The University of Florida Honors Program
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These are courses offered through departments across campus. They count as an Honors course and fulfill the normal slot of the regular course.
Class Number 28468
Class Number 21395
Under the threat of total destruction, nearly all aspects of Soviet and American life were organized around the Cold War for almost fifty years. How do these “rival” visions and experiences compare? This course examines Soviet and American cultural responses to the Cold War across a wide range of phenomena (literature, film, propaganda) and considers how relations between the U.S. and the USSR were framed as a global ideological contest and examines the legacy of this contest today. Prerequisites: none. General Education Credit: H, N.
Honors Quest 1 courses fulfill the UF Quest 1 requirement and 3 credits of General Education requirement in the Humanities. Honors Quest 2 courses fulfill the UF Quest 2 requirement and 3 credits of General Education in Social & Behavioral Science or Physical / Biological Science. Honors students who enter the program in 2023 or later may complete any section of the UF-required Quest 1 and 2 courses.
Quest 1
This course showcases the lively dialogue between ancient democracy and modern, tackling some of the most pressing issues of our times, including political participation and its limits, the elitism of politics, free speech and its limits, and the role of media and social media in shaping public opinion. This comparative approach to democracy will illustrate political history and political theory: political thought in action.
This interdisciplinary course explores the relationship between mathematics and the humanities. Specifically, it examines how mathematics influenced and inspired philosophy, dialectics, music, classical literature, and the arts. Our goal is to study the way mathematical ideas shape the way we view the world and foster human flourishing by encouraging us to find beauty, creativity, and imagination in a variety of human endeavors.
Mathematics and the Humanities - Syllabus
Humans evolve. And technology is rapidly changing what it means to be human. As we march towards smartphone dependence, AI ubiquity, human-enhancement technologies, and mind uploading, our species is approaching what some call a “posthuman” state. What are the possibilities and perils of a posthuman future, and how should we prepare for it? Many have stakes in this question: politicians, religious leaders, science fiction writers, physicians, filmmakers, and more. But so do you. Ultimately, you’ll consider this topic from multiple angles and will have the tools to communicate effectively about it.
Alchemy is the pre-cursor to modern chemistry. It grew out of observations and experiments of early practitioners who were biased by their own worldviews and religious convictions. The course will give an overview of the various historic phases of Alchemy: Greek, Arabic, Eastern, Latin, its revival in the early modern period, and its psychologized rebirth in the modern era. Alchemy was part of ‘natural philosophy’ during a time when there was no clear distinction between science and religion. The course
explores the worldviews and religious biases of its practitioners. It explores the methodologies, both theoretical and practical, used by alchemists. It will show alchemy to be part of the wider human endeavor to understand the world around us and to utilize it to advance culture. The accompanying lab portion will allow students to ‘see through the eyes of the alchemist’ natural processes as they happen in the lab.
Class Number: 19552
Class Number: 19561
Quest 2
Gen Ed: Biological Sciences, 2000 Words
Description: In the days of emerging technology in medicine and agriculture, how can we tell good information from bad? What are the mistakes we make in understanding and communicating science? This course uses biotechnology breakthroughs to teach critical evaluation of scientific discoveries and teaches students to be better connoisseurs of information.
Gen Ed: Social Sciences, International
Description: What is the Big Data Revolution and where will it lead us? This course will examine how far data can take us by exploring a variety of data sets from a variety of disciplines. We will examine large national and international datasets that transcend disciplinary boundaries and include economic, geographic, health, political, and sociological variables. Students will learn basic skills in how to locate data sets, compose descriptive statistics, and provide meaningful analysis of the data using tables and charts. The concepts learned in the course can apply to data from any field.
Gen Ed: Biological Sciences
Description: The current generation of humans is the first in human history to experience two important events: 1) Reaching what seems to be carrying capacity for humans on earth (arguably) and 2) Affecting nature in an important way everywhere on earth (almost certainly). This has been called the next major epoch in the history of earth, called the ‘anthropocene’. This class will try to think about what this means: “What is the ‘anthropocene?” and “What does it mean for the relationship between nature and humans”? “How do we protect nature and provide the resources needed for 10 billion (or so) humans, especially those that have important economic challenges?”. We will focus on the basic element of the biology of both natural and human-controlled ecosystems and see if this can help determine what humans might actually DO to manage their relationship with nature and still provide for human welfare and fulfillment.
Gen Ed: Physical Sciences
Description: An introduction to Statistics and the scientific method with applications in the physical sciences. General education course makes use of various sources of information, including academic journal articles, mainstream media, weblogs, and a course notes packet. General topics include: Describing Data, Measurement, Basic Probability, Random Variables, Statistical Inference and Experimentation, and statistical methods to compare treatments and assess relations among variables. Computations and graphics use the R computer language. Applications will include: speed of light measurements, interpreting weather probabilities, problems leading to the study of probability, describing physical measurements, and modeling weather trends.
These one-credit courses are discussion-oriented, seminar courses centered on a performance or an exhibit.
These are discussion-oriented, one-credit seminar courses centered on a book.
History + Biography
The ‘swinging sixties’ have gone down in history as a decade unlike any other. Ushering in an era of change and upheaval, the 1960’s bore witness to an outpouring of music, art, fashion, and culture that shocked the world and stylishly broke away from the convention of the past. Explore the world of psychedelia, take a walk through Carnaby Street, and jam out with the Beatles at the Cavern Club as we experience the essence of the sixties firsthand.
This class will have students explore the zeitgeist of the era through examining the songs, fashion, and films that defined the decade. Additionally, we will read a collection of articles published in the New Yorker’s The Sixties: The Story of a Decade as we study what the social, cultural, and political movements of the past can tell us about the modern day. This course will intrigue anyone interested in the sixties—regardless of whether you’re a “mod” or a “rocker.”
The philosophers and poet/playwrights of classical Athens had an enormous impact on the development of western thought and culture. The plays performed at the great festival of Dionysus challenged the citizens of democratic Athens to consider the relationship between humans and their gods at a time when their world was progressing from the devastations wrought by the recent wars with the Persian Empire into an era of previously unimaginable prosperity, only to then have their world shattered again by new wars and plague within their city walls. The works of the great tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides are some of the greatest literary treasures that have come down to us from ancient times. The 32 surviving plays represent approximately one tenth of those produced by the three playwrights between 472 and 408 BCE. Aeschylus, who fought in the Persians wars, was a member of what the Athenians might have considered their "greatest generation", while Euripides, born at the end of the wars was the Greek equivalent of "baby boomer", with Sophocles squarely in between, so that each of the three writers bring a unique perspective as their plays deal with the myths and legends of the Trojan war and the age of heroes the preceded it.
We will go through twelve tragedies that cover the fate of Oedipus and his family, some of the experiences and aftermath of the Trojan war, and the madness that came to Greece with worship of Dionysus.
The instructor is well schooled in the classics and makes regular pilgrimages to the theater of Dionysus in Athens, where the plays were first produced. In the class, we will discuss the historical and social context for each of the plays in sequence. Students will participate in leading the discussion and selecting excerpts from the play to be read and discussed in detail.
Following the selected readings, the class will discuss the questions proposed by the primary presenter, as well as additional topics proposed by the instructor on the social context for each of the plays.
Plays that will be covered:
Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound
Sophocles: Oedipus Rex
Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus
Sophocles: Antigone
Euripides: Medea
Sophocles: Ajax
Euripides: The Trojan Women
Aeschylus: Agamemnon
Aeschylus: Choephoroi (Libation bearers)
Aeschylus: Furies (Eumenides).
Euripides: Electra
Euripides: Iphigenia among the Taurians
Euripides: The Bacchae
Instructor's Biography:
The instructor is a Professor of Pharmacology and Neuroscience in the College of Medicine. He has Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell University. He also has a B.A. in Classical Civilization from New York University. His professional research has been in molecular neurobiology, primarily focused on the brain receptors for nicotine and the natural neurotransmitter that nicotine mimics, acetylcholine. His work spans the range from the molecular mechanisms of drug action on specific receptor subtypes to pharmacological approaches for the treatment of addiction. He has also written three books on the history of human artifacts and has just finished a book on the history of the Greco-Roman cultures as told by their coins. He is an avid motorcyclist.
Ancient Greek Tragedies - Syllabus
Course teaches students how to construct persuasive arguments and to write with style. The assignments are designed to enhance the students ability to communicate for work and on social media. After over two millennia, Aristotle's The Rhetoric is still the greatest guide to learn how to persuade others.
Prior to joining the Hamilton Center, Howard Lidsky was on the faculty of the Honors College of the University of Missouri teaching Rhetoric and Law related classes. Also while at Mizzou, he taught multiple undergraduate classes in the Mizzou Political Science Department.
Prior to entering university teaching in 2018, Lidsky practiced law in Gainesville, Florida for more than twenty years and was Florida Bar Board Certified in Criminal Trial Law. During his law practice, Lidsky represented many clients in highly publicized trials including most notably a successful murder defense in the 2010 Hawthorne Cold Case trials. Lidsky served as an assistant state attorney in Florida’s 19th Judicial Circuit.
