Fall 2025 & Winter 2025 Honors Scholars Seminars

Fall 2025 Honors Scholars Seminar Offerings:

Managing Natural Areas

HON 441-03 / HON 451-03
Professor David Wicks & Professor Russell Barnett

T 5:30-8:15pm 

Managing Natural Areas is an engaging seminar that explores conservation, land management, and environmental education through lectures and discussions led by prominent leaders in these fields. Throughout the semester, students will hear from experts representing organizations such as the Berry Center Farm and Forest Institute, Horner Bird and Wildlife Sanctuary, Bernheim Forest, and Payne Hollow on the Ohio. The guest lectures along with readings will provide valuable insights into strategies for biodiversity conservation, sustainable land management, and community engagement. Class discussions and assignments will culminate with student recommendations for the board of Payne Hollow on the Ohio.

In addition to classroom learning, students will have the option to visit Payne Hollow and participate in a four-day workshop hosted by Payne Hollow on the Ohio at the Aldo Leopold Foundation, just north of Madison WI. Leopold, author of Sand County Almanac, was influential in the development of modern environmental ethics . Inspired by the philosophies of Aldo Leopold, this workshop will focus on conservation planning, land ethics, environmental education, and integrating ecological stewardship with human well-being.   All field trips are optional. There is no additional fee to class participants.  

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Social Sciences or Natural Sciences. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

Seeing the Divine: The Theological, Social, and Political Implications of Religious Imagery and Iconography

HON 331-07 / HON 341-07
Professor Roy Fuller
TTh 2:30-3:45 pm

“Seeing the Divine” is an investigation into how various human cultures have produced, been inspired by, and manipulated religious images and icons for the purpose of promoting theological, political, and social agendas. This course will utilize the tools and methodology associated with visual culture studies to examine how religious imagery has been used across a broad spectrum of theological, cultural, and political contexts. Art and religion have often been reciprocal forces, religion inspiring art and art communicating ultimate realities. Indeed, present distinctions between the aesthetic and the spiritual were, and remain in the case of some cultures, unknown to societies who produced no secular art as such. One scholar defines visual culture and its study as: “Visual culture is what images, acts of seeing, and attendant intellectual, emotional, and perceptual sensibilities do to build, maintain, or transform the worlds in which people live. The study of visual culture is the analysis and interpretation of images and the ways of seeing (or gazes) that configure the agents, practices, conceptualities, and institutions that put images to work.” (David Morgan, The Sacred Gaze) Seeing the Diving will explore icon, image, place, and space and the ways in which humans have used various media to convey, shape, and influence attitudes and behavior.

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Humanities or Social Sciences. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

Beyond Beyoncé: Communication of an Icon 

HON 331-08 / HON 341-08 / COMM 301-03
Professor Siobhan Smith-Jones
MW 2:30-3:45 pm

While many people debate the importance of popular culture in general, Beyoncé’s potential impact on specific demographic groups (e.g., Black women, members of the queer community, and various intersectionalities), whether or not she’s a feminist, and if she can even SING, there are countless discussions that are also fruitful: how she navigates and challenges media ownership and regulation, how she both gives voice to creators and often appropriates their expressions, and how she negotiates marriage and motherhood. This semester we will develop a more thorough and critical understanding of the ways in which Beyoncé communicates meaning by applying theories and methods for examining her image/persona (e.g., colorism), body of work (spanning audio/visual, print, and even film), the audiences who critique and/or engage with her (e.g, the Beyhive), and the popular, socio-historical, and political culture in which her products are distributed and viewed. What makes her ICONIC???

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Humanities, Social Sciences, or the Department of Communication. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

When Weather Changed History

HON 331-15 / HON 351-15
Professor Scott Gunter
MW 1:00-2:15 pm

This Honors seminar will explore how several large-scale weather events overlapped with human ambition and progress to produce catastrophe. Through a unique blend of atmospheric science lecture, popular non-fiction literature readings, and in-class discussions, students will analyze an atmospheric event (e.g., category 5 hurricane) as well as the historical and social context in which the event occurred. For example, how did conditions on Mt. Everest change so quickly as to put two seasoned climbing groups in a life-or-death situation? Or how did the political climate of the early 1900s affect weather reports leading up to the disastrous landfall of a hurricane in Galveston, Texas? These events, and possibly others, will be explored through several non-fiction works that have been meticulously researched and are presented in a very accessible manner. The weather events themselves will be dissected in such a way to provide students with a basic understanding of the atmosphere and several classes of storms. The title of seminar come from a docuseries that was produced by the Weather Channel in in 2008-2009. Episodes from this series as well as discussions led by guest content experts will be used to supplement the readings and atmospheric science content.

