Honors Course Archive

Why study prisons? One answer to this question is statistical: the United States incarcerates more of its population than any other country. There are 2.2 million people in U.S. prisons and jails, with an additional 4.5 million on probation or parole. Those most directly impacted are disproportionately people of color, with increased rates of impact as race intersects with gender, ability, indigeneity, citizenship, and sexuality. But statistics alone do not answer the question. We must figure out why these numbers exist, and how they came into existence. What happened over the last forty years that caused a 500% increase in U.S. incarceration, with a 700% increase for women? How is this recent phase related to longer historical practices of racialized, gendered, and sexual policing of indigenous, black, brown, undocumented, and LGBTQ+ people? And how is the recent boom in prison construction and mass incarceration related to rising student debt, decreased employment opportunities, and growing wealth disparities in this period?

This class will explore the carceral complex of the last forty years by looking beyond prisons into the historical logics of debt and freedom that sustain them. Our readings will situate U.S. prisons at the center of a complex social, political, and economic system that shapes every element of contemporary life. Readings will be drawn from the humanities, social science disciplines, interdisciplinary fields, and various public sectors including mainstream journalism, alternative media, digital platforms, community-based organizations, and currently incarcerated groups.

Students will study films representing ancient myths, observing how directors and screenwriters have reinterpreted the narratives for purposes of both entertainment and the exploration of philosophical, political or artistic positions. The final project will ask students to describe in a paper what myth they would create as a film, identifying its intended audience and its goals. Films can be substituted for the paper.

Within an indigenous pedagogical format, this interactive class will be used as a space to do lovework and critically engage with notions of love, where our understandings of love have come from, and how we can proceed with a love consciousness. We will ponder and attempt to perceive how love is incorporated into our daily lives.

We will vision possible logic trajectories and frames of understandings in which love, or lack thereof, is included – both individually and societally. Musical, biological, philosophical, psychological, religious, political, cultural, artistic, linguistic, and social perspectives of love will be discussed. We will search for love knowledges and we will seek stories about love in our own lives. We will look at how love has been used in history and then, we will vision how love can be put into action as a force for creating our futures that include values of equity, anti-oppression, and positive changes within social institutions.

This course is intended to be an intervention into contemporary practices so that we can better understand our connections and relationships. It is an encouragement to act in ways that better respect ourselves, others, and our world.

Specific skills we will practice to enhance our perceptions, ponderings and critical thinking are: build community, work together, develop awareness, share ideas, listen, hear, read, write, speak, sing, find joy and humor, make connections, balance, foster wonder, respect, imagine, vision, strategize, tell stories, and practice self-love.

Students in this course will actively interface with various theories, techniques, and processes of image production through the making of artworks, lectures, demonstrations, readings, class discussions, reviews, site visits, screenings, and guest lectures. Course content will emphasize photography’s potential for self-expression and creative problem solving in an artistic context, while also providing a grounding for critical awareness of photographic images both as artworks and as a form of communication. 

Students will complete photographic projects in response to a set of assignments. Each assignment is designed to stimulate consideration of a specific conceptual approach, but may be realized with a vast range of technical and creative solutions. Through this course, students should develop a basic literacy of photographic production and critique, while gaining an understanding of historic and contemporary photographic practices. Additionally, we will work to form independent voices and approaches both within the classroom and the larger artistic community of the greater Seattle area.

ONE OF THE GREATEST “ROMANCES” EVER WRITTEN, ANNA KARENINA IS JUDGED BY MANY TO BE AN UNPRECEDENTED MASTERPIECE OF NOT ONLY RUSSIAN BUT WORLD LITERATURE. WE WILL EXPLORE THE HISTORICAL TIMES DURING WHICH IT APPEARED AND READ TOLSTOY’S WIFE’S DIARY AND, AMONG OTHER CRITICISM, VLADIMIR NABOKOV’S DELIGHTFUL TAKE ON THE NOVEL. THE COURSE WILL ALSO EXAMINE THE NOVEL’S MORAL AND IDEOLOGICAL ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT FAMILY, MARRIAGE, RELATIONSHIP, WOMEN’S ROLE, AND HOW THESE REFLECTED THE AUTHOR’S (AND, HIS WIFE’S!) VIEWS AS WELL AS THE CULTURE AND SOCIETY AROUND HIM.

