Spring 2010
Principles of Food and Resource Economics
Gen Ed: S
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 0628 | Evan Drummond |
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AEB 3103 is a comprehensive, introductory economics course with emphasis on the economics of agriculture, the food industry and natural resources in a global context. The course includes both microeconomics and macroeconomics. The microeconomic portion of the course emphasizes production economics and the theory of the consumer. The macroeconomic portion of the course deals with the role of government in a domestic and global environment with particular emphasis on agricultural policy and trade. The honors section of this course entails a weekly enrichment session that meets on Fridays at the regularly scheduled time slot. This seminar deals with current events, supplements to course topics, and a case study of a major agribusiness firm. There are no extra tests or exams associated with the seminar. Some extra reading is required. The grade from the seminar is based on attendance and participation. It constitutes 20% of the final course grade. Students in the honors section are expected to complete all requirements of the regular section. Prerequisite: Calculus
Evan Drummond (a.k.a. The Food Dude) is Professor of Food and Resource Economics and Senior Associate Director of the University Honors Program. His areas of interest include food policy and international economic development. He teaches introductory agricultural economics and is co-author of a book for that course. In his second year at UF he was selected Teacher of the Year by the students of the College of Agriculture and in his first year of eligibility was chosen as the national Teacher of the Year (with more than ten years experience) by the American Agricultural Economics Association.
Biology and Natural History of Fireflies
Gen Ed: B
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2262 | James E. Lloyd |
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NOTE: This class is located in the Entomology Building on Natural Area Drive near the Performing Arts Center. Please plan accordingly.
Biology and Natural History With Fireflies (spring ‘09) This course looks at the biology and natural history of an interesting group of familiar organisms to get a view of major aspects of organismic biological science and demonstrates how one can approach natural philosophy as a "humanity" for personal satisfaction. Practical work includes field identification, observation, and quantification of firefly signals, flash signal recording and analysis, basic electronics with circuit development and manufacture, museum practice including collecting and curating, and the use and development of identification keys. Attention is given, through texts and informal discussion to important concepts in systematic and evolutionary biology.
Texts: A firefly manual by the Prof., a (free) collection of essays and field and lab project texts and directions that is distributed over the semester, as required. Students will purchase a "fireflyer's kit" as described on the first day of class. The kit includes a small field guide to insects, and a book on the natural history of Charles Darwin himself, as a life role model and independent thinker. There will be afternoon and nocturnal field trips, an optional overnight weekend camping expedition. Attendance is required on about five evening field trips during the semester.
Grading: Final grade will take into account these elements: (1) attendance, punctuality, and performance/industry/focus in the lab and on nocturnal and afternoon field trips to firefly habitats; (2) several always announced and carefully described quizzes, both open and closed book as described beforehand; (3) short term paper(s) (ca 2000 words total) on topics that will be discussed. The Prof. will also experiment with various other somewhat painless methods to get students to learn more than their natural laziness would really let them, including “Borden Quizzes”, which will be explained in class, on English grammar and other things. Each student will have a file in the Prof.’s lab, where quizzes, tests, termpapers, and miscellaneous items are accumulated. At the end of the semester the Prof. will evaluate these “portfolios”, for industry in and quality of scholarship, classwork that was voluntarily put in their folders, and will subjectively assigned a grade. (Grades in the past have ranged from C to A, with a couple of Is over the years; three-quarters or more have received A’s, and the others B+’s, not an unreasonable spread for almost exclusively bright and motivated Honors Students! But, note, to paraquote from the student evaluation by one fireflyer, Prof L kicks ____..
James E. Lloyd is a graduate of SUNY at Fredonia, University of Michigan, and Cornell University. He served four years in the US Navy as an electronic technician in a patrol squadron. He joined the UF faculty in 1966 and currently is Professor Emeritus of Entomology and Nematology. During his tenure at UF he has taught several undergraduate and graduate courses and served on the graduate committees of some 50 graduate students. He has studied fireflies in the field for 43 years in North America, Jamaica, southern Mexico, Thailand, Colombia, and New Guinea, and has published about 100 scientific papers and book chapters, and about 50 book reviews and editorials; has given 90 invited lectures at universities in the US and elsewhere; organized and edited several published symposia on behavioral ecology; identified about 15,000 preserved firefly research specimens for museums and other institutions and individuals; and his photographs of fireflies and other insects appear widely in text books and magazines. Prof. Lloyd has for several years been preparing a natural history/taxonomic monograph on fireflies, a study manual for firefly natural history/biology courses, and a field guide to North American fireflies.
Disability in America
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4492 | Steven Noll |
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Disability is an unexamined category of historical analysis. In this course, we will examine American history in light of disability issues- examining both the stories of persons with disabilities & how they were perceived by mainstream culture. We will also tie this historical analysis to current issues of disability policy. There will be no exams but students will write a research paper on a topic of their choice and do a significant amount of reading.
Dr. Noll teaches history here at UF after teaching special education in the Gainesville public schools for 28 years. He is interested in disability history and Florida history, having published books in both fields. His most current book, Ditch of Dreams: The Cross Florida Barge Canal & the Struggle for Florida’s Future, is to be published at the end of October by the University Press of Florida.
Introduction to Forensic Science
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2543 | Jason Byrd |
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This course addresses the various disciplines within the forensic sciences. Specifically, this course will focus on the application of the medical and natural sciences to forensics. The development of the medical examiner, coroner, and crime laboratory systems within the United States will be discussed as well as the scientific and non-scientific methods used to establish human identity, and the pathological conditions commonly found in forensic casework. This is a three-credit course designed to
familiarize the student with the application of science to law and the courtroom.
Dr. Byrd is an Associate Director of the W. R. Maples Center for Forensic Medicine and a Board-Certified Forensic Entomologist. He is the current President of the North American Forensic Entomology Association and current Vice-Chair of the American Board of Forensic Entomology. He has conducted over 100 workshops specializing in the education of law enforcement officials, medical examiners, coroners, attorneys, and other death investigators on the use and applicability of arthropods in legal
investigations. He has published numerous scientific articles on the subject of forensic entomology, and has also published two books dealing with the use of insects in legal investigations.
Life in the Universe
Gen Ed: P
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1730 | Stephen Gottesman |
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The origin of living organisms is intimately connected to the universe. From the Big Bang came hydrogen and helium, and from the interiors of stars came the heavier elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. Thus, the existence of life on Earth is closely connected with the chemical evolution of the galaxy and its stars. When physical and chemical conditions on earth were appropriate, the subsequent biochemical evolution culminating in self-reproducing living organisms was inevitable, according to many scientists.
It is clear that we must consider the history of our galaxy, the origin of our solar system, and the early development of the earth. Then, we can discuss ideas about how life evolved from these early environmental conditions. This will allow us to generalize the temporal and physical requirements for life to form. Do these conditions exist elsewhere in our solar system, and what are the implications of the answer to this question?
How likely is it that these prerequisites are duplicated in other stellar systems in our Galaxy? What is the probability that stable planetary systems can form around stars, and what might be the effects of stellar evolution on the planetary environment? If planetary systems meeting our criteria are likely, how probable is it that an environment will evolve that will support life. Finally, what environmental factors may guide the evolutionary development of simple cellular organisms into intelligent beings? There are major research programs in the UF Department of Astronomy that are pursuing answers to some of these questions.
If intelligence appears to be widespread, how can we search for it? What strategies should be pursued? What efforts in this regard are being made today, and are being planned for the near future?
Course requirements will include: regular attendance; participation in class discussions; periodic, short essays; a mid-term examination; and a final term paper with associated group projects. There will be no final examination.
Stephen Gottesman: I am a Professor Emeritus of Astronomy. I trained as a radio astronomer at Jodrell Bank in Great Britain, and earned the Ph. D. degree from the University of Manchester. My special interests include the properties of galaxies, their dynamics, structure and the extent and magnitude of their dark matter content. I have also studied various aspects of the interstellar medium. Stars, planets and living materials form from this diffuse medium. My interests in astrobiology are long standing and I helped to create this course for the astronomy curriculum. I am a past chairman of the Department of Astronomy. If you have any questions concerning this or other astronomy courses or topics, I encourage you to e-mail me at: gott@astro.ufl.edu
Beginning Chinese 2
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3873 | Cynthia H. Shen |
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Prerequisite: CHI 1130 (grade of C or better, or S), or the equivalent
This is the continuation of Beginning Chinese 1. It teaches Chinese speaking, listening, reading and writing abilities with an emphasis on everyday spoken language. By the end of this semester students will have been introduced to most of the important grammatical structures of spoken Chinese. Aspects of Chinese culture will also be introduced in relation to the language taught in the class. The class will be conducted with a communicative approach with many interactions between students and the instructor. The instructor will create different situations guiding students to use the target language in conversation and role plays. The training is vigorous and provocative. There will be daily assignment, weekly quizzes and tests. Students will also be expected to present two Chinese skits in groups after the mid-term and final examinations, in which they will demonstrate their acquired Chinese competence in combination of interesting performance. Active and substantial participation is expected.
Cynthia Hsien Shen is a native Chinese. She grew up in Taipei, Taiwan. She was awarded a B.A. degree from National Taiwan University. She pursued her graduate studies in the U.S. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Cincinnati and Cornell University respectively. She taught and served in various positions at the Gainesville Chinese School before she joined the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures as a lecturer. She has been teaching the Honors Beginning Chinese class for 7 years, she is currently the coordinator for Beginning level Chinese as well.
Honors General Chemistry
Gen Ed: P
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 7201 | Staff |
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Corequisite: CHM 2046L. CHM 2051 is an Honors alternate to CHM 2046.
This course is available to any student who has an "A" midterm or final grade in CHM 2045 at UF. Many of the students in the course will be Honors Program students, but this is not a requirement. The course is open to any student who has demonstrated a high level of potential in chemistry, as indicated by performance in CHM 2045. The instructor for CHM 2051 will be Dr. Gardiner Myers, who has extensive experience teaching in the CHM 2045-2046 sequence. Questions concerning the course may be directed to him at gmyers@chem.ufl.edu. CHM 2051 will cover the same basic topics that are studied in CHM 2046, indeed using many of the same course handouts Dr. Myers uses in the regular course. The principal difference will be the smaller class size and a level of discussion appropriate to the audience. We will also complete several computer spreadsheet exercises which are designed to teach some of the data analysis skills that one needs to use in a life of science. In the latter few weeks of CHM 2051 we will replace some of the usual descriptive inorganic chemistry with several special topics: atmospheric chemistry, polymers, and proteins. Students who are qualified and wish to enroll for CHM 2051 may simply register for this as for any other course, using section number 7201. If the system gives you any difficulty contact the Honors Office (Honors Program students) or Dr. Myers (other students). Students in CHM 2051 should also register for any regular section of CHM 2046L.
Bioorganic Chemistry
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3523 | Staff |
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Prereq: CHM 3217 or CHM 2211, or permission of instructor.
An introduction to the basic concepts of biochemistry and molecular biology from the structural and mechanistic perspective of organic chemistry.
Fiction Writing
Gen Ed: C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2269 | Staff |
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Prerequisite: CRW 1101 or completion of 60 credits
This course will continue instruction in basic techniques of voice, plot and character, while also introducing advanced ones. Students read a lot of good stories and write a few themselves. Samuel Johnson said, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." Juniors or seniors who have not taken CRW1101 or 1301 must have strong composition skills.
Poetry Writing
Gen Ed: C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1644 | Staff |
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No Prerequisite except a willingness to write poetry and knowledge of what a complete sentence is
“I suppose you want me to go to night school and read poems.”
—James Cagney, “The Public Enemy”
The University of Florida has one of the strongest creative writing programs in the country, and graduate faculty sometimes offer a beginning workshop for honors students. The best students will afterwards be eligible for upper-division workshops, always taught by graduate faculty. Poetry demands close attention to the meaning and music of language, to emotion and the structures of emotion, and to the burdens of the past. The best poetry has an understanding of psychology, botany, religion, philosophy, and how much French fries cost at the mall. No one can be a poet without reading. The beginning workshop is in part a course in poetic literature.
Poets will write one poem a week, which will form the basis of workshop discussion, along with poems of the past and present. No workshop can succeed without an inclination toward laughter and wry jokes. Field trips may be possible—no year in Gainesville is complete without a visit to the alligators. Students are not expected to have written poetry before, but must have strong language skills (you can't manipulate the language effectively without grammar and spelling). Please do not take this course if you don’t know the difference between an adjective and an adverb, or the correct usage of it’s and its, lay and lie, and who and whom. Student who don’t know what complete sentences are will be asked to drop the class.
