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Involvement | Keep Informed | Fall 2009 Course Descriptions | Spring 2010 Course Descriptions



Involvement

Study Hard. Have Fun.

Join the Honors Student Organization...

The Honors Student Organization (HSO) @ Montclair State University is an organization that seeks to enrich student life within the Honors Program. Through lectures, trips, and community service activities, HSO aims to...

  • Provide academic opportunities,
  • Explore extracurricular interests,
  • Encourage community involvement, AND
  • Build connections among students and faculty

Events planned for the fall include...

  • Welcome Party, Sept. 2nd @ 3:30 pm, Kops Lounge
  • Bye Bye Birdie Broadway trip
  • Thanksgiving Food Drive
  • Honors Professor Lecture
  • Christmas Caroling at an Orphanage

HSO meets twice a month on Tuesdays, 4 pm, in the Freeman or Kops Lounge. Get on the E-board to help plan events, or drop in on a meeting to voice your ideas. Meeting dates for the fall are the following: Sept. 8, 22; Oct. 6, 20; Nov. 3, 17; Dec. 1. A calendar of meetings & events will be sent out shortly.

Check out HSO on Facebook, or email us for more information. We hope to see you soon!

President: Christina Jen, jenc2@mail.montclair.edu
Co-President: Lauren Shinn, shinnl1@mail.montclair.edu
Vice President: Julissa Materan, materanj1@mail.montclair.edu

Keep Informed
Visit the Honors Office for Program announcements.

Fall 2009 Course Descriptions

HONP 100 01 - Honors Seminar in Great Books and Ideas Part I
(TR 8:30 – 9:45, 12484), Dr. Jean Alvares

How we can best figure out how to live in our world, in our society, and with each other? The great ideas found in the Great Books address these questions, which still engage all of us today. In pursuit of such ideas, we shall look critically at various great literary works of the (mainly) Western Tradition, starting from the Epic of Gilgamesh, though major Biblical, Greek and Roman works, and ending up with in the early medieval world. Discussion and writing will also be a major component of the course.

HONP 100 02 Honors Seminar in Great Books and Ideas Part I
(MW 10:00 – 11:15, 15552) Dr. L. Nicosia

This is an introductory course with no prerequisites.  This course is a survey of various major texts and their accompanying great ideas from the earliest recorded beginnings to roughly 1400 C.E. with a special emphasis on composition, amply fulfilling the Writing/Literature requirement.  This is one of the more foundational of the core courses, because it provides necessary underpinnings for all subsequent learning and intellectual activity.  By surveying various examples of great Western literature and thought, students can better understand how current genres and canons developed, and thus appreciate their fuller significance.  Because texts will be selected from a wide variety of genres (epic, drama, comedy, lyric poetry, romance, historiography, philosophical writing, essay) the students’ overall abilities to understand and appreciate literature will be enhanced. 

HONP 100 03 – Honors Seminar in Great Books and Ideas Part I
(TR 10:00 – 11:15, 12483), Dr. Lee Behlman

This course is a survey of major works of (largely) Western literature from antiquity to the Middle Ages. As we address more than twenty centuries of cultural transformation, we will read such varied genres as ancient epic, philosophical dialogue, tragic drama, the love lyric, autobiography, and biblical and classical history. By the semester’s end, you will have a solid foundation for your intellectual development in other core honors and humanities courses and beyond.

Honors 100 fulfills the MSU Writing/Literature requirement, and so the emphasis of this course will lie equally in developing your argumentative writing skills. We will review a host of issues relating to the way we write and what it takes to be genuinely persuasive. Through handouts and frequent writing assignments, we’ll explore ways to defend your positions, tighten your prose, eliminate mechanical errors, and not least, how to instill a sense of fun and originality in your work.

HONP 100 04 Honors Seminar in Great Books and Ideas Part I
(MW 11:30-12:45PM) Dr. Glen Robert Gill

Why do certain stories and symbols remain with us from generation to generation? What wisdom do they contain that we continually return to them? In this course, we will survey some of the most influential texts and ideas in western culture, and consider their ongoing relevance in the contemporary world. Through readings in the mythological epics of the ancient world, the pagan heroism of the medieval era, the philosophies of the Renaissance and Romanticism, and the self-examining poetry and lyrics of the modern period, this course will deepen your understanding the symbolic and conceptual foundation of our society, and help you to develop and leverage your knowledge of it through critical thinking and writing.


