Honors Course Archive

Course Archive for Autumn 2020

* Add codes are placed on all courses one week after the first day of the quarter. If you need an add code, please email the course instructor for permission, and once approved, forward the confirmation from your instructor to uwhonors@uw.edu. We will be in touch with registration details as soon as possible.

Honors Arts & Humanities (6)

Arts & Humanities courses may only count for your H-Arts & Humanities requirement or your Honors Electives requirement.

HONORS-prefix courses

HONORS 210 A: American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music (A&H, DIV)

HONORS 210 A: American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music (A&H, DIV)

SLN 16126 (View UW registration info »)

Marisol Berrios-Miranda (Music)
Email: marisolbmd1@yahoo.com

Credits: 5
Limit: 35 students

Honors Credit Type

8 Seats Reserved for Incoming Freshmen
5 additional seats added (35 students max)

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.

HONORS 210 B: Cultural Memory and the Politics of Time and Space (A&H, DIV)

HONORS 210 B: Cultural Memory and the Politics of Time and Space (A&H, DIV)

SLN 16127 (View UW registration info »)

Susanne Rinner (Germanics)
Email: rinners@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 38 students

Honors Credit Type

4 seats reserved for incoming freshmen
3 additional seats added (38 total limit)

In the sciences, memory is understood as the individual’s capacity (or failure) to remember. This course examines the importance of remembering (and forgetting) in the cultural realm, specifically the memory contests of the 20th century in Germany. This interdisciplinary course investigates notions of memory and of remembering and forgetting in German culture in a variety of representational modes (prose, film, museums, and memorials). Memory has emerged as one of the most vibrant interdisciplinary fields of study. Traditionally, memory is understood within its temporal dimension as a way to reconstruct the past in the present for future purposes. Increasingly, memory is also investigated as rooted in space. Space preserves memories, and space can be utilized to make memories visible and to shape their meaning. This course focuses on Germany, its history since 1871, and its present situation within Europe and the world in order to introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of memory studies. Students will read foundational texts that constitute the field of memory studies. In four case studies, we interpret a novel (Barbara Honigmann, A Love Made Out of Nothing), a feature film (The Lives of Others), a monument (the Memorial for the Murdered Jews in Europe), and two museums (The Jewish Museum and the German Historical Museum, both located in Berlin) within the context of the theoretical readings.

HONORS 210 C: Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Mestiza Consciousness and the 'Racial' Shadow (A&H, DIV)

HONORS 210 C: Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Mestiza Consciousness and the 'Racial' Shadow (A&H, DIV)

SLN 16128 (View UW registration info »)

Juliana Villegas (Honors Program; English)
Office: MGH 211, Box 352800
Phone: 206-543-7172
Email: villegas@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 12 students

Honors Credit Type

In this seminar we will become familiar with the genre of Mestiza/o/x literature and engage in informed conversation about this body of literature in the United States. We will look globally at critical mixed race and border identities and consider epistemological questions, power, and privilege. Relatedly, a key goal of this seminar is to practice public writing through a variety of creative expressions and through collaborative work with peers for community building and activism (praxis).  

We will write to articulate understanding of texts and engage in the complexities of identity and its construction (individual, family, community, nation, etc.). Students will write weekly and be authors and editors in a collaborative active learning environment with sensitivity to different learning and communication styles.  Students will also have the opportunity to learn about digital storytelling and create a multimedia digital story of their own.

Readings and viewings may include:

  • Borderlands/La Frontera: the new Mestiza and Light in the Dark/La Luz Obscura (Gloria Anzaldúa)
  • The Lies that Bind: Rethinking Identity (Kwame Appiah)
  • Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma and The Mixquiahuala Letters (Ana Castillo)
  • Signs Preceding the End of the World (Yuri Herrera)
  • “What is Your Race: the Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify America. Podcast, 2019 (Pruitt, Kenneth)
  • The Schematic State: Race, Transnationalism, and the Politics of the Census (Debra Thompson)
  • “American Mixed Race: the United States 2000 Census and Related Issues” (Mixing It Up: Multiracial Subjects-Naomi Zack)
  • Vida​ (TV Series, Season 1, episodes 1 & 2)

 

Juliana Villegas is associate director of the Interdisciplinary Honors Program and affiliate assistant professor in the department of English.  Her research and writing continue to focus on critical mixed race and border studies.  A creative writer at heart, she integrates academic research and writing with creative expression. Dr. Villegas regularly teaches abroad and also facilitates writing and digital storytelling workshops, most recently at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Juliana  is an alum of Hedgebrook’s International Writers’ Retreat, Women Authoring Change, a Fulbright International Education Scholar, and holds her Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington (The Racial Shadow in American Literature). 

