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Honors Courses Fall 2009

Honors Academic Writing
4 credit hours

Days/Times
HONS 110.001
MWF 9:00am-9:50am & W 2:00pm-2:50pm

HONS 110.002
TR 12:15pm-1:30pm & W 8:00am-8:50am

HONS 110.003
TR 1:40pm-2:55pm & W 9:00am-9:50am

HONS 110.004
TR 12:15pm-1:30 & W 12:00pm-12:50pm

HONS 110.005
TR 1:40pm-2:55pm & F 12:00pm-12:50pm

An accelerated introduction to the practices necessary for successful college writing at the quality expected of Honors College students. This course satisfies the requirements for ENGL 110. A student may not receive credit for both HONS 110 and ENGL 110. Taken during student's first year. A grade of "C" or better required to fulfill the General Education requirement.

Honors Western Civilization Colloquium & Discussion
6 credit hours

Days/Times
Lecture
HONS 120.001 - 120.004
MWF 9:00am-9:50am

Discussions
HONS 120.DXX
MWF 10:00am-10:50am OR 11:00am-11:50am

This colloquium course is an intensive interdisciplinary study which relates the arts, literature and philosophy of the Western world to their political, social and economic contexts. Examines the development of Western civilization from its origins in the ancient Near East through the Renaissance and Reformation.

Honors Biology I Lecture & Lab
4 credit hours

Days/Times
HONS 151.001
TR 9:25am-10:40am

HONS 151.002
TR 10:50am-12:05am

HONS 151.L01
M 1:30pm-4:30pm

HONS 151.L90
M 4:30pm-7:30pm

Honors Biology I & II together satisfy the College's general education requirement in the Natural Sciences. They are equivalent to Biology 111 and 112 with labs and should be primarily taken by students intending to major in Biology or Chemistry and who have had two years of Biological Sciences in high school.

Honors Chemistry I Lecture & Lab
4 credit hours

Days/Times
HONS 153.001
MWF 11:00am-11:50am

HONS 153.L01
M 2:00pm-5:00pm

Honors Chemistry I & II together satisfy the College's general education requirement in the Natural Sciences. They are equivalent to Chemistry 111 and 112 with labs and should be primarily taken by students intending to major in Biology or Chemistry.

Honors Geology I Lecture & Lab
4 credit hours

Days/Times
HONS 155.001
MWF 12:00pm-12:50pm

HONS 155.L01
T 1:45pm-4:45pm

HONS 155.L02
W 2:00pm-5:00pm

HONS 155.L03
R 1:45pm-4:45pm

Honors Geology I & II together satisfy the College's general education requirement in the Natural Sciences. They are equivalent to Geology 103 and 105 with labs and are not recommended for students majoring in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Psychology, or for pre-med students.

Honors Physics I & Lab
4 credit hours

Days/Times
HONS 157.001
MWF 11:00am-11:50am

HONS 157.L01
M 1:00pm-4:00pm

Honors Physics I & II together satisfy the College's general education requirement in the Sciences. They are equivalent to Physics 111 and 112 with labs.

Honors Astronomy I & Lab
4 credit hours

Days/Times
HONS 390.001
MWF 1:00pm-1:50pm

HONS 390.L90
T 7:00pm-10:00pm

Honors Astronomy I & II together satisfy the College's general education requirement in the Natural Sciences. They are equivalent to Astronomy 129 and 130 with labs and are not recommended for students majoring in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, or for pre-med students.

Honors Philosophy
3 credit hours
Applies to the general education requirement in the Humanities.

Days/Times
HONS 170.001
MW 2:00pm-3:15pm

An examination of central areas of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Topics will include the relation of morality to religion, the existence of God, personal identity, and the nature of the human mind. Although combining elements of Philosophy 101 and 102, for crediting purposes, this course is equivalent to Philosophy 101.

Honors Approaches to Religion: In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith
3 credit hours
Applies to the general education requirement in the Humanities.