The Russia’s Big Books courses study one big/epic novel by the titans of Russian literature per quarter. Includes such novels as Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, Goncharov’s Oblomov, Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, and Nabokov’s Ada. All readings are in English. 

Honors students will complete an extended midterm and complete additional final write-ups/papers. Reflective reports will also be an optional component for Honors students.

The theory of evolution by natural selection is the underlying theme that unites all fields of biology. In this course we will cover the basic principles of evolution, explore ways in which evolutionary theory can be applied to human biology and behavior, and consider how evolutionary thinking might guide the development of social policy. We will consider questions such as these: Why are women and men different? Which is more egalitarian: monogamy or polygamy? Why do step-parents and step-children often have more conflicted relationships than biological parents and biological children? When do people cooperate, when are they selfish, and why? What can we do to reduce the rate of spousal abuse and homicide?

My goal is to help students learn selection thinking; that is, to help them learn to reason like evolutionary biologists. I hope to help students pose questions, formulate hypotheses, design experiments, and critically evaluate the quality of evidence. After taking this course, students will be able to:  *Apply evolutionary theory to human interactions, especially those involving social conflict, and make predictions about how the divergent interests of the parties involved will affect their behavior.  *Design observational studies and experiments to test these predictions.  *Interpret and critically evaluate graphs and tables showing data on behavioral patterns in humans and animals.  *Provide evolutionary interpretations of various human social institutions, such as laws, wills, and social policies.

The theory of evolution by natural selection is the underlying theme that unites all fields of biology. In this course we will cover the basic principles of evolution, explore ways in which evolutionary theory can be applied to human biology and behavior, and consider how evolutionary thinking might guide the development of social policy. We will consider questions such as these: Why are women and men different? Which is more egalitarian: monogamy or polygamy? Why do step-parents and step-children often have more conflicted relationships than biological parents and biological children? When do people cooperate, when are they selfish, and why?What can we do to reduce the rate of spousal abuse and homicide?

My goal is to help students learn selection thinking; that is, to help them learn to reason like evolutionary biologists. I hope to help students pose questions, formulate hypotheses, design experiments, and critically evaluate the quality of evidence. After taking this course, students will be able to: -Apply evolutionary theory to human interactions, especially those involving social conflict, and make predictions about how the divergent interests of the parties involved will affect their behavior. -Design observational studies and experiments to test these predictions. -Interpret and critically evaluate graphs and tables showing data on behavioral patterns in humans and animals. -Provide evolutionary interpretations of various human social institutions, such as laws, wills, and social policies.

To better understand the key factors that control the earth’s present and future climate, this course begins with an examination of episodes in the earth’s past when extreme climate conditions existed. Dramatic changes in the earth’s climate have resulted from natural variations in solar insolation, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, rates and pathways of ocean circulation, plate tectonics, and the evolution of vascular plants and, in modern times, the burning of fossil fuels. The impact of these factors on modern and future climate through interactions between the atmosphere, oceans and land will then be evaluated. The class will utilize lectures, in-class problem solving, discussion of scientific papers and weekly homework assignments to learn the material at both a qualitative and quantitative level.

A middle-aged homeless woman takes the bus to Ballard twice a week to sell her blood plasma. A Zanesville, Ohio man releases fifty-six exotic animals out of captivity. Thousands of Indian farmers march carrying Neem tree branches to protest ‘biopiracy.’ This course explores these and other cases of ‘contested commodities’ – social, biological, immaterial entities whose entry into (and exit out of) capitalist markets has raised ire, conflict, and conceptual confusion. Through weekly discussions, written reflections, experiential site visits around Seattle, guest speakers, and a final project, students will learn to understand commodification as a socially situated process fraught with relations of power, difference, and value. Course discussion will engage a range of issues related to contested commodification, including labor, race, class, the human/nonhuman divide, gender, sexuality, the state, biology, and political resistance. Readings will draw from a range of historical and contemporary case studies including early modern Europe, colonial India, and present-day Seattle, as well as a variety of media and genres. By the end of the course, students will learn to appreciate their own relation to (un)contested commodification, to unpack the politics surrounding these conflicts, and to imagine alternative ways of making and remaking value.