HONORS 240 A: Russia's Big Books: Devils (A&H)

HONORS 240 A: Russia's Big Books: Devils (A&H)

SLN 16136 (View UW registration info »)

Jose Alaniz (Slavic Languages and Literatures)
Office: M256 Smith Hall, Box 353580
Phone: 543-7580
Email: jos23@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 20 students

Honors Credit Type

Listed with Russian, English, CHID, and C LIT

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1872 satirical novel Demons (Бесы, formerly known in English as The Possessed) takes on a theme quite relevant to our own time: extreme political polarization and its consequences. The novel deploys comedy and tragedy in the story of a small town beset by young revolutionaries who want to topple the social order, charting the appeal of political nihilism and its psychosocial aftermath as compromise dissolves, norms corrode, and violence erupts.

In this course we will spend ten weeks with Demons, exploring its sources and themes, as well as its author’s views on a rapidly modernizing 19th-century Russia. We will also consider the novel’s place in Dostoevsky’s oeuvre, as well as in Russian and world literature/culture. And we will be doing all this during the climax of the 2020 US presidential race!

By course’s end you will have a firm grasp of the key issues, socioreligious debates and political trends of the era in which the novel was written, an appreciation for how authors speak to their readers across the centuries, and bragging rights on having met the challenge of one of the greatest literary achievements of all time! 

HONORS 240 B: Russian Art and Architecture (A&H)

HONORS 240 B: Russian Art and Architecture (A&H)

SLN 16137 (View UW registration info »)

Galya Diment (Slavic Languages and Literatures)
Office: A219 Padelford Hall, Box 354335
Phone: 206-543-6848
Email: galya@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 15 students

Honors Credit Type

Listed with Russian and Jewish Studies

Honors students will be expected to engage more throughly (3-4 pages) on exam essay prompts.

The course will be devoted to the Russian Jewish painters at the turn of the 20th century who came from the so-called “Pale of Settlement,” the areas where Jews were allowed to dwell which were largely in Ukraine and Belarus and outside of big cities. The most famous of these painters now is of course Marc Chagall (1887-1985) who hailed from the town of Vitebsk. Among other significant Jewish painters from the “Pale” was Chagall’s teacher, Yehuda Pen (1854-1937) as well as more of Pen’s students: El Lissitzky (1890-1941), Osip Zadkine (1888-1967), David Jakerson (1897-1947), and a still rare then female painter Elena Kabishcher (1903-1990). Other painters we will study in this course include Leon Bakst (1866-1934), Issahar Ber Ryback (1897-1935), Chaim Soutine (1893-1943), and Nathan Altman (1889-1970).

Art critics often use a largely literary label of “Magic Realism” to define the nature of Marc Chagall’s paintings. I am much more comfortable with different categories usually applied just to literary works — “Yiddish Modernism” and “Yiddish Renaissance.” Not just Chagall but most of the painters we will discuss and analyze in this course practiced it and participated in it. Many of them traced their style to Jewish folk art and traditional Jewish iconography. Their most significant literary inspiration was undoubtedly Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916), a widely popular “Pale” Yiddish writer several of whose stories we will read. As artists, not writers, however, they faced an additional challenge. Almost all came from very religious Jewish families where artistic endeavors were frowned upon because of the second commandment (Exodus 20:4) which read: “You shall not make yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” 

In addition to analyzing the evolution of Russian Jewish art and individual achievements and cultural contributions of each particular artist, we will also study larger historical, literary, and cultural issues pertaining to the Russian Pale of Settlement. These will include: “official” anti-semitism and quotas practiced by the tsarist government which limited the artists’ educational and employment opportunities prior to 1917 and what happened after the Revolution; bilingualism and bi-culturality (Yiddish and Russian); secularity versus religiousity; and Yiddish culture in literature versus Yiddish culture in art.

