The Academic Honors courses promote an environment for life-long learning and self-discovery while complementing the student's major area of study.
UNHL 3501 Love and Death in the Greek Classics
Credit Hours: 3
Prereq: UNHL 1100
Course Type: Academic Honors Track
Core Areas: Arts, Humanities, Social Science, International Perspectives
This course introduces students to classical Greek literature, focusing on love and death in Homeric epic, lyric poetry, tragic drama, the history and social science of Thucydides, the comedies of Aristophanes, and Plato's philosophical dialogues.
UNHL 3502 The History and Literature of Science in the 19th Century
Credit Hours: 3
Prereq: UNHL 1100
Course Type: Academic Honors
Core Areas: Humanities, Social Science, Natural Science, International Perspectives
Students will examine the literature of the 19th century, the history of science in that period, and how those works and that history impact how we think about science today.
UNHL 3503 Ethics, Academic Integrity, and Social Responsibility
Credit Hours: 3
Prereq: UNHL 1100; not open to students who have taken UNHL 3100
Course Type: Academic Honors Track
Core Areas: Humanities, Social Science, Cultural Diversity, International Perspectives
This course combines research and class discussions in such a way that theories, viewpoints, and practical proposals regarding ethics and its application to intellectual responsibility are understood in their own right as well as in relation to human activities. One daunting task will be facing up to the challenge of how to use the increasingly powerful information tools provided by universities. In the last third of the semester, students will be asked to work in teams on projects dealing with current ethical controversies.
UNHL 3520 Ancient Human Environmental Impacts
Credit Hours: 3
Prereq: UNHL 1100
Course Type: Academic Honors Track
Core Areas: Humanities, Social Science, Natural Science, International Perspectives
This course is an exploration of the history of human engagement with their environment, focusing specifically on what ecological and archaeological data can tell us and how to best collect and conceptualize them. It will introduce students to key concepts in past human ecology to establish humanity's place in nature as well as examine a series of targeted case studies in order to trace how these relationships between humans and their ecosystems may have changed in scale and nature over time and in different contexts.
UNHL 3610 Neuroscience and Society
Credit Hours: 3
Prereq: UNHL 1100
Course Type: Academic Honors Track
Core Areas: Behavioral Science, Social Science, Natural Science
Science has provided tantalizing glimpses into the nature of human beings and the groups in which they live. This course will explore these matters in a way that encourages critical analysis of the relationship between our brains and the world. In the process, we will focus on the scientific method itself and its standing in relation to faith, ideology, and sociopolitical attitudes.
UNHL 3620 Migration, Modernity, and Literacy
Credit Hours: 3
Prereq: UNHL 1100
Course Type: Academic Honors Track
Core Areas: Humanities, Social Science, Cultural Diversity, International Perspectives
An examination of the causes, consequences, difficulties, and enduring problems of migration in contemporary global society. Political, legal, and educational problems of modernity and mass migration are analyzed. Course work includes social scientific research into historical and contemporary migration flows.
UNHL 3630 Migration and Development
Credit Hours: 3
Prereq: UNHL 1100
Course Type: Academic Honors Track
Core Areas: Humanities, Social Science, Cultural Diversity, International Perspectives
The impact on societies across the globe of a record 214 million-plus migrants living outside their countries of birth. An interdisciplinary review of the historical roots, causes, and consequences in receiving and sending nations of contemporary international migration flows. Topics include brain gain and brain drain, gender differences, immigrant diasporas, remittances, acculturation, circular migration, illegal migrant flows, and transnational human trafficking. Focus on experiences in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Students will have the opportunity to compare and contrast immigrant communities in the Denver region.
UNHL 3625 Food Justice: Urban Agriculture, Place, and Culture
Credit Hours: 3
Prereq: UNHL 1100
Course Type: Academic Honors Track
Core Areas: Natural and Physical Sciences, Social Science, Humanities, Cultural Diversity
Food justice addresses systemic inequities in access to fresh and healthy food as illustrated by neighborhoods termed "food deserts." Questions examined include how sustainable/ethical relationships can be established between the activity of growing food with creating community, developing consciousness of place, and affirming cultural food/agricultural traditions. The history of community/school gardens, land and food desert inventories, food security assessments, and policies governing urban agriculture and food producing animals are also addressed.
UNHL 4410 Biology and Politics
Credit Hours: 3
Prereq: UNHL 1100
Course Type: Academic Honors Track
Core Areas: Humanities, Social Science, Natural Science, Behavioral Science, Cultural Diversity, International Perspectives
This course explores the reciprocal and dynamic relationships between biology and politics. On the one hand, to what degree do our genes and biological development shape our political attitudes and behavior? On the other hand, how do public policies affect human and animal biology and the ecology of the earth? Why do some people regard biological explanations of political phenomena as "politically incorrect"? Does human nature make war inevitable? To what degree are racial and gender differences based on nature versus nurture? Students will be encouraged to raise their own questions about this complex and timely topic. Pedagogy will be multimedia and interactive.