Required reading:
Norton Anthology of Modern Poems
Four books of contemporary poetry
James McAuley, Versification
Urban Economics
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 7112 | David Denslow |
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Prerequisites: ECO and ES majors with ECO 2013 and ECO 2023, or B or better in ECO 2013 and ECO 2023
The course will consider the economics of various urban issues including housing, transportation, taxes, infrastructure, and schools. A standard text Arthur O'Sullivan, Urban Economics, will be used, and a paper will be required. Below is a link to a typical course in urban economics, the one at Brown, which will give you an idea of the topics covered. But we’ll rely more on the text and less on articles.
http://www.econ.brown.edu/faculty/henderson/courses/ec241.pdf
Dr. David Denslow, Jr., Economic Analysis Program Director in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research and Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Economics, is best known at the University of Florida as the effective and popular professor of the televised course Basic Macroeconomics.
Introduction to Education
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1139 | Jeff Hurt |
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This course is intended to be an introductory exploration of the PreK-12 teaching profession. It presents issues and conditions currently relevant to teachers and the teaching profession, and examines standard practices, teaching environments, professional obligations and requirements, qualifications for entrance into the profession, certification, legal aspects of the profession, alternative and innovative programs, non-teaching educational positions, and the future of education. Students will participate in a variety of activities, including researching "current issue" topics, such as grades, classroom discipline, teacher tenure and promotion, extra-curricular activities and homework. As part of the requirements for successful completion of the course, all students will complete a minimum of 30 hours of volunteer work in a PreK-12 school system.
Dr. Jeff Hurt has been teaching for 35 years. He has been on the College of Education faculty at the University of Florida since 1985. He has experience in teaching and/or supervision at the elementary, middle school and high school levels. He has degrees in English Education, Social Science Education, Library and Information Science, and Educational Technology and Communication.
Speaking and Writing for Engineers
Gen Ed: C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 8340 | Staff |
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Note: This course will substitute for ENC 2210, Technical Writing.
This course has been expressly designed for engineering students to equip them for speaking and writing assignments associated with undergraduate coursework and careers in the field of engineering. Students will learn valuable techniques and tools that will help them become effective communicators of technical material, capable of organizing and expressing ideas to satisfy the demands of both general and specialist audiences. Writing and speaking assignments will mirror actual tasks in school and in the field. In the process, students will learn how to become critical evaluators of their own communication skills by commenting on and evaluating the spoken and written work of peers in class. The primary writing assignments include a résumé and a cover letter, a procedural manual, and a final team design proposal. Oral assignments include an interview supporting the cover letter and résumé, a presentation of the team proposal, and role-playing as peer reviewers of other team projects.
Speaking and Writing for Premed Students
Gen Ed: C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 0633 | Staff |
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Medical professionals have a special obligation to communicate without ambiguity, either in the written or spoken word; they depend on their communication skills to interact productively with other medical experts, their colleagues, clients and their families, and the public at large. This team-taught course will provide students with the opportunity to participate in a range of activities: researching, processing, and sharing medical information with others. Students will learn to do research using medical databases and other research tools, as well as discovering how best to organize and present their findings to other medical professionals or patients. The physician must often act as intermediary between the specialized world of scientific research and the more pragmatic world of the general public; consequently, we will also investigate how best to present technical medical information to the layperson. This course is predicated on the idea that the ability to write and speak clearly are learned skills, not innate talents, which means that better communication can be learned by practice. Students will experiment with a range of communication strategies in class: lectures will be followed by focused written and oral activities that allow students to put theory and strategies into practice. We will read and dissect examples of both good and bad writing in order to learn from them, in addition to examining several types of medical writings: written patient instructions, technical/research papers, case reports, and patient records. Students will also participate in a variety of speaking assignments in class, ranging from impromptu to prepared presentations. We will discuss techniques for improving public speaking, interviewing and listening skills, and patient-doctor communication.
Writing for Prelaw Students
Gen Ed: C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2530 | Staff |
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In courts of law people's lives depend on the character of words, and the livelihood of lawyers depends on their ability to put language to its most productive ends. It is with these ideas that we take up the subject of writing and law. Lawyers are notorious for producing impenetrable documents. On the other hand, some of the most eloquent writing about our society has been set down by attorneys and judges. Our job will be to learn what we can from those well-stated arguments and opinions and to avoid what makes legal writing so notoriously difficult to read. This course is designed to be, in large part, a practical workshop on the most common forms of legal writing. It is also a consideration of the character of legal communication in general. To these ends, we will write three documents: a legal brief, a legal memorandum, and an analytical essay. In writing the first two, we will become familiar with legal research and law library resources. In the analytical essay we will examine how common perceptions of legal institutions are played out in popular venues, such as film or theater, as well as in the media. In all of the writing we will develop the rhetorical skills of argument and persuasion while mastering the basic elements of style. Several field trips, including at least one to the county court and one to the law school's moot court, will show how speaking is integral to this discipline. Hence, our course also has an oral communications component wherein students will learn the basic skills of legal debate.
Writing in Humanities
Gen Ed: C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 5603 | J. A. Rice |
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“Words are never ‘only words’; they matter because they define the contours of what we can do”
–Slavoj Žižek, philosopher
No type of writing links the power of language with critical thinking quite like writing for the humanities. Writing for the humanities encourages us to ask questions about the works we read, look at, and listen to; yet, it also requires that we understand, evaluate, and explain these works to others. Unfortunately, few humanities courses take the time to specifically address the purposes of humanities writing, let alone how to write its documents effectively. Accordingly, this writing-intensive course investigates the diverse writing demands of humanities majors: short response papers, summaries, review essays, examination essays, argumentative essays, and research reports. As a practical orientation, students will conduct a semester-long analysis of humanities scholarship to understand a specific discipline’s writing foci and requirements, e.g. art & art history, music, philosophy, literature, history, and so on. In addition, since writing in the humanities requires attention to both conception of subject matter and disciplinary conventions, students will work collaboratively on select assignments to investigate the problems of audience, including how to ensure collective knowledge. Informed by these investigations, each student will then examine several methods for improving written clarity, rhetorical organization, and prose style.
J. A. Rice is a Lecturer and Writing Coordinator for the University Writing Program. He has presented and published on various issues in Rhetoric & Composition studies, but specializes in collaborative writing pedagogy, rhetorical philosophy, and ideologies of communication. Since coming to UF 2004, he has designed and taught courses in technical & professional writing, argument & persuasion, writing for academic audiences, and advanced expository writing.
Advanced Exposition
Gen Ed: C
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 9202 | Marie Nelson |
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Prerequisites: junior or senior standing and two 1000- or 2000-level English courses, or equivalents, Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate writing courses for example.
ENC 3310 carries Gordon Rule writing credit.
Writing about Language, a twelve-chapter set of readings to be made available by University Copy and More, will be the single required text for this honors version of ENC3310: Advanced Exposition. I will bring copies of Chapter 1, “Naming and Un-naming,” to distribute the first day of class, along with a Table of Contents for Writing about Language.
ENC 3310 is an expository writing course. The primary intention here is to help you further develop your ability to lay what you have to say out on the printed page in ways that enable a reader to understand it. Each WL chapter presents a series of written examples – and some topics will be further illustrated by additions like scenes from the film version of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible to the trial scenes of “What Are You Doing with Words?” and a PBS version of the stories of Genie and The Wild Child of Aveyron to the language acquisition chapter. Each chapter ends with Writing Possibilities. These are intended to lead to “starts” for the four short (3-5 page) required papers. A “start” can be a collection of notes from which you select details for a paper, an exercise you write in class (we will not have tests, but WL does include a few exercises), a direct response to an end-of-the-chapter possibility, or – I like to leave the options open – a related possibility you wish to add. Conferences to consider the “starts” you have on hand will be scheduled as each three-chapter sequence.
Grades for the course? Your “starts” will not be given letter grades. They will, however, be carefully read, promptly returned to you, and recorded as evidence of your consistent readiness to participate in the work of the class, a factor I will consider in determining final grades. The four 3-4 page papers and a fifth, longer paper, which can be a further development of one of your earlier papers or a new paper based on a writing possibility that suddenly shows an intention to sprout and grow, will receive letter grades. And re-writing will be a possibility throughout the course.
Questions? Please send them to marienel@msn.com and I will try to answer them.
Dr. Nelson joined the University of Florida English Department faculty when she completed her graduate studies at the University of Oregon in 1974, and served as Director of our Linguistics Program from 1995 to 2000. She has published two books on Old English poetry and a number of essays on Old, Middle, and Modern English language and literature. Her recently published essays include “John Gardner’s Grendel: A Story Retold and Transformed in the Process” (Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 2007); “The Authority of the Spoken Word: Speech Acts in Mark Twain’s The Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” (Oral Tradition, Fall 2008); and “Time and J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Riddles in the Dark’” in the Fall/Winter 2008 Mythlore edition. She knows that trees can’t really talk, but is currently working on a paper titled “[ ± animate] and [± human ]: Treebeard and Tolkien’s ‘Peoples of the Earth’” to be presented at the Spring 2010 International Conference of Fantasy in the Arts.
Water, Env & Society
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3467 | Mark Brown |
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“If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water.” –Ismail Serageldin, 1995
Conflicts over water have become a prominent global issue over the past decades encompassing a range of social, political, physical, and biological issues. Students taking this class will learn about the role that each of these issues play in the current water crisis from a series of lectures, case studies, and field trips. Topics covered will include water scarcity, water use, hydro-politics, eco-hydrology and water and society. This course is interdisciplinary in nature, and is designed to teach students how to understand, synthesize and analyze information from diverse disciplines. The course will be team taught by faculty and Ph.D. students. This class should be of interest to students from any background who are interested in learning how to apply their knowledge across disciplines.
Mark T. Brown is Professor in Environmental Engineering Sciences and Director of UF’s Center for Environmental Policy. This course will be taught by Dr. Brown and a team of PhD students in the UF-IGERT Program in Adaptive Management (http://amw3igert.ufl.edu), building on their experiences over the past three years of travels in Africa and Central America and their diverse biophysical and social research interests and expertise.
Crisis in Modern Europe and the Intelligentsia
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1273 | Stuart Finkel |
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The 20th century was the bloodiest in European history, punctuated by two world wars and dominated by several of the most brutal states the world has ever known. It was only at the very end of the century that the triumph of capitalist democracies in Europe was assured. And yet it began as a century of promise and hope, with technological revolutions and a belief in the possibility of human emancipation. In this course, we will look at the “crisis of modernity,” the ways in which thinkers and political actors came to terms with the cataclysms of violence and fundamental changes to daily life that characterized the times. In particular, we will look at how intellectuals contributed
to these events and understood their own place in the modern world.
We will look at such diverse topics as: the formation of the modern nation; the reaction of French thinkers to anti-Semitism in the infamous Dreyfus affair; revolutionary utopianism, efforts to create a “new world,” and especially the fateful role of radical thinkers in the Russian Revolution; the attraction of anti-Democratic fascist, Communist, and national-chauvinist ideologies; and the impassioned debates over the role of the “public intellectual” today.
Stuart Finkel is an Associate Professor of Russian/Soviet and European Intellectual history. He received his Ph.D. in 2001 from Stanford University and has also been a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian Studies, a visiting lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, and a post-doctoral teaching fellow for the Introduction to Humanities Program at Stanford. His book, _On the Ideological Front: The Russian Intelligentsia and the Making of the Soviet Public Sphere_ was published by Yale University Press (2007). His other recent publications include “Sociology and Revolution: Pitirim Sorokin and Russia’s National Degeneration,” Russian History/Histoire Russe (Summer 2005); “An Intensification of Vigilance: Recent Perspectives on the Institutional History of the Soviet Security Apparatus in the 1920s,” Kritika (Spring 2004); and “Purging the Public Intellectual: The 1922 Expulsions from Soviet Russia,” Russian Review (October 2003). He is currently researching the history of the Russian Political Red Cross, which under the leadership of Ekaterina Peshkova lobbied on behalf of political prisoners under Soviet rule from 1918 to 1937.
Czech Culture & Society
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4031 | Holly Raynard |
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This course situates Czech culture vis-à-vis dynamic notions of geography and politics, providing a cultural history of 20th-century Europe from the perspective of a small nation located between "two fires": Germany and the Soviet Union. We explore the fate of Central Europe from national independence to Nazi occupation, through the turmoils of the communist era to the 1989 "Velvet" Revolution, through the process of globalization and recent entry into the European Union. We will examine such periods of cultural transition through the prism of literature, art, film and music -- and explore the role of the artist as chronicler, critic and agent in these historical developments.
Course fulfills "H" and "N" Gen Ed requirements.
No prerequisites.
Holly Raynard is a Lecturer in Czech Studies at the UF Center for European Studies. Her research focuses on the Czech Liberated Theater (1927-1938) and the Czech road film. Her other interests include the interwar era, the historic avant-gardes, Czech cinema, and 20th-century drama and prose. At UF she teaches Czech language (all levels), literature, culture and film as well as a course on the European avant-gardes. Before coming to UF, she taught Russian language, literature and film.