Days/Times
HONS 175.001
TR 10:50am-12:05pm

This course is an introduction to the academic study of religion and a survey of different understandings of sacred place found in America and India. The main
theme of “searching for the sacred, the strange and the substance of faith” takes us away from mainstream religion to examine the religiosity of socially marginalized individuals, whose visionary experiences inspire the creation of religious art and monuments. We begin by reading the studies of three “Road Scholars” who interpret unusual forms of religiosity while they undertake a common American ritual: the cross-country road trip. On their road trips they reveal themes that are central to American religious life: creativity as religious devotion, pilgrimage, the tension between authenticity, kitsch, and spiritual materialism, and the relation between religious vision and social marginality. After visiting many eccentric visionaries and odd roadside religious attractions in the US, we travel to the ancient city of Varanasi in India. This sacred city steeped in history and mythology will serve as a lens through which the worldview of Hindu pilgrims comes into focus. We will learn to see these wondrous places as an expression of the religious imagination, where believers have sought to give outward form to their experiences and recreate the “substance of faith.”

Media, Materialism, and Feminism
HONS 391 & HONS 392
3 credit hours
This class is interdisciplinary and also counts as EITHER a Social Science (HONS 392 001) or a Humanities (HONS 391 001) depending on which number you use to register.

Days/Times
HONS 391.001 & HONS 392.001
TR 10:50am-12:05pm

Part I of this course will cover body image and power to include media’s impact on body image, body commodification, and eating disorders.  Part II will cover environmental sustainability and ecofeminism to include Fromme’s rationale for why we are driven to stay busy and consume unnecessary things.  Additional themes in Unit II include the impact of media and materialism on mental health, and issues related to stereotyping, power distributions, and globalization (e.g., how Western society commodifies and consumes other cultures.  A media literacy service learning project will take place after reading about  media literacy interventions, especially those targeting pre-teen and teen youth.  

The Future Perfect Human: Cyborgs, Clones, Werewolves, God
3 credit hours
This class is interdisciplinary and also counts as a Humanities.

Days/Times
HONS 391.002
TR 12:15pm-1:30pm

The course’s focus will be humanism and how it is conceptualized in texts from both the medieval and contemporary periods, initially in terms of the liberal humanist construction of the human.  That critical engagement with “the human” as it continues to be conventionally understood will prepare students to read differently the medieval human and the postmodern human through the ways the nonhuman and the superhuman are defined and imagined in each era.  Ultimately, we will consider how these conceptions of the non- and, especially, super-human influence our attitudes toward the human and, by extension, humanities within the university – and what is says about and can offer to the contemporary (and future) human.  A primary concern of this course is to engage students with fundamental questions of temporality, pushing them to situate texts and views in dialogue across the usual divide of time and place.   From the premodern period, we will look to Christian theology and its manifestations in mystical writers, hagiography, and popular religious belief and to fantastic literature and romance.  We will read theoretical discourse on both issues and will analyze films and fantastic literature.

Death & Dying
3 credit hours
This class is interdisciplinary and also counts as a Social Science.

Days/Times
HONS 392.002
TR 3:05pm-4:20pm

This course aims to analyze the topic of dying and death from a cross-cultural perspective. A major goal will be to make students aware of similarities between cultures regarding dying, death, and bereavement, while at the same time noting diversity. The significance of death rituals within the social structure of societies will be emphasized. Topics to be covered include: attitudes toward death throughout the life cycle, customs for the dying just prior to death, living with dying, biomedical issues, euthanasia, the business of dying, legal aspects of dying, mourning rituals, burial rites and other rites regarding final disposition of a dead body, the biological and social meanings of dying and death, children and death in different cultures, religion and death attitudes, death and the environment, suicide, and grieving throughout the life cycle.

Honors World Politics
3 credit hours
Applies to the general education requirement in the Social Sciences.

Days/Times
HONS 392.003
TR 9:25am-10:40am

World politics has been in a state of extraordinary transition. Today’s world of international relations is an arena that links domestic and foreign affairs around the globe, raising a host of complex issues and questions. As an introduction to the dynamics of international politics, this course includes in depth analysis of the actors, structures, and issues that make up the essence of international relations. We are going to study competing theoretical perspectives, state and non-state actors, the evolution of the international system, cooperation and conflict, globalization and interdependence, international institutions, human rights, environmental pressures, population problems and other important issues in world affairs.

