Roll Morton’s reference to “the Latin Tinge.” This course turns that phrase and that perspective on its head. “American Sabor” addresses problems of cultural representation that concern an increasingly visible and influential community in the U.S. We will document the roles of U.S. Latino musicians as interpreters of Latin American genres. We will also highlight their roles as innovators within genres normally considered indigenous to the U.S., such as rock and roll, R & B, jazz, country/western, and hip hop. The course distinguishes regional centers of Latino population and music production-exploring unique histories, artists, and musical styles. At the same time it draws out broader patterns of boundary crossing, language, social struggle, generational difference, racial/ethnic/class/gender identification, and other factors that shape the experiences of U.S. Latinos everywhere.

In the aftermath of World War II, encounters between African Americans and Germans had important political and cultural effects on both sides of the Atlantic. However, while most scholarly attention has been devoted to the impact of this encounter on the African American community, only few such debates have considered the impact of these encounters on German society and the emergence of a Black German political consciousness. In this seminar we will look at the cultural conjunctions between these two diasporic communities as they are mediated through cultural productions, such as fictional and non-fictional literary texts, music and film, as well as through activism and community politics. Students in this class will thus become acquainted with theoretical and methodological approaches from Black Studies, Black Diaspora Studies, and Critical Mixed Race studies, as well as critical perspectives on transnationalism. I understand the political and cultural debates that ensued around relationships between African American soldiers and white German women during the immediate post-war years in both countries as a case in point to shed light on the convergence of German and US American anti-Black sentiments and political agendas. Moving on from there, the focus of this seminar will be on the 1980s, the formative years of Black German political activism and community formation, and the community’s development up until the present. In the early stages of the Black German movement, interactions between Black German women and the Black American writer, activist, and scholar Audre Lorde were an important driving force. Highlighting the fact that Black queer women continue to be at the forefront of community formation in both cultural contexts, another theoretical focus of this seminar is on intersectionality, as well as Black feminist and Black queer modes of knowledge production.

The transition from the Republic to the Imperial period in Roman history brought stability and a reprieve from generations of civil wars, but it also signaled a loss of rights. The central question of this course will be what the Romans ultimately gave up for this authoritarian stability and why. Through primary and secondary sources as well as archaeological evidence, we will use this period as a lens to investigate the curtailing of rights such as freedom of speech and democracy. We will further consider what role the civil wars and class conflict played in the breakdown of the republican system.

Builds basic drawing skills, develops understanding of primary concepts which relate to drawing and develops an understanding of the grammar or syntax of two-dimensional language. Students move beyond their current knowledge and abilities and link new skills, concepts, and understandings to creative expression.

Learn more about the instructors career and/or her work:
https://art.washington.edu/people/ann-gale
https://savvypainter.com/podcast/ann-gale/
https://paintingperceptions.com/interview-with-ann-gale/

Storytelling is ancient, effective, and satisfying, but using stories to communicate the nuances and ambiguities of science can be a challenge. In this course students will craft presentations that reflect their personal interests in nature and science, and in doing so they will learn how to effectively explain their own work, helping them develop into experts in their field.

The class is centered around two presentations of a scientific nature, as well as a mythic storytelling assignment intended to develop storytelling skills. You will work closely in small groups to develop your presentation, delivered on days set aside for this purpose.

In game theory, a “game” is any interaction in which decisions must be made. Penalty kicks in soccer. Nuclear disarmament. Predator-prey behaviors. Hostage negotiation. Voting coalitions. Auction bidding. Insurance pricing. Cooperative hunting. Fish schooling. Political collusion. Information sharing. And on and on and on.

Game theory is a math toolkit used to analyze games. It’s a way to formalize games, to think about their strategies, their dynamics, and the expected actions of others. Game theory is the study of how we do — and do not — get along.

Over the last 30 years, the computational capabilities of computers has increased by many orders of magnitude, to a point now that highly sophisticated software routines enable applications that not only mimic human intelligence but promise to surpass human abilities in many areas. This future, originally labeled as science fiction, is now widely recognized as inevitable: the robots are coming, and they are clearly going to replace human beings in many, if not most, work environments.