War, Europe & Memory
Gen Ed: H
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1876 | Christopher Caes |
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This interdisciplinary course explores shifting cultural representations of war, primarily, though not exclusively in the context of twentieth-century European history, culture and politics. We will read texts and view films set against the backdrop of a number of different wars (the Siege of Troy, the Crimean War, the two World Wars and their aftermaths, the Vietnam War, and the War on Terrorism), authored by writers and directors from a variety of national backgrounds (ancient Greek, German, Russian, Polish, English, and American), and representing a broad variety of genres (films, epic and lyric poetry, novels, short stories and sketches, essays, letters, diaries, and memoirs). Among the varied cultural, aesthetic, and ethical topics we will explore over the semester are: types of warfare, reporting from the front, varied national reactions to war, relationships between occupying forces and civilian populations, war’s impact on gender roles, the veteran in peace-time, the way in which images and accounts of war in literature and film influence how both individuals and societies remember extreme situations, the vocabularies with which different cultures make sense of victory and defeat, and, finally, the commemoration of war and the relationship between the event and its shifting image in official memorials and in individual memory. In this course, students will 1) acquire a conceptual vocabulary necessary for discussing the way fiction and film transpose war into cultural representation and collective memory; 2) learn to grasp what is at stake aesthetically, politically, and ethically in adopting various positions on war, as well as be able to identify ways in which varying interpretations of the past determine practical questions of identity and behavior in the present; 3) continue to develop a solid foundation for the expression of their own critical thinking concerning the role of fictional and filmic narrative in the construction of both popular and official accounts of war. Students will be evaluated based on course participation, two take-home midterms in essay format, a take-home final exam in essay format, and a final paper.
Christopher Caes completed his Ph.D. in Slavic Studies with a specialization in Polish Studies and a Designated Emphasis in Film Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 2004. He joined the UF faculty in Fall 2004. His areas of interest and expertise include East-Central European literary, cultural, and intellectual history from the 19th to the 21st centuries, Polish and East European cinema, and Polish and Russian science fiction and fantasy.
Women Other Europe
Gen Ed: H
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2084 | Eva Wampuszyc |
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|
The study of women and the debate regarding women’s rights in East-Central Europe is particularly important for the new member states of the European Union (EU), such as Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Repulic. Why? Because for these countries, women’s roles and the way women are portrayed in culture are important to defining national and “modern” European identity. As the EU aims to build a common identity, cultural biases about gender often reveal a gap between “East” and “West.” This course will explore some of the reasons for this gap through studying literature and film by and about women, as well as through reading secondary materials related to this topic. We will discuss concepts of gender based on materials from Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia), Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Russia in order to answer such questions as:
• How can ideas about gender perpetuate an East-West divide and influence the future of a common European identity?
• What types of “feminisms” exist in East and Central Europe today? How can we talk about the “women’s question” in post-communist countries?
• How does gender fit into the process of rewriting identity—national and European—in a post-communist/EU context?
All materials will be in English translation. (Credit: H)
Dr. Ewa Wampuszyc is a Lecturer in the Center for European Studies. She completed her Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan in 2004. Her areas of interest and expertise include: 19th c. Polish and Russian prose; contemporary Polish literature and culture; teaching Polish and Russian as a foreign language; comparative study of East-Central European cultures. Her current research focuses on social, cultural, and economic capital in 19th and 20th c. Polish culture.
European Union Economic Integration: Politics & Policy
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 0864 | C. O'Dwyer |
|
|
This course is joined with POS4931 - 4794.
This course is designed to provide students with a unique perspective on the political economy of European Union (EU) economic integration. It is an interdisciplinary course that covers topics ranging from the economic and political justification for economic integration to the links between EU enlargement and post-communist economic transition to the role of the Euro in the world. In addition, the course will require participation in two in-class debates. In each, two teams will present policy briefs on complex and controversial policy choices that the EU has faced over the course of its institutional evolution. The final activity of the course is a day-long seminar where students will present research paper findings to a group of local social studies and economics teachers.
Conor O’Dwyer completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley in December 2003 and is an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. His latest research explores how the expansion of the European Union is changing the terrain of domestic politics and policy-making in the postcommunist member-states -- from the protection of minority rights to the emergence of flat-tax economic reforms.
Website: http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/codwyer/
European Union Citizenship & Migration
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4029 | D. Schirmer |
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|
This course is joined with POS4931 - 2133.
Enrollment in EUS 4930 requires 3 credits of EUS-prefixed courses or instructor permission
The course addresses two distinct, though interrelated sets of issues: citizenship and national belonging, and migration and migration regimes. Both sets of issues have recently gained in complexity: Citizenship insofar as European integration has added EU-citizenship as a second layer above national citizenship, and migration because the end of state socialism has added to the traditional south-north axis of migration a second axis that runs from east to west.
Modern citizenship has its historical roots in nationalist imaginings, and nationalism will therefore stand at the beginning of the course (and recur throughout, like a leitmotif). From there we will proceed to discuss concepts of citizenship and citizenship regimes and their effects on the distribution of social, political, cultural, and economic opportunities among residents of different citizenship-status.
Nation-states are definitionally territorial, and state-sovereignty includes the right of states to control access to their respective territories. This territorial principle is in conflict with the de-territorializing effects of globalization. The largest share of migration results from the unequal distribution of wealth and safety, which sets people in motion in great numbers in pursuit of a better life (or a life at all), but at every border migrants have to face gatekeepers in the form of immigration control regimes, which admit or reject them on the basis of considerations of labor markets and demographics, social costs, national security, xenophobic sentiments, and international human rights obligations.
The study of citizenship and migration is further complicated by Europe’s heterogeneity: While Western Europe receives immigrants at rates comparable to those of classic immigration countries like the US, Southern Europe has only recently turned from a region of emigration to a region of immigration, and Eastern Europe continues to supply migrants. Within this general structure, much more complex patterns have emerged from the finer distinctions of immigration control regimes and economic needs, for instance propelling qualified and mobile Poles to Britain and the lesser qualified into seasonal jobs in German vineyards and asparagus fields, while Ukrainian farmhands fill the equivalent jobs in Poland’s agriculture.
Professor Schirmer obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science at Free University Berlin and has taught at FU Berlin, Cornell University, University of Vienna, and University of British Columbia. He joined the faculty of University of Florida in 2009 as DAAD Professor. His research and teaching interests include the history of the state in Europe, nationalism, and the prospect of moving from a national to a post-national condition. In this context, the European Union is given particular attention as the most advanced instance of a new form of regional political authority above and alongside the traditional national states, with far-reaching implications not only for democracy, citizenship, and access to rights and resources, but the very way of how we conceive of and practice political power. His current research projects are “The Beautiful State: Architecture and Political Authority in Europe Since the Renaissance” and “States and National Minorities in the European Union: How Does Brussels Shape Attitudes Towards Autonomy and Secession.
Intro to Social Entrepreneurship
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1684 | Kristin E. Joos |
|
|
This course is linked with SYA4930 - 3286.
What is Social Entrepreneurship?
This is an exciting new area that crosses all disciplines and areas of study. Social Entrepreneurship involves using the skills and strategies of business to innovatively and sustainably solve social, environmental, and/or economic social problems, locally and around the world. According to Dees, who coined the term “social entrepreneurship” in 1998, social entrepreneurship involves: adopting a mission to create and sustain social value; recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission; engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning; acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand; and exhibiting a heightened sense of accountability for the outcomes created. Bill Drayton, the founder of the Ashoka foundation explains Social Entrepreneurship this way: “It's not about giving a person a fish, or teaching them how to fish, it’s about revolutionizing the fishing industry.”
In this class we will discuss major local and global social issues—like poverty, healthcare, climate crisis, over-consumption, education, and human rights. We will analyze current efforts to address and “solve” these “problems” and think critically and creatively to generate new ideas. We will talk about dynamic approaches including microfinance, venture philanthropy, social return on investment calculations, corporate social responsibility, and integrated bottom lines. We will take our ideas beyond the walls of the classroom and work in the community to create positive social change on a local level (through the Center for Leadership and Service). This class will involve interactive discussions about interesting readings, amazing films, and inspiring guest speakers. By the end of the term you will be familiar with numerous social issues and a plethora of possibilities to “be the change.”
Honors Intro to Social Entrepreneurship is under review to count towards Gen-Ed S (social) and N (international), and D (diversity). It is also 6k words of Gordon Rule writing, but don’t be afraid, the papers write themselves. The SYA4930 section of the class is under review to count towards the Minor in Organizational Leadership for Nonprofits (http://www.cals.ufl.edu/minors/nonprofits/) and the GEB4930 section has been approved to count towards the Minor in Entrepreneurship (http://www.cba.ufl.edu/fire/programs/undergrad/), so if you want the class to count towards a Minor in Entrepreneurship, you must register for the GEB4930 section (and there is a co-req/pre-req of GEB3113).
More information about the course will soon be online at: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/krisj/spring10/sya4930/
If you’re interested in Social Entrepreneurship but not able to take the class this semester, consider getting involved in “Change the World: Student Social Entrepreneurs at UF” a student organization, founded by Honors students: email Kristin (kristin.joos@cba.ufl.edu) for more information or if you have any questions about Social Entrepreneurship.
Dr. Kristin Joos is on Faculty in the Department of Sociology. In 2005 she brought Social Entrepreneurship to UF and created the Innovative Social Impact Initiative in the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, where she also serves as Director for the Young Entrepreneurs for Leadership & Sustainability: High School Summer Program at UF.
Kristin is a UF graduate, earning her bachelors degree in Psychology with minors in Sociology, Religion, and Women's & Gender Studies. In 2003 she graduated with a Ph.D. in Sociology & a graduate certificate from the Center for Women's Studies and Gender Research.
Her research interests center around youth, social entrepreneurship, civic engagement, community service and creating positive social change. Kristin is passionate about teaching students to use the skills & strategies of business to create innovative and sustainable solutions to social, environmental, and/or economic problems locally and around the world. From Dec 2003- August 2006 she served as the Coordinator of Admissions & Student Activities for the Honors Program at UF; she is now a Lecturer, teaching courses in Sociology and Social Entrepreneurship.
For more information, see: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/krisj/
Discover German 2
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1372 | Christina Overstreet |
|
|
GER 1125 Discover German I and GER 1126 Discover German II for Honor Students are 5 credit courses for beginning learners of German and unlike any other language courses you may have had! A new format of Discover German was created by language and culture experts in collaboration with instructional designers of the Center for Instructional Technologies and Training (CITT) at the University of Florida with the goal to provide a virtual immersion into the German language and culture for students on and off campus.
For honor students at the University of Florida, this sequence will be a taught as a hybrid. While you access all materials in the e-learning environment, submit both written and oral work online, post to the discussion board etc., you are also required to meet with the instructor two times per week in the classroom for face-to-face interaction. In order to be successful, we recommend that you set aside at least 10 hours per week. Activities and assignments are organized in weekly segments and it is crucial that you complete each one within the given time.
Although you are working independently, you will have the support of your instructor and your classmates. One of the greatest advantages of studying in the online environment is that you have access to ‘the voice of the teacher’ at any given time, and you can interact with the course content in ways that best accommodate your individual learning style.
By using innovative technology based on sound principles of foreign language learning and pedagogy, students will not only learn the German language, but also how to use their linguistic and cultural knowledge to function in everyday situations. After successful completion of two semesters of Discover German (10 credit hours), you are prepared to participate in our Intensive Intermediate German Program in Mannheim Germany (Summer B, 9 UF credits). At the end of six weeks you may complete your studies by taking the Zertifikat Deutsch, an internationally recognized certificate of proficiency.
The instructor of your course will be delighted to support you in your learning adventure! Welcome to Discover German!
Christina Overstreet, Ph.D. is a senior lecturer in the Department of Germanic and Slavic studies. She is a native speaker of German and trained in Foreign Language Pedagogy and Second Language Acquisition. Dr. Overstreet has directed the Summer Program at the University of Mannheim and has extensive experience in teaching German language and culture on the beginning and intermediate levels. She has been instrumental in developing and implementing web-based courses that present language in the context of culture. Her research interests include the effective integration of new technology into the foreign language classroom. In her free time, Dr. Overstreet enjoys running, gardening, traveling, and spending time with her grandchildren.
Planetary Geology
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4482 | Kyle Min |
|
|
GLY 2042 is an introductory course that focuses on various geologic aspects of planets and their moons in the solar system. Formation, evolution and nature of the solar system, and its large solid bodies, can be inferred directly from meteorites and indirectly from a wide range of data obtained from spacecrafts. To understand other planetary bodies, it is essential to understand “geologic processes” occurring in Earth and Earth’s moon, therefore a brief overview on these processes will be given during the beginning stage of the course. The course will also cover smaller planetary bodies such as asteroids and comets which are important components of the solar system.
