Lower Level Coursework in Honors

Restrictions: None

This seminar develops skills needed to be successful in the Honors Program, and skills that will hopefully translate to meaningful skills outside of the classroom. The course structure is almost exclusively discussion based and the course objective for the Honors Foundations' first-semester seminar is to develop the following skills:college-level reading, writing, discussion, and research.

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Upper Level Coursework in Honors

Restrictions: None

The full title of this course is Myth, Ritual, & Magic: Intro to Anthropology of Religion. The seminar explores the social and cultural uses and meanings of religion, ritual and magic from a cross-cultural perspective. The class will examine the category of 'religion' in relation to those of 'magic' and 'science' as well as the use of rituals in groups.

Restrictions: None

Jesus was the founder of the world's largest religion and one of the most controversial figures in religious history. ""Life and Teaching of Jesus"" is an analysis of the early Christian writings with the objective of studying the life and message of Jesus. This exploration will use the tools of historical, anthropological, sociological, and literary scholarship to investigate Jesus and the early Christian communities that produced the literature about him within their historical, cultural, and religious contexts.

Restrictions: None

The dramatic end of the current world order remains a fascination in American culture. From the Puritan desire to establish a Christian utopia prompting the return of Jesus and the expansionist mandates of Manifest Destiny to the Left Behind series and 2012, many Americans continue to anticipate an imminent end of the world. Apocalyptic America will examine this trend in popular culture by exploring the ancient religious documents (the biblical books of Daniel and Revelation, along with portions of the Gospels and the Letters of Saint Paul) on which this vision is based. The role of the ""Millennial Kingdom"" in American history and culture will then enable students to analyze contemporary incarnations of the theme. The course will conclude with student projects and group presentations that examine current cultural productions including apocalyptic religious movements, cultural productions (""The Road"" and ""2012""), and apocalyptic language in political discourse.

Restrictions: None

This course serves as an introduction to the history of religious beliefs and practices in India (and to a lesser degree South East Asia and Tibet) with special attention to the religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Islam. It will make some effort also to observe the contemporary practice of some of these religions in the greater Des Moines area.

Restrictions: None

Three of the largest and oldest religions developed from the cultures of the Middle East. Although the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share similar foundations and many similar beliefs, their histories and innovations led to distinct religions that are often entangled in deep religious and political conflict. Religions of the Middle East will begin by exploring the histories and beliefs of these religions. The class will then examine two major issues that effect and are influenced by the religions of the Middle East (these topics are open and will rotate each semester).

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This course focuses on the role of communication in shaping distinctions and relations between "culture" and "nature," in representing environments for audiences, and in advocating for or against particular environmental policies and practices. We will critically examine 1) how publics come to view environments through representations in a variety of media; 2) problems of efficacy and ethics in the public discourse, forums, and voices playing a part in environmental controversies and debates; 3) our own practices of advocacy. We will also be reflecting on the relationships between all of these arenas—the theory, critique, and practice of environmental communication.

Restrictions: None

This course explores literature from the perspective of the cultural work it performs with regard to constructing or challenging gender identities. The course varies but may examine particular literary traditions (e.g., literature by women of color) or particular critical issues (e.g., (de)constructing masculinity in the writings of women).

Restrictions: None

In this course, students will learn how narratives of grief are constructed, experienced, debated, politicized, and pathologized. We will examine various aspects of grief including cultural difference, social policing, media portrayals, and theoretical debates. Students will learn how tragedy and grief are used to sell politics and products and what implications this has on individual and cultural understandings of loss.

This course applies sociological principles to health, illness, and health care. In order for students to fully develop an understanding in this context, a variety of perspectives will be explored and critiqued including that of patients, providers and society. This draws on foundational disciplines at the broader level and frames them into the biomedical experience. For example, sociological constructs of age, gender, ethnicity, and social class; psychosocial aspects of personal illness experience, historical and political perspectives of dominance, regulation and governance of providers and health care organizations will be the multidisciplinary topics covered. Other topics may include but are not limited to: history of 'western' medicine, models of illness, stress and well-being, social stratification of illness, health demography, medicalization and de-medicalization of illness, disability, and patient-provider relationships. A combination of reading, discussion, reflective activities, and paper/project composition will be used to facilitate comprehension of the course material.

Restrictions: None

This course allows students to both read and write fictions about ""artificial intelligence."" We will examine past and present cultural beliefs and anxieties about conceptions of artificial intelligences, looking at popular works that have spoken to audiences' fears of, and hopes for, intelligent machines that interact with humans and participate in human life. From calculating murderers (eg: HAL 9000) to protective companions (eg: Baymax), how have we viewed these artificial ""persons,"" and what have we imagined becomes of natural, biological humans who live lives integrated with AI? Students will explore their own visions of present and future by writing their own stories about conceived ""AI.""

Restrictions: None

This course provides students with an introduction to urban education. We engage the philosophical, social, economic, and political contexts of urban schooling. We begin by examining the utility and demarcation of space (e.g., urban, suburban, rural, etc.). We then explore historical and contemporary understandings of the notion of ""urban,"" focusing on how ""urban"" has been constructed and evolves over time. We focus on the impact on schools and communities, in particular, urban educational reform and pedagogical strategies. In addition, we engage the intersections of urban education with questions of political economy, immigration, militarization, and racism. Finally, we discuss how students experience urban schools -- the challenges they may face in urban contexts as well as practices of hope and humanization.

Restrictions: None

The US-Mexico borderlands are defined by more than a political line. The borderlands are a region with an environmental, social, cultural and economic history. Current border issues overshadow our understanding of this region and historical context will help us understand migration, race, culture and politics. Likely subjects include war and violence, the long reach of colonialism, agriculture, mining, industrialization, urbanization, labor, water resources and public health. Readings will focus on the Borderlands from the 19th to the 21st century with special attention paid to Indigenous peoples. Students will learn to think historically and critically about this region over time by reading, discussing, and writing. Readings will be augmented by films and visual sources.