HONP 102 03- Honors Seminar in Twentieth Century Civilization
(TR 1:00 – 2:15, 12491) Dr. K. McCaffrey

R.G. Collingwood wrote that "The chief business of twentieth century philosophy is to reckon with twentieth century history." Drawing on philosophy, history and anthropology, this course will examine the twentieth century as one of the darkest periods of human history. This century was a period of dramatic and rapid change, technological progress, and unprecedented brutality. How do we understand the events of the 20th century? What effect did this century have on human history and the future of the planet? Through non-fiction, literature and film we will explore a range of case studies including the Nazi holocaust, the Stalinist purges, the Rwandan genocide, the struggle for Algerian independence, and the Cuban Missile crisis.

HONP 102 04- Honors Seminar in Twentieth Century Civilization
(M 2:00 – 4:30, 12492) Dr. P. LeBel

This course covers twentieth century civilization with an emphasis on the role of risk in society. To do so, we consider first how risk is perceived from various disciplines. From the humanities we consider fiction, poetry, cinema, and from the social sciences we turn to history, economics, psychology, politics. And while the foundations of risk can be found in statistics and the natural sciences, our focus will be on the impact of risk in a social context. While history will shape the organizational thrust of the course, through a series of readings and presentations, students will examine how various disciplines reflect perceptions of risk in terms of major events of the twentieth century.

While risk in an historical setting will serve as an organizational perspective for the course, some of the topics to be covered can be viewed in an interrelated fashion. They include: economic freedom, political freedom, and political legitimacy, and how these
questions reflect the human condition through the humanities and through participation in civil society.

HONP 102 05 - Honors Seminar in Twentieth Century Civilization
(MR 2:30 – 3:45, 12490) Dr. N. Nabavi

This course is an introductory seminar to twentieth century civilization, focusing specifically on the concept of modernity. What did it mean to be modern and how did modernity manifest itself in different parts of the world in the twentieth century?  Using an interdisciplinary approach, we will read novels as well as treatises, and watch films in order to gain an insight into the various aspects of modernity and the different ways in which it was understood in Europe and beyond, including the Islamic world.

HONP 201 01Honors Seminar in Creative Process
(MW 5:30 – 6:45, 12495) Professor G. Balestracci

This course will examine aspects of creativity through time.  Perhaps the course’s organization will be chronological, perhaps topical, or maybe it will be in large, somewhat organic clumps—but most probably it will be an eclectic amalgam of all three.  The questions guiding the investigation:
What drives creativity?
Why do human beings have a creative impulse?
and as a correlate: Do other species have similar impulses?
Does everyone have this impulse?
Why does this impulse seem to manifest it self more strongly in some rather than others?
How are creative people viewed by society?
What purposes does creativity serve individually? culturally?

As part of this investigation, we will examine artifacts (sculptures, clothing, etc.) and documents (texts, paintings, musical scores, etc.), and we will examine ourselves.

HONP 202 01 Honors Seminar in Contemporary II
(TR 10:00 – 11:15, 12496) Dr. G. Waters

Course Summary and Goals
The goal of this course is to help you understand the 1960s as a significant and formative period in American life. To do this we will focus on the politics, history and culture of the period, using literature, film and music to illuminate the important aspects of this era.  We will also look at the lasting influence of the 1960s on contemporary politics and culture.  This course should be interesting, stimulating, and an excellent learning experience.

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

  • Understand the key issues and trends that emerged in the 1960s.
  • Understand the impact of the 1960s on American life since that time.
  • Compare and contrast the 1960s with the current era.
  • Understand the power of ideas to affect human behavior and historical processes.
  • Understand the causes of generational change and continuity.
  • Critically analyze literature and historical texts
  • Understand arts and culture as both a reflection and cause of historical change.

HONP 301 02 Honors Seminar in Ways of Knowing
(1:00 – 2:15, 12500) Dr. K. McDermid

This class will survey questions about the nature and possibility of knowledge (the study of epistemology.)  It’s easiest to explain what the course is about, by saying it’s about a collection of questions like these:  What is knowledge?  Where do we get knowledge?  How do we know we know something?  What is truth?  These are, obviously, pretty abstract questions – the sort philosophy is famous for.

But, we will be trying to connect the abstractness of this philosophical inquiry to something concrete that you actually have a stake in, and care about: your education at MSU.  Do you obtain knowledge during your studies at MSU?  How do you know it’s ‘real’ knowledge?  Do professors know, or just believe? 

The course will be organized around students investigating their own chosen knowledge-claims, understanding the ways they are justified and the philosophical problems associated with them.  I will be bringing my own real-world epistemological dilemmas to the class for examination as well, most notably the problem of student evaluation: how is a professor supposed to know what his or her students are learning, or what grade they deserve?  We'll see what verdicts various philosophical theories of knowledge, belief and truth deliver on these questions, and perhaps what ways we might change our beliefs, or approaches to forming beliefs, in response.