In this seminar we will learn the recent history of homelessness in Seattle and explore root causes of impoverishment — both socio-economic processes and representations that frame people and places as ‘poor’. We will think about the role of the non-poor and structural causes in the production of poverty/inequality. In the first part of the course we will ethically engage with non-homed people, homelessness activists and political movements that are addressing the immediate and root causes of homelessness. We will then work on understanding root causes of homelessness, considering the role of gentrification, job markets, intersecting forms of discrimination (race, gender, sexuality, citizenship and more), criminalization and state-sponsored violence. Throughout our class, we will consider what forms of citizenship acts of engagement, research and action can tackle impoverishment.

This 300-level 5-credit course explores the health of populations across the globe. Multiculturalism and the Problem Based Learning (PBL) approach allow students to collaborate and take the lead in investigating experience inequalities in health. More than 40 open-ended cases for choice include sex-worker rights, white saviors, Ebola, anti-immigration policies, #MeToo, incarceration, female circumcision, campus rape, racial admixture, and LGBTQ issues. Cohorts of 2-4 students investigate and present on topics of their choice across the 10 week period. Also, a 5-page, typewritten double-spaced essay reflective a critical reading of ONE book (fiction or non-fiction) from a choice of more than 20 titles.

This course explores climate change science interwoven with discussions of how Arctic states are being affected by climate change. Arctic indigenous peoples are working with Arctic states to engage in the climate change discussion. The course consider the impacts of climate change to nations and people and also how on literature, music, art impact science and activism.

This is an interdisciplinary environmental history course which examines the intersection of the physical landscape and natural resources of the Salish Sea region, with the various people and cultures that have existed on the landscape through time. Working with a variety of texts, both non-fiction and fiction, paintings, historical documents, and guest lectures, we will pay special attention to the history and experience of marginalized cultures, and the relationship of these cultures with the land and its resources through time. Much of the course will necessarily focus on Native American cultures, past and present, but we will also explore, for example, the African American experience in Seattle, and effects of ongoing gentrification in Seattle’s neighborhoods. Literature on the development of western European environmental philosophy, will also provide crucial context to our discussions. Through an individual writing project and a collaborative media project, we will seek to give voice to forgotten and marginalized peoples, and associated spaces, on the greater Seattle landscape.

The key questions that are addressed in the Ways of Feeling class are:

• Are there “emotional universals”, that is, feelings that all people share independent of language, culture, gender, and race?

• Are there “culture-specific” emotions?

• Are there “gender-specific” emotions?

The class is suitable for all students who are interested in Language, languages, and meaning. Ways of Feeling is a comparative course, with enough Slavic content for it to be relevant for Slavic majors and graduate students, yet accessible to those interested in other languages. Students will be introduced to research methods in semantics, pragmatics and discourse, and will be required to produce a thorough examination of underlying conceptualizations and a semantic analysis of a linguistic expression of emotion in a language of their choice. They will gain an appreciation of the social and cultural underpinnings of their own language and other languages.

The requirements consist of 4 short papers, an image collection, and a final term paper.

Music can be heard all over our planet. It finds its place in the chants of a shaman healing their patient, accompanies television commercials to help sell a product, helps create an atmosphere at social events, and accompanies societal rites of passage. Its inspiration can also be found in nature, for example, as a bird singing in our back yard or in the Amazon rainforest. Academically, music weaves its magic into many fields, making it an interdisciplinary powerhouse. It is present from the hard sciences through the most esoteric arts. Examples include recording technology in engineering; the use of music for healing in medicine and psychology; the study of sound production and building of musical instruments in physics; copyright and performance rights in law; and its use as a teaching aid in education.