Required books: 

Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the Dairy Man and Motl the Cantor’s Son (Penguin Classics)
Kenneth B. Moss, Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution
Benjamin Nathans, Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia

Requirements:

There will be one take-home midterm and one take-home final. Honors students should expect their exams to be 3-4 pages longer than those in other undergraduate sections.

HONORS 240 C: Where Does an Artwork Begin and End? Publication and Exhibition Making in Contemporary Art (A&H)

HONORS 240 C: Where Does an Artwork Begin and End? Publication and Exhibition Making in Contemporary Art (A&H)

SLN 23149 (View UW registration info »)

Charles Stobbs (Art)
Email: csisopod@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 22 students

Honors Credit Type

5 seats reserved for incoming freshmen

Pending change to remote learning
pending course fee removal

This course will focus on conventions of publication and exhibition making in order to examine the extent in which these conventions become part of the body of an artwork. Specifically we will be looking into various strategies of displaying, archiving, and disseminating art, and how these have historically been catalyzed by various artists. The course is centered in Joseph Grigely’s essay ‘Exhibition Prosthetics’, but will expand to encounter numerous institutional and counter-institutional practices. We will interface with these concepts through reading, film screenings, listening, journaling, making ‘texts’, and producing a group exhibition.

Honors Science (2)

Science courses may only count for your H-Science requirement or your Honors Electives requirement.

HONORS-prefix courses

HONORS 220 A: Storytelling in the Sciences (NSc)

HONORS 220 A: Storytelling in the Sciences (NSc)

SLN 16129 (View UW registration info »)

Oliver Fraser (Astronomy)
Office: PAB C324, Box 351580
Email: ojf@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 28 students

Honors Credit Type

8 seats reserved for incoming Freshmen

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.

This course will be instructed in a hybrid format, with recorded lectures but live breakout sessions and presentations.

HONORS 220 B: The Biology of Human Diversity (NSc)

HONORS 220 B: The Biology of Human Diversity (NSc)

SLN 16130 (View UW registration info »)

Hannah Jordt (Biology)
Email: hljordt@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 40 students

Honors Credit Type

4 seats reserved for incoming freshmen
5 additional seats added (40 students max)

Tuesdays will be taught asynchronous

There is a broad spectrum of human diversity. However, individuals are often binned into narrow categories related to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, and socioeconomic status, among others, all of which carry associated group stereotypes.

This course explores several societal categories of diversity and asks:

1) Do any of these categories have a biological basis?
2) What are the biological consequences of these categories and how do they manifest in inequitable health outcomes, academics, income, lifespan, and other measures?
3) When have scientists played a role in perpetuating or alleviating biases related to these categories and what actions can be taken to ensure unbiased and inclusive science practices?

This course also explores human diversity unrelated to traditional categories, and how understanding genetic variation in human populations can help us answer questions about human migration, ancestry, history, public health, forensics, clinical medicine, and other topics with real-world applications.

Honors Social Sciences (4)

Social Science courses may only count for your H-Social Sciences requirement or your Honors Electives requirement.

HONORS-prefix courses

HONORS 230 A: Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Migration Stories and the Idea of America (SSc, DIV)

HONORS 230 A: Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Migration Stories and the Idea of America (SSc, DIV)

SLN 16132 (View UW registration info »)

Joel Walker (History)
Office: Smith Hall, Room 206B, Box 353560
Phone: 206-890-0241
Email: jwalker@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 6 students

Honors Credit Type

Contact instructor for add code
6 seats Honors/6 seats History

This seminar course will invite students to think carefully about the experience of migration to America from Africa and other regions. The course will not offer a history of immigration – a topic better examined in other History Department courses – but instead use films, novels, and memoirs to reflect on the experiences of immigrants and the stories told by and about them. As part of the course, students will also develop skills to tell their own immigration stories in written, visual, audio or musical formats. These narratives can be autobiographical or they can tell the stories of family members or other people (living or dead) who had remarkable immigration histories. 

This course is linked to a creative residence at UW’s Meany Hall for the Performing Arts by the musician Meklit Hadero (meklitmusic.com), who will attend some sessions of the class to help students craft their voices as storytellers.