Spring 2010 Course Descriptions

HONP 101 01 (12340) – HONORS SEMINAR IN GREAT BOOKS AND IDEAS II
DR. JEAN ALVARES – TUESDAY AND THURSDAY 0830 – 0945AM

In the course, we will consider Great Books and Ideas beginning with the pre-modern period to our own era. The focus of the texts considered (and not all of them literary texts) will be the dream of Utopia, approached from various angles, including mythology, art, philosophy, political science, architecture, history, literature and even movies. As Oscar Wilde noted, "A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realization of Utopias"

HONP101 02 (12341) – HONORS SEMINAR IN GREAT BOOKS AND IDEAS II
DR. ROGER ZAPATA – MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY 1000 – 1115AM

Covering over three centuries (roughly 1641 to 1880) and numerous countries, the culture, philosophy, and literature of Europe is immense and complex. In order to make sense of such a vast topic, we will be focusing on the following themes:

  • *Rational thinking and its impact on Modernity.
  • *How did "revolution," a term from the physical sciences, modified our image of the scientific activity and socioeconomic affairs?
  • *How the ideas of major figures– Descartes, Emerson, Goethe, Shakespeare, Freud, et al—changed our understanding of humanity in this critical period in Western culture?
  • How Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species unfolds his arguments supporting the theory of evolution?
  • *What are Rousseau and Marx’s contributions to our understanding of Social inequality?
  • *How Freud provided an integrated view of man’s search for an understanding of the inner reaches of the mind?

OBJECTIVES

In addition to exploring the above themes, you will be learning and practicing certain skills, some of them specific to the history of ideas while most will be useful in other classes and even in the working world. By the end of the semester, you should be able:

  • * To know the main ideas and concepts that guided the process to Modernity of the Western societies.
  • *Read effectively (understanding the important information in an article and identifying the author's thesis) and critically (evaluating how well the author supports that thesis).
  • *Defend your own interpretation by choosing evidence and composing a logical argument both orally (discussion) and in writing (papers).
  • *Continually improve your writing ability and style.

HONP 101 03 (12342) – HONORS SEMINAR IN GREAT BOOKS AND IDEAS II
DR. JEFF GATRALL – TUESDAY AND THURSDAY 1000 – 1115AM

This seminar-style course is designed to introduce students to the ideas of modern thinkers from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century. The chosen texts—which range from works of literature to political manifestoes, from scientific treatises to mystical writings—will be approached not simply as "great books" (though they are that too!). Instead, each text will be treated as a starting point for discussing major ideas that continue to shape the ways in which we think about the modern world, including problems of gender, race, class, and religion. In this sense, each text—however old or new it may be—will be situated in the same "great dialogue," one in we’ll be invited to participate as equals. The readings in the course will be organized around four broad topics: 1) The Divine and the Human; 2) State and Revolution; 3) Science and the Irrational; 4) Colonialism and the West.

The syllabus will consists of readings from such authors as Dante, Hafez, Las Casas, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Rousseau, Adam Smith, Olympe de Gouges, Mary Wollstonecraft, Frederick Douglass, Charles Darwin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Karl Marx, and William Dubois.

HONP 101 05 (12344) – HONORS SEMINAR IN GREAT BOOKS AND IDEAS II
DR. WENDY NIELSEN – MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY 100 – 215PM

This course introduces students to major works of world literature before 1900, from the Early Modern (Renaissance, Restoration) period through the early nineteenth century (eighteenth century, Sturm und Drang, Romanticism). This first-year seminar is subtitled “Making Modern Worlds” because our reading charts authors' engagement with creating new scientific, utopian, psychological, and colonial worlds. Authors include Francis Bacon (New Atlantis), Margaret Cavendish (The Blazing World), Voltaire (Candide), Rousseau, and Goethe (Sufferings of Young Werther and Faust). Our thematic focus will be the formation of identity through gender, class, and racial roles. Students will leave this seminar with renewed confidence in their reading and writing skills.

HONP101 06 (16287) – HONORS SEMINAR IN GREAT BOOKS AND IDEAS II
PROFESSOR GINA BALESTRACCI – MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY 530 – 645PM

This course will focus on Great Works that examine government and its effect on those governed. Authors and works may include:

  • Marco Polo
  • Thomas More: Utopia
  • Desiderius Erasmus
  • Dante Alighieri
  • Christine de Pizan: City of Women
  • Niccolo Machiavelli: Prince
  • Shakespeare: Hamlet, Macbeth, or perhaps one of the histories)
  • Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire: Candide
  • George Handel: Giulio Cesare (yes, an opera!)
  • writings from the Revolutions, including Declaration of Independence
  • Frederick Douglass: Narrative
  • Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Communist Manifesto, Capital

HONP103 02 (12348) – HONORS SEMINAR IN CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
DR. JOHN OLENIK – TUESDAY AND THRUSDAY 0100-0215 PM

Contemporary Civilization Section 3 considers the 21st century from the perspective of East Asia. The experiences of China, Japan, and Korea provide the lenses through which our contemporary age is viewed. The course will place the respective cultures in historical perspective to anchor an understanding of pre, modern, and post modern change. The discussion will include material, social and cultural dimensions. Student participation culminating in a term project makes up an important part of the course experience.