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Humanities or the Natural Sciences. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

Doing Democracy in Louisville: Collective Change in Theory and Practice

HON 331-17 / HON 341-17
Professor Lisa Björkman
M 5:30-8:15 pm

In this course, we will explore principles of democratic participation through engaged citizenship by developing and implementing specific social change campaigns. From the beginning of the course, students will be learning organizing skills and - in groups - building their campaigns around urban issues of their choosing. Significant time in and out of class will be devoted to developing, refining and implementing the campaign plan. Students may have the option to join existing campaigns on campus or in the community. Roughly half of the course content and time is devoted to applied learning through these campaigns, and in campaign-related implementation activities. In addition, we will consider certain historical and contemporary urban social change campaigns. Written work focuses on critically analyzing campaign development and implementation in light of other social change efforts.  The course will explore topics like issue development, building power, group dynamics, strategy and tactics, and campaign planning and implementation as they relate to changing specific urban policies in the Louisville area.

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Humanities or the Social Sciences. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

Sherlock Holmes in Fiction, in Movies and on Television (WR)

HON 336-03 / HON 346-03 
Professor Michael Johmann
MW 2:30-3:45 pm

With the sole exceptions of Santa Claus and Count Dracula, Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective Sherlock Holmes has been portrayed more times in film and on television than any other fictional character. Played by actors ranging from Basil Rathbone to Benedict Cumberbatch, Holmes has not only survived attempts by his own author to kill off the character as early as 1893 but has lived to fight Nazis, defeat Jack the Ripper, reside simultaneously in London and New York, and use digital messaging to taunt the police. This class will explore the publishing and media phenomenon that is Sherlock Holmes, who first appeared in print in 1887. Beginning with the novels and short stories, we will examine the fascination with the character among his earliest Victorian readers, which extended onto the Victorian stage and even into silent film during Doyle’s lifetime. With the coming of sound in the 1930s, we’ll explore the ways in which Sherlock, along with his friend and biographer John Watson, become the model for Batman and Robin, along with other superheroes, during the golden age of comics and are transformed from their Victorian origins into patriotic Britons fighting against Hitler’s spies and saboteurs during World War II. We’ll examine the return to a traditional depiction of the great Victorian detective in the Granada Television productions of the 1980s and early 90s starring Jeremy Brett, and his emergence as a 21st century crime solver living in today’s London in the BBC series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Along the way, we will consider some of the other characters and types of fiction created by Conan Doyle that either mirror his greatest success or starkly contrast with the Holmes universe. We’ll examine the development of both the literary detective and the detective story genre inspired by Holmes which dominates so much of contemporary fiction and media and try to answer the question: why does such an egotistical, arrogant, cocaine-addicted Victorian continue to fascinate us? As one of Sherlock’s adversaries, Irene Adler, famously puts it: “Brainy is the new sexy”. Be sure to bring your pipe and deerstalker hat.

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Humanities or the Social Sciences as well as the College Arts & Sciences upper-level Writing Requirement. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

AI in Digital Communication

HON 341-09 / HON 351-09 / COMM 307-01
Professor Jasmine Wang
MW 11:00am-12:15 pm

The seminar "AI in Digital Communication" offers a comprehensive exploration of how artificial intelligence is reshaping the media industry.  The course blends concepts from the scientific intricacies of AI with insights from social sciences to offer a well-rounded view of AI in media. The course breaks down complex AI concepts like machine learning and algorithmic technologies to make them easy to understand. Additionally, it discusses how AI affects society, from media bias and privacy concerns to the way it shapes news production and entertainment consumption. Additionally, it features hands-on workshops and group projects, where students apply their knowledge to create AI-driven media, ensuring a blend of theoretical knowledge and practical experience. This seminar offers a clear understanding of technical know-how and an understanding of social and ethical questions that we face in this evolving digital landscape.