HONORS 230 B: Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: #BlackLivesMatter in Historical Context (SSc, DIV)

HONORS 230 B: Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: #BlackLivesMatter in Historical Context (SSc, DIV)

SLN 16133 (View UW registration info »)

LaTasha Levy (American Ethnic Studies)
Email: levyl@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 7 students

Honors Credit Type

7 seats for HONORS students, 5 seats for AES students
Priority to juniors and seniors
Note: class will meet on-line

This seminar will be conducted on-line, Fridays 1:30-4:20, with additional course activities outside of class time. 

This course explores the emergence of #BlackLivesMatter as a critical development in a long history of Black resistance to anti-black racism and state violence. While the recent movement has organized campaigns against police shootings, mass incarceration and other iterations of racial marginalization, #BlackLivesMatter also conjures specific intellectual and activist traditions in African American history. In this course, students will examine the origins of #BlackLivesMatter as an ideological intervention, alongside the historical events, organizations, and leaders who have given it inspiration. Course material will engage the political thought of Ida B. Wells, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Assata Shakur and Ella Baker—all of whom figure prominently in #BlackLivesMatter historical frames. Students will also engage an ever-growing body of intellectual interventions (both academic and public scholarship) that interrogate the social, cultural, and economic contexts of racial violence in the United States and beyond.

This course provides an excellent opportunity for students to explore the art of public writing in relation to the rise of a social movement. As students engage recent scholarship, music, and documentaries related to the Black Lives Matter movement they will also sharpen their editorial and analytical skills through peer review and public commentary.

Prior to the first day of class, students are required to view “Queer on the Frontlines of #BlackLivesMatter” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YHs9jIH-oo) and write a 350-word blog post that explores how the short feature confirmed and/or challenged your perceptions of the movement.

HONORS 230 C: Grand Challenges for Entrepreneurs (SSc)

HONORS 230 C: Grand Challenges for Entrepreneurs (SSc)

SLN 16134 (View UW registration info »)

Emily Pahnke Cox (Foster School of Business)
Office: 422 Paccar Hall, Box 353226
Email: eacox@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 30 students

Honors Credit Type

3 seats reserved for incoming freshmen

HONORS/ENTRE course

Students must register for the HONORS listing of the class if they wish to earn Honors credit.

In Grand Challenges for Entrepreneurs, students use the lens of entrepreneurship to explore big problems and opportunities facing society, ranging from healthcare and education to climate change and poverty. You will learn how solutions to these massive challenges can be researched, validated, and implemented using such entrepreneurial tools and frameworks such as design thinking, opportunity recognition, business models, hypothesis testing and pivoting.

Honors students will engage in taking their project to the next level, via a mechanism that they choose (e.g. addressing a grand challenge through volunteering with an organization, creating a fundraising effort, or a social media campaign, etc.). A write up and a reflection will be part of this additional component for Honors, distinguishing it from the coursework ENTRE 490 students will do.

HONORS 230 D: Prison Logics and Abolition Futures (SSc, DIV)

HONORS 230 D: Prison Logics and Abolition Futures (SSc, DIV)

SLN 16135 (View UW registration info »)

William McKeithen (Geography)
Email: wmck@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 35 students

Honors Credit Type

4 seats reserved for incoming freshmen

In the United States today, more than 2.3 million people are living in prison. More than 324 million are living in a prison society. In this course, we will study both – the prison and the US prison society – to ask how did we get here? what does this mean for everyday life? and how might we create alternatives beyond the prison? This course focuses on mass incarceration in the US, but also interrogates the complex and transnational forces that underpin and undermine this reality – social control, power relations, cultural politics, resistance, and hope. Together we will engage this study through a mixture of classroom dialogue, multi-genre writing and peer review, and in-class and out-of-class activities that will ask you to consider your own place in relation to the prison. Drawing on a wide range of materials – evidence-based research, prisoner memoir, government policy, architectural design, social theory, activism, and science fiction – this course will ask you to consider what you think about prisons and how prisons became thinkable.

Honors Interdisciplinary (3)

Interdisciplinary courses may only count for your Interdisciplinary Honors requirement or your Honors Electives requirement. These courses cannot count for your Honors Science, Honors Humanities/Arts or Honors Social Science requirements, even if they bear the corresponding Areas of Inquiry designation.