Lidsky graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1992 and received a BA in history from the University of Virginia in 1990.
“I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now.” This excerpt from Brown Girl Dreaming, one of multi-award winning author Jacqueline Woodson’s world-renowned texts, speaks to the nuanced realities of her own past that ignited her dreams for not only the future, but for now. Woodson’s poetic memoir sheds light on her childhood experiences as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s. Though a struggling reader herself as a young child, Woodson found her voice through writing, and this text is her own recount of life as an African American post-Jim Crow, and at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement.
Though written with middle grade and young adult readers in mind, this mesmerizing book touches readers of all ages. Woodson’s lyrical storytelling is simultaneously breathtaking and moving, abrupt and graceful, paralyzing and memorable. With words that beg its readers to see the beauty in humanity, Brown Girl Dreaming offers imagery that one can’t but marvel at. Woodson’s story offers opportunities for sensitivity and demonstrates how one’s written recollection of memories can unravel both pain and progress in order to recreate a more “perfect moment called Now.”
The instructor, former English Language Arts (ELA) teacher and current UF Literacy Education PhD student, seeks to engage students in using literature to think through and beyond their own realities, to study the implications of multimodal storytelling, and to utilize young adult literature as a means for eliciting more complex text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections. In addition to a critical and dialogic analysis of the text, students will make their own associations to poetry and other modes of communication as a means for self-expression.
Just minutes from The Swamp stadium, the world of academia, and shiny new mixed-use developments, one of the nation’s most notable punk rock scenes has thrived for decades – often out of the view of the average Gainesville resident. Since the 1980s, Gainesville’s punk community has carved out its own niche local music scene that has impacted the national punk scene and mainstream music, with the success of acts such as Hot Water Music, Less Than Jake, and Against Me! But how does this underground movement interact, influence, and help shape its surroundings? The University of Florida, the City of Gainesville, and the culture of Gainesville have all been impacted by city’s punk scene and vice versa. In this course, we will explore these topics and more as we focus on the book Gainesville Punk: A History of Bands and Music by Matt Walker (The History Press 2016, paperback) accompanied by other relevant source materials.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote an ode to childhood, a story that carries a different meaning for each of us and that meaning changes in every stage of life. Even before we start to ponder the blindness of adulthood and remember to cherish the creativity of childhood through the pages and travels of the Little Prince, Saint-Exupery's dedication is it's own bit of magic: a book dedicated to the child his dearest friend was once upon a time. Much of what the Saint-Exupery and the Little Prince learn throughout their friendship is still relevant and valuable today. Through our reading of the Little Prince we will discover wonderful and timeless golden nuggets of wisdom and help us approach everyday tedium with eyes that still see the magic of childhood.
The original blueprint for realpolitik, The Prince shocked sixteenth-century Europe with its advocacy of ruthless tactics for gaining absolute power and its abandonment of conventional morality. For this treatise on statecraft, Machiavelli drew upon his own experience of office under the turbulent Florentine republic, rejecting traditional values of political theory and recognizing the complicated, transient nature of political life. Concerned not with lofty ideals, but with a regime that would last, this seminal work of modern political thought retains its power to alarm and to instruct.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Dr. Daniel Dickrell III is an Associate Instructional Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Department.
The eighteenth century brought a revolution in science and philosophy. In Britain, this revolution took the form of a rejection of innate ideas and a new emphasis on experience as the sole source of knowledge. While this approach generally sought to support and complement the monumental scientific achievements of the time, it also generated new skeptical worries about the limits of the human intellect.
No single work illustrates this dialectic between enlightenment and skepticism more vividly than David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature. It begins with great fanfare, promising "a compleat system of the sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new." Hume's remarkable confidence was grounded not only in the empiricist conviction that all genuine knowledgerests on experience, but more fundamentally, on the insight that all other sciences and disciplines, from physics to economics, theoloy to politics, are applications in one way or another of the human mind. For this reason, Hume maintained that the Treatise's signature focus on the mechanics of human reasoning represented the only true foundation for the sciences. As the progenitor of this new science of human nature, Hume understood himself to stand above even the towering figures of natural science - Bacon, Boyle, and Newton among them - as the preeminent scientist of his age.
Little of this confidence survives the ordeals of the scientific method, however As the Treatise begins to subject the inner workings of the intellect to relentless empirical scrutiny, we discover that many of our "rational" convictions owe much more to our non-rational faculities of imagination and sentiment than we would care to admit. From our trust in the senses to our most basic inferences, our belief in the external world to the ordinary idea of the self, all of our convictions seem to melt under the searing gaze of Hume's microscope. By the end of Book I, Hume confronts a demoralizing choice "betwixt a false reason and noneat all."
This course aims to understand this tug of war between naturalism and skepticism in the Treatise. Focusing on key moments in Book I, we will endeavor to understand precisely how Hume understands the relationship between scientific inquiry and radical doubt. We will also investigate his remedies (such as they are) for total skepticism.
This seminar is an interdisciplinary exploration of St Augustine’s The Confessions, one of the most important books ever written. The Confessions, a literary masterpiece of autobiography and self-examination, describes Augustine’s slow yet systematic conversion to Christianity as he candidly details his own defects. It contains some of the most famous scenes in Western literature, including Augustine’s examination of his own vices through a meditation on the seemingly unimportant theft of a pear. It recounts the moving relationships between Augustine, his friends, and his family, especially with his mother Monica. Augustine’s writing contains deep psychological insights and have formed the pattern for centuries of spiritual and contemplative reflection. He also pioneered the genre of confessional literature that probes the self in a quest for greater integrity and authenticity.
The text is also a monument to Augustine’s philosophical and theological genius. Its reflections on the nature of belief, knowledge, friendship, and freedom have provided much of the intellectual framework for Western civilization. He was a forerunner of—and source for—the existentialist philosophers of the 20th century. The book concludes with profound reflections on the nature of memory, time, and creation that have transfixed theologians and philosophers down to the present day.
Throughout this course, you will have a chance to read, reflect, discuss, and write about The Confessions while engaging with the timeless ideas the text raises. Our exploration of St Augustine’s text draws insights from literature, philosophy, psychology, theology, and the history of Christianity and the Roman Empire. We shall also discuss how Augustine’s thinking permeates Western culture. Moreover, the seminar will consider how religion and how different kinds of religious experience figure in the broader context of human affairs, with a view to grasping the perennial questions on the meaning of human life that The Confessions raises. No prior philosophical or theological aptitude, nor any religious commitment, is required for this course.
Science (Non-Health) + Science Fiction
Biology is one of the few fields that truly invites every other discipline into its study. From mathematics to computer science to even sociology, biology can tackle it all. It’s through this lens that we examine biology – not as a field of complex nomenclature and absurdly intricate pathways, but as a field of patterns all the way down and at every level of organization. Problems in each level of this hierarchy ultimately lead to health, behavior, and culture – the very subjects we wish to explore within medicine. In this course, we ultimately seek to better understand the patterns within biology and how other fields can be used to unearth those patterns.
Dr. Peter Kima’s research focuses on the mechanisms that Leishmania parasites employ to survive in their mammalian hosts. Dr. Kima received his undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). He proceeded to obtain a Master’s in Public Health with a focus in Parasitology from the School of Public Health at Tulane University. He then obtained his PhD from Hahnemann University (currently Drexel University) in Philadelphia. Dr Kima performed Postdoctoral studies at Yale University initially in the laboratory of Dr. Diane McMahon-Pratt and later in Dr. Norma Andrews laboratory. For the past 20+ years Dr. Kima has been at the University of Florida in the Department of Microbiology and Cell Sciences. Presently, there are 3 major projects in Dr Kima’s laboratory: 1) the evaluation of the role of PI3K signaling in Leishmania infections; 2) Evaluation of new compounds that block the retrograde transport pathway in mammalian cells and also block the biogenesis of Leishmania parasitophorous vacuoles; 3) Evaluation of the molecular and functional characteristics of exosomes that are released from Leishmania-infected cells and their role in Leishmania pathogenesis. Dr. Kima has been a member of several NIH grant review panels. Studies in Dr Kima’s lab are supported by funds from the NIH.
HeLa cells are one of the oldest and most commonly used human cell line. Even though the utility of this cell line is vast and important, the history behind how the cells were isolated and used is a bioethical conundrum. Science, medicine, and technology have progressed significantly because of the use of HeLa cells and with this progress have come ethical questions. The intent of this course is to focus on the biological, medical, technological, and ethical issues surrounding HeLa cells.
The book combines a highly informative text and beautiful photography by a former insect curator of the California Academy of Sciences. In addition to obvious applications in agriculture, understanding insect-plant interactions is of broad relevance in many fields, such as evolutionary biology, genetics, ecology, biogeography, public policy and biodiversity conservation. The course will be taught by two staff members of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, (Andrei Sourakov (collections coordinator) and Keith Willmott (curator/director)) who both have graduate faculty status at the Department of Entomology and Nematology.