Restrictions: None

Cosmology is the study of the origin, fate and nature of the universe on its grandest scales. Over the millenia, it has had a powerful influence on our thinking about the significance of the Earth and human civilization. It is a rich topic with many different flavors, ranging from the poetic to the technical, from the mundane to the truly bizarre. Historically, cosmological ideas have evolved with and influenced the philosophy, art, psychology, culture and ego of humankind. In this class we will examine the human investigation of the Cosmos on its largest scales. We will take an historical perspective of the development of cosmological ideas from flat Earth to inflation, studying how these ideas have developed and changed since antiquity and how these developments have resonated through our societal and cultural experience. We will also explore the modern scientific view of cosmology and discuss how observational results either support or conflict with theoretical ideas about the cosmos. We will employ both descriptive and mathematical approaches to see how these work together to deepen our understanding.

Restrictions: None

This course is an examination of dogs and human relationships with dogs as seen through the lenses of philosophy, art, religion, literature, economics, history, science and a wide variety of other disciplines. We will work to develop ethical and political insights from our relationships with dogs -- insights related not only to our relationships with dogs but also to our relationships with humans we view to be significantly different from ourselves.

Restrictions: None

An examination of recent discussions of ethical issues in AI (broadly defined to include Big Data) including, but not limited to, issues of privacy, bias, problematic influence, and social consequences of AI.

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This course is required for anyone who is fulfilling their General Education requirements using Honors courses instead of Areas of Inquiry (AOI) courses. The course is designed to help you reflect upon your interdisciplinary courses of the past and prepare you to make the most out of your interdisciplinary studies in the future. The foci of sections of Paths to Knowledge differ depending upon the Honors faculty teaching. This course is intented for second semester or second year Honors Track students.

This course gives upper-level Honors students the opportunity to craft effective leadership skills to mentor small groups of 10-15 first year students enrolled Honors Foundations. Students collaborate in pairs as co-guides on development and implementation of curriculum, service and social activities for assigned first year groups. Guides will work closely with the Director of Honors to develop the skills and materials necessary to lead the assigned groups. The Goals are to (subject to mild modification): communicate information about making the most of the Honors Program; foster community within the group; foster connections of the group with the larger Honors community; enhance students understanding of their own learning processes; develop skills necessary for success in Honors courses; nurture intellectual curiosity. Guides must be independent thinkers, thoughtful leaders and effective communicators who are committed to growing in all of these areas.

Restrictions: None

Rhetoric and Popular Culture critically examines how the signs and symbols we all encounter in daily life work to shape our cultural practices, our political commitments, and even our social identities. By learning to analyze common cultural texts, objects, and spaces through the lens of rhetoric, students will reflect on how particular ideas, values, attitudes, and actions can appeal to publics to become social norms. Examining how these cultural rhetorics operate will also afford students opportunities to consider the consequences of these influences as well as the possibilities for social change.

Through direct observation and investigation of the natural world, this course will use place-based pedagogies to help students gain greater understanding of physical, earth, and life science concepts. Additionally, the course will explore the history of scientific ideas and interactions of science, technology, and society.

Restrictions: None

This course serves as an introduction to Chinese philosophy and religion from the mid-first-millennium-BCE “philosopher” Confucius (Kongzi, 551–479 BCE) to the present. Although we will focus on Confucianism, the most robust religio-philosophical tradition over this period, we will also learn a bit about classical Mohism and Daoism, early Chinese Buddhism, and contemporary Chinese communism. This is a course in religious studies and philosophy, which means that we will not only learn about these ideas and arguments in their cultural-historical contexts and for religious-spiritual ends but also engage in philosophical evaluation of them, inquiring about their meaning, truth, and value. In doing so, we will explore some of the major differences in method, content, style, and aim between Chinese and “western” philosophy and religion.

Restrictions: None

This class considers the role that aesthetics play in our daily environments, examining how art, architecture, clothes, furniture, music, cuisine, signage, tools, toys, and other objects operate as part of a field of persuasive appeals and also shape the formation of identities and communities. We will be considering five key terms throughout the course that will help us to focus on different concepts relating to aesthetics: beauty, pleasure, taste, style, and criticism. We will also be profiling, and applying the work of theorists who offer different insights into aesthetics. Using our readings, discussion, and assignments, we will take a closer look at the way elements of our daily lives are designed, critically consider the norms governing their beauty and appeal, examine the role taste and style play in the performance of identity and social connections, research different approaches to understanding aesthetics, and practice ways of evaluating the roles it plays in culture and politics of social life.

Restrictions: None

This course will consider the extent to which the mind sciences (including neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science, and artificial intelligence) can inform classic topics and issues in the philosophy of religion, especially as globalized beyond the Anglo-American tradition of philosophy of religion. These topics and issues include, though are not limited to, the cause and veridicality of religious/mystical experience, the evolutionary-psychological origins and functions of religious ideas, personal identity & the survival of death, the future of humanity, and the creation of the universe.

Restrictions: None

This course explores the complexities of how immigration impacts urban education. According to Rong and Brown (2002), 1 in 10 U.S. children was born outside of the United States, and 1 in 5 live in a household headed by an immigrant. Approximately 1,000 immigrant children enter schools each day. While immigration is not reserved for urban contexts, the Current Population Report (Lollock, 2001), found that almost half of the foreign born lived in a central part of a city in metropolitan areas (45%), compared with slightly more than one quarter of the native population (27.5%) For many immigrant children and families, schools are the first American institution they must negotiate. In this course, we will review research that centers on immigrant children—in hopes of learning from them how they experience schools. We will discuss challenges that students face including dislocation, cultural disorientation, language learning, and racism. In addition, we will analyze the issue of immigration in the larger context of globalization. Finally, we will explore opportunities for educating immigrant children in urban contexts—with the possibility of schools as sites for humanization and social transformation.