HONORS-prefix courses

HONORS 345 A: Poetics of Collaboration (C)

HONORS 345 A: Poetics of Collaboration (C)

SLN 16141 (View UW registration info »)

Dan Paz (Comparative History of Ideas)
Email: danpaz@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 23 students

Honors Credit Type

Oftentimes artists are motivated by what is most urgently needed in their world. Revolution, justice, peace and quiet, and community; artists have a way of sifting through the gnarled world and opening a door to reveal their insights. This composition class is designed to explore and deconstruct this kind of reflexive writing praxis. Through a collaborative lens, we will chew on Post-Modern writing that challenges patriarchal structures; deconstruct old forms to configure new ones, and in the process lean into experimental modes of writing and dialogic inquiry.

 

Students will draw inspiration from critical writing, contemporary prose, poetry, narrative and non-narrative text, interviews, and lectures that explore themes including critical race theory, gender, nationality, and belonging. Students will be asked to complete various independent research and writing assignments to consolidate writings into an experimental zine publication. This course will ideally challenge students to think outside of rote writing practices, to engage in other lives with new eyes, make responsible or wildly irresponsible decisions, and be ok with figuring out who they are in relation to others.

HONORS 394 A: Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity (A&H / SSc, DIV)

HONORS 394 A: Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity (A&H / SSc, DIV)

SLN 16142 (View UW registration info »)

Catherine Connors (Classics)
Office: Denny 262 B, Box 353110
Phone: 206- 543-2266
Email: cconnors@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 40 students

Honors Credit Type

5 seats reserved for incoming freshmen
5 additional seats added (40 students max)

In this course we shall read and discuss ancient sources on religion, philosophy, medicine and law, along with modern scholarly analyses of ancient society, to explore the roles of women in ancient Greek and Roman society. Readings are chosen and discussions are structured with the aim of developing three types of awareness: historical awareness –knowledge of basic historical realities of women and of family life, limitations and biases of surviving evidence, how different Greece and Rome are from each other, and from now; a sense of how political institutions can intervene in family relations critical awareness — an understanding of the history of changing interpretations of the ancient world — how what people see in ancient Greece or Rome can also articulate what they value in their own cultures self-awareness — a sensitivity to the forces (laws, customs, stereotypes, images and more) shaping our own social relations.

I anticipate using the assigned class time synchronously for discussions and group project work; to prepare for these meetings, students will use short video presentations posted on canvas in addition to course readings. Students for whom synchronous participation poses a challenge are welcome to contact the instructor at cconnors@uw.edu” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>cconnors@uw.edu to discuss alternative arrangements. 

HONORS 394 B: Lovework: an unfinished syllabus (A&H / SSc, DIV)

HONORS 394 B: Lovework: an unfinished syllabus (A&H / SSc, DIV)

SLN 16143 (View UW registration info »)

Jeanette Bushnell (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)
Office: Padelford B110, Box 354345
Phone: 206 543-6900
Email: pembina@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 35 students

Honors Credit Type

7 seats reserved for incoming freshmen

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.

HONORS 100/496 (2)

HONORS 100 must be taken the first autumn quarter you are admitted to Interdisciplinary Honors. Students may register for HONORS 496 after completing at least 6 of 9 Honors core courses and 1 of 2 Experiential Learning activities. See our requirements page for more details.

HONORS 100 A: Introduction to Honors

HONORS 100 A: Introduction to Honors

SLN 16094 (View UW registration info »)

Claire Grant (Honors Program; Advisor)
Office: MGH 211, Box 352800
Email: claireag@uw.edu
Brook Kelly (Honors Program; Advisor)
Office: MGH 211, Box 352800
Phone: 206.221.6131
Email: bbkelly@uw.edu

Credits: 1
Limit: 150 students

Honors Credit Type

Required for and restricted to first quarter Honors students only.

Students must also register for a section. Students will attend EITHER lecture or section each week.