For more detailed information about this seminar, click here!

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Social Sciences, the Natural Sciences, or the Department of Communication. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

Urban Ecology

HON 341-10 / HON 351-10
Professor Timothy Darst
MW 4:00-5:15 pm

Urban Ecology examines the natural world in an urban setting and how humans interact with it.  This interdisciplinary field helps us understand how environmental systems and human systems can work together to make our world more sustainable.  Cities can nurture and sustain the human and non-human inhabitants of the earth.  Urban Ecology helps us to see community from a new perspective.

In this class will explore, from in the classroom as well as in the outdoors, ways that cities can provide habitat for humans as well as other animals and plants.  We will call upon science, literature, and economics to examine the need for seeking harmony between humans and the natural world and look at specific ways that we can bring this about.

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Social Sciences or the Natural Sciences. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

Amazonian Archaeology

HON 341-50 / HON 351-51 / ANTH 364-50
Professor Anna Browne Ribeiro
Distance Ed (Online - Asynchronous)

The Amazon is on fire.  When this is not true literally, it is certainly true figuratively. Amazonia, the world’s largest tropical forest biome, is also among the most poorly understood regions of the world.  Students will embark on an exploration into Amazonia's deep history and contemporary socio-biodiversity through archaeology and material evidence.  Together, we will examine the narratives that led us to common misconceptions about Amazonia, and the range of archaeological evidence we have uncovered that corrects these impressions.  We will learn about ancient lifeways and cultural phenomena that have transformed a once pristine landscape into the garden forest we see today - and how these techniques have helped ancient cultures to withstand climatic and natural food and resource dispersal patterns we are poorly equipped to handle today.  These data are crucial to contemporary debates about human and non-human populations living in Amazonia, and the future of the biome itself.  Through this exploration, we will gain a fuller understanding of the importance of Amazonia to archaeology, to the study of Amerindians, to colonialism, and to global understandings of the tropics, now, and in the future.

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, or the Department of Anthropology. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

Grants and Fundraising

HON 431-02 / HON 441-02
Professor Eddie Bobbitt
Th 5:30-8:15 pm

If you want to change the world, you need to figure out how to fund it. Currently, the City of Louisville has over 2,200 nonprofit organizations that provide support for social services, environmental research, pediatric healthcare, education, child advocacy and more. With such an abundance of nonprofits, there is great competition in fundraising and development. This seminar will examine nonprofits in Louisville. Specifically, the course will focus on how public charities can maximize revenue to make a greater social impact. The course will explore organizational structure, earned income strategies, philanthropic giving, grant writing, marketing, and special events. This course will analyze the dos and don’ts of nonprofit development using both theoretical and case study approaches.

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Humanities or the Social Sciences. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

Coping with Conflict

HON 431-76 / HON 441-76 / POLS 520
Professor Michael Fowler
W 5:30-8:15 pm

This active-learning course intensively explores the theory and practice of negotiation and conflict resolution using a series of engaging, realistic, and challenging simulations provided by the Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation. In carrying out the simulation(s) assigned for each class, students first review general and confidential information for their roles, while reading about negotiation issues, tactics, and strategies. Then, they get to practice an array of practical negotiation skills, learned in class and in the assigned readings, that highlight a host of important issues. The first simulations are designed to illustrate certain fundamental dilemmas and principles and to start the class thinking analytically about the negotiation process. Over time, as skills and confidence grow by leaps and bounds, the negotiations become even more interesting and increasingly complex. They eventually place the students in the position of negotiators handling multi-party, multi-issue scenarios that occupy entire class sessions. The most popular simulations in past years have involved a sports negotiation between an aging Mexican pitcher and a baseball team in Japan, the invitation to a university campus of a controversial speaker, a sexual-harassment issue concerning a ballet dancer, a salary dispute concerning an aging opera singer attempting a comeback, and the post-9/11 redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. On any given night, your role might be that of a corporate CEO in a dispute over the delayed introduction of a new prescription drug, of the attorney for a doctor facing possible criminal charges in a small-town dispute, or the representative of a church in a wealthy neighborhood looking to rent space to a provider of mental-health services. One night you might come up to speed as the president of a labor union launching into collective-bargaining talks; the next class session you might be representing a Native American tribe interested in safeguarding its fish resources on a large lake used for commercial and sport fishing. This course offers students an excellent opportunity to learn about resolving conflicts through negotiation, while vastly improving their own negotiation skills, a critically important attribute in many professions.