Restrictions: None

In this course, students will learn to interpret both U.S. and Japanese films in the context of contemporary social, cultural, and political environments. They will come to recognize how art is part of the dialogue among a people in the creation of collective identity and relationships (both internal and external to the nation). Students will be required to watch six films over the course of the semester, outside of the regular class time. This is indicated as a film lab on the schedule. No prerequisites.

This course addresses the relationship between gender and war in historical and contemporary context. The course examines the ways in which socially constructed gender norms shape the causes, tactics, and consequences of war. Topics include an examination of gender in war propaganda and military training, gender roles in combat, and the gendered construction of the innocent civilian.

Restrictions: None

Typically when we think about how to behave, we think about the impact of our behavior, either directly or indirectly, on other people. However, there is a long tradition of thinking about what we owe to those who are not people, that is to animals, plants, ecosystems. While this tradition has, historically, played a rather minor role in larger conversations, since the mid-twentieth century, thinkers have taken up the question of our moral responsibility to non-humans. These questions have ranged from whether (and which) non-humans might have rights to whether we have a moral responsibility to prevent species from going extinct regardless of the impact of their extinction on anyone or anything. Not only are these questions interesting and important in themselves, but additionally by carefully attending to these conversations we are able to think about ethics and ethical reasoning differently simply by engaging less frequently discussed topics.

The International Environmental Seminar enables students to gain an appreciation of the ecological and social aspects of environmental issues through an intense immersion experience in a developing country. Students will explore aspects of sustainable development and environmental justice within a specific national context. In general, discussion topics will include tropical ecology, the politics of land use, the effects of conflict on environmental systems, and the interaction between economic development and sustainability. Travel seminar sign-up is via Terra Dotta.

This class will survey the genealogies, forms, contexts, practices, and goals of “atheistic” ideas and arguments over the course of “Western” history as well as across the the globe. The class is philosophical in the sense that it will examine arguments for atheism and against theism (or other institutionalized positions that defend the existence of non-human, trans-empirical beings and/or post-mortem, salvific ends). But the class also takes a sociological, historical, and phenomenological approach in attempting to understand the socio-historical contexts, rhetorical-political objectives, and lived- communal practices of “atheism.”

Restrictions: None

What is art? In this class, we will investigate four traditional definitions of art, apply these definitions to actual artworks, and try to come up with definitions of our own. We will learn about aesthetics and the philosophy of aft from both the analytic and continental philosophical traditions, and we will explore interdisciplinary connections with fields such as art criticism, literary theory, and studio arts.

Restrictions: None

This class serves as the "arms and feet" of The Comparison Project. As such, students will be involved in programming events on campus and in the community, communications, publicity, social media, website design and maintenance, strategic planning, and booklet guides to the "Religions of Des Moines," approaching comprehensive coverage of most religious communities in the greater DSM area. Beyond that, we will continue working on a calendar of sacred events for the metro area, an on-line blogging feature for the website, and preparations for another summer of interfaith youth leadership camps.

Restrictions: None

What is science? What is Christian theology? Why have science and Christian theology been widely thought to be in conflict with each other? Are they in conflict? Do Christian theologians who speak about science or scientists who speak about Christian theology overstep the legitimate boundaries of their respective disciplines? This course offers an examination of these and other questions. We will begin with an introduction to several perspectives and terms that will shape our discussion, and then we will proceed with a historical survey of the interaction of science and Christian theology in western culture. Students who successfully complete this course will achieve a greater knowledge of the history of science and Christian theology, sharpened skills for analyzing the methods and practices of both science and Christian theology, and a cultivated awareness of how science and Christian theology continue to interact in contemporary American society to shape public policy and perceptions.

Restrictions: None

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From ancient myth to nineteenth-century freak shows, from medieval maps to modern conspiracy theories, monstrosity both frightens and fascinates. What makes someone monstrous, and what role do monsters play in our culture and society? This course will explore religious and and philosophical interpretations of monstrosity; social and psychological functions of monsters; and the role of race, gender, disability, and other forms of ""otherness"" in deeming certain bodies to be monstrous.

This course provides students with an introduction to the study of youth, culture, and society, focusing on urban contexts and schools. This course will examine youth (and adolescence) as historically and culturally specific social formation. We will engage and discuss the construction of youth and its relationship to larger structural forces (e.g., racial, cultural, social, economic, and political contexts) that impact and shape their lives. Using multiple texts, writing assignments, and reflective practices, students will critically examine ideological and representational understandings of youth and youth cultural practices. Specific topics include representations, popular culture, incarceration, subculture, social movements, immigration, sexuality, the politics of urban schooling; and the multiple ways in which youth negotiate, resist, and disrupt their identities.

Restrictions: None

What would cause someone to physically attack an artwork? What does science tell us about the unanticipated changes in artworks over time? How difficult is it to move an artwork from one location to another? In our digital age we have become distanced from the material dimensions of making, transporting, encountering, and conserving artworks. This interdisciplinary course re-grounds visual art in the physical world, taking seriously the properties and interactions of art materials and the impacts of first-hand encounters with it. It also reveals specific aspects of art’s social significance that are not captured effectively in photography, such as the ways in which art’s materiality connects to spiritual, political, or technological practices. Looking at these issues in earlier periods of time sheds light on our own ideas about material, labor, time, and space.

Restrictions: None

Philosophy is, according to some, the pursuit of truth; fiction, an invented story. And yet some of the brightest philosophers have written in fictional form. What gives? This course looks at whether and how truth can be revealed in fiction (and more broadly language). It takes as its primary sources two pairs of texts, each of which is composed of one philosophical work written in fictional form and one literary work that takes up philosophical issues, together which approach the same philosophical problem: first Plato’s Phaedrus and Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, then Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathurstra and Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It bookends these texts with recent theoretical explorations of the relationship between philosophy and fiction.