To reduce cost, we will loan copies of the book to students free of charge.
Walker Percy’s Love in the Ruins follows Dr. Thomas More as he attempts to cure humanity’s spiritual imperfections with his own invention. Crossing science fiction with dystopias, Percy develops a story laced with themes of nature, religion, sin, desires, technology, patriotism, and destruction. Through weekly discussions, students will analyze the symbols present throughout the novel and analyze how the symbols in themselves create an ironic representation of utopias.
Students are responsible for weekly readings of the novel as well as occasionally short, relevant passages from Utopia by Sir Thomas More, of which the main character in Love in the Ruins gets his namesake and references often. The course culminates with students creating a creative project on a topic of their choosing that will demonstrate a thorough understanding of the novel and its connection to Utopia.
This course is team-taught by an upper-division Honors student and faculty member.
Madagascar is best known in the west for its unique flora and fauna, with over 80% of its wildlife found nowhere else. But this engaging country is also home to 23 million people, comprising 18 distinct ethnic groups, unified by a common language and Malagasy identity. Madagascar - The Eighth Continent: Life, Death and Discovery in a Lost World introduces the reader to the unique fauna, flora, and cultures of Madagascar through the authors’ travels with researchers in herpetology (the study of reptiles and amphibians), paleoecology, archaeology and primatology. Not only do readers learn about the biodiversity and cultures of this fascinating “eighth continent”, but they also get a sense for the joy of scholarly exploration and discovery in the natural world, what it is like to be a field-based (rather than laboratory-based) researcher, and the rationale for and continued importance of such work. While describing these discoveries, the author interweaves stories of Malagasy history, the mystery of the peopling of the island, and culture (language, music, religion, written and oratory arts) into the conversation, providing much fodder for discussion. Overall, this book is a celebration of the people, the wildlife, and the culture of Madagascar.
This (Un)Common Read course is perfect for students with an interest in/love for nature, exploration, discovery, and learning about distant lands and cultures. We will read the book Madagascar - The Eighth Continent in its entirety. Prior to some readings, the instructor (or students, if interested) will provide short introductions to the localities, wildlife, people, and customs described in the readings, augmented by photographs (unique species, environment, habitat loss, the local people and cultural activities) from recent trips to Madagascar. One of the unique strengths of the class will be the sharing of first hand experiences and impressions from multiple trips to the country, providing valuable context to the readings.
Although Madagascar is the focus of the course, this class will provide students with an overview of field research, and why it remains important in the modern world of science. Students will be able to view Madagascar as a model for research in areas such as conservation and sustainability, and the importance of culture and the buy-in of the local peoples. Students will be graded on class participation and a presentation on one auxiliary reading. Finally, students will complete a class project –academic paper or poster, or artistically creative work related to the course. The last class meeting (or two, depending on class size) will be used for students to present and discuss these final projects. This is an opportunity for students to get creative with class content and what they have learned.
Madagascar: The Eighth Continent stands alone as a great read, but this course makes an excellent primer for two other classes at UF: ZOO4956: Madagascar – Biodiversity & Conservation in a Developing Country (UF’s study abroad course in Madagascar) and BOT4935/ZOO4926: Global Biodiversity and Culture: Integrating Conservation and Human Well-being (part of UF’s International Scholars Program).
A key question for this class is “Whose face is on a dime, and why?” This class will explore the answer to this question and so much more as it looks at the impact of disease outbreak on American society as it examines the rise and fall of polio in America in the 20th century. Infectious disease has had a powerful impact on history- toppling governments, shaping the outcomes of battles, transforming medical practice, fostering artistic and scientific discovery, putting political systems at odds, and so much more. Of these diseases, polio was one that confounded expectation, because it was a disease transmitted through poor sanitation that increased in frequency as cities in America were cleaned. It struck mostly children, although an American president caught polio as an adult, and that shaped his life, presidency, and American society. It brought people together in a search for a cure, although search for a vaccine also resulted in divisions among scientists. During the summer when polio outbreaks were at their height, families lived in terror- but now that impact is mostly forgotten. Through the study of polio this class also will explore how people respond and how society has been shaped in the past and present.
Book: “Polio: An American Story. The Crusade that mobilized the Nation Against the 20th Century’s Most Feared Disease.” David Oshinsky.
In this class, every student will be assigned some proofs from the textbook, and a date when the student will present those proofs to the class. These assignments will be made during the first class. The proofs may involve material that the student has not learned in a regular class yet, but that is precisely what makes this course interesting, in addition to the very elegant nature of the proofs will encounter.
“Thou shalt kill.
Thou shalt kill with no bias, bigotry, or malice aforethought.
Thou shalt grant an annum of immunity to the beloved of those who accept your coming, and to anyone else you deem worthy.
Thou shalt kill the beloved of those who resist.
Thou shalt serve humanity for the full span of thy days, and thy family shall have immunity as recompense for as long as you live.
Thou shalt lead an exemplary life in word and deed, and keep a journal of each and every day.
Thou shalt not kill fellow scythes beyond thyself.
Thou shalt claim no earthly possessions, save thy robes, ring, and journal.
Thou shalt have no spouse nor spawn.
Thou shalt be beholden to no laws beyond these.” -Scythe Commandments
Shusterman, N. (2016). Scythe. Simon & Schuster.
In Neal Shusterman’s Scythe he dives into a future where there is no disease, no death, no aging. A future where artificial intelligence is everywhere and there is no need for government. A society where Scythes play an essential role in population control. The story travels with two teenagers who are apprenticed to become a Scythe. This novel will inspire you to read farther than the assigned pages, and question your ethics. Within the course we will examine questions of power, ethics (population control), utopias, and individuality.
Do you keep a pet? Do you shudder at the sight of creepy crawly creatures? Do you eat T-bone steaks, chicken wings, or cheese? Lots of us do lots of these things every day, and they are just some examples of humanity's complicated relationship with animals. This course will examine these relationships in several different contexts. Using the second edition of Hal Herzog's Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals, we'll discuss dogs, cats, mice, gamecocks, cows, and many other animals that play important roles in our lives.
Through weekly Socratic discussions, occasional short reflection essays, and a case study presentation, we will explore the human-animal relationship from environmental, ethical, social, and psychological perspectives. By the end of the class, we'll confront the central question to the competing and conflicting relationships most people have with animals: are we all hypocrites wih how we view and use different species?
For the pre-med student, biological science major, naturalist, or simply interested reader, Jonathan Reisman, M.D.―a physician and adventure traveler―takes us along on an odyssey that navigates the inner workings of our anatomy akin to an explorer discovering a new world in his debut novel: The Unseen Body.
Through his unique insight into life, culture, and the natural world, Reisman challenges us to see our body in a completely new light. He shows us how understanding mountain watersheds can help to diagnose heart attacks, how a hike through the Himalayas reveals the boundary between the brain and the mind, and how eating animal organs can serve as a lesson in empathy. With his captivating and lyrical prose, Resiman teaches us how our organs are inextricably intertwined with the natural world–taking the familiar inner workings of our body and metamorphosing them into an internal ecosystem that reflects the natural world around us.
Sea turtles are among the most magnificent megafauna we encounter in the ocean. The story of these iconic creatures is one of survival and resilience, especially in today’s world. In this course we will cover the book 'The Voyage of the Turtle' by Carl Safina, which explores the plight of sea turtles and how human intervention has impacted both positively and negatively these animals and their ecosystems. During weekly discussions (from book readings and with invited speakers) students will learn not only about sea turtles but also about the scientific, political, and cultural challenges encountered while conducting marine conservation around the world. This will provide students with a better understanding of current issues faced in the marine environment and help them reflect on what the ocean means to them and what steps they can take to make a positive impact on the marine environment.
Health
Biology is one of the few fields that truly invites every other discipline into its study. From mathematics to computer science to even sociology, biology can tackle it all. It’s through this lens that we examine biology – not as a field of complex nomenclature and absurdly intricate pathways, but as a field of patterns all the way down and at every level of organization. Problems in each level of this hierarchy ultimately lead to health, behavior, and culture – the very subjects we wish to explore within medicine. In this course, we ultimately seek to better understand the patterns within biology and how other fields can be used to unearth those patterns.
Dr. Peter Kima’s research focuses on the mechanisms that Leishmania parasites employ to survive in their mammalian hosts. Dr. Kima received his undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). He proceeded to obtain a Master’s in Public Health with a focus in Parasitology from the School of Public Health at Tulane University. He then obtained his PhD from Hahnemann University (currently Drexel University) in Philadelphia. Dr Kima performed Postdoctoral studies at Yale University initially in the laboratory of Dr. Diane McMahon-Pratt and later in Dr. Norma Andrews laboratory. For the past 20+ years Dr. Kima has been at the University of Florida in the Department of Microbiology and Cell Sciences. Presently, there are 3 major projects in Dr Kima’s laboratory: 1) the evaluation of the role of PI3K signaling in Leishmania infections; 2) Evaluation of new compounds that block the retrograde transport pathway in mammalian cells and also block the biogenesis of Leishmania parasitophorous vacuoles; 3) Evaluation of the molecular and functional characteristics of exosomes that are released from Leishmania-infected cells and their role in Leishmania pathogenesis. Dr. Kima has been a member of several NIH grant review panels. Studies in Dr Kima’s lab are supported by funds from the NIH.
