Honors Course Archive

This is a course that is in part about the history of ideas, but seeks more to trace the way the imagination of what we think is real and unreal has changed over the last five hundred years, particularly in North Atlantic societies. This is a story that is more complex and interesting than simply to assume that science/rationality as it learned more about how the phenomenal world works supplanted religion/superstition and displaced the naive explanations for just about everything our premodern ancestors believed was true. This point of view is commonplace, but I would argue is simplistic and reductive.

This course will seek to understand some of the intellectual, economic, religious, and artistic/imaginative forces that drove this transformation. We will start some excerpts from The Romance of the Rose and Dante, then to artist and thinkers influenced by Ficino’s Florentine Platonic Academy. The goal here is to establish for students some sense of what it meant to think in a premodern enchanted milieu so that it might be contrasted with the modern disenchanted milieu they take for granted. We will spend some time with Shakespeare as a figure who was very much influenced by the traditions of premodern enchantment while at the same time being a transitional figure to a modern, disenchanted imagination of the world. We’ll look at how the intellectual and imaginative projects of the Renaissance and the Reformation influenced him, and how they shaped the concerns he sought to portray in his plays, particularly the comedies, but ending with a deep dive into King Lear.

From the Renaissance, we will discuss the secularizing impact of the Reformation, particularly Calvinism, the Wars of Religion, and the Enlightenment. We’ll then spend some time with the imaginative work of F. Schiller, S.T. Coleridge, Wm. Wordsworth, and P.B Shelley as representative figures. We will look at how the post-Kantian German idealists-Herder, Schelling, Fichte-in reaction to the overly rationalistic, disenchanting, objectifying and alienating effect of the Enlightenment projects provided the intellectual framework for them to channel the irrational, to celebrate the Self, and to overcome the deepening sense of fragmentation and alienation that accompanied the first stages of the Industrial revolution.

In the third phase, we will move into post WWII literature, film, and philosophy. We’ll give an overview of post-Nietzschean Western philosophy and its impact on the imagination of particularly Americans in the post-world War II through post 9/11 era.

Since any one of these topics could be a course in itself, the main thrust of this course is to give students an overview of the most important ideas over the last 500 years as they have influenced the Western secularizing imagination of reality. The goal is to help students to understand how these thinkers and artists have contributed to the way they think and experience the world, whether they are aware of their influence or not. Students will be required to know the texts excerpted from larger works that will be made available in a substantial coursepack, and then select a particular era to do a deeper dive and work from materials provided in lecture and discussion groups.

We will use Charles Taylor’s ‘A Secular Age’ (Harvard University Press, 2007) to provide the conceptual framework that tells the story of how the ‘social imaginary’, particularly in North Atlantic societies, morphed from what he describes as premodern imaginaries that were enchanted, i.e., an imagined world full of spirits and spiritual forces, to a modern one that became  profoundly disenchanted, that is following Weber, a world that has lost any robust collective or public sense of the sacred.

The course explores the hypothesis that figures like Shakespeare and the Coens  are transitional artists for their different times: Shakespeare for the transition from the premodern to the modern, the Coens for the transition from the modern to whatever comes next.

This course is in part about the history of ideas, but seeks more to trace the way the imagination of what we think is real and unreal has changed over the last millennium. This course will seek to understand  the intellectual, economic, religious, and artistic/imaginative forces that drove this transformation. Lectures will provide necessary historical and conceptual background. Optional out-of-class film viewing will be scheduled, and time will be apportioned each week for  discussion to hash through the themes and materials presented each week. Coursepack readings and films will be used to bring these ideas down to earth in such a way that we can contrast how people imagined the world hundred years ago with the way we imagine it now.  

The course will have two focus points: Part I will focus on late medieval and Renaissance influences on Shakespeare to understand better the premodern imagination that still played a deeply influential role in shaping his work. In the second half of the course, there will be an overview of the Enlightenment and Romantic thinking and imagination that has shaped what we have come to think of as the ‘modern’. 

The main thrust of this course is to give students an overview of the most important ideas over the last millennium as they have influenced the Western secularizing imagination of reality. This shift in the imagination from to one that is enchanted to  disenchanted, while having an enormous impact first in the societies of the North Atlantic, has had and is having, for better and worse, an equally significant  impact on cultures and societies everywhere else.

In addition to assigned course readings students need to spend at least 2 hours a week outside of class watching films that relate to course content

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. Specifically, we will investigate the following trends and the role they played in the breakdown of the Republican system: 1. Civil War

2. Inequality 

3. Cult of Personality

4. Imperialism

What is memorialized and archived and what is forgotten? Who produces knowledge and what counts as knowledge? Reading literary texts, autobiography, and film, we will use historical and cultural studies approaches to examine how official and unofficial discourses deal with memory, violence, silence, haunting, history, and subjectivity. Topics may include U.S. empire and war, slavery, and colonialism.  

In addition to the class assignments indicated in the syllabus, Honors students will have opportunities to integrate experiential learning, community engagement, and or other research throughout the quarter that may take the form of research on community archives, oral histories and community histories, testimonies, that can build toward the honors portfolio.  