Restrictions: None

This course serves as both an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of comparative religion and an exercise in the interdisciplinary practice of comparative religion. (Note that comparative religion does not rate and rank religions but rather identifies and explains the similarities and differences between religions.) The introductory component of the class considers the strengths and weaknesses of several different models and methods of comparing religions, while the practical component takes up the actual comparison of a number of different religions with respect to the theme of ""ineffability,"" the class will also produce multidisciplinary notion that divine beings or mystical experiences transcend our ability to speak about them. (Optimally, the class will also produce multidisciplinary explanations of these comparisons.) The class is designed to accompany The Comparison Project, Drake University's public program in comparative religion. This means that the religions the class compares and the writings the class reads will be determined by the programming of TCP, and that the scholars who participate in TCP will visit our classroom. Assignments include frequent reading responses and four five-page papers.

Restrictions: None

An introduction to philosophy of mind, focused on the nature of intentionality and consciousness, the relationship between mental and physical states, and the possibility of artificial intelligence.

Restrictions: None

An interdisciplinary investigation of anthropogenic global change, using ""global warming"" as a semester-long case study. Students learn an effective approach to investigating a major environmental issue by first obtaining a strong scientific background in the issue, building computer and conceptual models to test scenarios, and finally investigating various policy options. Climate physics, paleoclimatology, biology, uncertainty analysis, economics, and risk assessment are some of the tools students will learn to apply to these issues.

What caused the infamous witch trials? Religious attitudes? A social crisis? Introduction of new ideas from the West Indies? Trauma from recent Indian attacks? Changes in the status of women? This course will read a variety of explanations of the Salem witch trials. However, rather than decide what ""really"" caused them or argue about what ""really"" happened, this course will focus more on the nature of evidence. When we read a description of ""what happened"" what constitutes the evidence? Who gets to decide what is valid and what is not? How do these ideas of evidence come into play with various strategies of writing from personal narrative to sermon to other forms? How does this increased awareness of the way evidence is ""embedded"" in social reality affect your views about your own reading, writing, and judging? In addition to thinking and writing about these questions, we will assess similarities and differences between the witch trials and the trail of Anne Hutchinson. We will do this through a ""Reacting to the Past"" curriculum which provides selected readings and role playing. This unit will be about a month of the semester and will give us another ""body of evidence,"" so to speak. Readings will include historical and sociological explanations of the witch trials, 17 century readings (diaries, accounts of trials, etc.), and 19th - 21st century imaginative writings about the Salem event, such as ""The Crucible."" There will be several short papers rather than a single large project.

Restrictions: None

The philosophy of religion, broadly defined, is the philosophical examination of religious reasoning. As practiced, however, the philosophy of religion usually gets narrowly focused on either the rationality of modern-western religion or the religiosity of modern-western philosophy. This course ventures a new approach in the philosophy of religion, one that is religiously diverse and historically grounded. As such, it seeks first to survey several different instances of reason-giving in several different religions of the world. It will then formally compare these instances of reason-giving in an effort to detect important and interesting similarities and differences between them. Finally, it will ask whether and how these instances and patterns can be critically evaluated with respect to their truth and value. Since this is a philosophy of religion course, particular emphasis will be placed on this third and final step: can one inquire into the truth and value of religious reasons and ideas? If so, how? If not, why not? Note that this class is designed to accompany Drake University’s public program in comparative religion, The Comparison Project (http://comparisonproject.wordpress.drake.edu).

Restrictions: None

This course will explore the past, present, and future of Artificial Intelligence (AI). We will begin by looking at the initial aims of AI and the theoretical and technological developments that made AI look like a genuine possibility (and survey some of the early successes and failures of that research program). We will then consider the current state of AI and the way future developments may (or may not) have a significant impact on society and self.

Restrictions: None

What are the cultural and political dimensions of feelings? Why are some feelings pathologized and linked to abnormal” states like depression and anxiety? How are such experiences represented in discourse? What problems do states like depression and anxiety pose for conventional political values like rationality, deliberation, and progress? How might feelings trouble accounts of identity, subjectivity, and agency? In pursuing answers to these questions, this course explores crucial facets of feelings as cultural phenomena and political forces, such as the gender dynamics of the body/mind split, the role of pathos in social movements, and the interests benefiting from depictions of the ""healthy"" and ""well-adjusted"" citizen. Drawing on recent writing in the ""affective turn"" in the humanities and social sciences and earlier work on ""structures of feeling,"" this course considers the rhetorical policing of the boundaries between stability/ instability, acceptance/resistance, and normality/deviance in specific emotional and political states of being and becoming.

This course aims to understand the history of North American indigenous peoples and to better (perhaps differently!) understand American history. Using primary and secondary sources, we will complicate the "native" experience, explore the historical tensions between peoples and nations, and place Native Americans at the center of the American historical narrative.

The course will examine the major topics and issues of contemporary philosophy of science, including (but not limited to) the demarcation criteria of science, the rationality and objectivity of scientific theories, the verification and falsification of scientific theories, and the claims and merits of realism, pragmatism, empiricism, and constructivism. The course will also consider the ways in which various contexts of scientific activity (technological, social, historical, economic, political, personal) affects the practice and aims of science.

Restrictions: None

An introduction to philosophy of language, linguistics, and semiotics focused on the issue of linguistic relativism, i.e., whether languages are significantly different, and if so, whether they shape significantly different views of reality. Examines evidence both in support of and against linguistic relativism, and then uses this evidence as a means of addressing the relationship between language and reality.

This course focuses on Charles Dickens, arguably the most popular novelist of the Victorian Age and certainly one of the most enduring. Dickens was so prolific that one cannot read even half of his works in the space of one semester. We will examine approximately five of his novels (final reading list to be determined) as well as some of his journalism (including collaborative pieces) and his personal letters. Students will enjoy discovering (or rediscovering) the quirkyness, weirdness, hilarity, and sometimes inexplicable oddness of works such as ""Great Expectations"", ""Little Dorrit"", ""Oliver Twist"", and ""Bleak House."" Students will also read essays about Dickens' works and learn to place their critical voices in conversation with those of other scholars.