Drug dependence & addiction may often seem far away, unless it gets personal and affects somebody close by. We will be reading the books "Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey through his Son's Addiction" and "Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town", discussing the various aspects of how drug addiction affects the individual, their loved ones, friends, and society. Some of the topics will include the underlying biological mechanisms of addiction, the impact of addiction on society, treatment approaches, with a major part spent on sharing our views on what can be done moving forward to find solutions. This class is taught entirely online over a 12-week period using Canvas, Zoom, and Voice Thread.
In this 1 credit seminar course, students will be introduced to a variety of topics in contemporary medicine such as health care delivery reform, ethical challenges, the evolution of medical science, and major healthcare crises. The course materials will be drawn from streaming media including podcasts and TED/Youtube videos. Class time will be used to explore the topics in open discussion with the course director and selected guest faculty from the College of Medicine and other institutions.
In this course, we will read two books and various research papers throughout the semester to gain perspective on the roles of food in society. To better understand the controversial aspects of our dietary choices, we will read ‘In Defense of Food’ by Michael Pollan. We will then read ‘How to Eat’ by Thich Nhat Hanh to appreciate the mindfulness and meditative practices that are the cornerstones of a healthy relationship with food. For the final segment of the course, students will individually investigate dietary therapies for a chosen disease or disorder. We will spend time reading and discussing recent research and incorporating what we have learned about the role of our diets beyond nutrition alone to explore ways to tackle the barriers surrounding dietary change for various populations.
Peer instructor bio: Harleen Kahlon is an undergraduate student at UF (class of 2024) pursuing a major in nutritional sciences and a minor in health promotion. She is on the pre-medical track and is interested in learning about disease treatment and prevention. She is currently involved in research and volunteering and has a passion for learning about the factors that influence diet and health.
Food: Medicine, Culture, and Controversy - Syllabus
This (Un)Common Read course would explore the varying and potentially contradictory purposes of the field of graphic medicine. The course will explore the use of illustrated patient narratives to empower patients and reinforce the value of their experiences and perspectives, while also opposing the idea of the universal patient and one-size fits all healthcare. These conversations will contrast this purpose with the use of graphic medicine as a valuable tool for patient education, examining how subjective descriptions of individual experiences can be unreliable and even potentially harmful as a source of misinformation. The course will also examine the unique potential for manipulation/coercion that illustrated information is at risk for, using examples from COVID-19-related comics. These explorations will be accomplished through a dialogue between Graphic Medicine Manifesto and Frida Kahlo: An Illustrated Life. This course will encourage discussion of how personal experiences in healthcare and the medium of sharing those experiences hold value, but how looking to subjective descriptions of health for health information or health education can be both beneficial or detrimental to society as a whole.
In Baby Doctor by Perri Klass (1992) the author tells the story of her pediatric residency at one of the country’s top children’s hospitals. The memoir covers Klass’ three year internship and residency with essays and journal entries candidly describing her physician training. While the primary book for this course is Baby Doctor, additional readings will provide a greater variety of perspectives. Supplementary readings include scholarly articles illustrating new directions in healthcare and medical education, including reforms to resident physician duty hours. Through rigorous course discussions, students will learn about current trends in healthcare (medical humanities, physician wellness, medical humanism, patient-centered care, and interprofessional care) as they contrast and compare the supplementary readings with the primary book. Discussion of interprofessional care and the roles of all healthcare team members will help expose the students to the valuable roles of healthcare professionals outside of medicine and nursing, including physical and occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, audiology, social work, nutrition, public health, and health administration.
Mary Edwards, MLIS, EdD is an Associate University Librarian in the UF Health Science Center Library (HSCL), where she has worked since 2004. Mary is a reference and liaison librarian who liaises with a number of clinical and research departments in the Colleges of Medicine and Public Health and Health Professions. As part of her liaison duties Mary collaborates on instruction and research with faculty from her departments as well as pursing her own research interests in instructional design, online teaching and learning, distance education, program evaluation, and new literacies including media, digital, and information. She has taught in UF Health Science Center’s interprofessional education program since 2011 and currently teaches in both the first-year course “Putting Families First” and the second year course “Interprofessional Learning in HealthCare”. Her previous Uncommon Reads course focused on topics including African American cooking and southern culture, graphic medicine in the context of death, dying, and grief, and modern healthcare.
Lauren Adkins, MLIS, is the University of Florida Health Science Libraries Librarian Liaison to the College of Pharmacy and the departments of Pharmacology and Therapeutics in the College of Medicine. She obtained her MLIS from the University of South Florida in 2014. Her prior experience includes working as a Medical Librarian for Moffitt Cancer Center Biomedical Library and as a Reference Librarian for the University of Tampa Macdonald-Kelce Library. Previously she has co-taught courses on multiculturalism in healthcare and African American cooking and southern culture.
A key question for this class is “Whose face is on a dime, and why?” This class will explore the answer to this question and so much more as it looks at the impact of disease outbreak on American society as it examines the rise and fall of polio in America in the 20th century. Infectious disease has had a powerful impact on history- toppling governments, shaping the outcomes of battles, transforming medical practice, fostering artistic and scientific discovery, putting political systems at odds, and so much more. Of these diseases, polio was one that confounded expectation, because it was a disease transmitted through poor sanitation that increased in frequency as cities in America were cleaned. It struck mostly children, although an American president caught polio as an adult, and that shaped his life, presidency, and American society. It brought people together in a search for a cure, although search for a vaccine also resulted in divisions among scientists. During the summer when polio outbreaks were at their height, families lived in terror- but now that impact is mostly forgotten. Through the study of polio this class also will explore how people respond and how society has been shaped in the past and present.
Book: “Polio: An American Story. The Crusade that mobilized the Nation Against the 20th Century’s Most Feared Disease.” David Oshinsky.
For the pre-med student, biological science major, naturalist, or simply interested reader, Jonathan Reisman, M.D.―a physician and adventure traveler―takes us along on an odyssey that navigates the inner workings of our anatomy akin to an explorer discovering a new world in his debut novel: The Unseen Body.
Through his unique insight into life, culture, and the natural world, Reisman challenges us to see our body in a completely new light. He shows us how understanding mountain watersheds can help to diagnose heart attacks, how a hike through the Himalayas reveals the boundary between the brain and the mind, and how eating animal organs can serve as a lesson in empathy. With his captivating and lyrical prose, Resiman teaches us how our organs are inextricably intertwined with the natural world–taking the familiar inner workings of our body and metamorphosing them into an internal ecosystem that reflects the natural world around us.
Society + Culture + Politics
Biology is one of the few fields that truly invites every other discipline into its study. From mathematics to computer science to even sociology, biology can tackle it all. It’s through this lens that we examine biology – not as a field of complex nomenclature and absurdly intricate pathways, but as a field of patterns all the way down and at every level of organization. Problems in each level of this hierarchy ultimately lead to health, behavior, and culture – the very subjects we wish to explore within medicine. In this course, we ultimately seek to better understand the patterns within biology and how other fields can be used to unearth those patterns.
Dr. Peter Kima’s research focuses on the mechanisms that Leishmania parasites employ to survive in their mammalian hosts. Dr. Kima received his undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). He proceeded to obtain a Master’s in Public Health with a focus in Parasitology from the School of Public Health at Tulane University. He then obtained his PhD from Hahnemann University (currently Drexel University) in Philadelphia. Dr Kima performed Postdoctoral studies at Yale University initially in the laboratory of Dr. Diane McMahon-Pratt and later in Dr. Norma Andrews laboratory. For the past 20+ years Dr. Kima has been at the University of Florida in the Department of Microbiology and Cell Sciences. Presently, there are 3 major projects in Dr Kima’s laboratory: 1) the evaluation of the role of PI3K signaling in Leishmania infections; 2) Evaluation of new compounds that block the retrograde transport pathway in mammalian cells and also block the biogenesis of Leishmania parasitophorous vacuoles; 3) Evaluation of the molecular and functional characteristics of exosomes that are released from Leishmania-infected cells and their role in Leishmania pathogenesis. Dr. Kima has been a member of several NIH grant review panels. Studies in Dr Kima’s lab are supported by funds from the NIH.
