Spring 2013 Classes:

HON 3950: The Italian Renaissance (Dr. Adrian)

A course that explores the intellectual underpinnings and artistic vibrancy of this crucial period in Western Civilization.  Separate units will be devoted to Literature, Philosophy, Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture.  We will read and view works by Castiglione, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Vasari, Brunelleschi, Palladio, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo, Botticelli, Bellini, Titian, and others (and we’ll also read the historical novel The Agony and the Ecstasy).  We will pay particular attention to the city of Venice, its history, its spatial layout, and the various buildings and landmarks associated with its artistic production.  A Spring Break excursion to Venice is not a requirement of the course, but a natural supplement that will earn the participant 1 additional college credit.

M/W/F 2:00-2:50

HON 3951: Revolution, Reaction, and Reform: British Literature, 1789-1832 (Dr. Scalia)

This course will explore the political and social turmoil of the Romantic Period as reflected in British works of poetry, fiction, and political theory.  Students will study responses to some of the major conflicts, crises, and concerns of this remarkably tumultuous time, including the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the slave trade, women’s rights, voting rights, and class conflict.  We will analyze liberal/revolutionary and conservative/reactionary perspectives; writers under discussion will include Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walter Scott, Felicia Hemans, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

T/R 3:20-4:35

HON 3952: Technology and Society: The Best of All Possible Cyber Worlds? (Dr. Ray)

This class proposes, in part, a closer reading of the current state of technology in the world.  Our central question will be: “Is this the best possible cyber-world?”  We’ll take a multidisciplinary and multi-media look at questions like: How have we balanced privacy and security?  How have we leveraged freedom for utility with our technology?  How do virtual worlds shape our physical one?  How does technology affect how we experience the world, how we share those experiences, and how do we determine who owns our shared experience?  Always we will ask, what was intended, what might have been, what might still be, and what’s the role of every individual moving forward?

T/R 9:30-10:45