Restrictions: None

Climate change, viruses, pandemics, nuclear war, political disintegration, aliens, and zombies have all been part of American popular culture and its visions of end times. Since the foundations of America, its role in God's plan and various end-time scenarios has been at the center of many political, religious, and cultural debates. Apocalyptic America in Film and Culture will examine how popular culture has altered and reconstructed America's role in the end times, how that vision has changed during the 20th and 21st centuries, and how it influences social debates.

Restrictions: None

This course introduces students to urban studies, visual rhetoric, and photography, while giving them the opportunity to produce their own images of city scenes. The first unit will cover key concepts in urbanism and photography, the second unit will profile the role and function of techniques particular to the photographic medium, and the final unit will explore the metamorphic capacity of photography and the urban issues it can address through the creation of student portfolios that will be presented to the class.

Restrictions: None

This course explores global migration and dynamics in both historical and contemporary context. It examines state efforts to regulate international migration and comparative immigration policies. The course looks at the nexus between global migration and citizenship and considers the way that restrictive immigration policies produce exclusionary and inequitable conceptions of citizenship.

Restrictions: None

This course will address the overlap between law, society and climate change with a specific focus on how and to what extend law can or could respond to ""ruptures"" of this magnitude. Broadly the course is structured around the way we use law to make cultural meaning, to structure access to resources and to allocate or resist power. Topics to be addressed in-depth include physical displacement of humans and other animals and the legal and social responses to those movements; the idea of displacement of responsibility and the deferring of crisis management from older to younger generations, and from wealthier, more powerful states to those with less; and the role of law and hope.

Restrictions: None

This course will consider the rhetorical aspects of space and place by studying how spaces become places: the process through which certain locations come to create a “sense of place” and the meaning and function of those places in public culture. Readings and assignments will address how communication about, in, and through places plays a role in social identities and practices.

Restrictions: None

Medical anthropology examines affliction and healing in a cross-cultural perspective. It emphasizes the understanding of how health and healing are shaped by cultural and biological processes. It also analyzes the relations among health, illness, social institutions, power, and cultural representations. Medical anthropologists examine the ways in which global processes—health policies, epidemics, war and violence, inequalities—affect the life of individuals and communities.

Restrictions: None

This course examines global efforts to promote justice and to establish the rule of law in the aftermath of systemic violations of human rights and at the end of violent conflicts between and within states. Transitional justice initiatives involve wide-ranging goals, including creating institutions that will foster lasting peace and stability, designing and implementing mechanisms for bringing accountability to perpetrators of war crimes and human rights atrocities, fostering reconciliation in war-torn societies, and developing trauma-informed programs that promote the healing of survivors. This course examines a variety of mechanisms for pursuing transitional justice and sustainable peace, including trials, truth and reconciliation commissions, reparations, and therapeutic justice initiatives.

Bright dresses. Multiracial crowds. Lots of sex. Murderous wives. Tea. Labor activists. Those 6 bullet points encapsulate many complexities of the Victorian period. The Victorian era was not gray or sleepy. Rather, it was full of contradiction, debate, and rebellious figures. In this class, we read 19th-century British literature with a focus on understanding how the Victorians questioned and developed concepts that remain central to human experience. How did Victorians represent and define race? How do stories about scandalous marriages comment on restrictive laws? What do rebellious fictional wives tell us about feminism in the nineteenth century? What do we learn from studying Victorian pornography? How does detective fiction interrogate race? What do domestic servants reveal about family structures and labor dynamics? Students in this course will investigate those questions in a wide range of texts, and the reading list will include Lady Audley's Secret (Mary Elizabeth Braddon), Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte), and The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins).

Restrictions: None

The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. Scholars use the term "mass incarceration" to understand this phenomenon. We will look at how scholars from different disciplines have answered the most fundamental questions surrounding mass incarceration, including: Why does the US incarcerate so many people? Why are there such profound race, class, and gender-based disparities within the incarcerated population? And, what would a world look like that incarcerated less, or maybe even did not incarcerate at all? We will also consider the impact of mass incarceration on people and communities, including families, landscapes, and local economies, as well as how incarceration has been a site of cultural production, including writing, art, and music.

Restrictions: None

This semester Digital Religion will analyze the Peoples Temple movement and their agricultural project in Jonestown, Guyana. This group, led by Jim Jones and an inner circle of devoted socialists, rose to prominence in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1970's, working on radical political issues, establishing communal living facilities, and emphasizing racial and economic equality. The group left the Bay Area for Guyana where it established a communal agricultural project. Ultimately, the group committed what they called ""revolutionary suicide"" in late 1978. In cooperation with the ""Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and the Peoples Temple"" project hosted by the San Diego State University, students will assist in the analysis and annotation of an online selection of documents originally produced by Jim Jones and members of the Peoples Temple.

The course raises questions about what violence is; what it does; whether it is necessary, legitimate or illegitimate; and what its' constitutive and destructive qualities are. We investigate the main theories of violence from philosophy and political science but also explore ethnographic cases from across the globe, looking at significant occurrences of violence in history and their reverberations in the present. The course also looks at representations of violence in rituals, art, and movies, as well as how art and poetry are often the only way through which the brutal experience of violence is elaborated, revered, and possibly reworked.