In this experiential course we will examine some of the universal themes emerging from the use of music and its influence on humanity and our world. Our ten week journey will utilize various lenses through which we will explore the topic, including scientific and academic research, observation of collective human experience, and your own personal experience both in and outside of class. Our time together will be partially modeled on the goals and objectives of collaborative teaching/learning communities. Activities will include class visits from guest experts and group and individual research opportunities along with weekly musical explorations facilitated by the instructor. During this process we will also examine how it affects and empowers our own lives.

In this capstone course, a portfolio studio, students will complete the Interdisciplinary or College Honors Program by creating educational narratives within vibrant, creative, online portfolios. Each student will reflect upon the intersection of formal coursework and experiential learning by exploring, collaborating, articulating, testing out, refining, and showcasing the Honors portfolio to a community of peers and mentors. Using portfolio platforms introduced in Honors 100, students will be asked to creatively reflect on the connections between and across their UW courses and disciplines, as well as to consider in-classroom knowledge and its interface with academia and experiences outside of the classroom.

Here in Honors I coordinate the curriculum and recruit faculty from across campus and within the local and international communities. I am also lead in coordinating & managing international programs in Honors, so I develop (and teach!) study abroad programs. I also teach Honors 496, and am affiliate faculty in the English Department.

Arch 351 is a 5-credit honors section that provides an opportunity for deeper exploration of the course content of Arch 351. Through readings, discussions and individual research, the section focuses on the networks and flows of people, materials, and ideas surrounding architecture and the built environment around the world in the period from about 700 to 1750. Course Requirements The requirements are regular attendance and active participation at Friday section meetings and weekly lectures, completion of required readings, a mid-term and final exam (taken with Arch 351A), and a research project. Students will develop individual research papers and a digitally-based presentation centered on images and maps.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how networks and exchange influenced world architectural developments in the medieval and early modern periods
• Develop research and writing skills centered on architectural history
• Expand knowledge of digital tools
• Explore the place of imagery in understanding architecture

If you have questions about the course, feel free to email instructor at: ahuppert@uw.edu Additional $17 course fee.

BIOC 451 is the honors version of BIOC 441; it covers the same topics in metabolism and gene expression using the same textbook, but is taught as a group discussion of selected publications from the primary literature, with an emphasis on research strategy, experimental design, creative thinking, and scientific communication.

Continuation of CHEM 145. Includes laboratory. Together CHEM 145 and 155 cover material in CHEM 142, 152, and 162. No more than the number of credits indicated can be counted toward graduation from the following course groups: CHEM 152, 155 (5 credits); 145, 155, 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 more than 4 credits can be counted toward graduation from the following course groups: CHEM 238, CHEM 336.

To accompany CHEM 336. No more than the number of credits indicated can be counted toward graduation from the following course group: CHEM 241, CHEM 346 (3 credits).

To earn Honors credit, students must register for and complete ALL of the following:

1. Register for CSE 142 lecture A or B AND a corresponding CSE 142 section
2. Register for CSE 390 H lecture AND corresponding CSE 390 H section

(See Time Schedule/MyPlan for course day, time and SLN for both CSE 142 and CSE 390)

CSE 142 will cover 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. The Honors CSE 390 course will be a special topics discussion section decided on by the instructor. 

To earn Honors credit, students must register for and complete ALL of the following:

1. Register for CSE 143 lecture A or B AND a corresponding CSE 142 section
2. Register for CSE 390 H lecture AND corresponding CSE 390 H section

(See Time Schedule/MyPlan for course day, time and SLN for both CSE 143 and CSE 390)

CSE 143 is a 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. 

The Honors CSE 390 course will be a special topics discussion section decided on by the instructor. 