Kyoungwon Kyle Min recently joined the geology department at UF as an Assistant Professor. He trained as a geochemist at the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D), University of Wisconsin at Madison (Scientist) and Yale University (Scientist). His research interest is unraveling thermal histories of terrestrial and extraterrestrial materials using various radiogenic isotope systems. He works on constraining timing and rates of shallow-depth crustal processes which are critical in geomorphology and neotectonics. Kyle is also interested in understanding evolutions of meteorites to better explain diverse planetary processes, such as changes in internal structures and heat budgets, igneous activities and shock-induced impact metamorphism of asteroids or planets.
Western Humanities 1
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 9203 | James Hodges |
|
|
This section of Honors Humanities is a survey of Western culture from ancient Greece through the Renaissance, with readings from literature, philosophy, and religion. In addition to selections from the Bible, the course includes The Iliad, plays from Sophocles and Euripides, Plato's Republic, The Aeneid, Dante's Inferno, Machiavelli's The Prince, and Shakespeare's King Lear. Readings about and viewings from classical, medieval, and renaissance architecture, sculpture, and painting are also part of the curriculum. There will be a series of reaction papers required on the assigned readings and a cultural event report.
James Hodges is a Professor Emeritus of English. In addition to his thirty-three years on the faculty at UF, Dr. Hodges has also taught at the Sewanee Military Academy (Tennessee), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and East Tennessee State University. He holds degrees from Vanderbilt University (B.A. and M.A.) and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Western Humanities 2
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 9204 | James Hodges |
|
|
This section of Honors Humanities is a survey of Western culture from the Eighteenth Century to the present, with readings from literature, psychology, and philosophy. The course includes Voltaire’s Candide, Goethe’s Faust, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Dostoyevski’s Notes from Underground, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and other plays, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and other poems, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, and Sartre’s No Exit and other plays; also included are Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents and Jung’s Man and His Symbols. Readings about and viewings from architecture, sculpture, and painting are also part of the curriculum. There will be a series of reaction papers required on the assigned readings and a cultural event report.
James Hodges is a Professor Emeritus of English. In addition to his thirty-three years on the faculty at UF, Dr. Hodges has also taught at the Sewanee Military Academy (Tennessee), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and East Tennessee State University. He holds degrees from Vanderbilt University (B.A. and M.A.) and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Magic and Witchcraft
Gen Ed: H, D
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 6668 | Judy Ann Turner |
|
|
"Magic and witchcraft, the fear of daemons and ghosts, the wish to manipulate invisible powers--all were very much a part of life in the ancient world." --Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi, p. xiii. The occult, folklore, mystery cults, oracles, and superstition--the 'darker side' of religious experience--impacted the lives of average Greeks and Romans much more than did the Olympian or 'civic' gods. Yet this significant feature of ancient religious practices receives little attention in scholarship. This course is an effort to lessen the void in topics of ancient religion available to students. Through the use of film, lecture, reading of ancient (in translation) and modern sources, the course will examine origins and practices of ancient magic, witchcraft, mystery cults, demonology, astrology, alchemy, religious 'possession'and other occult subjects. We will explore continuity or resurgence of some ancient occult practices, and if schedules permit, there will be some guest speaker talks on course topics.
Judy Ann Turner (Ph.D. in Ancient History, University of California) was the Andrew Mellon Research/Teaching Fellow at the University of Southern California '84- '85 and taught at Cal Poly State University '85-'89. In Florida, she taught at SFCC (Humanities, '90-'93) and at U.F. (Honors Program and Classics Dept.) since '93. She has been an officer in the Archaeological Institute of America, Gainesville Society for more than a decade. Her publications include articles on sacerdotal women in the Linear B tablets and and articles on Greek Priesthoods. She is writing a book on Greek priestesses and ancient cults.
Age of the Blockbuster
Gen Ed: H
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 7082 | Dana Peterson |
|
|
This course examines American popular culture in the Age of the Blockbuster. Beginning in the mid-1970s--Steven Spielberg released Jaws on June 30, 1975; Stephen King published his first novel, Carrie, in 1974; George Lucas launched Star Wars in May 1977--the Age of the Blockbuster heralded America's current obsession with bigger, louder, and richer. This section of IDH 3931 will ask students to think critically about American popular culture in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Students, therefore, should be interested in learning more about who "we" are, and in turn, be willing to consume as much "culture"--i.e., movies, books, TV, music, sports, advertising--as they can. Students will also be expected to share these experiences in classroom discussions and presentations. Course requirements include a series of reading responses/journals and a group project.
IDH3931
Bible as Literature
Credits: 3
Gen Ed: N
Bible as Literature
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 7421 | Richard Brantley |
|
|
"The Bible as Literature" (IDH3931) aims at close reading of biblical language in the light of its historical context. Although this course will take the New Testament into account (the student may choose to focus on the New Testament in his or her writing assignments), the Hebrew Scriptures (or Old Testament) will receive the emphasis. The course will add a scholarly perspective to however much the student already knows about the Bible; there are no prerequisites. The text to be used is the Oxford Annotated edition of the New Revised Standard Version (available at Goerings'). Units of the course are organized around the biblical concept of literary genre: narrative, prophecy, poetry, and wisdom literature (especially the Book of Job). Attendance is required. A combination of formal and informal writing assignments fulfills the Gordon Rule requirement (6,000 words). As part of this requirement, students may choose between exams (midterm, final) or sh! ort reaction papers as their means of demonstrating their knowledge of the reading assignments.
Professor Richard Brantley is a graduate of Wake Forest University and of Princeton University. He joined the UF English Department in 1969. He publishes in the field of nineteenth-century British and American literature. He has frequently taught "The Bible as Literature."
Biomedical Ethics
Gen Ed: H
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 8905 | Gayle Brown |
|
|
This course is designed to introduce students to some of the central issues of biomedical ethics. Ethics addresses questions such as:
How should I act?
How do I decide whether one way I could act is morally better than some other way?
Are different ethical systems equally acceptable, or are some people's values just wrong?
Biomedical ethics addresses these questions in the context of patient care and the distribution of medical attention, and seeks to determine which actions or options in medical practice are obligatory, which permissible, and which impermissible. By the end of the course students will be familiar with the major ethical theories relevant to medical practice, and be able to apply these theories to current issues in biomedical ethics. Specific topics include: abortion, physician-assisted suicide, genetic engineering, reproductive technology, patient confidentiality, HIV/AIDS, and race and gender issues in the allocation of scarce resources.
G.M. Brown has taught a wide variety of courses in philosophy in both the Honors Program and the Philosophy Department at UF, including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of science. She also teaches the popular Tao of Star Trek course. In addition to philosophy, her academic interests include poetry, literature, archeology, theology, theoretical physics and evolutionary biology.
City Culture
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 6200 | Esther Romeyn |
|
|
This course will focus on the culture of cities. How do cities--urban spaces--organize experience and meaning? How do we, as city dwellers, experience cities? How has that experience changed, from modernity to post-modernity?
We will approach these questions on the level of theory (from the perspective of various seminal thinkers on the city, such as Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Karl Marx, Robert Parks, Roland Barthes, Guy Debord, Michel Foucault, and from the perspective of writers who have been influenced by these thinkers) as well as on the level of representation-- how urban spaces have been represented in literature, film, art. (Baudelaire, Dickens, Joyce, Metropolis, Blade Runner, for example)
Issues that we will be discussing include:
urban space in modernity and post-modernity
urban space and the organization of power
urban space and memory culture
the city in capitalism
the city, public space and citizenship
the city as "text" and as "spectacle"
the city and the "Other"
the city and immigration
the city as ruin
the metropolis and the avant-garde
Esther Romeyn received her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota. She taught in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Program at Arizona State University from 1998 until 2005. Her main interests lie in Ethnic Studies, Cultural Studies, Performance Studies, Jewish Studies, Urban Studies, and cross-cultural psychology. Her publications are concerned specifically with immigrant acculturation as a process of cultural “translation” (or “mistranslation”); the performance of ethnic identity (in daily life, festivals, parades, and theater); and the shifting boundaries of “race” in American culture.
Contemporary Africa and Asia
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1063 | Jonathan Walz |
|
|
What do you know about Africa and Asia? This course takes a critical anthropological approach to contemporary demography, health, disasters, family, gender, development, conflict, cooperation, tourism, and popular culture on the two continents. In what ways do Africans and Asians express their thoughts, beliefs, and values while coping with substantial challenges and shifting social circumstances? How do communities and individuals mediate 'tradition' and change through forms of resilience: worship, work, and popular culture? Are communities 'the same, but different' today, when compared to previous generations? How are regional events filtered through national and local lenses? Readings and other media facilitate debate about the dynamic responses of diverse citizenries.
Jonathan R. Walz teaches anthropology and history courses at UF. University studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, UF, and the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) inspired his passion for teaching and learning.
Cultural Production of Masculinities
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 0710 | Tim Fogarty |
|
|
Gender constructions are an integral component of cultural production and masculinities are the hegemonic genders of many contemporary cultures. This course will challenge us through readings, writings, class discussions and ethnographic interviews to understand the matrix of distinct values and practices that are embedded in various masculinities from around the world. Combining theory with empirical ethnographic data we will examine what new masculinities are vying for dominance in a global political economy. Theoretical themes will include masculinity in light of class, race and feminist gender analysis. Using ethnographic material from the North Atlantic, from Latin America, and from African and Asian contexts we will identify some of the elements that constitute contemporary local, national and transnational masculinities.
Philosophically this class assumes that masculinities are socially constructed, biologically influenced, gender identities and social locations possessed by both males and females. As such, masculinities are both socially and individually dynamic and our investigations will reveal the overwhelming diversity of masculine manifestations among and within world cultures.
I am proceeding from a disciplinary orientation of cultural anthropology but the course reading materials will come from a variety of sources including anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies. Prior student exposure to introductory courses in one of the social sciences, cultural studies, or gender studies would be preferable but is not a prerequisite.
Student responsiblilities include reading course materials, writing reflections on those readings as the basis for class discussion with classmates, a semi-structured interview on a topic concerning masculinities, and a final synthetic presentation. This class would appeal to anyone with a gender, who cares to analyze how that happens.
About Tim Fogarty: I have a BA in philosophy, an MA in Religion, and Ph.D. in Anthropology (2005 University of Florida). My research is in development anthropology, a sub-field of socio-cultural anthropology. My research program is to understand how solidarity forms between North Americans and Central Americans across national, social class, ideology and life style differences.
I have participated in over 30 different short term small group tours to Nicaragua and other countries in Central America, accompanied by North Americans who travel there to do something helpful in the midst of the second worst poverty in the Western Hemisphere. These trips have been hosted by small non-governmental organizations and often go to remote and isolated rural communities as well as the typical tourist attractions. I am the program director of the honors study abroad program, UF in Nicaragua, which takes students there for an experience of cross-cultural communication, during Summer A (May and June). Multicultural communication would be a good preparatory course for such a journey.
Engineering and Astronomy of the Ancients
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 9462 | Jonathan Walz |
|
|
Have you ever wondered how & why Egyptians constructed pyramids?... Why the ancient Maya and Chinese observed celestial events?...Or, whether meaning or function empowers an Aboriginal boomerang? In this course we explore ancient technologies & ideologies through archaeology & other sources. Whether you're interested in the Seven Ancient Wonders or the origin of tools 2.6 million years ago, this course seeks, quite explicitly, to challenge the technology/ideology dichotomy of our modern world. My intent is to inspire a reconsideration of the cultural roots of human technology, construction, travel, time-keeping & religion.
Jonathan R. Walz teaches anthropology and history courses at UF. University studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, UF, and the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) inspired his passion for teaching and learning.
Ethics in the Social Sciences
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1742 | Angelina Howell and Ryan Morini |
|
|
What is the difference between "right" and "wrong"? Is it right or wrong to farm human organs, genetically modify plants and animals, or conduct experiments on humans or animals? How do we learn the differences between what we think is right and what we think is wrong, and how does this understanding impact our work and those with whom we work?
This course will explore the birth, evolution, and meaning of ethical judgments and prescriptions, as well as how these ideas impact and influence research, public policy, international relations, medical care, human rights, animal rights, and more.
Whether you are interested in working with human subjects, plants or animals, governments, or intellectual property, the intent of this course is to force a consideration of the ethical issues that will face you at every turn both inside and outside the academy.