Honors Introduction to International Studies
3 credit hours
Days/Times
HONS 392.004
MWF 1:00pm-1:50pm

Terrorist alerts and security searches at airports; an international labor force in our services industry; the struggles of Cubans, Palestinians, Israelis, and the peoples of the Continent of Africa, inter alia, for human rights; fluctuating oil prices; climate changes; and family and friends going to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan - these are all familiar parts of our everyday lives. But they are also profoundly international phenomena, outcomes of forces and processes both within and outside the borders of the United States. And the ramifications of ‘globalization’ on traditional political, economic, geo-political, and social relationships are of great significance. Yet what globalization is, what it means, and what impacts it has, are hotly contested and debated issues. This course is designed to help students gain a broader understanding of these phenomena by introducing them to the concepts, theories, and analytical skills which are key for comprehending the multi-dimensional concerns of International Studies. Through an examination of political science, economics, culture, history, and geography, this course will enhance the student’s appreciation for an International Studies approach to issues associated with global development. Such issues will include global poverty, democracy in the developing world, international terrorism, women and development, global trade and global justice, and the use of global resources. We will also employ a regional approach to studying these international issues, focusing on Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean. This course, then, offers an integrative and interdisciplinary approach to matters of global significance.

Optical Geographies
HONS 392
3 credit hours
This class is interdisciplinary and also counts as a Social Science.

Days/Times
HONS 392.090
MW 4:00pm-5:15pm

Over recent centuries human culture has taken a profoundly visual turn.  This course charts the increasing salience of visual culture by considering the emergence of new optical technologies, from printing to photography to film to satellites.  These new information-gathering and information-representing technologies have been central to the scalar transformation of life over the modern period.  This course focuses on how such new technologies change our (understandings of) culture and its interaction with our environment.

Geography is an especially visual discipline, with its tradition of representing space through maps, and the course will detail the evolution of cartography.  We will also pay attention to the cultural landscapes that become visible through the remote sensing of the world around us and to the implications of such modern cultural landscapes.  The goals of the course include giving students a framework within which to critically engage our visual culture and hands-on experience with remotely sensed materials such as aerial photographs and satellite images.  It also underlines for students the interdisciplinary nature of the liberal arts tradition, marrying perspectives from disciplines as disparate as geography, arts management, political science and photography.

Honors ICE (Interdisciplinary Creative Exchange)
1 credit hour

Days/Times
HONS 398.001
T 3:05pm-4:35pm

HONS 398.002
W 3:20pm-4:50pm

HONS 398.003
R 3:05pm-4:35pm

HONS 398.004
M 3:20pm-4:50pm

A dynamic, interdisciplinary introduction to the Honors College, this course is exculsively for Honors freshmen. It is coordinated by the Associate Dean of the Honors College, who is assisted by upper level Honors students. Faculty from multiple disciplines lead discussion on assigned readings. Students are introducted to expectations, opportunities, and resources at the College of Charleston. They formulate plans regarding potential majors, careers, and life goals and bond as a learning community through collaborative assignments and service projects. Each section of ICE centers around a specific theme. In fall 2009 the themes are Running in the Human Race: Rights, Relations, and Well-being Worldwide (HONS 398.001); Beyond George Street: An Interdisciplinary Encounter with the City of Charleston (HONS 398.002); Schoolhouse Rock: Education in 21st Century America (HONS 398.003); and It's Not Easy Being Green: Shades of the Modern Environmental Movement (HONS 398.004).

COURSES OFFERED IN THE HONORS PROGRAM IN BUSINESS

Honors Business and Consumer Ethics
3 credit hours
Applies to the general education requirement in the Humanities.

Days/Times
HONS 180.001
TR 3:05pm-4:20pm

This course is designed to broaden students' awareness of the moral problems and responsibilities that have accompanied the growth of business institutions in our society. Through a selection of historical writings in philosophy, economic theory and political theory, students will examine some classical views about the nature of business activity, profit and the concept of an economic market.

Honors Economics I
3 credit hours

Days/Times
HONS 200.001
TR 9:25am-10:40am

This course is designed to satisfy the Principles of Econimics requirement (ECON 201) for the student majoring in Economics or Business. This course also satisfies a general education requirement in the Social Sciences. Prerequisite: MATH 120

Honors Business Research Methods
3 credit hours
This course is the Honors equivalent of DSCI 324 - Business Research Methods.

Days/Times
HONS 394.090
TR 3:00pm-4:15pm

This is a course for students interested in employing qualitative and quantitative methods in two respects: to understand and be able to articulate the assumptions about the business world and arguments about scientific knowledge on which qualitative/quantitative approaches in business are grounded, and basic knowledge of the principal techniques used by researchers who do qualitative/quantitative research.