Restrictions: None

Certainly, a desire to ""give back"" and help make the world a better place is a noble ambition. Unfortunately, the road to perdition is paved with such good intentions. The data is clear that health development aid can do harm as well as good. In this course, we will explore why countries are poor, what can be done to alleviate their poverty, and some of the results of health and development aid schemes. This is a reading and discussion intensive type course that will familiarize students with current theories, and controversies in health and development. Working in this area is not easy. Idealists and do-gooders burn out quickly. Having an awareness of the major issues in development will assist you in being as effective as possible in your volunteer work or career as an aid worker. It will also make you a better informed citizen and voter. If you finish the course more confused than when you started it, that simply means you now understand how complex health and development aid actually is.

Restrictions: None

This course will explore reproductive practice, policies, and politics throughout the world. We will consider local practices of human reproduction and production -- the bearing and raising of children -- in a transnational context, exploring the ways power relations shape social practices of family formation across the globe in varying ways. We will consider this issue through a range of interdisciplinary sources including media, literature, ethnography, history, and public policy. This course will address such issues as sexuality, birth control, pregnancy, abortion, adoption, and child rearing in the context of particular social and cultural traditions as they are affected by global power relations.

Restorative justice is a perspective that views crime as a harm against people and the community, which needs to be addressed through the involvement of offenders, victims, and the community. This course provides an introduction to the principles and practices behind restorative justice. A restorative justice movement has been growing dramatically globally in the past couple of decades. Along with this growth come many challenges, pitfalls, and critics. The course is designed to allow students to struggle along with the experts in trying to navigate the opportunities and challenges, the success stories and the pitfalls that accompany restorative justice programs. In the process, students will explore questions about justice, crime, imprisonment, punishment, rehabilitation, forgiveness, and the purpose of a legal system. The course relies heavily on international perspectives to learn about these issues.

Wrongful Convictions: Law and Policy is a collaborative course between Drake Law and the Law, Politics, and Society Program. Through classroom-based and project-based learning, law students and advanced LPS and Honors Program students will be exposed to the substantive area of post-conviction and habeas law and learn to analyze the law and criminal justice policies as they affect the wrongfully convicted in Iowa. In addition, students will have the opportunity to develop professional and problem-solving skills in the areas of forensic science and expert witnesses, organizational representation and advocacy, and legal research and writing, particularly in the area of drafting policy and advocacy documents. Students will partner with Drake’s Wrongful Conviction Clinic and other Innocence Projects such as the Exoneration Project or the Midwest Innocence Project to identify and address challenges facing the wrongfully convicted innocence community and movement.

Restrictions: None

This course serves both as an introduction to religion in South Africa and as means of developing a collaborative photo-narrative project about religion in South Africa with Drake’s international partner, University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). In the way of introduction, we will learn the history of (religion in) South Africa, especially in encounter with colonial powers and Christian missionaries. In the way of the photo-narrative project, we will work with faculty and students at UKZN to begin identifying and learning about religious sites in the KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa, especially as they relate to an environmentally themed book. This course can also be used to prepare students who are going on the J22 travel-seminar to South Africa where we will visit these sites in person with faculty and students at UKZN.

Restrictions: None

Africa's history in the 19th and 20th centuries is crucial not only to understanding Africa's role and relevance in world history but also to understanding current circumstances and challenges that face the continent today. This is the case because, during this period, Africa experienced on of the most disruptive times in the continent's history -- the period of European conquest and colonial rule. European powers endeavored to 'civilize' Africa -- a process intended to ""transform"" Africans not only economically and politically but also in terms of how Africans saw themselves and their place in the world. Thus, in many ways, the continent in 1970 looked quite different than it had a century earlier. However, despite the differences, European powers clearly failed in their attempts to transform Africa and to 'civilize' its people according to their late 19th century notions of civilization. This course endeavors to analyze why?

Restrictions: None

Issues of distributive justice are frequently topics of passionate discussion with everyone agreeing that we ought to be just but also disagreeing about what criteria have to be met for justice to have been achieved. Since the mid-twentieth century, philosophers have spent considerable time working to articulate and defend plausible theories of justice. This course focuses on close examination of several of these theories Students will read primary texts, work to understand arguments presented in texts, apply the different theories to particular cases and evaluate the arguments.

Restrictions: None

Units of study focusing on special topics, debates, and issues within the field of Law, Politics, and Society. Prereq.: LPS 001 or permission of instructor.

An historical approach to the major theological doctrines and issues emergent in the patristic, reformation and modern eras, with an emphasis on western theological traditions and --from the Reformation forward--a focus on significant Protestant thinkers. We will explore the major streams in theological thought, particularly, the implications of certain theological conflicts to Christian communities. We will also focus on the relations between historical and social contexts and the particular developments that have taken place in Christian Theology.

Restrictions: None

This version of the advanced topics course will focus on captivity narratives, which challenge notions of identity, loyalty, affliction, salvation, self, other, and society. We will begin with early American captivity narratives and spend a considerable amount of time on 19th century narratives, including portions of a Mexican-Californian-American critique of the genre. We will end with the story of Jessica Lynch or another more recent ""captivity."" Definitely a good follow-up to discussions of the ""afflicted girls"" from the Salem witch trials.

Restrictions: None

Restrictions: None

This course examines how anthropologists contribute to our understanding of power and politics through their immersive fieldwork research and comparative analysis. This course examines three primary contributions in this regard. Firstly, it delves into the classical and contemporary works of anthropologists who have focused on political structures and cultures that existed outside, preceded, or challenged the paradigm of the "modern" state. Secondly, the course explores how anthropologists investigate state power and politics, with a particular emphasis on understanding how the state is perceived, experienced, and manifested in the daily lives of individuals and communities both within the United States and globally. Lastly, we look at the concept of “power”, critically examining select ethnographic examples that have either applied or challenged classical theories. Through this analysis, we will appreciate how anthropology helps unveil the intricate ways in which power operates, both in invisible and visible ways.