Ryan Morini is a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Florida. His interest in working with Western Shoshone Indians in Nevada has forced him to consider a number of ethical issues regarding research within and outside of his chosen academic discipline. He sees necessary intersections between ethics, history, and theory, whether the topic under consideration is nuclear testing, human rights, or zombie movies.
Angelina Howell is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida. Her interests include, among other things, the study of bodies, gardens, and other gendered "things", time, space, and place, and generally tipping over the apple cart whenever and wherever she has a chance.
Existence of God: A Mathematical Perspective
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 6640 | Kevin Knudson |
|
|
Is there a supreme being? How can we know? If there is, how should we deal with that fact? Theologians and philosophers have grappled with these questions for centuries. In this course, we will take a mathematical approach. We will examine classical logical arguments for God's existence, we will study a statistical model for computing the probability of God's existence, and we will use game theory to decide how we should act in the face of the (non)existence of a supreme being. There are no real mathematical prerequisites beyond those required for admission to UF.
N.B. This is not a religion course. We will not spend time arguing theology. You are of course entitled to your personal religious convictions, but please do not view this as an opportunity to proselytize.
Dr. Kevin Knudson is Director of the Honors Program and Professor of Mathematics at UF. He works in the field of algebraic topology, most recently on problems involving topological data analysis. He holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from Duke University and is a graduate of the Honors Program at Virginia Tech. In his spare time, Dr. K likes to watch baseball, brew excellent coffee, read, play the dulcimer, and dominate his family at Mario Kart.
Health Care Systems, A Comparative Review of Health Care Globally in Comparison to the U.S.A.
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 6098 | Robert Kwong |
|
|
The course encourages students to review how the health care system is structured in the U.S., its history and what the current views are with regard to health care reform. Ethical, economic and sociological perspectives will be discussed. There will be opportunities to discuss and examine the health care systems in Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, Taiwan, Cuba, Western Europe and other countries as to how they compare to that of the U.S. The class will participate in discussions that compare and contrast the systems outside the U.S. and look at distribution of care and propose a plan that can be considered for the U.S. Health Care System.
Guest speakers, films, news recordings, etc. will supplement the material for discussion and debate.
Robert Kwong graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a B.S. in Chemistry and a minor in Biology and continued to get his M.S. in Biomedical Science at Barry University in Miami, FL. He has taught pre-health courses in the Biology departments at National-Louis University, North Park University and Loyola University of Chicago since 1995. While at Loyola University he was a Learning Assistance Counselor helping students learn the "right" study strategies for science coursework. Robert is now serving as a Pre-Health Professions Advisor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida.
Heritage & the Politics of Now
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2974 | Jonathan Walz |
|
|
What is heritage? Why is it a subject of intense relevance and debate? Certainly, pasts, (re)produced as history and memory, play an essential role in making "now." Divergent political standpoints of organizations, states, communities, and individuals spawn conflicting historical representations. As sites of heritage, monuments, artifacts, and performances stir memories, serve as therapeutics, and inspire action. In this course, I draw on approaches and terminologies from archaeology and history to develop critical perspectives on heritage and human struggles lying at the intersection of representation and materiality (a.k.a. historicity). Course topics: heritage & historicity; national myths; memory & the erasure of pasts; material culture wars; landscapes & bodies as artifacts; trauma & memory; universalism & disenchantment; heritage tourism & illicit trafficking; repatriation politics.
Jonathan R. Walz teaches anthropology and history courses at UF. University studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, UF, and the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) inspired his passion for teaching and learning.
Introduction to Forensic Anthropology
Gen Ed: S
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4505 | Jason Byrd |
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|
Forensic anthropology, an applied subfield of biological anthropology, is a science that utilizes methods developed in skeletal biology, archaeology, and other forensic sciences to solve cases of medico-legal significance. This course is a three-credit class designed to present how forensic anthropologists help resolve modern and historic crimes both in the laboratory and the field. Students will be introduced to the techniques that forensic anthropologists use to recover and identify individuals who died as a suicide, homicide, accidents and mass disasters.
Dr. Byrd is an Associate Director of the W. R. Maples Center for Forensic Medicine and a Board-Certified Forensic Entomologist. He is the current President of the North American Forensic Entomology Association and current Vice-Chair of the American Board of Forensic Entomology. He has conducted over 100 workshops specializing in the education of law enforcement officials, medical examiners, coroners, attorneys, and other death investigators on the use and applicability of arthropods in legal
investigations. He has published numerous scientific articles on the subject of forensic entomology, and has also published two books dealing with the use of insects in legal investigations.
Lepidoptera Biology
Gen Ed: B
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4508 | James Nation |
|
|
NOTE: This course meets in the far southwest corner of campus near 34th street. Please plan accordingly.
Biology of the Lepidoptera will be taught in the conference room of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity in the Natural History Museum, across the street from the Southwest Recreation Center on Hull Road. Lepidoptera, the moths and butterflies, will be used to illustrate broad biological principles, including evolution, the search for food, mates, suitable habitat, migration, and conservation. We will look at how insects find and interact with their food plants, and how plants fight back to avoid being eaten. We will see how natural enemies of moths and butterflies find them, and in turn how moths and butterflies try to avoid being victims of predation and parasitism. We will discuss how pheromones, chemicals produced by one or both sexes, are used to find mates, and how they can sometimes be used by humans in less toxic approaches to prevent economic crop losses from insects. Some butterflies are on the endangered species list, and losses of biodiversity and suitable habitat for butterflies are acute in our developing world, but can be minimized by butterfly gardens, butterfly farming, and education of the public. The class will make visits to the Butterfly Rainforest in the McGuire Center and will learn how museum collections of Lepidoptera are being used in research. Grades will be based upon completion of assigned readings, class attendance, short quizzes, and a term paper relating to the biology of Lepidoptera.
BRIEF AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Dr. James L. Nation is currently Professor Emeritus in the Entomology & Nematology Department, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Florida. Dr. Nation taught graduate courses in Entomology & Nematology, and also taught Global Environmental Issues in the Honors Program before retiring in June 2003 after 43 years teaching and research at the University of Florida. He holds a BS degree (1957) from Mississippi State University and a PhD (1960) from Cornell University. Dr. Nation was voted Teacher of the Year by the graduate students in the Entomology & Nematology Dept. in 1989-90, 1994-95, 1996-97, 1998-99, and 2000-2001. In 2001 he received the Distinguished Faculty Award from Florida Blue Key for outstanding service to the University of Florida. In 2006 he was presented with an award from the Florida Entomological Society in recognition of Achievement for Teaching in Higher Education. He edited the international Journal of Chemical Ecology from 1994-2000, and currently edits the Florida Entomologist, An International Journal for the Americas. He has authored or co-authored more than 85 scientific publications in refereed journals and in the Encyclopedia of Entomology, and authored Insect Physiology and Biochemistry (CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2002), a textbook for graduate and undergraduate studies. The revised second edition of the book was published in April 2008. He taught a graduate course in Insect Physiology for entomology students at Florida A & M University in the fall term, 2006. The course was taught principally by interactive TV from Gainesville. In the Fall semester 2009 he taught Global Environmental Issues in the undergraduate Honors Program at UF. A web page is maintained at http://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu/nation.htm. His e-mail address is jln@ufl.edu
Music and Health
Gen Ed: H, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 0924 | Miriam Zach |
|
|
We will explore the relationship of music and medicine via readings, recordings, lectures, discussions, and musical experiences, investigating the history, theory, and practice of the creative power of sound and music in international health care settings. In addition to reviewing the work of musicians-physicians and music therapy research in the medical literature, we will study prevention of injury and maintenance of health of musicians, and medical challenges of performing artists and composers. Students are expected to listen to musical compositions of various styles and genres, be able to identify them by composer, historical context, and stylistic characteristics, and their potential use as treatment in clinical application. There will be two listening tests and a research paper/creative project presentation, and several brief essays on research experiences. The starting point for work in the course will be Kristine Forney and Joseph Machlis' The Enjoyment of Music, chronological version, 10th edition with 8 accompanying CD's; and Randall McClellan's The Healing Forces of Music.
Miriam Zach, Ph.D. (minerva@ufl.edu or http://www.womencomposerslibrary.org) is Assistant Professor in the Honors Program at the University of Florida. She holds degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. In addition to teaching courses on Music History, and Music and Health, she maintains her own studio in Gainesville giving lessons in piano, harpsichord, and pipe organ, and is a member of the Alachua Consort which specializes in Baroque chamber music. In 2003 she became co-principal with her husband Dr. Mikesch Muecke in the design/build architectural practice misumiwaDesign ( misumiwadesign.com), and in 2007 co-edited and published the book "Resonance" (http://www.cularchpress.com). In 2006 she published For the Birds: A Women Composers’ Music History Speller with Culicidae Press (http://www.culicidaepress.com). In 1998 she recorded the CD Hidden Treasures on the Princeton University Chapel organ, and plans to record future CDs of music by women composers on her new house organ, designed and built by A. David Moore in 2005. She was named International Woman of the Year for 1992 & 1997 & 2000/2001 from the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge (England) for her distinguished service to music.
NGOs and Grassroots Development: Case Studies from Nicaragua
Gen Ed: S, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2539 | Tim Fogarty |
|
|
One third of the world (including us) live in relative wealth, while two thirds of the world live in relative and even abject poverty. This course looks at one of the current social practices which attempts to address the glaring inequity in the control of the world’s resources. This course leads students through the latest social science research on non-governmental organizations as agents of culturally appropriate development while providing specificity by focusing on several NGOs actually doing transnational development work sited in Nicaragua. We will discuss in depth the theory of development and how that is operationalized by these small but vital organizations which serve as the conduit for 50% of the world’s international aid. The methodology of the course is group discussion of readings and audio/visual materials in class, written reflection sheets for each class, and a final “case study” presentation to the class and other students who are going to Nicaragua during Summer A. This course complements and provides a theoretical framework for the honors Summer study abroad fieldwork experience (IDH 3931-0297) in Nicaragua, working with these organizations. Students of the social sciences, those interested in international relations and those with non-profit or international humanitarian assistance minors may be particularly interested in this course.
About Tim Fogarty: I have a BA in philosophy, an MA in Religion, and Ph.D. in Anthropology (2005 University of Florida). My research is in development anthropology, a sub-field of socio-cultural anthropology. My research program is to understand how solidarity forms between North Americans and Central Americans across national, social class, ideology and life style differences.
I have participated in over 30 different short term small group tours to Nicaragua and other countries in Central America, accompanied by North Americans who travel there to do something helpful in the midst of the second worst poverty in the Western Hemisphere. These trips have been hosted by small non-governmental organizations and often go to remote and isolated rural communities as well as the typical tourist attractions. I am the program director of the honors study abroad program, UF in Nicaragua, which takes students there for an experience of cross-cultural communication, during Summer A (May and June). Multicultural communication would be a good preparatory course for such a journey.
Research Methods
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1207 | Marilyn Ochoa |
|
|
This Honors Research Methods class is targeted specifically at teaching undergraduate students how to conduct effective research in support of their scholarly projects.
The main goal of this Research Methods course is to give students the practical knowledge of how to find, evaluate and use information for conducting effective research within the framework of the scholarly process. Through a combination of lectures, discussion, and hands-on searching assignments, students will discover and organize the most relevant library resources (both print & electronic) and develop effective search strategies to find quality information. This class is particularly beneficial for those students preparing an Honors thesis and those in the University Scholars Program.
Marilyn Ochoa (mnochoa@ufl.edu) is the Assistant Head of the Education Library at the University of Florida. Her committee activity within the American Library Association and her research interests focus on user access to services and information technologies in libraries.
Shakespeare, Learning by Doing
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 5635 | Sidney Homan |
|
|
We will study through in-class performance of scenes Shakespeare's HAMLET, OTHELLO, MACBETH, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, TWELFTH NIGHT, and MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING--as well as Tom Stoppard's ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD. At the same time, we will rehearse a script of scenes from THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, which we will then stage at the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre near the end of the semester. The course "papers" are, in effect, the scene work each student does with a scene partner, as well as that Acrosstown perfomrance. Some experience in acting would be useful, but I am glad to work with anyone who will take the chance, who is willing to "study" Shakespeare by "doing" the plays. I have given similar courses (resulting in an actual performance in a theatre) for the Honors Program in the past. For more information or to ask questions please e-mail me at shakes@ufl.edu.
Sidney Homan is Professor of English the University of Florida and Visiting Professor of Jilin University in the People’s Republic of China. An actor and director in professional and university theatres, he is the author of ten books on Shakespeare and the modern playwrights. His prize-winning Beckett’s Theatres: Interpretations for Performance emerged from a tour of Florida prisons with Waiting for Godot. Several times a Teacher of the Year, he published his first novel this spring, A Fish in the Moonlight: Growing Up in the Bone Marrow Unit.