So, it seems like an appropriate time to undertake an appraisal of the A.I. field:  What is the current state of the science and engineering, with an emphasis on what are the likely societal impacts. Will robots indeed make many, if not most, current job categories obsolete? If so, what will humans do in a world of no work?  Is the threat of robots building robots mark an existential threat for humans? What about privacy and security in a world of ubiquitous A.I. monitoring?

Or, on the other hand, are these and other “scary scenarios” just so much internet-fueled hype?  Is this advance in computer power essentially just another technology-enabled displacement of the kind we have lived through in the past 19th and 20th centuries? After all, western societies transitioned from rural configurations where 95% of the population were employed in agriculture, to modern ones where less than 5% have anything to do with raising food; and yet, there was no accompanying mass unemployment. Will we successfully transition this A.I. displacement as well, or is there something unique and fundamentally different, requiring a wholesale reorganization of our society?

This course will involve wide reading, preparation and delivery of presentations, and debates surrounding the nature of human vs. machine. We will look into the history of A.I., and try to evaluate the current state-of-art. We will read contemporary futurists, and construct our own future predictions.

The course will emphasize presentations, either in a group or individually. There will be several short essay assignments, and a final term paper and presentation. We will often have guest speakers, ranging from technology experts, to campus leaders concerned with the philosophical implications of a “robot future”.  The course will be graded on your presentations, written submissions, and, importantly, on your class participation.

We will consider the following six interrelated propositions, and we will consider the implications of these propositions for the conduct of good (i.e., ethical and effective) leadership.

1. Leadership involves at its base the creation of a persuaded audience; but beyond that, leadership involves creating and sustaining a more thoughtful public, a public capable of rising above itself.

2. A more thoughtful public must not only be created and sustained, but, given that things inevitably fall apart, must be recovered and reconstituted.

3. Good leadership involves ethical and effective information seeking. A leader must have knowledge of what must be done, knowledge of what it takes to persuade others of what must be done (and, in persuading, helping to create a more thoughtful public), and knowledge of how an audience/public will respond. Only with a thorough understanding of the principles, strategies, and costs of information seeking will one be able to engage in ethical and effective leadership.

4. Leadership always has a political context; leadership in a democracy is necessarily different than leadership in other kinds of political regimes.

5. Leadership always involves assumptions (tacit and acknowledged) about human nature.

6. In a free political regime, assuming free and fair elections, we get the kinds of leaders we deserve and we must consider how to behave in ways to deserve the kinds of leaders we say we want.

Sources of texts will include Tocqueville, Orwell, Machiavelli, Bacon, Dostoevsky, and Sophocles, as well as contemporary authors.

Method of instruction: close reading of texts, coupled with fifteen 1-2 page single-spaced papers on texts, plus a longer (approximately 6,500 words) synthesis paper; small and large group discussions with each other, two lectures, and two visiting scholars/practitioners.

Throughout the quarter, we will make theoretical and practical applications of key concepts to consideration of the critical issues of climate change and climate change communication.

For further details, please see 230 class page at the class web page (canvas.uw.edu). Once at the 230 class page, go to \”files\” and you’ll see links to most of the readings plus the Autumn 2018 syllabus. (Note: 2019 syllabus will be roughly the same.) I strongly recommend consulting the syllabus with care in order to get a sense of expectations and consequent demands on your time.

You will note that some of the readings are deceptively short in length. For example, our readings from Tocqueville’s Democracy in America are all of thirteen pages. The Bacon essay, just three pages. But these texts (and others throughout the course) demand multiple close readings.