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, or the Department of Political Science. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

The New Mythology (WR)

HON 436-04 / HON 446-04
Professor Joseph Turner
TTh 9:30-10:45 am

Stories from Greek and Roman mythology have sparked imaginations for millennia. Even in our age, which prides itself on science and reason, interest in mythology has exploded. Writers such as Toni Morrison, Madeline Miller, Anne Carson, and Anthony Doerr have repurposed classical myths to give voice to the previously voiceless and to interrogate how stories can powerfully shape our understanding of such issues as gender equality and climate change. This course will begin with an overview of classical western mythology before turning to contemporary artists interested in reinvigorating and reinventing those myths. 

My role is to help you to improve your analytical and expressive skills. As a result, my feedback will be tailored to each individual student’s strengths and targeted to address areas of improvement. In this course, you should expect to read great works of literature and to compose in response in a variety of media. You should also expect that the skills developed in this course will help you in other coursework at UofL and in your life outside of the university.

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Humanities or the Social Sciences as well as the College Arts & Sciences upper-level Writing Requirement.. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

Animal Studies (WR)

HON 436-05 / HON 446-05 / ENGL 401-05
Professor Glynis Ridley
TTh 2:30-3:45 pm

What is Animal Studies? In 1975, Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation provided a sustained – and highly controversial – engagement with questions about man’s treatment of non-human animals. The book is widely held to be a foundational text for the modern animal rights movement, and it is this movement that many – wrongly – assume to be the sole focus of Animal Studies. Certainly the questions that Singer poses in his book are inescapable in the field, but discussion of bio-ethics and modern agri-business is by no means the entirety of the discipline, which can be considered in relation to subjects as diverse as Art History, Cultural Studies, History, History of Science, Law, Literature, and Philosophy. Given such a vast field, any course must therefore necessarily be selective, not simply in terms of texts, but with regard to the branch of Animal Studies explored.

The course will take as its focus the cultural and legislative context leading to passage of the first animal welfare bill anywhere in the world: Britain’s Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act, known simply as Martin’s Act of 1822. We’ll look at the fiction and non-fiction that made passage of this legislation possible, and will contrast this with modern movements to extend rights (or ‘limited personhood’) to a range of non-human animals as we consider the work of the Nonhuman Rights Project. Circumstances permitting, the course will include a class session spent in Special Collections in the Ekstrom Library, working with Diderot and D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie (1751-1772) and examining its visual representation of what, to eighteenth-century minds, was a rapidly expanding natural world, replacing the more fanciful creations of the medieval bestiary with field observations. We’ll also consider two different eighteenth-century developments: Robert Bakewell’s manipulation of farm animals’ physiology at New Dishley (arguably the beginning of the development of modern livestock breeds), and the simultaneous rise in portraiture including dogs and cats as these animals increasingly moved into eighteenth-century middle-class homes as status symbols and companions. By the conclusion of the course, it is hoped that students will have an overview of the field, its history and present concerns, and how it intersects with their own particular discipline. There are currently nearly 30 journals devoted to the fields of Animal Studies and Human-Animal Interaction (HAI) and class members will be encouraged to develop an original research project that might be submitted to those journals that encourage student submissions. 

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, or the Department of English as well as the College Arts & Sciences upper-level Writing Requirement. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

International Law (WR)

HON 436-76 / HON 446-76
Professor Julie Bunck
T 5:30-8:15 pm

In focusing upon the role that international law plays within the larger realm of international relations, this course will ask where is law important, where is it less important, and why? We will consider where international law comes from, how it differs from and resembles domestic law of various sorts, how international tribunals function, and what is meant by such terms as sovereignty, sovereign immunity, jurisdiction, extradition, adjudication, arbitration, mediation, and conciliation. Throughout the course we will adopt an interdisciplinary approach to the study of international law, making a special effort to discuss political, historical, and other relevant social contexts.