Restrictions: None

The Great War's legacy was felt not only in music, but in other branches of art including poetry, literature, and drama. The letters and reminiscences written by those affected by the conflict often blurred the line between reality and fiction, while countless scholars have attempted to understand the war's origins and legacy. The records that they have consulted and stories they tell still resonate today, and thanks to the rapid growth of digital archives, are now accessible to readers the world over. The course will assess two different categories of historical documents: the first constitutes artistic and traditional scholarly engagements with the Great War (the ""Literature Project"") and the second encompasses texts or studies focused on archives, digitally curated sites, or broadcasts (the ""Archival Project"").

The immense growth of slavery and slave trade research in the last quarter century has made examinations of unfree labor a major issue for world research. Studies of Atlantic slavery have generated the bulk of that research, and as a result have challenged many traditional perceptions of that trade and its associated system of slavery. However, despite the unquestioned value of these recent analyses, most of these studies have looked at Atlantic slavery from the American side of the ocean. Consequently, the African nature of Atlantic slavery has often lacked close scrutiny. This course has two goals: 1) to root Atlantic slavery and its trade in its African context, and 2) to help incorporate recent research findings into popular understandings of the Atlantic trade. The major argument of this course is that one cannot know why the Atlantic trade happened as it did nor how Atlantic slavery developed as it did without understanding the context which produced the people who were sold into slavery. Therefore, the course looks at the influence political, social, economic, and cultural factors in Africa had on the making of slavery and the slave trade both in Africa and the Americas. In doing so, the course will challenge students to rethink their own notions of Atlantic slavery as they analyze and critique the ideas encountered in this course.

Restrictions: None

The history of cities cannot be understood without under- standing the physical world. This course introduces the ways that the environment has been influential in shaping human experience, as well as how humans have in turn shaped the environment. Themes include the interconnectedness of people and nature, public health, ecological health, and the link between local and global. The course balances environments that are both physical (geology, rivers, trees and concrete) and cultural (society, ideas and design). We will investigate urban environmental history through different times, places and lenses. We seek to use historical context to understand recent social and environmental events like Hurricanes Katrina and Harvey, Midwestern flooding, and municipal water supply crises (Flint and Des Moines). We will include subjects like campus sustainability, environmental inequality, urban agriculture, food justice, urban planning, walkability, and our class will ponder post-industrial challenges and visions. Importantly, we will understand the city through environmental and social lenses and link the two. We'll explore urban environments with texts, guests and field trips. We'll define the city as the environment and an environment. We'll consider the future in light of its past and, as we become sensitive to historical context, we'll see how diverse actors, dramatic events, and policy-making reverberate today.

Restrictions: None

The environmental history of the continent and nation stretches from geologic time to the present. This course begins by defining different aspects of environmental history and introduces ways that the environment has been influential in shaping past human experience, as well as how humans have in turn shaped the environment. As we survey the sweep of American history through the lens of environment, special attention will be paid to historicizing present-day topics. Themes include the interconnectedness of people and nature, ecological and social health, and the link between local and global. The course balances the physical environment (rocks, conservation and ecology) and the cultural environment (ideas, perceptions and images).

Restrictions: None

Explore the meaning of life through films as well as readings in existential philosophy. This class will investigate questions about personal identity, fate and human freedom, moral relativism and universal truth, and finding fulfillment in life through readings by philosophers from a variety of world cultures. These readings will be paired with a selection of films all providing a different perspective on existential themes. All films will be available on reserve at the library, and students should plan on watching movies outside of class as part of weekly homework assignments.

Restrictions: None

This discussion-based course focuses on American public health from the Civil War to the present. We begin in the mid-nineteenth century because there was a course, international context is necessary. A humanities changes over time; how bodies are understood to interact shift in medical knowledge as well as responsibility for view and historical perspective is essential for understanding the complexity of public health issues-- health. Although the U.S. is placed at the center of this especially considering that many people who work in the field of public health have science, business and policy backgrounds. Major themes of the course are: how Truth with the environment; how race, class, gender, and sexuality influence aspects of public health; the impacts of technologies; the role of government and the locus of responsibility; how environment has been defined over time; urban and industrial issues; and the diversity of change over time--from specific events/people/discoveries to long-term shifts.

Restrictions: None

The main goals of this interdisciplinary course are to (a) expose students to the complexity of culture, with a special focus on the challenges and opportunities inherent to intercultural contact, and (b) help students connect the culture of the Iberian Peninsula to its history and current political, economic, and business climate.

Restrictions: None

As an alternative to a survey, this course invites an issue- oriented approach to the interpretation of Multicultural literature in general or of different cultural or ethnic traditions such as African American, Asian American, Chicano or Native American in particular. The course explores (and problematizes) the study of multicultural writing in terms of its relationship to the prevailing history of Anglo-American letters, its posture outside of that history, and its relation to other literatures of color. The specific focus of the course varies each time offered, but each version of the course denotes some attention to the matters of genre definition, period definition, and canon definition.

Restrictions: None

This course investigates assumptions about choice, responsibility, and punishment reflected in our legal system and considers the extent to which our growing knowledge of the brain may support or challenge those assumptions. The course also considers what kinds of changes to existing legal and public policy may be reasonably supported by this investigation.

Some of our current physical theories have quite radical and seemingly paradoxical things to say about reality. But what do they really mean? What are their philosophical consequences? Why should we take them seriously? This course offers an examination of these and other questions. We will study various conceptions of space and time across history and consider philosophical issues arising from classical and quantum mechanics. Topics will include: the various conceptions of space and time; the debate between absolute and relative space; special and general relativity; spatio-temporal locality and non-locality; the ontology of fields; determinism and inter-determinism; and the interpretation of quantum mechanics, including wave-particle duality, the measurement problem, and the uncertainty principle. The course is self-contained: all of the math and physics necessary for doing well in the course will be taught in class. A prior detailed knowledge of physics is not required. This course will be presented primarily on a conceptual level, with use of mathematics limited as much as possible, but we will occasionally make use of some algebra and basic calculus.