I will be glad to talk with you further about any aspect of the course. The surest way to reach me is via email: rsoder@uw.edu

LGBTI rights in foreign policy represent the evolution of a principle in human rights that formerly did not impact international affairs. Promoting LGBTI rights in foreign policy introduces a new set of principles and moral standards that regulate international relations according to emerging human rights norms. International relations are now reevaluated due to new standards, such as the U.S. and Sweden’s bilateral relationships with Uganda. During this course, students will examine the intense global debate over LGBTI equality norms within a global and domestic context; how human rights concepts evolve, strategies of social movements, as well as how states influence one another. The goal of this course is for students to understand why and how LGBTI rights were introduced into some nations’ foreign policies. What were the catalysts to institutionalize sexual minority rights into the respective foreign policies? The course will examine differences in social mobilizations and in particular the role of NGOs, insider governmental allies, national interest, transnational activists, and sensitizing events for same sex relations globally, as central factors for developing respective foreign policy agendas. Students will investigate the varying strategies civil society groups and leaders have, and continue, to employ in order to influence institutional change across cultures and global regions. Students will focus first on human rights norm entrepreneur nations. Specifically, social movements in Scandinavia that have led to reforms internationally on LGBTI equality. Next, students will analyze human rights in countries such as the United States, where human rights in foreign policy at times presents a paradox when compared to its domestic human rights record. Students will engage with leading American and international activists. Through guest speakers, group projects, and simulations students will gain experiential learning of human rights advocacy.

This course examines the challenges historians face when writing the history of the Aztecs (Mexica), a people whose codices, or written pictorial records of their past, were largely destroyed by the Spanish after colonization in 1521. In asking how historians investigate and interpret the histories of populations when traditional forms of primary source evidence are unavailable, we will complicate our thinking about how historical knowledge is produced. In the process, we will also examine the broader history of the Aztec Empire and the Spanish colonial society that formed in its aftermath. Particular attention will be paid to notions of religion, cosmology, and daily life among the Aztecs.

“You know why you can enjoy a day at the zoo?” Donald Trump Jr. asked in a 2019 Instagram post. “Because walls work.” Such a statement provoked immediate criticism, but it is an artifact of the long and entangled histories of humanity and animality as they converge in the constructions of race, empire, and nation. This seminar invites students to think critically about what it means to be human. We will engage ideologies of race, empire and species, and consider how animality has been central to the project of western civilization. Students will explore histories of zoos and food production, the politics of immigration and decolonial movements, and the significance of Indigenous epistemologies. By the end of the course, students will be able to critically discuss the work of classic and contemporary social theorists, describe the ways in which varied vectors of difference (e.g. race, dis/ability, gender, species) have been objects of civilizing projects, and explain the ontological and epistemological contributions of Indigenous scholars to critiques of western civilization. Through seminar discussions, field trips, collaborative projects, and in-class exercises, we will think together about what foregrounding a more-than-human understanding of “life” might make possible in the construction of alternative political and social orders.

Students will participate in a two week trip from Mount Rainier National Park to Olympic National Park to North Cascades National Park. No camping or backpacking experience is required, but an open mind and a sense of adventure are! Students should be comfortable hiking moderately strenuous trails almost every day of the trip, camping in remote locations, and traveling and lodging in primitive and close quarters.

America’s National Park system, the first of its kind in the world, has been called, “the best idea America ever had”, a sentiment echoed repeatedly since it was first uttered by James Bryce in 1912. This course will examine the history of this unique idea, as well as the mission and values behind it. What do national parks mean to people? To the flora and fauna within? And what does it mean for a country to set aside the space for nearly 400 natural, cultural, and recreational sites and attempt to leave them “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations”? How is this idea progressing? How might it be in peril? The mission behind this unique system provides an excellent framework for discussing America’s history, environmental ethics, political values, and much more.

This course will take students on an exciting two week field study to the three “wilderness jewels” of Washington state’s National Parks: Mount Rainier NP, Olympic NP, and North Cascades NP in September and follow with class time in Autumn Quarter. By examining the Park Service’s goals of enjoyment (recreation), education (in both history and culture, and nature and science), and inspiration, students will answer for themselves some important questions: Why does this system exist and what is its purpose in our culture? How have current political, economic and environmental pressures challenged the mission and values of the park system? Does this system, given these challenges, effectively accomplish its own goals and are those goals still relevant in America today? If so, why? If not, how might they be adjusted to become culturally viable?