Is there such a thing as a “common good”? What is the common good, anyway? If so, is there a way to find common ground amidst our differences as we collectively think about our shared life as a society? As we find ourselves in highly contested cultural and political space, we experience deep divisions and differences about what we envision for society. Is a collective and collaborative conversation possible in which we can nurture a healthy shared life together? Over the years, Wendell Berry has offered a voice that serves as a starting point for a conversation to reclaim the common good. Addressing our navigation of areas like food systems, ecology, community, difference, gender, race, economics, education, citizenship, technology, war and peacemaking, Berry works from a place of common rootedness to provide a vision for moving forward. These cultural focal points and their related questions are taken up by Wendell Berry in his decades of writing, as he asks readers to think more deeply about human activity in the world. For Berry, an English professor turned farmer/writer/cultural critic, that requires eyes and ears wide open as we seek to understand who we are, where we are, and how we might flourish in the midst of the place we find ourselves. This seminar style course, rooted in discussion, will provide students the opportunity to read Berry’s essays carefully and reflectively. We will consider selections from The Art of the Commonplace alongside some of Berry’s short stories and poems, as well as supplemental film, poetry and other art. Our reading will feed what promises to be a rich ongoing classroom discussion as we join Berry in working on these questions. Additionally, students will further process the class content through short writing assignments as they interact with the book and the ideas to which it may point.
Todd Best is a faculty member in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences where he works as an Academic Advisor. A long-time instructor of Uncommon Read courses, he has taught on issues ranging several areas of the humanities and social sciences, including on the topics of media literacy, higher education, ecological literature, the self, and the common good. He received a master’s degree in religious studies from the University of Florida.
This course will introduce you into Karl Marx’s revolutionary mindset. We will learn the divisions that Marx found within humanity and within human communities; the way he divided the different revolutionary movements; the main goals of his revolutionary action (the abolition of religion, the family, private property, culture, truth, philosophy and morality); and the strategies and measures that he proposes for seizing power and using it. The text will be clarified in the light of previous writings (especially Marx’s poetry and play, the “Theses on Feuerbach” and the “Philosophical and Economical Manuscripts”), and some of the later writings. We will examine the surprising transformations suffered by the main drive of Marx’s revolutionary action, the interplay between the hope for the utopia and despair concerning human goodness.
The professor will lead the discussion following the Socratic method. Besides, you will have to critically discuss one problem suggested by the reading in a 2,000 words final essay. The last week of the semester will be dedicated to help the students to rightly finish their essay.
Carlos A. Casanova is Senior Visiting Fellow of the Hamilton Center at the University of Florida. He researches and teaches in the areas of classical philosophy, political and moral philosophy, philosophy of Law, metaphysics and philosophical anthropology. He has published 9 books in two languages and more than 50 peer reviewed papers in English and/or Spanish. He has been Fellow at the Jacques Maritain Center of the University of Notre Dame, Researcher for the Chilean National Agency of Research and Development, and has university experience in four countries.
Before joining the University of Florida, professor Casanova was teaching Introduction to Philosophy, Natural Law, Theory and Sources of Law and philosophical seminars at the Law School of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, and doing research on Marxism and classical philosophy. He also has taught classical philosophy for many years in Venezuela and Chile.
Drug dependence & addiction may often seem far away, unless it gets personal and affects somebody close by. We will be reading the books "Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey through his Son's Addiction" and "Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town", discussing the various aspects of how drug addiction affects the individual, their loved ones, friends, and society. Some of the topics will include the underlying biological mechanisms of addiction, the impact of addiction on society, treatment approaches, with a major part spent on sharing our views on what can be done moving forward to find solutions. This class is taught entirely online over a 12-week period using Canvas, Zoom, and Voice Thread.
Course: IDH2930
Class Number: 21296
Day/Period: M/5
Instructor: Oliver Grundmann
Just minutes from The Swamp stadium, the world of academia, and shiny new mixed-use developments, one of the nation’s most notable punk rock scenes has thrived for decades – often out of the view of the average Gainesville resident. Since the 1980s, Gainesville’s punk community has carved out its own niche local music scene that has impacted the national punk scene and mainstream music, with the success of acts such as Hot Water Music, Less Than Jake, and Against Me! But how does this underground movement interact, influence, and help shape its surroundings? The University of Florida, the City of Gainesville, and the culture of Gainesville have all been impacted by city’s punk scene and vice versa. In this course, we will explore these topics and more as we focus on the book Gainesville Punk: A History of Bands and Music by Matt Walker (The History Press 2016, paperback) accompanied by other relevant source materials.
“Thou shalt kill.
Thou shalt kill with no bias, bigotry, or malice aforethought.
Thou shalt grant an annum of immunity to the beloved of those who accept your coming, and to anyone else you deem worthy.
Thou shalt kill the beloved of those who resist.
Thou shalt serve humanity for the full span of thy days, and thy family shall have immunity as recompense for as long as you live.
Thou shalt lead an exemplary life in word and deed, and keep a journal of each and every day.
Thou shalt not kill fellow scythes beyond thyself.
Thou shalt claim no earthly possessions, save thy robes, ring, and journal.
Thou shalt have no spouse nor spawn.
Thou shalt be beholden to no laws beyond these.” -Scythe Commandments
Shusterman, N. (2016). Scythe. Simon & Schuster.
In Neal Shusterman’s Scythe he dives into a future where there is no disease, no death, no aging. A future where artificial intelligence is everywhere and there is no need for government. A society where Scythes play an essential role in population control. The story travels with two teenagers who are apprenticed to become a Scythe. This novel will inspire you to read farther than the assigned pages, and question your ethics. Within the course we will examine questions of power, ethics (population control), utopias, and individuality.
Considered the greatest love poet in the English language, John Donne wrote a collection of short lyric poems, published as Songs and Sonnets in 1633. We will read these 55 short poems, which trace the passion and fervor of a religious and social renegade obsessed with, among other things, the union of souls in and beyond death. Drawing on the language of sacraments, alchemy, Greek myth, legal arguments, martyrdom, astronomy, and New World discovery, Donne’s poems offer a glimpse into one of the most brilliant minds of Renaissance England. Fired from his diplomatic job when he eloped with his boss’s daughter and briefly imprisoned, Donne also carefully navigated political requirements that he change his religion when he later became Royal Chaplain to King James I of England and Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
This class will be a deep dive into Donne’s poetry, with each meeting a master class in close reading, where your hunches and instincts will guide our discussion as we grapple with Donne’s breathtaking voyages of love, sex, and death in the tempestuous Elizabethan age.
Jill Ingram specializes in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature and is a faculty member in the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education. Author of two books on the expression of economic relationships in Renaissance drama, she also edited Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost for the New Kittredge Series.
"The Life You Can Save" by Peter Singer is a powerful indictment of the current status quo of global inequality. This book seeks to break down barriers to giving and empower the average person to make a tangible difference in the world. Students in this course will engage with the current landscape of philanthropy through the lens of their own experiences and develop a greater understanding of standards for aid and the apathy that sometimes accompanies it.
The world community has made tremendous strides in alleviating debilitating poverty, but there are still more people living off less than $1.90 a day globally than the entire population of North America. How did it get this way? And what can I, a regular student at the University of Florida, do to end this? This is surely above my paygrade, right? In this course you will learn how truly nothing is too little, and we can all play a role in the creation of a more just society. Most of the concerted global efforts to eliminate poverty have been taken within our lifetimes (after the year 2000), and students will gain an understanding of the work that has been done and the work left to do. This one-credit, discussion-based course will involve a mix of in-class activities and online reflection posts that will culminate in a final project.
This course is team taught by a faculty member and peer instructor.
Dr. Joel B. Harley is an Associate Professor with the UF Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. He also runs the SmartData Lab where he creates new diagnostic systems and data-driven models for clients such as the Department of Energy. He received his Ph. D & M.S in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
Rafae Jamal is a fourth-year Accounting major intending to pursue his Master of Accountancy Degree at UF. He is interested in behavioral economics and philosophy. He one day hopes to attend law school and work as a public defender. In his free time, he can be found collecting Legos, reading the New York Times, or playing (too many) video games.
Ukrainian author Oksana Zabuzhko magnum opus The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (2009) has become
extremely relevant as Russia continues to invade Ukraine. The novel draws a comprehensive portrait of Ukraine
that spans over six decades of significant historical events. Set in the present, the book uses flashbacks and
memories to create a timely record of how constant turmoil impacts both the present and the future. This
course will focus on how to read the novel through different lenses to understand the social and linguistic
consequences of living in a place with wavering national status. We will ask ourselves: what is at stake when a
book makes an explicit political claim rooted in trauma (such as the Holodomor)? What is the role of literature
and translation in transferring ideas of cultural knowledge? And importantly, how does an expansive chronicle
uncover, as the title suggests, a collection of ‘secrets.’ The course will include short reflection assignments and
a final project.
Noah is a PhD student in the English Department. He received his bachelor’s degree in English and Philosophy
in Fall 2019. His main areas of focus are children’s literature, queer studies, and archival research. In recent
years, he interned at the Baldwin Library and is now curating his Master's project digital exhibit “Historical
Diversity and Representation in the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature." He was recently granted
a fellowship from the International Youth Library in Munich.
Museum of Abandoned Secrets - Syllabus
The People We Keep: An exploration of identity and community.