Restrictions: None

Restrictions: None

This course is an intensive study of twentieth-century literature from South Africa. Reading novels, short stories, non-fiction, and poetry, students will consider the ways in which writers use fiction to capture, represent, comment upon, and challenge the complexities of South African life and culture. We will, of course, spend a substantial amount of class time learning about apartheid, and students will view several films. In addition to learning about the not-so-distant historical events that occurred during the apartheid era, we will consider the state of South Africa during the dismantling of apartheid and its present-day struggles.

Restrictions: None

Course listing in broadly interdisciplinary topic of study. Honors approved Drake faculty teach this course at the site location of Drake's Semester program.

Restrictions: None

This class examines different ways in which music and politics intersect and interact. This involves the study of many topics, including (but not limited to): reception history (i.e., ways in which music may be intentionally or unintentionally politicized by audiences), legal directives (particularly censorship laws and conventions), how patronage may determine how and what kind of music is written, ways in which music helps articulate facets of identity (including racial, religious, gender, or national identity), how music may act as a socio-political critique, and the role of music as propaganda.

Restrictions: None

How do we respond to death and why? This course examines historical and contemporary perspectives on death and dying. Students will explore variations in attitudes and rituals concerning death, funerals, grief, memorialization, and dying. Though the experiences of death and dying are intensely personal, they are shaped by social, political, legal, and cultural forces. These experiences also vary by culture, social class, age, race, gender, and religion. This course is reading and writing intensive. Prereq: One entry level sociology or anthropology course or instructor consent.

Restrictions: None

Applications for Teaching in Urban Schools. The course addresses two areas in urban education: (1) The teacher’s role in constructing a social context of teaching and learning in the classroom, and (2) how teacher’s work is informed by the various communities in which a classroom is embedded. This includes but not limited to the school, neighborhood, and district, state and/or federal policy. You will consider how you might facilitate student learning within school cultures and various contexts of education. Through readings, discussion, and critical analysis of your own and others’ reflections, you will grapple with the challenges educators tend to face as they attempt to bring what they have learned in teacher education into socially, historically, ideologically, and politically situated classrooms, schools, and communities. Central to this course is a reading of power—and specifically the relationship between ideology and curriculum.

Restrictions: None

The basics of the course include reading Biblical accounts involving women and various commentaries on those Biblical accounts with a critical eye. These accounts will include ""Genesis"", ""The Red Tent"", and ""The Five Books of Miriam"". The goal is to come to an understanding of how the Jewish Bible deals with issues involving women and how such an understanding can help us understand issues today. This course applies for the Women & Gender Studies Concentration. Religion Major/Minor counts this course as an elective and as fulfilment for the “text” category.

Cyprus sits, literally, at the maritime crossroads of Europe, Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. Centuries of intercultural influences have infused the region with a melange of cultural, historical, and artistic traditions. It has also been the site of much conflict over those same centuries. This course will investigate how the political, religious, cultural, linguistic, and economic traditions of Cyprus are represented in contemporary efforts - including United Nations programs, local museums, formal schooling, and informal gatherings - to formulate past, present, and future Cypriot identities and attempt to resolve contemporary conflicts. This multidisciplinary inquiry will draw on the expertise of local academics from politics, history, archaeology, peace education, and international studies. The rich, turbulent, and fluid history of this island – a site of centuries of globalization - makes it an excellent site for helping students better understand the effects of and responses to cultural diffusion and intercultural conflict.

Restrictions: None

The US-Mexico borderlands are defined by more than a political line. The borderlands are a region with an environmental, social, cultural and economic history. Current border issues overshadow our understanding of this region and historical context will help us understand migration, race, culture and politics. Likely subjects include war and violence, the long reach of colonialism, agriculture, mining, industrialization, urbanization, labor, water resources and public health. Readings will focus on the Borderlands from the 19th to the 21st century with special attention paid to Indigenous peoples. Students will learn to think historically and critically about this region over time by reading, discussing, and writing. Readings will be augmented by films and visual sources.

Restrictions: None

This seminar reviews how sex role understandings have affected various aspects of the law including criminal law; employment credit and insurance discrimination; abortion and fetal protection; family law; and lesbian and gay rights. Standards of review for laws that discriminate on the basis of sex as opposed to other kinds of discrimination also are discussed, as is the issue of how women are treated in courts today.

Restrictions: None

Designed to encourage independent, broadly interdisciplinary scholarship. Students may earn Honors credit in an approved independent study either within the Honors Program or another department. Examples include a scientific experiment, a painting, a work of literary criticism, a short film or a reserach paper based on community service learning. The product typically is a written work that is presented at a public forum near semester's end. The project is coordinated with the Honors Program and completed in conjunction with a faculty adviser. Interested students consult with the Honors Program director.

Restrictions: None

Guidelines for the Honors Senior Thesis is available at the Program website, http://www.drake.edu/honors/forms. The full proposal, including an broadly interdisciplinary topic and signatures of thesis advisor(s) as well as Honors Program Director are due by the end of the second week of enrolled term. If topic summary is closely related to major, a second advisor (outside the said major) will be required. Students will present their findings at a student/faculty forum held a month prior to thesis completion date. The Senior Thesis/Project offers students a time to develop ideas suggested by coursework or that have grown out of other experiences. It is an opportunity to do reading and pursue interests outside the structure of the classroom. The directed research involves a project that results in a product, such as a research paper, scientific experiment or creative work. The interdisciplinary project is coordinated with the Honors Program and completed in conjunction with Drake faculty advisor(s). For criteria and restrictions, students must consult with the Honors Program Director. Registration is limited to seniors in the Honors Program unless otherwise approved by the Honors Program director. HONR 100 (Paths to Knowledge) must be taken prior to (or latest alongside) the Honors Senior Thesis. Honors Program Director meets approximately monthly with group of theses enrolled students to provide group coaching including, but not limited to public speaking resources for thesis presentation and interdisciplinary writing expectations.