Through a combination of immersed field study to three major national parks, readings, and expert speakers, students will not only introduce themselves to these diverse and unique places in our country, but also gain a greater understanding of the purpose of such a system and look critically at the cultural and environmental issues impacting the National Parks today.

SEE COURSE FLYER HERE: https://honors.uw.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Honors-National-Park-Field-Studies.jpg

A poll of journalists and scholars at the turn of the millennium found that their choice of the most important story of the twentieth century was the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The decision was perhaps the most controversial decision any president has made. Japanese and Americans see this decision in very different ways. In 2015, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two, the Pew Research Center carried out a joint opinion poll which found that 79% of Japanese said the bombing was “not justified,” while 56% of Americans considered it “justified.” Japanese believe that Japan was defeated and on the verge of surrender, while a majority of Americans hold that the use of the bomb was necessary in order to avoid a costly invasion.

This seminar course will consider the many aspects of this set of events, including: the origins of the Manhattan Project, Roosevelt’s unconditional surrender policy, American planning for the invasion of Japan and the use of the bomb, the Potsdam Declaration, Soviet entry into the war, Japan’s internal struggle over the decision to surrender, the continuing controversy among Japanese and American historians in interpreting motivations and responsibility, the Japanese sense of victimhood, issues of morality in warfare, and the consequent reflections on war and human nature in Japanese and American literature. Historical controversy over the use of the atomic bomb has revolved around many issues including:

1.Was it necessary: was not Japan already defeated and on the verge of surrender?

2.Were there not viable alternatives such as a demonstration of the bomb or a naval blockade or modification of unconditional surrender policy or waiting for Soviet entry?

3.Was the second bomb on Nagasaki necessary?
4.Did use of the bomb save lives by averting an invasion?

5.Were the bombs morally justified? This course offers the student an opportunity to see how historians and other social scientists dealing with the same sequence of events have come to a wide range of interpretations of its meaning.

The course will consider the reasons why historians often differ in their interpretations, such as difference in motivation, selectivity in emphasis, generational and national perspective, bias, academic discipline, levels of analysis, and appearance of new materials of historical evidence. By its nature, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki decisions have been subject to the use of counterfactuals, i.e. questions of “What if…?”

The course will consider the value of these questions and of assertion of alternative courses of action and “missed opportunities” to avoid the way in which the war terminated. Ultimately, the course will force the student to grapple with achieving her/his own interpretation. It is not a course for the faint hearted. Rather, it is for the student who wants a challenge in order to improve her/his thinking, debating, research and writing ability. The course will have no examination but each student will choose a topic of particular interest on which to do extensive research, to make an oral presentation to the seminar and to write a paper on the findings of the research. The approximate length of the paper is 15 pages. The paper will constitute 50% of the course grade. The oral presentation and participation in the seminar discussion will constitute the remainder of the grade.

Most writing classes and workshops emphasize deliberate strategies of composition. This class explores other methods, instead. What can accident, chance, arbitrary constraints, and stumbled-upon juxtapositions bring to your writing practice? We experiment with methods from Oulipo, Surrealism, Dada, ekphrastic poetry, game theory, science writing, and beyond.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, recently stated that she learned her most important political lessons from working in restaurants. This class looks at food as the nexus of almost all of the major forces in U.S. politics today. We will examine food as it is connected to issues such as climate change, immigration law, criminal justice reform, workers’ rights, gentrification, education and health care. We will explore these topics through an interdisciplinary lens and place-based approach by focusing on the food industry in Seattle & King County, one of the fastest growing in the nation. This class will help students develop skills to communicate publicly about the specific role that food plays in contemporary U.S. politics and social movements. Student writing will include book and restaurant reviews, interviews of leaders in the Seattle & King County food industry and more. Classes will offer an intimidate workshop setting where students engage in collaborative editing.

This course explores social justice in a science and engineering context, with specific focus on race, gender, sexuality, and disability. We emphasize what students can do to advocate for and represent diverse peoples, and to promote social justice through science and engineering practice.