The original blueprint for realpolitik, The Prince shocked sixteenth-century Europe with its advocacy of ruthless tactics for gaining absolute power and its abandonment of conventional morality. For this treatise on statecraft, Machiavelli drew upon his own experience of office under the turbulent Florentine republic, rejecting traditional values of political theory and recognizing the complicated, transient nature of political life. Concerned not with lofty ideals, but with a regime that would last, this seminal work of modern political thought retains its power to alarm and to instruct.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Dr. Daniel Dickrell III is an Associate Instructional Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Department.
The ‘swinging sixties’ have gone down in history as a decade unlike any other. Ushering in an era of change and upheaval, the 1960’s bore witness to an outpouring of music, art, fashion, and culture that shocked the world and stylishly broke away from the convention of the past. Explore the world of psychedelia, take a walk through Carnaby Street, and jam out with the Beatles at the Cavern Club as we experience the essence of the sixties firsthand.
This class will have students explore the zeitgeist of the era through examining the songs, fashion, and films that defined the decade. Additionally, we will read a collection of articles published in the New Yorker’s The Sixties: The Story of a Decade as we study what the social, cultural, and political movements of the past can tell us about the modern day. This course will intrigue anyone interested in the sixties—regardless of whether you’re a “mod” or a “rocker.”
The eighteenth century brought a revolution in science and philosophy. In Britain, this revolution took the form of a rejection of innate ideas and a new emphasis on experience as the sole source of knowledge. While this approach generally sought to support and complement the monumental scientific achievements of the time, it also generated new skeptical worries about the limits of the human intellect.
No single work illustrates this dialectic between enlightenment and skepticism more vividly than David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature. It begins with great fanfare, promising "a compleat system of the sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new." Hume's remarkable confidence was grounded not only in the empiricist conviction that all genuine knowledgerests on experience, but more fundamentally, on the insight that all other sciences and disciplines, from physics to economics, theoloy to politics, are applications in one way or another of the human mind. For this reason, Hume maintained that the Treatise's signature focus on the mechanics of human reasoning represented the only true foundation for the sciences. As the progenitor of this new science of human nature, Hume understood himself to stand above even the towering figures of natural science - Bacon, Boyle, and Newton among them - as the preeminent scientist of his age.
Little of this confidence survives the ordeals of the scientific method, however As the Treatise begins to subject the inner workings of the intellect to relentless empirical scrutiny, we discover that many of our "rational" convictions owe much more to our non-rational faculities of imagination and sentiment than we would care to admit. From our trust in the senses to our most basic inferences, our belief in the external world to the ordinary idea of the self, all of our convictions seem to melt under the searing gaze of Hume's microscope. By the end of Book I, Hume confronts a demoralizing choice "betwixt a false reason and noneat all."
This course aims to understand this tug of war between naturalism and skepticism in the Treatise. Focusing on key moments in Book I, we will endeavor to understand precisely how Hume understands the relationship between scientific inquiry and radical doubt. We will also investigate his remedies (such as they are) for total skepticism.
We all know of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Highly adaptable, we have seen films, television shows, plays, or ballets based on it. Despite this relative cultural ubiquity, what do we really know about the infamous Dracula, the heroes, the heroines, the spaces, and the themes of the epistolary novel itself? By closely and slowly reading this text together, the brilliance of the story can be, against Dracula’s will, brought to light. What does the novel say about the idea of Europe? Of the law? Is it a warning of coming fascism? What is the power of liminality? What are the necessities or dangers of autochthonous attachment? What is a monster? Is Dracula part wolf? Bat? What is a vampire in our political bestiary or demonology? Why is Dracula presented with aristocratic sensibility? What are the political powers of blood? Does the novel critique or reinscribe Victorian views of gender? Is it work of anti-psychiatry? How does it see erotics, abjection, and power? What does it mean to be a Gothic novel? How does horror function? Hopefully, we will come to a resolution on these questions.
Or maybe, we will remain in the cold and quixotic “shade and shadow,” as Dracula so taunts.
Tim is a PhD student in political science. He studies political theory, specifically. With various techniques of criticism derived from German Idealism, psychoanalysis, and Derrida, he theorizes about the United States Intelligence Community, the nature of the political in the United States, fascism, emergency politics, and the connection between erotics and politics. Before coming to UF, he earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy, a masters degree in the history of philosophy from Marquette University and another in political science from UW-Milwaukee.
Do you keep a pet? Do you shudder at the sight of creepy crawly creatures? Do you eat T-bone steaks, chicken wings, or cheese? Lots of us do lots of these things every day, and they are just some examples of humanity's complicated relationship with animals. This course will examine these relationships in several different contexts. Using the second edition of Hal Herzog's Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals, we'll discuss dogs, cats, mice, gamecocks, cows, and many other animals that play important roles in our lives.
Through weekly Socratic discussions, occasional short reflection essays, and a case study presentation, we will explore the human-animal relationship from environmental, ethical, social, and psychological perspectives. By the end of the class, we'll confront the central question to the competing and conflicting relationships most people have with animals: are we all hypocrites wih how we view and use different species?
Thinking About Animals - Syllabus
For the pre-med student, biological science major, naturalist, or simply interested reader, Jonathan Reisman, M.D.―a physician and adventure traveler―takes us along on an odyssey that navigates the inner workings of our anatomy akin to an explorer discovering a new world in his debut novel: The Unseen Body.
Through his unique insight into life, culture, and the natural world, Reisman challenges us to see our body in a completely new light. He shows us how understanding mountain watersheds can help to diagnose heart attacks, how a hike through the Himalayas reveals the boundary between the brain and the mind, and how eating animal organs can serve as a lesson in empathy. With his captivating and lyrical prose, Resiman teaches us how our organs are inextricably intertwined with the natural world–taking the familiar inner workings of our body and metamorphosing them into an internal ecosystem that reflects the natural world around us.
Sea turtles are among the most magnificent megafauna we encounter in the ocean. The story of these iconic creatures is one of survival and resilience, especially in today’s world. In this course we will cover the book 'The Voyage of the Turtle' by Carl Safina, which explores the plight of sea turtles and how human intervention has impacted both positively and negatively these animals and their ecosystems. During weekly discussions (from book readings and with invited speakers) students will learn not only about sea turtles but also about the scientific, political, and cultural challenges encountered while conducting marine conservation around the world. This will provide students with a better understanding of current issues faced in the marine environment and help them reflect on what the ocean means to them and what steps they can take to make a positive impact on the marine environment.
This uncommon read provides an introduction to the world of nonprofit sector in terms of its scope, size and impacts across the world.
Business + Economics
"The Life You Can Save" by Peter Singer is a powerful indictment of the current status quo of global inequality. This book seeks to break down barriers to giving and empower the average person to make a tangible difference in the world. Students in this course will engage with the current landscape of philanthropy through the lens of their own experiences and develop a greater understanding of standards for aid and the apathy that sometimes accompanies it.
The world community has made tremendous strides in alleviating debilitating poverty, but there are still more people living off less than $1.90 a day globally than the entire population of North America. How did it get this way? And what can I, a regular student at the University of Florida, do to end this? This is surely above my paygrade, right? In this course you will learn how truly nothing is too little, and we can all play a role in the creation of a more just society. Most of the concerted global efforts to eliminate poverty have been taken within our lifetimes (after the year 2000), and students will gain an understanding of the work that has been done and the work left to do. This one-credit, discussion-based course will involve a mix of in-class activities and online reflection posts that will culminate in a final project.
This course is team taught by a faculty member and peer instructor.
Joel B. Harley is an Associate Professor with the UF Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. He also runs the SmartData Lab where he creates new diagnostic systems and data-driven models for clients such as the Department of Energy. He received his Ph. D & M.S in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
Rafae Jamal is a fourth-year Accounting major intending to pursue his Master of Accountancy Degree at UF. He is interested in behavioral economics and philosophy. He one day hopes to attend law school and work as a public defender. In his free time, he can be found collecting Legos, reading the New York Times, or playing (too many) video games.
This uncommon read provides an introduction to the world of nonprofit sector in terms of its scope, size and impacts across the world.
Other
“I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now.” This excerpt from Brown Girl Dreaming, one of multi-award winning author Jacqueline Woodson’s world-renowned texts, speaks to the nuanced realities of her own past that ignited her dreams for not only the future, but for now. Woodson’s poetic memoir sheds light on her childhood experiences as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s. Though a struggling reader herself as a young child, Woodson found her voice through writing, and this text is her own recount of life as an African American post-Jim Crow, and at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement.
Though written with middle grade and young adult readers in mind, this mesmerizing book touches readers of all ages. Woodson’s lyrical storytelling is simultaneously breathtaking and moving, abrupt and graceful, paralyzing and memorable. With words that beg its readers to see the beauty in humanity, Brown Girl Dreaming offers imagery that one can’t but marvel at. Woodson’s story offers opportunities for sensitivity and demonstrates how one’s written recollection of memories can unravel both pain and progress in order to recreate a more “perfect moment called Now.”
The instructor, former English Language Arts (ELA) teacher and current UF Literacy Education PhD student, seeks to engage students in using literature to think through and beyond their own realities, to study the implications of multimodal storytelling, and to utilize young adult literature as a means for eliciting more complex text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections. In addition to a critical and dialogic analysis of the text, students will make their own associations to poetry and other modes of communication as a means for self-expression.