Introduces important trends and movements in Russian literary and cultural history.

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.

Evolution and genetics are the cornerstones of modern biology. DNA & Evolution will explore these fields in the context of contemporary issues that are important to individuals and societies. Although examples will be drawn from a variety of organisms, the primary emphasis will be on humans. Among the questions we will consider are these: Where did modern humans come from? Why are women and men different? Why do children resemble their parents? Do genes influence variation in personality, intelligence, and sexual orientation? What can genetic analyses reveal about evolutionary history and the relationships among species? Can genetic analyses allow us to predict the evolutionary future? Given what our society knows about evolution and genetics, should we take responsibility for guiding the evolutionary future of human populations? Throughout the course the goal will be to help students develop sufficient biological sophistication to understand new discoveries in genetics and evolution, talk to their doctors, and make rational personal and political choices about biological issues. Students will read secondary and primary literature, ask questions, design experiments, analyze and interpret data, and draw their own conclusions. Assignments will include essays, problem sets, and computer labs.

Students who have previously taken “DNA and Evolution” are not eligible to enroll in this course again. Additionally, students who have taken or are planning to take BIOL 354 with Professor Herron should not register for this course as there is significant overlap in material.

This will be a 5-credit seminar on public writing. Students will learn how to interrogate quantitative arguments and dubious uses of numerical data — in controversies regarding public health (COVID-19), race (redlining), education (value-added modeling), investment strategies (buying land), and other aspects of society. Each student will write five short pieces (such as a book review or op-ed), which will be edited by other students and further workshopped during class. Readings will consist of two books and several shorter pieces, including “Weapons of Math Destruction” by Cathy O’Neil and a chapter of “How to Lie with Statistics” by Darrell Huff.

The goal will be to learn to write clearly and persuasively for a general readership about quantitative aspects of socially important controversies. The course is open to mathematical science majors as well as to students in any major in the Honors Program.

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.

Topics likely covered:

• payoffs, utility, moves, strategies
• nash equilibria, probabilistic strategies
• prisoners dilemma
• signaling
• credibility and non-credible threats
• risk management
• cultural conventions
• auction theory
• voting systems
• power & coalitions
• fair devision and envy
• two-sided matching
• decision heuristics

Emerging infectious diseases (IDs) are infections that have recently appeared within a population or those whose incidence or geographic range is rapidly increasing or threatens to increase in the near future. Emerging infections can be caused by: Previously undetected or unknown infectious agents Known agents that have spread to new geographic locations or new populations Previously known agents whose role in specific diseases has previously gone unrecognized. Re-emergence of agents whose incidence of disease had significantly declined in the past, but whose incidence of the disease has reappeared. This class of diseases is known as re-emerging infectious diseases.

This course will focus on an overview of the basic principles of infectious diseases (IDs) focusing on emerging and re-emerging IDs that affect public health in the U.S. and worldwide.

Topics include:

*Scope and nature of the problem of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (IDs).
*Factors involved in the emergence and re-emergence of IDs.
*Basic biology and epidemiology of selected emerging and re-emerging ID agents (bacteria, viruses, prions, helminths, and eukaryotic protozoans).
*Public health, economic, and social impact of emerging and re-emerging IDs.
*Compare strains of Sars-Cov-2 and other coronaviruses (SARS & MERS) and analyze pathogenicity based on amino acid variations.
*Work in research teams and use bioinformatics to elucidate variations in nucleotides sequences (changes in parts of the genome) of viruses associated with increased pathogenicity/virulence. *Predict the pathogenicity of future mutations and/or viruses that have yet to jump species.
*Strategies for diagnosis, prevention, and control of emerging and re-emerging IDs.

In this course, we will explore definitions, ideologies, values, processes, and geopolitics associated with “Western Civilization.” We will look at how feminism, Afrocentrism, and other critical frameworks have challenged assumptions about “Western Civilization.” We consider the impact of “Western Civilization” on the United States and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The OECD is an international organization that works with governments, policy makers, and citizens to establish evidence-based international standards and find solutions to a range of social, economic, and environmental challenges. In this course, we will investigate the ways in which the OECD and its 38 member countries represent diverse experiences of “Western Civilization.” As I center the relationship between “Western Civilization” and the United States, students will choose an OECD country to investigate similarly. Course assignments will assess students’ independent and group work around this and other tasks. We will also examine how the United States compares to other OECD countries; specifically, regarding (1) social and welfare issues (social policy that protects individuals and their families), (2) education; (3) employment; (4) economy; (5) health; and (6) green growth and sustainable development. The OECD has a database that provides up-to-date statistics for making comparisons between countries and identifying trends over time. Finally, we will investigate gaps by race and ethnicity (including migrants), gender, and age across well–being outcomes, as well as the laws and public policies aimed to improve people’s well-being and reduce inequalities.