Throughout the course, we explore these inter-related questions:
1) How do our cultural ideas about race, gender, disability and sexuality influence science/engineering knowledge and practice?
2) On the other hand, how does our science/engineering practice influence our cultural ideas about race, gender, disability and sexuality?
3) How can we use science and engineering to promote social justice for all people?

Students reflect on the impact of science and engineering in society through weekly readings and class discussions. In addition, students complete a final paper and a team project in which they design a science/engineering solution that promotes social justice.

No prerequisite. All majors welcome!

Every living organism dies, as do ecosystems and species, thereby perpetuating the “circle of life.” Because life feeds on life, death is indispensable to the healthy functioning of ecosystems and even evolution itself. One species, however, has developed the capacity to anticipate (and therefore dread) death and commandeer other species in service to increasing its numbers and its material consumption. With industrialization, anthropogenic species extinctions and ecosystem collapse, once limited to local and regional scales, became planetary. Humanity is now operating well outside the planetary boundaries that characterized the Holocene, the interglacial “sweet spot” during which civilization emerged. The implications are profound: not only are we facing the end of “nature” as something separate from human culture, we are also facing the possibility of civilizational death.

We will therefore ask ourselves: what are the political and ecological consequences of how individuals and societies approach death? While death is a fact of life, questions of who lives, who dies, who decides, and with what consequences are also political ones. Our discussion will therefore be informed by themes of justice, equity, power and authority, and political agency. At the same time, because mortality is also an intensely personal reality, we will deepen our selfinquiry through poetry, videos, contemplative practices, personal exploration, and political action.

We will explore the following topics:

• Secular, religious, spiritual and indigenous perspectives on death
• Ernst Becker’s “denial of death” thesis and more recent terror management theory
• The political and ecological consequences of various “immortality projects”
• The relationship between waste and death
• Linear economics (from resource extraction to production to consumption to waste) vs. regenerative living systems
• Anthropogenic species death and the mass extinction crisis
• How cultural attitudes about ecology and death inform the treatment of animals
• Pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, and ecocide
• The political ecology of end-of-life care and the treatment of corpses
• Indigenous peoples and the relationship between the death of ecosystems and cultures
• The relationship between democracy and the political ecology of death
• Grief, hope, meaning, and political agency in the face of ecocide

Insofar as scientists use language and visual displays to communicate with others, they use rhetoric, selecting some aspects of reality to convey, and deflecting other aspects of reality from attention. Studying how scientists use rhetoric to communicate, and how nonscientists use rhetoric to argue about science and its effects in the public sphere, students in this class will discover the means of persuasion available to shape science, its products, and the relationship between both and the publics that surround them. Those who are considering a career in science will learn how to think critically about the internal and external discourse of science, improving their use of rhetorical tools in the process. Those who do not intend to become scientists will learn how to critically analyze the claims of science and respond thoughtfully and effectively to its potential influence on them in the modern world.

Student Learning Goals:
1) Understand and critically evaluate scholarship on the rhetoric of science.
2) Identify, define and use rhetorical concepts in the analysis of communication about science.
3) Recognize and evaluate the means of persuasion that can be utilized by scientists in communicating with other scientists and/or the public.
4) Recognize and evaluate the means of persuasion that can be utilized by advocates critiquing or protesting against science and/or its consequences in the public sphere.
5) Write an original rhetorical criticism essay that contributes to the subfield known as “rhetoric of science.”

The purpose of Critical Community Organizing course is to learn about the relationship between community engagement, activism and communities of color in Seattle. It is designed for students both interests in community-based organizing, as well as those considering career opportunities in a variety of community-based organization and social change fields including elected office. This course intends to provide an academic and practical action framework of community organizing to effect policy change. We will hear how community members and legislature respond to social forces and how they inform political changes. We will read, view, listen to and attend community events. Throughout the quarter, students will examine the ways that race, class, gender, sexuality, indigeneity and other forms of identities construct privilege and power. This course will build on prior courses that discuss systemic oppressions in the United States. It will have a strong emphasis on civic engagements, community building and resistances to oppressions. Students will be expected to follow legislative bills that impact communities of color.