The Digital Frontier – Business Strategies in a Web 2.0 World
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4437 | Adam D'Augelli and Nikolai De Leo |
|
|
In a business landscape that is rapidly changing, students are expected to know how to use new media technologies when beginning their first job. However, due to the dynamic nature of these technologies, there is very little attention paid to this in current textbooks or classrooms. This course will focus on how technology and globalization are transforming the business landscape by opening markets and shattering boundaries.
This course will prepare students to mobilize action in a 1.0/2.0 world by developing their skills in traditional forms of entrepreneurial action and innovation while also leveraging that action with new technologies and digital tools. In addition to our discussions, various entrepreneurs will be brought in as guest speakers to discuss their diverse real world experiences. As a final project, student teams will use the skills learned in class work together to develop and implement a digital marketing strategy for a business, creating a tangible final product.
Nikolai De Leo is currently a graduate student in the Fisher School of Accounting. While an undergraduate at the University of Florida, he was President of the Investment Club and founder of the Success Society. He currently is a Staff Writer for the Greenback and a Teaching Assistant for Cost Accounting.
Adam D’Augelli is currently a graduate finance student in the Hough School of Business. During his time as an undergraduate at the University of Florida, he founded four businesses – two succeeded, one failed, and one his mother doesn’t like to talk about. He is currently the head Teacher’s Assistant for Introduction to Business Finance and Director of Strategic Relations for Children's Hope India, a social business based in Delhi, India.
Violence in America
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4222 | Ed Gonzalez-Tennant |
|
|
This course serves as an introduction to the growing academic discipline of Violence and Riot Studies. This topical discipline is a relatively recent development dating to the turbulent decade of the 1960s. The topics covered include Anti-Indian and Revolutionary Violence, Slavery, Vigilante Violence, Lynchings, Race Riots, and specific episodes of racially-charged collective violence.
Some argue that violence is a fundamental aspect of American history and culture. It is possible to frame US history as one forged through a process of settlement and expansion during which the Indians were driven off their land, various European nations were beaten back, Africans were involuntarily driven over, Mexicans violently annexed, and immigrant minorities thrust into violent competition with one another.
Analyzing the role of violence is important to developing a historical consciousness about the United States. The course concludes with a look at ways groups and governments are attempting to acknowledge and heal the violent episodes of our collective past.
Edward Gonzalez-Tennant is an historical anthropologist who draws on oral history, new media, and applied anthropology. He is particularly interested in the trajectory of racism and how minority representation continues to disadvantage people. His PhD research focuses on finding a voice in the struggle to transform our global society and create spaces for coalition-building between majority and minority groups. This is especially challenging in the Deep South where Black | White dichotomies continue to dominant historical narratives and modern discourse. He is a strong believer of holistic approaches, and applauds students and researchers who step outside of their disciplines to engage the real world.
Visual Language
Gen Ed: H
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2312 | Daniel Stepp |
|
|
Visual imagery acts as a means of communication independent of spoken or written language. Through images, sequential relationships, signs and symbols humans express themselves creatively and profoundly with a language rooted in a primary response to the sense of sight.
Painters, sculptors, filmmakers, photographers, comic artists, and graphic designers have created works of art that speak visually and we will explore all of them throughout the course. Students will observe and write criticism on visual mediums as well as produce work of their own. Throughout the course we will go to museums, watch films, read comics and look at pictures to learn the vocabulary of visual literacy and attempt to understand the languages of human expression and it capacity to capture the human experience.
This class is not predicated on innate artistic ability but rather a desire to investigate and describe the world visually.
Students are encouraged to be inventive, curious, courageous, and prolific.
Daniel Stepp has taught painting and drawing at the University of Florida since 1998. He received his MFA from the New York Academy of Art and has exhibited in Florida, New York, and Canada. His current paintings have been described as American genre with a focus on tools and technology, sex roles in labor, corporate branding, initiation, ritual, the transference of myth and archetype onto genre activities, and the conflict created by contrived culture imprinted onto evolved, long-standing traditions.
What is the Good Life
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 5851 | Vasudha Narayanan, Mary Watt, Sean P. Adams |
|
|
Through a close examination of relevant works of art, music, literature, history, religion, and philosophy, students will consider the basic question, “What is the Good Life?” The course will serve as an invitation to the Humanities and to a lifetime of reflection on the human condition. This Honors section of this course is in preparation for a much larger offering of the course at a future date; as such, feedback and input will very important and the select students in this section of the course will have the opportunity to work closely with instructors from several disciplines.
If you are interested in learning more about this course, please consult the following website:
http://www.aa.ufl.edu/search_committees/Gen_Ed_Humanities/index.html
Vasudha Narayanan is Distinguished Professor, Department of Religion. She is a past president of the American Academy of Religion. Her research interests include visual and expressive cultures in the study of the Hindu traditions and Hinduism in Cambodia.
Mary Watt (Associate Professor) received her Ph.D. in Italian Studies from the University of Toronto in 1998, where she specialized in Medieval literature and culture. She is the author of The Cross that Dante Bears and is Co-Director for the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at UF.
Sean Patrick Adams (Ph.D. Wisconsin, 1999) is a historian of American political economy, with a particular emphasis upon the Industrial Revolution. He is the author of Old Domionion, Industrial Commonwealth: Coal, Politics, and Economy in Antebellum America (Johns Hopkins, 2004), a comparative study of industrial development in Pennsylvania and Virginia during the nineteenth century. Dr. Adams teaches courses in nineteenth-century American history, slavery and abolition, and the history of American capitalism.
Professional Development Strategies
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| DEP-X | Regan Garner |
|
|
Planning to apply for a Rhodes, Marshall, Mitchell, Fulbright or Gates-Cambridge Scholarship? Local application deadlines for the next cycle are late summer or early fall 2010 (eligibility: you will be in your seventh semester next fall and likely to graduate in spring 2011).
If you are thinking about competing for these highly competitive scholarships, it is essential that you get a head start and take this one credit class in the spring. By the end of the semester you will have a draft application and some suggestions about summer reading and how to prepare for these highly competitive competitions. Winning one of these is a career-maker!
For information on the scholarships go to www.honors.ufl.edu and click on Scholarships. You can also come into 118 Hume and look at past applications.
To enroll in the class please e-mail Regan Garner at rlgarner@ufl.edu
Regan has a BA in Classical Studies and a M.Ed. in Social Foundations from UF. Her research interests are desegregation and the socioeconomic and racial components of the American public school experience.
Admissions
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| DEP-X | Kevin Knudson |
|
|
Students in this class will read the 1000+ application essays from incoming freshmen applying to the Honors Program. We will spend the first half of the term reading old essays and developing rubrics for grading the new papers. Enrollment to this class will be by application only; look for details in an upcoming Honors Daily.
The application is available online. Applications are due in 118 Hume Hall by 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 4th.
Dr. Kevin Knudson is Director of the Honors Program and Professor of Mathematics at UF. He works in the field of algebraic topology, most recently on problems involving topological data analysis. He holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from Duke University and is a graduate of the Honors Program at Virginia Tech. In his spare time, Dr. K likes to watch baseball, brew excellent coffee, read, play the dulcimer, and dominate his family at Mario Kart.
Individual Work
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| DEP-X | Your individual supervisor |
|
|
If you have found a faculty member who is willing to do an independent study with you, you may sign up for this course. For approval you will need to provide a cogent plan of study and a faculty signature indicating approval of your course of study. Your project cannot duplicate a regularly offered course in the UF curriculum. You may use this course for elective credit. You will receive credit for IDH 4905, "Honors Individual Work" on your transcript if you undertake an independent project but do not participate in any documented research. You can get the application form in the Honors Office, 118 Hume Hall, or on the Honors webpage (http://www.honors.ufl.edu/forms.html).
Note: For a list of UF faculty who have opportunities for undergraduates, please consult the Undergraduate Research Database (http://www.honors.ufl.edu/researchdatabase.html). Faculty are under no obligation to work with you or employ you under their grant. With perseverance you may find someone who is willing to have you get involved.
Introduction to Professional Development
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| DEP-X | Melissa Johnson |
|
|
Prerequisite: This course is restricted to students who entered UF during Summer B or Fall 2009.
In this course, students will work closely with an honors advisor and a current honors student leader to develop an action plan for university involvement. Students will learn how to find and apply for scholarships and awards, internships, study abroad programs, research opportunities, and leadership and service projects. Students will get to know the inner-workings of the university and discover available resources and opportunities, all while working with other highly motivated honors students. Finally, they will learn how to display the skills and experiences gained through these activities.
Melissa Johnson is an Assistant Director of the Honors Program. Melissa has a BA in Classical Studies and History and an MEd in Higher Education Administration from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and currently is completing her PhD in Educational Technology at the University of Florida. She has been a cluster facilitator for the LeaderShape Institute, currently serves on the Directorate Board for the Commission on Admissions, Orientation, and First-Year Experience for the American College Personnel Association, and is the vice president and conference host for the Florida Collegiate Honors Council.
Pro Dev 2: Leadership Development
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| DEP-X | Melissa Johnson |
|
|
This course picks up where Introduction to Honors Professional Development left off. Designed for emerging leaders, we will examine the intersection of various leadership theories with your own personal leadership styles, and then learn how to apply those concepts to everyday leadership situations you may encounter. Students do not have to hold a formal leadership position to take this course; you only need a sincere desire to learn more about yourself as a leader. As part of this course, students will get to participate in a few out-of-class leadership activities.
Course outcomes:
-Gain exposure to leadership theories and styles.
-Identify strengths through various leadership assessments.
-Apply those theories and styles to your own situations as emerging leaders.
-Enhance skills in risk-taking, coalition-building, motivating others, understanding group dynamics, managing conflict, and communicating.
-Develop a concrete action plan for enhancing your leadership skills.
First or second-year students who have successfully completed IDH 4905: Introduction to Honors Professional Development are eligible to participate. Students who wish to register for this course must submit a resume and 3 goals for themselves as emerging leaders to Melissa Johnson at mjohnson@honors.ufl.edu
Melissa Johnson is an Assistant Director of the Honors Program. Melissa has a BA in Classical Studies and History and an MEd in Higher Education Administration from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and currently is completing her PhD in Educational Technology at the University of Florida. She has been a cluster facilitator for the LeaderShape Institute, currently serves on the Directorate Board for the Commission on Admissions, Orientation, and First-Year Experience for the American College Personnel Association, and is the vice president and conference host for the Florida Collegiate Honors Council.
Undergraduate Research
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| DEP-X | Your research supervisor |
|
|
If you have found a faculty member who is willing to do a research project with you, you may sign up for this course. For approval you will need to provide a cogent plan of study and a faculty signature indicating approval of your course of study. Your project cannot duplicate a regularly offered course in the UF curriculum. You may use this course for elective credit. You will receive credit for IDH 4917, "Honors Undergraduate Research" if your project involves research. You can get the application form in the Honors Office, 118 Hume Hall, or on the Honors webpage (www.honors.ufl.edu/forms.html).
Note: For a list of UF faculty who have opportunities for undergraduates, please consult the Undergraduate Research Database (http://www.honors.ufl.edu/researchdatabase.html). Faculty are under no obligation to work with you or employ you under their grant. With perseverance you may find someone who is willing to have you get involved.
Internship
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| DEP-X | Regan Garner |
|
| ||||||
| DEP-X | Regan Garner |
|
|
The Honors Program offers credit for internships through IDH 4940. Students from any department may submit an application for consideration, but please note that Journalism majors must present a letter from an academic advisor or department chair with their application. You need not be an honors student, but you must have a minimum GPA of 3.0 to be approved for Honors internship credit. Grading is S/U and based on the completion of a paper at the end of the internship and a letter of support from your supervisor. A course taken for S/U does not normally apply to major requirements, but you may use these hours for elective credit.
The application form is available online (http://www.honors.ufl.edu/forms/idh4940.pdf). For more information, please visit the Honors Program Internships website (http://www.honors.ufl.edu/internships.html). If you have any questions about a prospective internship, please e-mail our intership director, Ms. Regan Garner (rlgarner@ufl.edu).
Regan has a BA in Classical Studies and a M.Ed. in Social Foundations from UF. Her research interests are desegregation and the socioeconomic and racial components of the American public school experience.
Washington Internship
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| DEP-X | Regan Garner |
|
|
The Washington Center (TWC) allows UF students to earn academic credit while working in Washington, DC. Summer, Fall, and Spring internships are available in over 2000 public, private, non- profit and government agencies in all fields. Application to TWC and UF approval is required to earn credit. Please visit www.twc.edu for more information and contact campus liaison Regan Garner (rlgarner@ufl.edu) with questions AFTER reviewing the TWC web site.