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

The course investigates modernism, modernist theory, and the modern landscape architecture as process, product, and theory. What makes a good urban landscape? A great public park? An inspiring work of landscape art? This course will explore the history of designing and creating gardens and landscapes in diverse cultures and places as the profession and practice of landscape architecture has become a leading field in the design and creation of newly imagined city spaces and places. We will begin in the 19th century with Central Park, in New York City, one of the first public parks designed for the public and work our way up to the postindustrial parks and landscapes of the late 20th century. We will study small gardens that inspire the poet and large nature preserves, as well as city plazas, corporate roof gardens, and the neighborhood park. We will explore how modern art and architecture influence landscape design and in turn how environmental thinking influenced the push for sustainable cities. What does it mean to be modern? How does creativity shape the design of natural landscapes? This course provides an historic and critical overview of the evolution of modernism and modernist designs in terms of aesthetic, technological, social, and spiritual concerns in the built landscape. Moving between practice and theory, between design, as a creative art and as a way of thinking, we will consider diverse modernisms across the Americas and Europe.

Covers the material of MATH 124, 125, 126; 307, 308, 318. First year of a two-year accelerated sequence. May receive advanced placement (AP) credit for 125 after taking 135. 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.

Covers the basic principles of electromagnetism and experiments in these topics 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 115 and PHYS 122.

Description
The founding of molecular biology was a synthesis of ideas from physics, biology, and chemistry. The efforts of its interdisciplinary founders laid out a vision of life as composed of molecular systems orchestrated by a progression of information from DNA to RNA to protein– what we now call the central dogma. The field’s early days were shaped by incredible new technologies, revolutions in logic, and unique personalities. While spectacular, this history is part of a process of scientific development that continues today in burgeoning fields. In this course, we will explore the process of scientific revolution through the history of molecular biology depicted in Horace Freeland Judson’s The Eighth Day of Creation.

Structure
We will meet two hours a week for in-class discussion of concepts and materials from assigned reading excerpts from the book The Eighth Day of Creation. Part of this time will also be devoted to review of biological and historical topics touched on in the reading.
Weekly, students will produce a short blurb of their thoughts on the reading using a prompt from instructors. Students will receive feedback on these blurbs to use as starting material for two major writing assignments.

Learning objectives
At the end of the course, students will:
-Be able to contextualize current research through the lens of historical biological advancements.
-Have considered in depth the diverse approaches to being a scientist.
-Have established a small writing portfolio.

Join us at the Seattle Symphony for the class “Experiencing Music”! No musical training is necessary – just bring your curiosity and your willingness to engage in the communal experience of live music at the highest level. All students are welcome to sign up for Honors 398.

We will be going to five concerts at Benaroya Hall throughout the quarter (dates and times TBD). We’ll prepare for these concerts through discussions and readings in classes held on campus, we’ll have talks given by Symphony staff, and we’ll go on a backstage tour. 

Modern science and technology have so overwhelmed contemporary society that lost among terabytes and google searches is a sense of our shared humanity, a humanity that has struggled to make itself know from the beginning of recorded history only to be beaten back by the powers-that-be: wealthy oligarchs, powerful autocrats, brutal dictators, nationalistic institutions from whom the weak and the marginalized have no protection.  Ancient Greek and Roman writers and thinkers observed first-hand the near impossibility of speaking to power. Their voices have largely been silenced, but their observations, demonstrating that nothing has changed except for technology, could help moderns see that, unless we learn from the past, we will continue to repeat mistakes but those which have even greater potential for death and destruction given technological advances. During the seminar, students will examine ancient texts—literary, historical and cinematic—with the goal of communicating the lessons learned in various forms of public writing with the following objectives:

• To develop an ability to write with greater clarity, concision, engagement and effectiveness and to acquire editorial skills that will help you achieve this goal.
• To reflect on what constitutes effective public writing and how such writing influences our perspectives.
• To gain a greater insight into what the humanities, in particular Classical antiquity, have to contribute to contemporary discussions of the difficulty of preserving our humanity in the face of political and technological power structures.

Before the class begins, everyone should read a synopsis of the “Melian Dialogue” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos) and write a 200 word “letter to the editor” in MS Word demonstrating how the situation and mode of thinking favored by the Athenians and their violent take over of the island is worth reading as a reflection of how extreme power corrupts. Feel free to cite modern examples. Please bring a laptop or tablet to each class for editing in Word.