This course is an upper division class examining the history of ancient architecture, beginning with the earliest known structures in the prehistoric period around 10,000 BCE and ending around the 11th century CE. The requirements are regular attendance of weekly lectures, written assignments and a mid term and final exam. The Honors discussion section meets once a week with the class instructor to facilitate a more critical engagement with the historical survey material presented in the thrice-weekly lectures. Emphasis shall be placed on the exploration of contemporary concerns within the context of the survey’s major themes that include architecture as a second nature; origins and mythologies of first cities; power, politics and space; concepts of the sacred; and gender and space.

Course Objectives:
· Understand the built environment of the past and present as an expression of the social, technological and aesthetic forces of the societies that built them and as settings for their everyday life, rites and rituals.

·Demonstrate an understanding of architectural vocabulary by being able to define building types and key terms that relate to design, construction and materials.

·Understand drawing conventions in architectural drawing (for eg: plan, section, elevation, perspectives and details) as a means to describe three-dimensional objects and sites.

·Demonstrate the capacity to critically analyze the key works and communicate ideas effectively about the built environment in a series of writing assignments and tests, and in class discussions.

·Foster an appreciation for built works not just as self-contained physical artifacts of a distant past but as social, living texts that express the complexities and contradictions of the cultures of the past and of the present

For Biochemistry majors and molecular and cell biology majors. Core concepts in biochemistry, including protein structure, compartmentalization of reactions, thermodynamics and kinetics in a biological context, energy production, and regulation of metabolic pathways. HONORS BIOC covers the same topics as BIOC 440, but emphasizes group exercises and analysis of primary literature.

CHEM 145 and CHEM 155 cover material in CHEM 142, CHEM 152, and CHEM 162. Includes laboratory. No more than the number of credits indicated can be counted toward graduation from the following course groups: CHEM 142, CHEM145 (5 credits); CHEM 145, CHEM 155, CHEM 162 (10 credits).

For chemistry majors and otherwise qualified students planning three or more quarters of organic chemistry. Structure, nomenclature, reactions, and synthesis of organic compounds. Theory and mechanism of organic reactions. Studies of biomolecules. No organic laboratory accompanies this course. No more than 5 credits can be counted toward graduation from the following course group: CHEM 221, CHEM 223, CHEM 237, CHEM 335.

Basic programming-in-the-small abilities and concepts including procedural programming (methods, parameters, return values) , basic control structures (sequence, if/else, for loop, while loop), file processing, arrays and an introduction to defining objects.

Continuation of CSE 142. Concepts of data abstraction and encapsulation including stacks, queues, linked lists, binary trees, recursion, instruction to complexity and use of predefined collection classes. Prerequisite: CSE 142.

Explicit focus on how multimodal elements of writing–words, images, sound, design, etc.– work together to produce meaning.

Additional course information coming soon!

Examines the structure of the American legal system and how laws are made. Surveys key doctrinal areas of the law learning fundamental legal concepts, and explore how the law functions and evolves over time, including legal issues and decision-making related to statutory or common law.

Covers the material of MATH 124, MATH 125, MATH 126; MATH 307, MATH 308. First year of a two-year accelerated sequence. May receive advanced placement (AP) credit for MATH 124 after taking MATH 134. For students with above average preparation, interest, and ability in mathematics.

Introduction to proofs and rigor; uniform convergence, Fourier series and partial differential equations, vector calculus, complex variables. Students who complete this sequence are not required to take MATH 300, MATH 309, MATH 324, MATH 327, MATH 328, and MATH 427. Second year of an accelerated two-year sequence; prepares students for senior-level mathematics courses.

Basic principles of mechanics and experiments in mechanics for physical science and engineering majors. Lecture tutorial and lab components must all be taken to receive credit. Credit is not given for both PHYS 114 and PHYS 121.