Regan has a BA in Classical Studies and a M.Ed. in Social Foundations from UF. Her research interests are desegregation and the socioeconomic and racial components of the American public school experience.
Introduction to International Relations
Gen Ed: S, N
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 5890 | Richard Nolan |
|
|
This course is designed to assist students in understanding global affairs by providing them the necessary tools and background to analyze world politics. Students will be expected to think critically about theories of world politics and about how they apply to historical and current international problems. Major historical events of the 20th century have shaped and reshaped the way scholars, decision makers and citizens think about global affairs. Students will be asked to apply the analytical tools they acquire to contemporary problems. Through classroom exchanges, critical essays and an Internet-based research assignment, students should demonstrate an appreciation for the complexity of international issues, including the inter-relationship of domestic and international events.
This course is presented in four parts. First, we will discuss the different theoretical approaches to studying world politics. Included in this will be a review of the different types of actors in world affairs, ranging from powerful traditional states to the increasingly important international organizations and multinational corporations. Next, we examine issues of security in the international system, emphasizing the coercive measures and motivations of different actors. In light of global changs in the behavior and interests of different actors, we also will look at challenges to conventional notions of safety and security. Third, we will discuss issues and problems of the global political economy. Issues of stability in monetary and trade patterns, the motivations and interdependencies of rich and poor in their economic relations, and the pressures of resource dependencies will be central to an understanding of politics in the global economy. Finally, the class examines problems of global commons, issues that by definition are shared and suggest collective action to address. A review of collective arrangements for security, prosperity and identity will complete the course. Student grades will be based on a combination of short reaction papers, periodic exams, participation and a short research project.
International Relations Security
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 8325 | Laura Sjoberg |
|
|
This course provides inherited understandings of the meaning and content of international security, and juxtaposes those understandings with critical perspectives which question whether Security Studies as traditionally constituted addresses the proper actors, the proper harms, and/or the proper scope. In addition to asking questions about the nature of war, the dimensions of interstate conflict, and military threats from non-state actors, this course explores the possibility that security is appropriately theorized by looking at domestic violence, rape, poverty, gender subordination, and ecological destruction. It suggests that we should broaden not only what security means but who is guaranteed security.
Given these ontological interests, this course defines security broadly in multidimensional and multilevel terms – as the diminution of all forms of violence, physical, structural, and ecological; in terms of well-being and survival of the individual and her environment. It does so without ignoring or marginalizing the traditional content of security – states that fight wars. Still, it also recognizes that security as “states fighting wars” has been challenged from a number of directions since the end of the Cold War, with states; increasing interdependence, the development and proliferation of weapons technology, the increasing fluidity of borders, and the rise of non-state actors. In exploring the “war system” this course asks what security is, who merits being secured, how securing is performed, and how we know that security has been achieved.
Laura Sjoberg is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. She holds a PhD in International Relations and Gender Studies and a law degree specializing in International Law. She has taught at the University of Southern California, Brandeis University, Merrimack College, Duke University, and Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on gender in international security. She is the author of Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq (2006) and (with Caron Gentry) Mothers, Monsters, Whores:
Women’s Violence in Global Politics (2007). Dr. Sjoberg is the Chair of the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section of the International Studies
Association, and President of the International Studies Association-West. Her work has recently appeared in International Studies Quarterly, International Studies Review, International Studies Perspectives, International Relations, International Politics, and Politics and Gender. Dr. Sjoberg’s
research has been supported by the Women and Public Policy Program and the International Security Program at the Kennedy School of Government
at Harvard University, the Center for the Study of Sexuality in the Military at the University of California Santa Barbara, the Law School at Boston College, the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California. and the Institute for Society, Culture, and the Environment at Virginia Tech.
Israeli Society: Secularism, Religion, and Nation
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 8589 | Tamir Sorek |
|
|
Israeli society provides an interesting paradox concerning the relationship between religion and collective identity. While secular leaders and parties were dominant in the early development of the Zionist movement and secular Jews fill the ranks of contemporary Israel’s political, economic, judicial, military, and cultural elites, the Jewish religion has had a dominant role in defining the boundaries of collective identity, and a significant role in Israel’s politics. This course introduces students to major themes and dynamics of contemporary Israeli society through the prism of this paradox and its implications on diverse social arenas. Some of the major themes that will be discussed are: What could explain this seeming inconsistency? How have the dominant articulations of Israel’s collective identity and collective memory changed over the years, and why? How does the secular-religious divide in Israel interact with other divides in Israeli society, including the Arab-Jewish cleavage and intra-Jewish ethnic divides? How has the Israeli-Palestinian conflict influenced and been influenced by the place of religion in Zionism and the secular-religious tension in Israeli society? The course does not require any previous knowledge of Israel.
Tamir Sorek is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Israel Studies. His interests center on the production of ethnic and national identities in the Israeli-Palestinian context, emphasizing socio-historical dynamics, power relations, and the juncture of culture and politics. He is the author of Arab Soccer in a Jewish State: The Integrative Enclave (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and published extensively on Israeli society and Arab-Jewish relations in Israel. His current project deals with political memory among the Palestinian citizens of Israel and ‘memory relations’ between Jews and Arabs.
Calculus II
Gen Ed: M
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3127 | Staff |
|
| ||||||
| 7846 | Staff |
|
| ||||||
| 7848 | Staff |
|
|
Prerequisite: Grade of C or better in MAC 3472 or MAC 2311
This is the second course in calculus and builds on the knowledge of the first course. Topics covered are the same as in the regular Calculus II course and include techniques of integration, infinite sequences and series, and polar coordinates. In this honors section some topics will be covered in greater depth, and some more challeging problems will be assigned. Honors Classes will be smaller in size than the regular class. (Credit will be awarded for MAC 2312 or MAC 3473, but not both.)
Calculus III
Gen Ed: M
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3129 | Staff |
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| 3130 | Staff |
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| 7498 | Staff |
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| 7850 | Staff |
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Prerequisite: Grade of C or better in MAC 2312, MAC 2512 or MAC 3473
This course is designed to cover the material in MAC 2313. This course will cover the fundamentals of calculus in several variables, including vector geometry and vector analysis. The aim will be not only to present methods appropriate to the subject matter but also to impart an understanding of the concepts involved. Honors Classes will be smaller in size than the regular class. (Credit will be awarded for MAC 2313 or MAC 3474, but not both)
Elementary Differential Equations
Gen Ed: M
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3149 | Staff |
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Prerequisite: Grade of C or better in MAC 2312, MAC 2512 or MAC 3473
This course covers first-order ordinary differential equations, theory of linear ordinary differential equations, solution of linear ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients, and the Laplace transform and its application to solving linear ordinary differential equations.
Music of the Catholic Church
Gen Ed: H
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 5577 | Ed Schaefer |
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This course examines the music of the Catholic Church from an historical and artistic perspective. It also examines some of the issues that have surrounded major changes in the Church’s music, such as the use of vernacular language, the introduction of popular music, and the role of music in faith formation. Its content is organized primarily around six historical periods in which the Church was significantly focused on musical developments or changes:
- the Carolingian Renaissance and the development of Gregorian chant,
- the 14th-century reforms of Pope John XXII,
- the 16th-century reforms of the Council of Trent,
- the 18th-century reforms of Pope Benedict XIV,
- the 19th-century chant revival movement and the subsequent 20th-century reforms of Pope Pius X and his successors,
- the late 20th-century and early 21st-century reforms following the Second Vatican Council.
Edward Schaefer is Associate Dean in the College of Fine Arts and Professor of Music. He also directs the Florida Schola Cantorum, a group dedicated to singing chant and sacred polyphony.
Dr. Schaefer came to UF after directing a nationally recognized choral program at Gonzaga University for 21 years. He is a specialist in chant, having studied at the French National Conservatory in Paris and with several renowned chant scholars in US and Europe. He also sang with the Gregorian Choir of Paris. He has published several editions of chant books used in the liturgies of the Catholic Church.
In addition to his work in chant, Dr. Schaefer has conducted a large part of the sacred choral repertoire, from the unaccompanied motets of the Renaissnce to the major choral-orchestral works of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
He LOVES the Church's great musical heritage - and so will you if you take this class.
Masterworks of Music
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3370 | Miriam Zach |
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This course is to be enjoyable and enlightening. Emphasis will be placed on the aesthetic elements within various international masterworks of music which give value to the work under study. In addition to readings, recordings, lectures and discussions, each student will attend four concerts during the course of the semester and submit brief written reports on each concert attended. There will be three listening tests to identify composer, historical context, and stylistic characteristics,a research paper/creative project presentation, and several brief essays on research experiences. The starting point for work in the course will be Kristine Forney and Joseph Machlis' The Enjoyment of Music, chronological version, 10th edition, with 8 accompanying CD's.
Miriam Zach, Ph.D. (minerva@ufl.edu or http://www.womencomposerslibrary.org) is Assistant Professor in the Honors Program at the University of Florida. She holds degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. In addition to teaching courses on Music History, and Music and Health, she maintains her own studio in Gainesville giving lessons in piano, harpsichord, and pipe organ, and is a member of the Alachua Consort which specializes in Baroque chamber music. In 2003 she became co-principal with her husband Dr. Mikesch Muecke in the design/build architectural practice misumiwaDesign ( misumiwadesign.com), and in 2007 co-edited and published the book "Resonance" (http://www.cularchpress.com). In 2006 she published For the Birds: A Women Composers’ Music History Speller with Culicidae Press (http://www.culicidaepress.com). In 1998 she recorded the CD Hidden Treasures on the Princeton University Chapel organ, and plans to record future CDs of music by women composers on her new house organ, designed and built by A. David Moore in 2005. She was named International Woman of the Year for 1992 & 1997 & 2000/2001 from the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge (England) for her distinguished service to music.
Intro to Philosophy - The Tao of Star Trek
Gen Ed: H
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4304 | Gayle Brown |
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Our general aim in this course is to explore various philosophical issues through the medium of science fiction. We will be spending the semester in the place where philosophy and science fiction intersect. Science fiction affords us an excellent venue for philosophical exploration. Some of the best philosophy is driven by thought-experiments-imaginary scenarios that are designed to illuminate some difficult philosophical questions. For example, we might imagine that you and I were to switch brains, or that a transporter mishap results in the fusion of two people into a single person, and then we might ask ourselves what our thoughts about such bizarre circumstances contribute to our understanding of who and what we are.
Philosophy is the exploration of the concepts we employ to understand ourselves and the world around us. We want to examine how we think. Sometimes, upon examination, our pre-theoretical notions turn out to be inadequate. How then shall we respond? What are we to say? Science fiction writers have always looked to philosophy as a fertile source of ideas. Many episodes of the various incarnations of Star Trek are inspired by issues in philosophy, while films such as A Clockwork Orange, The Matrix, 12 Monkeys and others borrow from philosophy in more ways than can easily be counted. Philosophy and science fiction are kindred spirits, for they are both animated by a sense of wonder and by the seemingly limitless possibilities that lie before us.
G.M. Brown has taught a wide variety of courses in philosophy in both the Honors Program and the Philosophy Department at UF, including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of science. She also teaches the popular Tao of Star Trek course. In addition to philosophy, her academic interests include poetry, literature, archeology, theology, theoretical physics and evolutionary biology.
Contemporary Moral Issues
Gen Ed: H
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 5664 | Gayle Brown |
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The aim of this course is to help you reason more clearly and effectively about moral issues. The subject matter of the course can be divided roughly into two parts. First, we want to explore general issues about morality: what is morality? Is there a systematic way of understanding our moral judgments? What principles should we use to decide difficult moral issues? The second and main part of the course consists of an examination of difficult moral problems. Specific topics include as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, affirmative action, welfare reform and privacy.
Our focus shall be three-fold. First, we want to see how different moral theories may lead to different conclusions about what the right response is to these problems. Second, we shall aim to be as precise as we can about the arguments supporting these conclusions. Third, we want to critically evaluate these arguments--that is, we want to determine whether they are good arguments or bad arguments. It is important to realize that philosophy is not fundamentally about imparting information; it is about learning to reason more carefully and thoroughly. Thus, the main objective of the course is to improve students' skills in understanding and evaluating arguments.
G.M. Brown has taught a wide variety of courses in philosophy in both the Honors Program and the Philosophy Department at UF, including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of science. She also teaches the popular Tao of Star Trek course. In addition to philosophy, her academic interests include poetry, literature, archeology, theology, theoretical physics and evolutionary biology.
Physics With Calc I
Gen Ed: P
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1243 | John Sabin |
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| 3706 | John Sabin |
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Prerequisites: high-school physics or PHY 2020, or equivalent and MAC 2311; Corequisite: MAC 2312. Note: Students enrolled in this class should also enroll in the corresponding lab, PHY2048L.