HONORS 100 brings first quarter Interdisciplinary Honors students together for a common experience in order to introduce the value of interdisciplinary education and the importance of the integration of knowledge, as well as to help you form connections with your peers and other members of the Honors community. This course is an introduction to the Honors core curriculum and requirements, with the goal of helping students imagine moving your work beyond the classroom into areas such as research, leadership, community and, ultimately, both local and global engagement. HONORS 100 will have three larger lecture meetings throughout the quarter; during the rest of the quarter you will meet in small sections led by a Peer Educator, with a small group of other first quarter Honors students. The lectures will serve as an opportunity to meet others in the Honors community and to acquire a common grounding in the goals and values of the Honors Program; the sections will provide students with a smaller peer cohort, a current student mentor in the form of their HONORS 100 PE, and a chance to get to know the many opportunities of the Honors Program on a personal level. Additionally, throughout the quarter you will also get to: – Meet a few of the many Honors faculty, who will discuss how they came to study what they do, how they gather evidence and resources in their respective disciplines, and why they teach what they do; – Meet a few alums and hear about their experiences in UW Honors and beyond; and – Create your Honors Portfolio and learn how to engage in at least two experiential learning projects during your time at the UW. The portfolio process emphasizes critical reflection of your learning experiences, both inside and outside of the traditional classroom.

HONORS 100 B: Introduction to Honors

HONORS 100 B: Introduction to Honors

SLN 16110 (View UW registration info »)

Claire Grant (Honors Program; Advisor)
Office: MGH 211, Box 352800
Email: claireag@uw.edu
Brook Kelly (Honors Program; Advisor)
Office: MGH 211, Box 352800
Phone: 206.221.6131
Email: bbkelly@uw.edu

Credits: 1
Limit: 150 students

Honors Credit Type

Required for and restricted to first quarter Honors students only.

Students must also register for a section. Students will attend EITHER lecture or section each week.

HONORS 100 brings first quarter Interdisciplinary Honors students together for a common experience in order to introduce the value of interdisciplinary education and the importance of the integration of knowledge, as well as to help you form connections with your peers and other members of the Honors community. This course is an introduction to the Honors core curriculum and requirements, with the goal of helping students imagine moving your work beyond the classroom into areas such as research, leadership, community and, ultimately, both local and global engagement. HONORS 100 will have three larger lecture meetings throughout the quarter; during the rest of the quarter you will meet in small sections led by a Peer Educator, with a small group of other first quarter Honors students. The lectures will serve as an opportunity to meet others in the Honors community and to acquire a common grounding in the goals and values of the Honors Program; the sections will provide students with a smaller peer cohort, a current student mentor in the form of their HONORS 100 PE, and a chance to get to know the many opportunities of the Honors Program on a personal level. Additionally, throughout the quarter you will also get to: – Meet a few of the many Honors faculty, who will discuss how they came to study what they do, how they gather evidence and resources in their respective disciplines, and why they teach what they do; – Meet a few alums and hear about their experiences in UW Honors and beyond; and – Create your Honors Portfolio and learn how to engage in at least two experiential learning projects during your time at the UW. The portfolio process emphasizes critical reflection of your learning experiences, both inside and outside of the traditional classroom.

Honors Electives (10)

Any course without the “HONORS” prefix may only count for your Honors Electives requirement. You will earn Areas of Inquiry credit as indicated in the parentheses after each course title.

Other Honors courses (without HONORS-prefix)

BIOC 450 A: Honors Biochemistry (NSc)

BIOC 450 A: Honors Biochemistry (NSc)

SLN 11423 (View UW registration info »)

Credits: 4
Limit: 25 students

Honors Credit Type

Add Code required
PREREQ: 3.5 BIOL/CHEM GPA.

CONTACT ADVISERS@CHEM.WASHINGTON.EDU
TO ENROLL

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 A: Honors General Chemistry (NSc)

CHEM 145 A: Honors General Chemistry (NSc)

SLN 12370 (View UW registration info »)

Credits: 5
Limit: 96 students

Honors Credit Type

Prerequisite: either MATH 124 or MATH 134, either of which may be taken concurrently; score of 66% on HCHEMC placement test, score of 3, 4 or 5 on AP Chemistry exam, or IB score of 5, 6, or 7 on high level chemistry exam.

Students must also register for CHEM 145 AA, AB, AC, or AD.

To register, students must contact Chemistry Adviser at advisers@chem.washington.edu

$75 course fee

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).

CHEM 335 A: Honors Organic Chemistry (NSc)

CHEM 335 A: Honors Organic Chemistry (NSc)

SLN 12495 (View UW registration info »)

Credits: 4
Limit: 70 students

Honors Credit Type

Prerequisite: either CHEM 155 or CHEM 162.

To register, students must contact Chemistry Adviser at advisers@chem.washington.edu

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.