HONP103 03 (15741) – HONORS SEMINAR IN CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
DR. NANCY CARNEVALE – MONDAY AND THURSDAY 230 – 345 PM

In this seminar-style course, we will examine constructions of immigrant/ethnic identity and self-representation primarily through close readings of memoirs and autobiographies by emigrants from non-Western countries. We will consider issues of gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, class, and national identity in identity formation. Specific topics that we will explore include: memory and mythmaking; generational differences; language and immigrant/ethnic identity; transnational identities, and, the role of historical context.

HONP103 04 (16216) – HONORS SEMINAR IN CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
DR. ELIZABETH EMERY – MONDAY 230 – 500PM

Feast and Famine: Global Food Politics Today

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Thus begins Michael Pollan's 2008 book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. Pollan's book raises many questions about how we define food, how we produce it, and how we eat it in the United States. Over the last hundred years, world food production and consumption have become anything but simple, a paradox that inspires this course. "Feast and Famine: Global Food Politics Today" is organized to appeal to students in a variety of majors: it will allow participants to explore cultural, political, economic, and nutritional debates about food in the world today. Units will be dedicated to the social and cultural importance of eating in various countries (through analysis of literature, art, and film), the politics and economics of food distribution today (through discussion of what people in the world really do eat, as well as study of agricultural models, business practices, and trade treaties), and the science of food production and consumption (through debates about nutritionism, localism, and fast food/slow food). Depending on student interest, the course will also include related cooking/eating/planting activities as well as guest lectures about eating locally.

HONP103 05 (16288) – HONORS SEMINAR IN CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
PROFESSOR FLAVIO VIDA – MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY 100-215PM

Professor Flavio Vida, a documentary film maker from Italy who is a professor of film, TV and new media in Milan, will offer a special course on the state of the media in contemporary Italy. Using film, novels and contemporary news stories from the internet, Professor Flavio will help students understand the special issues faced by the media in Italy today, and the important artistic statements that are being made about the politics and the culture there. There will be three short critical papers and a final exam.

HONP103 06(16289) – HONORS SEMINAR IN CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
PROFESSOR GLENN ALCLAY – MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY 1130 – 1245PM

Professor Glenn Alcalay, an anthropologist with a great deal of experience studying cultures here and abroad, will investigate the ethnography of race and racism through a variety of texts, including films and internet sources. Students will learn from each other as well as the professor, and will focus on one aspect of the general history of racial categories, United States history of racism [including genocide of Native Americans and 350 years of the Middle Passage], anti-miscegenation laws, Brown v. Board of Education, passage of the Civil rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Bakke Decision of 1978, affirmative action, findings from the Human Genome Project re: race, and the election of Barack Obama. The course will end with some proposals concerning how we move to a post-racial society.

HONP 201 01 (12350) - HONORS SEMINAR IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS
DR. DAVID GALEF – TUESDAY AND THURSDAY 1000 – 1115AM

What is the difference between craft and art, where do authors get their ideas, and how do professional writers maintain a steady output based on something so tenuous as inspiration? This seminar explores the process of creativity, mainly in the field of fiction-writing. No experience necessary: you do not have to be a creative type to take this course. We'll look at the creative process through psychological studies, such as Freud's "Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming," Edmund Wilson's "Philoctetes: The Wound and the Bow," and Rollo May's The Courage to Create; memoirs and primers, such as Annie Dillard's The Writing Life and Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird; and interviews with writers. The primary texts are fiction and will include work by the professor of the course, a well-published writer who's agreed with a little trepidation to serve as a sort of template. Requirements include an in-class presentation leading to a research paper, some creative-critical exercises, and a final exam.

HONP 211 01 (16109) – HONORS SEMINAR IN CONTEMPORARY ISSUES I
DR. SCOTT KIGHT – MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY 100 – 215PM

HONOR SEM IN CONTEMP ISSUES I Topic: Evolutionary Biology and Contemporary Issues. This course will focus on the scientific concepts associated with the evolution of living things. Evolution forms the central organizing principle of biology and helps us understand many aspects of human health and culture, including educational policy, emerging and congenital diseases, drug resistance, mating preferences, and conservation of endangered species, to name a few.