Using a new approach to undergraduate education, called “Reacting to the Past,” students take on roles of historical groups and reenact key debates from the past. One game is set in Athens and on in France. Playing the roles is based on your understanding of the historical context, and in particular on your understanding of classic texts that responded to or drove the historical debates: Plato’s Republic, Rousseau’s Discourses and Social Contract and Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France.

The theory of evolution has touched off debates on the nature of science, the role of science in society, the relationship between science and religion, and the responsible teaching of science in public schools. The evolutionary chronicle offishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals isgrounded in the fossil record, comparative morphology, embryology, and the genomes of living animals. Itis stunning in detail and consistency, comprisingmost textbook examples of evolution and much more. This course introduces students tothe vertebrate story, relating diversity on the Tree of Life to the anatomical, physiological, and developmental innovations (e.g., jaws, limbs, amniotic eggs, endothermy) that aremilestones of our own deep history.

Singers, actors, dancers, musicians! Lights, costumes, scenery! And it’s all done LIVE, no editing! A safer version of D-Day, but you are there! Baroque to Broadway is a survey of the history of the sung theater, from opera’s beginnings to the Broadway musical. Impress your parents using terms like “in-one” and “concept musical”; pronounce “Gesamptkunstwerk” without coughing! Mozart and DaPonte vs Rodgers and Hammerstein, Gilbert and Sullivan vs Kander and Ebb. Verdi’s Aida vs Elton John’s. Tons of visual and musical examples, some live!

This course explores the ways in which medieval thought was manifested in Christian and Islamic art. The course will challenge students to examine medieval culture as a whole, and to discuss parallels, divergences and convergences between the Islamic and Christian worlds. Topics include medieval attitudes towards the body; art as a tool for political thought and a vehicle for devotion; art created by and for women; and literary themes translated into visual art.

This course on a timely topic provides a geographic approach to investigate organic farming. Relevant topics include: spatial distribution of organic farms, agriculture and landscapes, policy influence on agriculture, organic agricultural productivity, food safety and consumer concerns, organic farmers’ motivations and decisions, organic marketing, local food systems, and organic certification.

The traditional ideal of rationality in science comes from Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato. But recent work questions this ideal and asks us to rethink scientific practices in cultural context. The result: the irrationality of western science.

Two questions: “How do individuals legitimize their lives through action?” and “What are you doing on earth, and why?” Leadership, its purpose, and its elements, in the context of politics, society, and life work; readings with themes of moral responsibility and leadership.

This course explores recent anthropological approaches to popular culture, material culture and the production, exchange and consumption of objects. Focus is on movies and television, and food and shopping, with examples drawn from U.S. society and elsewhere, and a special interest in the relationship among material objects, memory and identity.

3-credit prep course for major scholarship application process. The seminar trains potential Major Scholarship candidates in the skills and procedures that are important for successful applications for the Truman, Marshall, Rhodes, Goldwater, and other similar nationally competitive scholarships. Enrollment is limited to 20 students, and requires consent of the Assistant Director for Major Scholarships. It does not count toward the Honors Graduation Option.

By arrangement only.

By arrangement only.