CSE 142: Computer Programming I (NSc)

CSE 142: Computer Programming I (NSc)

SLN ?

Credits: 4+1
Limit: 20 students

Honors Credit Type

CONTACT CSE (CSE142@UW.EDU) with registration questions

To earn Honors credit, students must register for:
1. CSE 142 lecture A or B
2. corresponding CSE 142 section
3. CSE 390 H
AND
4. the corresponding CSE 390 HA section

See CSE Time Schedule (https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/AUT2020/cse.html) for course days, times and SLNs for both CSE 142 and CSE 390.

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.

CSE 143: Computer Programming II (NSc)

CSE 143: Computer Programming II (NSc)

SLN ?

Credits: 5+1
Limit: 24 students

Honors Credit Type

CONTACT CSE (CSE143@UW.EDU) with registration questions

To earn Honors credit, students must register for:
1. CSE 143 lecture A, D, or X
2. corresponding CSE 143 quiz section
3. CSE 390 H
AND
4. corresponding CSE 390 HB section

See CSE Time Schedule (https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/AUT2020/cse.html) for course days, times and SLNs for both CSE 143 and CSE 390.

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.

ENGL 182 H: Honors Multimodal Composition (C)

ENGL 182 H: Honors Multimodal Composition (C)

SLN 14530 (View UW registration info »)

Candice Rai (English)
Office: Padelford Hall – 401A, Box 354330
Email: crai@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 23 students

Honors Credit Type

Students must enroll in the Honors section (182 H) to earn Honors credit

This course will fulfill one Honors "Additional Any" course requirement and the UW Composition requirement

Incoming Freshmen Only, seats will be distributed throughout summer

Cannot be taken if student has already received a grade of 2.0 or higher in ENGL 109/110, 111, 121, 131, or 182

Contact uwhonors@uw.edu if not able to register automatically

Multimodal: Study and practice of strategies/skills for effective writing/argument in various situations, disciplines, genres

Explicit focus on how multimodal elements of writing–words, images, sound, design, etc.– work together to produce meaning. Additional course information coming soon!

LAW 100 H: Introduction to American Law (SSc)

LAW 100 H: Introduction to American Law (SSc)

SLN 17023 (View UW registration info »)

Theodore Myhre (School of Law)
Phone: 206-685-7914
Email: tmyhre@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 20 students

Honors Credit Type

To request an add code, please complete this form: https://tinyurl.com/LAW100REQ

Students must register for the Honors section of this course in order to receive Honors Additional Any credit

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.

MATH 134 A: Accelerated Honors Calculus (NSc)

MATH 134 A: Accelerated Honors Calculus (NSc)

SLN 18176 (View UW registration info »)

Credits: 5
Limit: 35 students

Honors Credit Type

REGISTRATION INFORMATION AVAILABLE:
HTTPS://MATH.WASHINGTON.EDU/
REGISTRATION-INFORMATION#MATH134

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.

MATH 334 A: Honors Accelerated Advanced Calculus (NSc)

MATH 334 A: Honors Accelerated Advanced Calculus (NSc)

SLN 18255 (View UW registration info »)

Credits: 5
Limit: 40 students

Honors Credit Type

Prerequisite: either minimum grade of 2.0 in MATH 136, or minimum grade of 3.0 in all MATH 126 and MATH 307 and MATH 308.

Please contact advising@math.washington.edu if you have questions about this course.

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.

PHYS 141 A: Honors Physics: Mechanics (NSc)

PHYS 141 A: Honors Physics: Mechanics (NSc)

SLN 23089 (View UW registration info »)

Credits: 5
Limit: 44 students

Honors Credit Type

Prerequisites:
Either MATH 124 with a minimum grade of 2.5 or MATH 134 which can be taken concurrently

Recommendations:
A previous high-school-level physics course is strongly recommended, but it is not required.

Students must register for lecture, quiz section, and lab to earn Honors Additional Any credit.

Email Professor Rybka, the instructor for the course, for more information about the course. His email address is: grybka@uw.edu

$40 course fee

The Honors Introductory Physics sequence is composed of PHYS 141, 142, and 143. Students with a strong interest in physics and strong calculus preparation are encouraged to enroll in this sequence. The material covered in each course in the honors sequence is the same as in the regular sequence, PHYS 121, 122, and 123, but each topic is discussed in more depth and may include active research and cross-disciplinary applications, and additional topics may be discussed. 