The first of two courses in calculus-based physics for science and engineering majors, featuring Newtonian Mechanics. Included are statics and kinematics, the concept of work, and conservation laws such as energy, momentum, and angular momentum. Interactions of particles, e.g. via gravity, is treated. Special attention is given to harmonic oscillators, waves, and elasticity. Thermal and mechanical properties of materials, fluids, and gases are also studied. This course is based on problem solving. Practical problems are assigned weekly to be submitted over the Internet. The exams, 6 per semester, are administered during class and are also problem-solving. The honors version of this course has the same lecture as the rest of the course, but has a separate discussion section for honors students.
Physics With Calc II
Gen Ed: P
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3719 | Andrew Rinzler |
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| 3720 | Andrew Rinzler |
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Prerequisite: PHY 2048 and MAC 2312; Corequisite: MAC 2313. Note: Students enrolled in this class should also enroll in the corresponding lab, PHY2049L.
The second of a two-semester sequence of physics for science and engineering majors. Content includes Coulomb's law, electric fields and potentials, capacitance, currents and circuits, Ampere's law, Faraday's law, inductance, Maxwell's equations, electromagnetic waves, ray optics, interference and diffraction. One hour per week is devoted to problem solving and discussion. The honors version of this course has the same lecture as the rest of the course, but has a separate discussion section for honors students.
Enriched Physics 1
Gen Ed: P
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 5183 | Khandker Muttalib |
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Corequisite: MAC 2312 or equivalent. Note: Students enrolled in this class may also enroll in the corresponding lab, PHY2048L.
Course description: This is the first in a four-course sequence for physics majors and others wishing a deeper understanding of the material covered in introductory physics. The topics are largely the same as those covered in PHY 2048, with the addition of the Special Theory of Relativity which is introduced early. Interested students are encouraged to contact the instructor or an undergraduate physics adviser to see if this course is the right one for them. PHY 2060 is the most challenging introductory course in the physics department. Students should have a firm understanding of elementary calculus, and most students will have had a strong physics course in high school.
Khandker Muttalib is currently a Professor of Physics at UF. He obtained his Ph.D from Princeton University in 1982. After post doctoral research positions at University of Chicago, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Yale University, he joined UF as an Assiatant Professor in 1987. His research interests are in the general area of theoretical condensed matter physics.
Physics 2
Gen Ed: P
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3691 | Gregory Stewart |
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Prerequisite: PHY 2060 or consent of the instructor; Corequisite: MAC 2313 or equivalent. Note: Students enrolled in this class may also enroll in the corresponding lab, PHY2049L.
This is the second of the enriched physics with calculus course sequence for physics majors and others wishing a deeper understanding of the material. PHY2061 covers classical electricity & magnetism and some vector analysis and special relativity. The classes are a mixture of lecture and problem solving. There is a course website for PHY 2061 at
http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~fry2061/ which contains the course syllabus, external links, and the homework assignments.
General Physics 4: Enriched Modern Physics
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 0313 | Mark Meisel |
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Prerequisites: PHY 2061, or permission of instructor and MAP 2302, or equivalent
In the first part, the course will introduce students to the foundations of modern physics, namely relativity, quantum mechanics and statistical physics. In the second part, applications of the concepts will be presented in various areas of solid-state, nuclear, and particle physics, with additional extensions to astrophysics and biological physics. The Spring 2008 version of this course is described at http://www.phys.ufl.edu/%7Emeisel/PHY3063-2008.html and the Spring 2009 version will follow a similar format.
Note about required textbook: The only required text is "Modern Physics" (4th Edition) by Tipler and Llewellyn, and from online sites in Sept. 2008, one could purchase a used copy for under $20. Please note that local bookstores may only stock the new 5th Edition, which a student can use for this course, and the prices for Fall 2008 were $122 (new) and $92 (used).
Mark W. Meisel graduated from Burke High School in Omaha, Nebraska, and then attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he received BA, MS, and PhD degrees in physics. As a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow and with additional support from the scientific funding agencies in France, he spent two years working in the low temperature laboratories at the Université de Paris-Sud in Orsay, just outside of Paris. In 1986, he came to UF as a Research Scientist working to design and equip the Microkelvin Laboratory, and in subsequent years, he was promoted through the ranks to the level of professor. Additional details about his research are available on his website at http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~meisel.
European Union Citizenship & Migration
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 2133 | D. Schirmer |
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This course is joined with EUS4931 - 4029.
Enrollment in EUS 4930 requires 3 credits of EUS-prefixed courses or instructor permission
The course addresses two distinct, though interrelated sets of issues: citizenship and national belonging, and migration and migration regimes. Both sets of issues have recently gained in complexity: Citizenship insofar as European integration has added EU-citizenship as a second layer above national citizenship, and migration because the end of state socialism has added to the traditional south-north axis of migration a second axis that runs from east to west.
Modern citizenship has its historical roots in nationalist imaginings, and nationalism will therefore stand at the beginning of the course (and recur throughout, like a leitmotif). From there we will proceed to discuss concepts of citizenship and citizenship regimes and their effects on the distribution of social, political, cultural, and economic opportunities among residents of different citizenship-status.
Nation-states are definitionally territorial, and state-sovereignty includes the right of states to control access to their respective territories. This territorial principle is in conflict with the de-territorializing effects of globalization. The largest share of migration results from the unequal distribution of wealth and safety, which sets people in motion in great numbers in pursuit of a better life (or a life at all), but at every border migrants have to face gatekeepers in the form of immigration control regimes, which admit or reject them on the basis of considerations of labor markets and demographics, social costs, national security, xenophobic sentiments, and international human rights obligations.
The study of citizenship and migration is further complicated by Europe’s heterogeneity: While Western Europe receives immigrants at rates comparable to those of classic immigration countries like the US, Southern Europe has only recently turned from a region of emigration to a region of immigration, and Eastern Europe continues to supply migrants. Within this general structure, much more complex patterns have emerged from the finer distinctions of immigration control regimes and economic needs, for instance propelling qualified and mobile Poles to Britain and the lesser qualified into seasonal jobs in German vineyards and asparagus fields, while Ukrainian farmhands fill the equivalent jobs in Poland’s agriculture.
Professor Schirmer obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science at Free University Berlin and has taught at FU Berlin, Cornell University, University of Vienna, and University of British Columbia. He joined the faculty of University of Florida in 2009 as DAAD Professor. His research and teaching interests include the history of the state in Europe, nationalism, and the prospect of moving from a national to a post-national condition. In this context, the European Union is given particular attention as the most advanced instance of a new form of regional political authority above and alongside the traditional national states, with far-reaching implications not only for democracy, citizenship, and access to rights and resources, but the very way of how we conceive of and practice political power. His current research projects are “The Beautiful State: Architecture and Political Authority in Europe Since the Renaissance” and “States and National Minorities in the European Union: How Does Brussels Shape Attitudes Towards Autonomy and Secession.
European Union Economic Integration: Politics & Policy
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4794 | C. O'Dwyer |
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This course is joined with EUS4212 - 0864.
This course is designed to provide students with a unique perspective on the political economy of European Union (EU) economic integration. It is an interdisciplinary course that covers topics ranging from the economic and political justification for economic integration to the links between EU enlargement and post-communist economic transition to the role of the Euro in the world. In addition, the course will require participation in two in-class debates. In each, two teams will present policy briefs on complex and controversial policy choices that the EU has faced over the course of its institutional evolution. The final activity of the course is a day-long seminar where students will present research paper findings to a group of local social studies and economics teachers.
Conor O’Dwyer completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley in December 2003 and is an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. His latest research explores how the expansion of the European Union is changing the terrain of domestic politics and policy-making in the postcommunist member-states -- from the protection of minority rights to the emergence of flat-tax economic reforms.
Website: http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/codwyer/
Problems of Democracy
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4768 | Michelle Smith |
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We have become so accustomed to celebrating democracy that it is easy to ignore its problems. This course addresses some of the perennial difficulties associated with democracy and the problem that “difference” presents democracy in particular. In the first part of the course, we will explore various models of democracy: “classical” Athenian democracy, republicanism/active citizenship and modern liberal democracy. In the second section, we turn to the American historical context—most particularly, the “rise of democracy” in the 19th century. We examine the influence of earlier models of democratic practice on American democracy and explore the effects of slavery and racial chauvinism on democracy’s ascendance in the American context. Finally, in the third section of the course, we reconsider democratic theory, in light of the rise of identity-based social movements in the 20th century.
Michelle Smith is an assistant professor of Political Theory. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2009. Her research interests are located in the field of contemporary democratic theory, with a focus on race and racism and the effects of identity-thinking on democratic practice. Dr. Smith’s dissertation, Alain Locke: Culture and the Plurality of Black Life, investigates the writings of early 20th century black philosopher and social critic Alain Locke. She argues that Locke’s criticism of art is worthy of political theoretical exploration precisely because it refused to see black artwork used to justify black participation in public life. Her work links representations of black plurality to black autonomy by insisting on an interpretation of black expression that exceeds the expectations of ‘race thinking’ and identity.
Race, Religion, Rebellion
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3600 | Gwendolyn Simmons |
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This course is an interdisciplinary theoretical examination of the interplay of religion, race and rebellion in the organization and execution of the various revolts, insurrections and social movements of black people in the U.S. from the slavery period through the Civil Rights and Black Power Eras of the 60s, 70s and 80s. We will utilize the writings of historians, sociologists and theologians in our examination of the role of religion in these revolts, insurrections and rebellions. The class will study biographical material, written as well as documented on film, video and audiotapes, on the lives of prominent activists in these struggles. Those lives we will examine most closely include: Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, and Gabriel Prosser, three men who planned and executed daring North American slave revolts; David Walker and his daring Appeal and its call for armed revolt if need be to end slavery; and Marcus Garvey and his movement – The Negro Improvement Association. We will also investigate the religious as well as political dimensions of Malcolm X whose life most clearly demonstrates the road to freedom via racial separation and nation building – one of the two recurrent themes in the long African American freedom struggle. To understand Malcolm X and his legacy, we must understand the Nation of Islam, which he built during his tenure into a formidable religious and social uplift black organization. Also examined will be the role and work of the Deacons for Defense, The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Black Panther Party (BPP), the three most militant movements of the Civil Rights and Black Power periods.
Intro Russian Language & Culture 2
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3237 | James Goodwin |
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Continuation of introductory language and cultural study.
Dr. Goodwin is an Assistant Professor of Russian Studies in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. He teaches courses on Russian language and Russian literary prose of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Introduction to Public Speaking
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 1023 | Christa Arnold |
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Theory and practice in presenting public speeches; determination of communication purpose(s) and adaptation of organization, evidence, language and other message characteristics for designated audiences.
Christa L. Arnold, Ph. D. is currently lecturing in the Dial Center for Written and Oral Communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She has taught over ten different communication courses on the collegiate level but specializes in public address courses.
Students needing more information about this course can e-mail questions to carnold@cwoc.ufl.edu.
Intermediate Spanish 2
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4157 | Clara Sotelo |
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Prerequisite: SPN 2200, or the equivalent placement score. Not open to bilingual speakers of Spanish.
Objective: SPN 2201 Honors course is the follow-up to SPN 2200. The course is designed to improve oral and written production of Spanish while giving student the opportunity to become familiar with the diversity of cultures in Spanish-speaking countries. The regular SPN 2201 text will be supplemented by additional activities that will expose students to Hispanic cultures through newspapers, articles, web sites, and interactive communication. The emphasis will be on developing communicative skills through class discussion. The small class size will provide a friendly, relaxed atmosphere in which more individual attention will be given to each student. In addition to regular class time, students will be offered further out-of-class opportunities to converse with native speakers of Spanish or to gain exposure to other cultural events.
Spanish Composition
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 4809 | Su Ar Lee Ko |
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Prerequisite: SPN 2240. Can be taken concurrently with SPN 2240 or SPN 3301. Not open to bilingual speakers of Spanish.
This is an intensive language course designed to develop students' mastery of grammatical principles, increase their vocabulary and enhance their writing and compositional skills. This course (or SPN 3350 for bilingual speaker) is a prerequisite for most 3000 and 4000 level courses in Spanish.
Introduction to Statistics
Gen Ed: M
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 0153 | John Doss |
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STA 2023 Honors is an introductory course that assumes no prior knowledge of statistics but assumes some knowledge of high school algebra. Basic statistical concepts and methods are presented in a manner that emphasizes understanding the principles of data collection and analysis rather than theory. The primary goals of the course are to enable the students to develop a firm understanding of the basic ideas behind statistical reasoning and to learn some of the basic techniques of data analysis. The level of the course is considerably higher than that of the non-honors version.
Intro to Social Entrepreneurship
Gen Ed: None
| Section | Instructor | Times | Locations | ||||||
| 3286 | Kristin E. Joos |
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