“Germany’s Shakespeare,” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) created Faust, the essential modern dramatic poem about the conflict of reason and faith, tradition and the individual, the life of intellect and the life of feeling. In this tragedy of loss and redemption, Goethe paints the image of the modern man, Heinrich Faust, a scientist and scholar bored to the point of despair by the rationalistic and disenchanted modern world. Signing a pact in blood with the witty demon Mephistopheles, Faust falls in love with the beautiful peasant-girl Gretchen and plunges himself into a world of feeling and emotion, throwing away both traditional religious faith and scientific reason. Reading Goethe’s classic and beloved poetic drama—known in Germany as well as Romeo and Juliet is in America—we will ask ourselves the pressing questions of how to live in the modern world. Is romantic love the solution to human suffering? Is evil real, or only a phantom created to keep the strong from taking all they can get? Can an intelligent person believe in God? Goethe’s answers will surprise and challenge us, as will his conviction that truth does not lie in what past thinkers have thought or said but what you can discover for yourself. “Everything past is only a metaphor!” Goethe says at his tragedy’s end. “What cannot be grasped is the here and now.” We will read Faust, therefore, not primarily to understand the past, but to understand the ungraspable here and now.
Clay Greene is a post-doctoral fellow at the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education. He received his PhD in English and Renaissance Studies from Yale University and his BA and MA in English from the University of Alabama. He is interested in the connections of religion and politics in seventeenth-century English literature, especially the poetry of John Milton. He is currently completing a book on Milton and the Christian idea of "holy war." He likes to run, to walk, and to sit—in that order.
Considered the greatest love poet in the English language, John Donne wrote a collection of short lyric poems, published as Songs and Sonnets in 1633. We will read these 55 short poems, which trace the passion and fervor of a religious and social renegade obsessed with, among other things, the union of souls in and beyond death. Drawing on the language of sacraments, alchemy, Greek myth, legal arguments, martyrdom, astronomy, and New World discovery, Donne’s poems offer a glimpse into one of the most brilliant minds of Renaissance England. Fired from his diplomatic job when he eloped with his boss’s daughter and briefly imprisoned, Donne also carefully navigated political requirements that he change his religion when he later became Royal Chaplain to King James I of England and Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
This class will be a deep dive into Donne’s poetry, with each meeting a master class in close reading, where your hunches and instincts will guide our discussion as we grapple with Donne’s breathtaking voyages of love, sex, and death in the tempestuous Elizabethan age.
Jill Ingram specializes in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature and is a faculty member in the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education. Author of two books on the expression of economic relationships in Renaissance drama, she also edited Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost for the New Kittredge Series.
In this seminar, we will undertake a close reading of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant is one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy, and his practical philosophy has shaped the development of key concepts in modern moral and political thought, including duty, freedom, law, autonomy, agency, and the relationship between mind and world. The Groundwork is a seminal classic of Enlightenment thought and modern moral philosophy. Our reading of it will serve both as an accelerated introduction to Kant, and a starting point for discussions of metaphysics, ethics, the meaning of progress and the philosophy of history, and the philosophy of law and of religion. Though this course may be of particular interest to students majoring or minoring in philosophy, no prior study of philosophy is required or assumed.
If you read only one book of philosophy in your lifetime, make it Plato’s Republic. While A.N. Whitehead’s famous declaration that Western philosophy is essentially “a series of footnotes to Plato” may be hyperbolic, Republic is indisputably the single most influential work in the history of Western philosophy.
If Socrates, the protagonist of Republic as of so many of Plato’s dialogues, is the founder of Western moral philosophy, it is Plato who founds Western political philosophy (not to mention that Plato’s texts are our primary source for knowledge of Socrates, who was Plato’s teacher and who never set his own thoughts down in writing). And it is above all to Republic, centered on the question “What is justice?”, that Plato owes this title.
Republic is not merely a work of political philosophy or a treatise on the ideal city-state, however. It is also the most influential presentation of Plato’s metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of education, theory of the soul, and more. It is also a literary masterpiece—moreover, one free of technical jargon and accessible to everyone regardless of background or prior study.
In this course, we will read and discuss the entirety of the Republic, both for its own sake and with an eye to its applicability to modern times and to our own lives. Students will receive an introduction to moral philosophy, political philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, and more by way of their reading of Plato. We will discuss a wide variety of topics from the text, including: the Allegory of the Cave; Plato’s philosophy of Forms; the idea(l) of the “philosopher king”; the roles played by gender equality, socialism, eugenics, censorship, and more in Kallipolis, Plato’s ideal city-state; the nature of the good life; the relation between power and justice; Socratic “elenchus” and Platonic “dialectic”; Socratic irony and humility; the purpose of education; the “Noble Lie”; the legend of the Ring of Gyges (an inspiration for Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings); Plato’s criticisms of democracy; and more.
Allen Porter is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. Before joining the Hamilton Center, he was a John and Daria Barry Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the James Madison Program in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He holds a B.A. in German from Princeton University, a M.A. in Philosophy from Tulane University, and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Rice University. His primary research interests are bioethics, continental philosophy, and political philosophy.
The eighteenth century brought a revolution in science and philosophy. In Britain, this revolution took the form of a rejection of innate ideas and a new emphasis on experience as the sole source of knowledge. While this approach generally sought to support and complement the monumental scientific achievements of the time, it also generated new skeptical worries about the limits of the human intellect.
No single work illustrates this dialectic between enlightenment and skepticism more vividly than David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature. It begins with great fanfare, promising "a compleat system of the sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new." Hume's remarkable confidence was grounded not only in the empiricist conviction that all genuine knowledgerests on experience, but more fundamentally, on the insight that all other sciences and disciplines, from physics to economics, theoloy to politics, are applications in one way or another of the human mind. For this reason, Hume maintained that the Treatise's signature focus on the mechanics of human reasoning represented the only true foundation for the sciences. As the progenitor of this new science of human nature, Hume understood himself to stand above even the towering figures of natural science - Bacon, Boyle, and Newton among them - as the preeminent scientist of his age.
Little of this confidence survives the ordeals of the scientific method, however As the Treatise begins to subject the inner workings of the intellect to relentless empirical scrutiny, we discover that many of our "rational" convictions owe much more to our non-rational faculities of imagination and sentiment than we would care to admit. From our trust in the senses to our most basic inferences, our belief in the external world to the ordinary idea of the self, all of our convictions seem to melt under the searing gaze of Hume's microscope. By the end of Book I, Hume confronts a demoralizing choice "betwixt a false reason and noneat all."
This course aims to understand this tug of war between naturalism and skepticism in the Treatise. Focusing on key moments in Book I, we will endeavor to understand precisely how Hume understands the relationship between scientific inquiry and radical doubt. We will also investigate his remedies (such as they are) for total skepticism.
These courses are interdisciplinary in nature and often team-taught.
This course will look at potential legal issues in certain literary texts–texts that are not ostensibly about the law but that nevertheless do involve legal issues. The focus of the course will entail analyzing these legal issues, researching positions on them, and writing persuasive legal briefs in support of these positions. Students will perform mock trials, evidentiary hearings, and depositions both during and at the end of each unit and present the arguments made in their legal briefs before a live jury. Texts for the class include: Miss Julie (August Strindberg), Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson), “A Mother” (from Dubliners, James Joyce), Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton), A Doll’s House (Henrik Ibsen), and Dirty Work (Larry Brown).
The University of Florida (UF) is distinctly positioned as one of the US leaders in Arts in Public Health. Notably, the UF Center for Arts in Medicine has produced fundamental research to this field through its epidemiology-focused lab, the EpiArts Lab, its development of an evidence-based framework for Arts in Public Health, and even through its recent engagement with the CDC to produce field guides on how the public health sector can utilize the arts to promote vaccine confidence.
This course provides an overview of the Arts and Health research landscape with an emphasis on Arts in Public Health. With that, it also integrates knowledge across sectors and emphasizes the value of collaboration in public health knowledge, skills, and values — essential facets to effectively contribute to the field of public health. Students are therefore challenged to consider innovative solutions to public health problems. As cross-sector collaboration within public health rises in prominence, it is essential that future health leaders understand how and why the field of art can be leveraged.
Arts in Public Health - Syllabus
These courses are aimed at developing skills that will help students over their career.
In this course, we will work with engineering honors students to develop an action plan for careers, internships, research, and engagement on campus. Students will work in small groups with a peer leader and develop resumes, elevator pitches, and cover letters. We'll discuss student organizations and how to get more involved with engineering, honors, and general student groups across campus. Students will learn time management skills, how to approach faculty via email and during office hours, and study techniques for engineering classes. We will also help students find research and identify faculty with similar interests.
Register to gain professional skills and meet some of your fellow first-year students. We will meet once per week in a large group and have four times for smaller group discussion. There are four sections to choose between when registering: Three are open to any and all students, and the fourth is reserved for women students only. This configurations helps ensure our larger class meetings reflect current gender demographics of the engineering industry.