“How read electronic literature” is a hands-on experiential, interdisciplinary course that guides students to profit from their exploration of digital media. We will acquaint ourselves with a selection of the most creative electronic works of the twenty-first century as we cross disciplinary boundaries, engaging recent literary history, technology, aesthetics, visual arts, sound design, and multimedia. With the rapid development of electronic and digital tools, e-literature competes with digital games for players’ interest. Engaging with the multimedia jargon of digital literature (remediation, digital poetics, cyberspace textuality, active creation of belief, and medial ideology) we will go through the non-trivial process of reading famous digital works by Deena Larsen, Andrew Campana, Alan Sondheim, John Zuern, Zuzana Husarova, Shelley Jackson, and Mark Bernstein. Our journey through digital works will open the path to self-discovery as we will immerse ourselves into various forms of “reading”.

This 300-level 5-credit course explores the health of populations across the planet. Multiculturalism and the Problem Based Learning (PBL) allow students to investigate inequalities in health. More than 35 open-ended topics or cases include sex-worker rights, white saviors, Ebola, anti-immigration policies, #MeToo, incarceration, female circumcision, racial admixture, and LGBTQ issues. Randomly selected cohorts of 3-4 students investigate and present on a randomly selected cases/topics. Also, a 5-7-page, typewritten double-spaced essay of a critically read book, or short story from a reading list more than 40 titles (I&S, VLPA, NW, Diversity, W).

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.

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.

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.

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).

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).

Computer programming for students with some previous programming experience. Emphasizes program design, style, and decomposition. Uses data structures (e.g., lists, dictionaries, sets) to solve computational problems motivated by modern societal and scientific needs. Introduces data abstraction and interface versus implementation. Recommended: CSE 121 or completion of Paul G. Allen School’s Guided Self-Placement.

Computer programming for students with significant previous programming experience. Emphasizes implementation and run-time analysis of data structures and algorithms using techniques including linked references, recursion, and object-oriented inheritance to solve computational problems motivated by modern societal and scientific needs. Recommended: CSE 122 or completion of Paul G. Allen School’s Guided Self-Placement.

English 182 focuses on teaching strategies and skills for effective writing and argument that are required of traditional academic genres, such as the research essay, while also expanding the skills for composing in multimodal genres that our increasingly digital and media saturated world demands.

Section H is an Honors discussion driven class with minimal lecturing and grounded in a disability studies analytic.  Students will reflect on their own growth as scholars and their learning process as an evolving product. Honors students will write longer reflective papers with emphasis on metacognitive critical takeaways.

English 182K (Honors) syllabus

Intermediate Multimodal Composition:Strategies for composing effective multimodal texts for print, digital physical delivery, with focus on affordances of various modes–words, images, sound, design, and gesture–and genres to address specific rhetorical situations both within and beyond the academy. Although the course has no prerequisites, instructors assume knowledge of academic writing.

TTH 12:30-2:20, OUG 136 
Professor Maya Sonenberg

What were they thinking? How do they do it?  

Students will meet and chat with UW Creative Writing faculty and other fiction writers, poets, and nonfiction writers. Hands on opportunities for small group work & feedback on your writing.  Assignments: brief responses to the talks, short creative writing exercises  

In addition to completing all the regular work for this class, Honors students will have a choice of one of four options for Honors ad hoc project: 

• Read an additional book of fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction, interview the author or read interviews with and essays by the author, and write a reflection describing how the interview or additional readings enhanced or changed their view of the book. 
• Create a physical book of their own creative writing, including images and using a unique structure. Students choosing this option should be somewhat acquainted with art-making or craft-making, although they don’t need to have had specific experiences making books. 
• Research and write a paper attempting to answer the question Why do Writers Write? 
• Create an online anthology of poems that all address a particular topic or all use a particular form, including an introduction explaining how the poems chosen are especially interesting examples of that topic or form. 

Students will meet with instructor during the first week of the quarter to discuss the ad hoc project details.

In addition to meeting with their regular small groups throughout the quarter, Honors students will also meet together to provide feedback specific to their ad hoc projects. 

Honors students register through the time schedule and submit an Honors ad hoc application by January 19. The project will be due Monday, March 13^th.

*This course, with an approved ad hoc application and completed project, fulfills an Honors Elective.

Student Endorsements 

“If I had taken this class as a 1st year, I would be a creative writing major. It’s SO COOL.” 

“Everyone should be able to benefit from creative writing—from self-exploration to enhanced perception of the world to increased overall writing ability—they should, of course, take this class.”

“Eye-opening in many ways—especially the different stories being shared.” 

Development of profession and art of landscape architecture in the United States, Europe, South America, and Japan in relation to prevailing social, economic, political, and cultural factors. Relationships with other professions, especially architecture and urban planning, and other arts, such as painting and sculpture.

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. Prerequisite: minimum grade of 2.0 in MATH 334. Offered: W.

Addresses same material as PHYS 122 in more depth and with additional topics such as current research and cross-disciplinary applications. For students with strong calculus preparation. Maximum 5 credits allowed for any combination of PHYS 115, PHYS 118, PHYS 122, and PHYS 142. Prerequisite: a minimum grade of 2.5 in PHYS 141; and MATH 125 or MATH 134, either of which may be taken concurrently; recommended: high-school-level physics course. Offered: W.