In pursuing these broad themes, the class will consider a multitude of cases involving different aspects of international law, including the Iran hostage crisis of 1980, trials involving alleged Nazi, American, and Japanese war criminals, and the assassination in the U.S. of a former Chilean politician by Chile’s secret police. We will examine how law enforcement agencies in different countries are cooperating to combat terrorism, drug trafficking, and other forms of organized crime.  We will think through issues of cultural property, focusing on artifact looting in war-torn Cyprus, and the problems of refugees, including the boat people of Haiti. The class will also examine the outlawing of piracy, slavery, and genocide, and will assess the role that international law played in United States history, from the Civil War through the world wars to the conflicts in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. We will analyze the relation of international law to the various responses to the attacks of September 11 and, more generally, the different possible roles for international law in the post-Cold War world. We will discuss international environmental problems such as air pollution crossing borders and natural resources problems involving endangered species, including whales.

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Humanities or the Social Sciences as well as the College Arts & Sciences upper-level Writing Requirement.. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.

The Justice Challenge 2025-2026: Sustainable Agriculture

HON 321-50 / 322-50
Professor Joy Hart
Distance Education

Join Honors students from universities across the United States for an exciting yearlong program exploring the complex issues surrounding sustainable agriculture! The program is open to a limited number of participants and is a partnership among several universities, including UofL, South Dakota State, Texas A&M, Oklahoma State, and Virginia Tech. This program provides an opportunity for students to collaborate with experts from a variety of fields, engage with real social needs, and develop capacity for civic engagement, innovation, and leadership. Each participant will participate in a 9-week online colloquium in Fall 2025 and a 1-day online conference in June 2026. Each student will also participate in at least one of three Spring 2026 signature experiences: a Hackathon (2-day, online), Design Challenge (semester-long, in person course), or Field Course (1-week, in person). The application is available at this link. This program is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Click here for more details about this year's Justice Challenge!

If you’d like to learn more about joining The Justice Challenge, please contact Dr. Joy Hart at joy.hart@louisville.edu.

Program highlights include:

1. Partnerships with Honors students across the US
2. Academic year focus on wicked problems, sustainable agriculture, and systems thinking
3. Address complex social needs
4. Cultivate skills in innovation, leadership, and team building
5. 9-week colloquium in Fall 2025 and 1-day culminating conference in June 2026
6. 1 of 3 signature experiences in Spring 2026:
1. Online 2-day Hackathon where teams develop innovative approaches to sustainable agriculture challenges (prizes for top teams)
2. In person, semester-long Design Challenge course that partners with a community organization to address local sustainable agriculture issues, or
3. In person, one-week field course with exploration of sustainable agriculture issues based on the lived expertise of community members (lodging, food, and travel support provided)
7. Academic credit (HON 321/322)
8. Earn the credential of Justice Challenge Scholar

Winter 2025 

Sign-ups for Winter Session 2025 will occur during the Fall 2025 Honors mentoring campaign.

Behaving Badly: Communicating in Less-than-Ideal Ways

HON 431-50 / HON 441-50

Professor Kandi Walker
Distance Education

In this course, we identify and examine the underbelly side of interpersonal communication paying close attention to people behaving badly. We will identify communication challenges people face when interacting with others such as:

Why do some people make us feel guilty (or why do we use guilt to persuade others)?

Is cursing appropriate (and if yes, by whom, what words, and what context?)?

Why do we hurt the ones we love (or why do they hurt us?)

How do we navigate conflict (you had your first big fight – now what?)?

We will uncover how communication influences, creates, resolves, and maintains unnecessary chaos within interpersonal communication settings. In short, we will explore how well-meaning people communicate in less-than-ideal ways and sometimes behave badly.

This course fulfills elective requirements in the Humanities or Social Sciences. The course cannot be used to satisfy Cardinal Core Requirements.