Honors Pro Dev: Engineering - Syllabus
Unsure of your major? It’s totally normal not to know exactly what you want to study in college. In fact, Exploratory students represent a significant proportion of the entering student body at most colleges and universities. Moreover, many students who begin their undergraduate studies as declared majors change their majors at least once before they graduate. That’s certainly okay as college is a time for self-discovery and exploration, growth, and learning about new interests.
Pro Dev Exploratory offers first-year Honors students a space to become active participants in this exploration process. You will investigate, explore, research, assess, connect, and experience the academic and career-building opportunities available at UF. You’ll learn methods and strategies to support your journey to find a major that fits your abilities, values, and interests. This interactive course will have guest speakers and structured and casual discussions about UF’s offerings, how to get involved, and how to blend interests. Class activities and assignments will focus on filling your toolbox with strategies for making authentic academic and co-curricular choices (class scheduling and 4-year plan) and developing career-minded skills and useful products (resume, interview techniques, elevator pitch).
Class dates: August 23 - October 20
Honors Pro Dev: Exploratory - Syllabus
Pro Dev First Generation offers first-year, first-generation Honors students a supportive, collaborative environment to begin your UF journey. Florida Machen Opportunity Scholars may substitute this course for the First Year Florida course requirement.
In this course, students will: (1) evaluate opportunities for campus involvement, internships, study abroad, research, leadership, and service based on personal and professional goals, (2) develop effective professional strategies for self-promotion (resumes, cover letters, interview techniques, etc.), and (3) build a supportive network of other first-generation honors students and leaders. Class meetings will consist of casual learner-centered discussions, engaging activities, and presentations. Course assignments will have real-world applications.
Honors Pro Dev: First Year Generation - Syllabus
How do you make the most of your time at UF and in the Honors Program? How do you decide what to do both while you’re at UF and after graduation?
This course for first-semester Honors students of all majors (including exploratory) will address these questions through readings, reflections, and discussions on the purpose of a university education as well as through skills-based workshops and assignments intended to produce deliverables with real-world application (resume, elevator speech, interview skills, etc.). The course is casual but heavily discussion based and will include several group presentations led by students.
Honors Pro Dev: General - Syllabus
This one credit course is intended for honors students in their first year who are interested in pursuing admission to medical school. All information in the course will be framed around medical school admission.
This course is not designed for students pursuing other pre-health tracks.
The course will provide information on how students can begin to prepare for being a healthcare professional and applying to health graduate programs. Topics covered include: statement of purpose, resume building, meaningful involvement, professional communication and building a competitive application.
Available Class Numbers
25930
225933
25934
Honors Professional Development: Pre-Med - Syllabus
This course is mandatory for first-year Lombardi and Stamps Scholars and will allow those students to interact with and learn from other highly motivated students. This course is an introduction to the life of a scholar-leader and to the many resources available at UF. Students will develop a plan to apply for a variety of opportunities, emphasizing the skills and strategies necessary for a successful academic, community, and personal life.
“I am not lucky. You know what I am? I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way and I work really, really hard. Don’t call me lucky. Call me a badass.” – Shonda Rhimes
The above quote is the guiding force for this course. Pro Dev: Women in STEM is designed for first year women majoring in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, math). Through lively discussions, highly interactive activities, and mentoring from course alumnae, students in the course can expect to develop a toolkit of practical resources to not just survive but thrive as women in STEM at UF.
Students will build proficiency with resumes, interviewing, negotiating, and networking through in-class workshops. They will also facilitate class discussions with their small group on topics like empowerment, support, and wellbeing. Finally, students in the class will have an opportunity to connect with a female faculty member or industry professional in a STEM field.
This class will meet on Tuesdays in-person with the instructor for the lecture. It will also meet on Thursdays in a smaller in-person discussion group led by an experienced honors teaching assistant and course alumnae.
Class dates: August 29 – October 19
Available Class Numbers
24959
24960
Honors Professional Development: Women in STEM
Who gets rights? What is property and how do you transfer it? Can you contract anything? What does it mean to be harmed and then made whole? What are constitutions? This course is dedicated to exploring these questions by introducing students to legal investigations at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law.
Spend fall 2023 meeting with and listening to Levin Law faculty talk about what they teach and study. This one credit course has no exam. Instead, it invites you to explore law in the classroom, seek it out in readings, and blog about what you find.
How can you best use your experience in the Warrington College of Business to prepare you for academic and professional success?
Introduction to Business (also known as Warrington Welcome), a one-credit course for first-year business and accounting majors, will guide you to answer this question by:
Facilitating your transition to the Warrington College of Business and University of Florida.
Providing a foundation for academic, career development, and personal growth.
Providing relationship building and networking opportunities with your peers, student leaders, and staff members.
Helping you build foundational skills in teamwork, career management, and critical thinking.
Introduction to Business - Syllabus
Signature Seminars offer opportunities to work with UF's top faculty in their research areas of interest.
Regenerative medicine creates an opportunity to lessen pathological processes, repair injured or congenitally defective tissues and organs for patients with conditions that are incompletely addressed. Academic Centers and Private sectors are trying to address these issues by exploring several complementary approaches, including tissue rejuvenation, tissue or organ replacement, rescue and repair, with the ultimate goal to improve patient health. This course is one of a two-course Program (courses can be taken in any sequence) that is focused on evaluating a complex multistage process of conveying innovative ideas that originate in the academic laboratory to regular clinical use. Each week a different faculty member from the University of Florida, or a visiting lecturer from a national regulatory agency as well as various industrial partners, with specific expertise in the field, will give a lecture on topics critical to the regulation, development, financing, and implementation of regenerative medicine technologies. Students enrolled in the 2-credit class will also be required to review appropriate literature prior to each lecture and expected to actively participate in an interactive discussion during class.
The one credit option of the course is the LECTURE PORTION OF THE CLASS ONLY. Students registered for the one credit option will have the opportunity to attend guest lecturer presentations for the first hour of the class.
One Credit
Regenerative Medicine - Two credits
Regenerative medicine creates an opportunity to lessen pathological processes, repair injured or congenitally defective tissues and organs for patients with conditions that are incompletely addressed. Academic Centers and Private sectors are trying to address these issues by exploring several complementary approaches, including tissue rejuvenation, tissue or organ replacement, rescue and repair, with the ultimate goal to improve patient health. This course is one of a two-course Program (courses can be taken in any sequence) that is focused on evaluating a complex multistage process of conveying innovative ideas that originate in the academic laboratory to regular clinical use. Each week a different faculty member from the University of Florida, or a visiting lecturer from a national regulatory agency as well as various industrial partners, with specific expertise in the field, will give a lecture on topics critical to the regulation, development, financing, and implementation of regenerative medicine technologies. Students enrolled in the 2-credit class will also be required to review appropriate literature prior to each lecture and expected to actively participate in an interactive discussion during class.
The two-credit option includes BOTH THE LECTURE PORTION AND THE DISCUSSION PORTION. Students registered for the two-credit option will have the opportunity to attend guest lecturer presentation for the first hour. This will be followed by an hour long “round table discussion” with the guest speaker in which students can ask any questions that pertain to the field. Students enrolled in the 2-credit class will also be required to review appropriate literature prior to each lecture and actively participate in an interactive discussion during class.
Two Credits
Uncommon classrooms are courses designed around unusual topics with cities, places, and natural landscapes serving as experimental classrooms.Students that participate are registered for a 1-credit course and are responsible for tuition (financial aid may apply) and fees. Details about additional fees associate with each course are provided in the description. Students are required to provide their own transportation to and from the location of the course, unless otherwise noted.
Wentworth Travel Scholarships are available to support costs, up to $500. Students that provide proof of financial need as part of the application may be eligible for additional funding.
The UF/IFAS Nature Coast Biological Station (NCBS) serves as a coastal and marine field laboratory. This biological station on Cedar Key, Florida is located directly on the Gulf of Mexico, 55 miles west of main campus. The UF/IFAS NCBS Seahorse Key Marine Lab is located a short boat ride away and includes an historic lighthouse, indoor and outdoor marine laboratories. In this uncommon classroom, students will have the opportunity to explore these spaces alongside resident research scientists and gain perspective from valuable adjacent outreach programs such as the Florida Horseshoe Crab Watch, Florida Friendly Angler, Seagrass Safe Boating, and living shorelines. Throughout this immersive experience, students will have the opportunity to learn about and practice science communication with an emphasis on photography and storytelling as a means to improve the conservation of coastal resources.
Cost for this class is estimated to be $600 including lodging, activities and transportation. Meals are not included. The course will begin early in the morning on Friday, November 3rd, and conclude on Sunday, November 5th. All backgrounds and disciplines are welcome. Applications will be accepted until August 23rd and will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
Location: Cedar Key, Florida
Dates: November 3-5, 2023
Instructors: Dr. Lisa Lundy and Dr. Jamie Loizzo, Department of Agricultural Education and Communication
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