Additional information about the new Honors Introductory Physics Series can be found HERE.  

Special Topics (4)

Special Topics courses are between one and three credits and do not fulfill Interdisciplinary Honors requirements. They will award non-Honors UW elective credit and a great experience.

HONORS-prefix courses

HONORS 396 A/HONORS 397 B: The History, Sociology, and Science of Weapons of Mass Destruction: How Nuclear Weapons Became an Existential Peril (SSc / NSc)

HONORS 396 A/HONORS 397 B: The History, Sociology, and Science of Weapons of Mass Destruction: How Nuclear Weapons Became an Existential Peril (SSc / NSc)

SLN 23140 (View UW registration info »)

Richard Freeman (Physics)
Email: rrfree@uw.edu

Credits: 3
Limit: 18 students

Credit Type

Note: this is a 3 credit course so will only count towards UW general education requirements, not Honors core curriculum.

Note: This course is available for either NW or I&S credit. If you would like to earn NW credit, enroll in HONORS 396 A (23140). If you would like to earn I&S credit, enroll in HONORS 397 B (23758).

There are now generations of young (and youngish) people who have no memory of the once all-consuming societal terror of an Armageddon from a nuclear weapons exchange with the then Soviet Union. Yet the threat to our existence remains as real today as at its peak in the late twentieth century. Nuclear weapons, if used on the Korean Peninsula, the Indian subcontinent, or in the Western Pacific, in addition to creating nearly unimaginable death and human misery for millions, have a very real prospect of drawing the US into an all out attack/response scenario with Russia and/or China, escalating the disaster to quite literally billions of people.

This course will actually teach the basic physics of nuclear weapon design, (algebra level math), study the effects of nuclear weapons (drawn from US archives of our 30 year testing of nuclear weapons), view many of the legendary films of the 1970-80s (e.g. Fail Safe, Dr. Stangelove), debate the only events in which nuclear weapons were used in anger (Hiroshima/Nagasaki ), understand the promises and failings of nuclear energy, and through research and class discussion, show that the Cold War was all about nuclear weapons, and how the cold war begat our present day terrorism.
Grades will be assigned on class presentations, assigned essays, and a term paper.

HONORS 397 A: Peer Educator Seminar (SSc)

HONORS 397 A: Peer Educator Seminar (SSc)

SLN 16144 (View UW registration info »)

Carissa Mayer (Honors Program; Advisor)
Office: MGH 211, Box 352800
Phone: 206-221-0774
Email: cdmayer@uw.edu
Claire Grant (Honors Program; Advisor)
Office: MGH 211, Box 352800
Email: claireag@uw.edu

Credits: 2
Limit: 21 students

Credit Type

For 2020 Peer Educators Only

HONORS 398 A: Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Shift Happens: Moving the Humanistic Conversation in the Classics from the Classroom to the Public Arena (A&H)

HONORS 398 A: Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Shift Happens: Moving the Humanistic Conversation in the Classics from the Classroom to the Public Arena (A&H)

SLN 16147 (View UW registration info »)

James Clauss (Classics)
Email: jjc@uw.edu

Credits: 3
Limit: 6 students

Credit Type

6 seats Honors/6 seats Classics

Note: this is a 3 credit course so will only count towards UW general education requirements, not Honors core curriculum.

Ancient Greek and Roman writers and thinkers observed first-hand the near impossibility of speaking to power. 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 philosophical—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.

HONORS 398 B: The Brain and the Healing Power of Poetry (A&H)

HONORS 398 B: The Brain and the Healing Power of Poetry (A&H)

SLN 23760 (View UW registration info »)

Arthur Ginsberg (Classics)
Office: Classics, Box 353110
Phone: 2063694836
Email: arthurginsberg@msn.com

Credits: 2, c/nc
Limit: 15 students

Credit Type

Note: this is a 2 credit course so will only count towards UW general education requirements, not Honors core curriculum.

This course will be conducted in a workshop setting. We will explore brain anatomy, physiology and MR imaging to understand creativity in the creation of poems about personal, socio-political and ecological grief. Students will create and assemble a book of their work including graphic cover art, that will be published by the end of the semester. A public reading by all students will constitute the final examination.