Honors Program

HON 101          CRN: 2663                Day/Time: MW 11-11:50 AM, online synchonous, F asynchronous Humanities Sem/Dylan: Five Decades of Noble Lyrics          Instructor: Guiati, A.            Quota: 24  

Introduction to some central topics in the humanities. Humans' attempts to give meaning to their lives through literary, philosophical, and creative expression. In this class we will analyze Bob Dylan’s lyrics, to identify the central themes introduced by the author, their relation to history, faith, love, family, and personal identity, making the American bard the most influential poetic voice of the second half of the XX Century.

HON 101                  CRN: 2913                            Day/Time: W 3:00-5:40 pm, online synchronous            Humanities Sem/Introduction to Philosophy                    Instructor: Blessing, K.            Quota: 24         

We have all pondered seemingly unanswerable questions about our existence—the biggest of all being, “Why are we here?” Philosophy has developed over millennia to help us grapple with questions such as: Does God exist? What is happiness? What is the meaning of life? Why should we care about truth? What does it mean to be liberally educated? Where does knowledge come from? How do we define what is real? How ought we live? And more. There is no better way to approach the big questions in philosophy than to compare how the world’s greatest minds—including Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Sartre, Camus, De Beauvoir—have analyzed these questions and reasoned out potential solutions. By taking time to ponder these questions for yourself, you should begin to develop a deeper understanding of your self – "Who am I?," "What kind of life am I living?" – as well as heightened sense of wonder about the world in which we live.

HON 102                                          CRN: 1162                                 Day/Time: online asynchronous   Natural Science Sem/Human Origins                         Instructor: Maguire, S.                  Quota: 15

This course provides an introduction to physical anthropology and archeology while exploring our human origins. Physical anthropology topics include evolutionary theory and genetics, the human fossil record, and the study of non-human primates. Archeology scientifically reconstructs past cultures. We will cover the basics of archeological data and dating methods and then move on to the transformation from a hunting and gathering lifestyle to one based on food production. Finally, we will examine the role of agriculture in the development of complex sociopolitical institutions and state societies.

HON 103             CRN: 2665               Day/Time: MW 9:00 am -11:40 am, Hybrid         Room: UPTO 236Arts Sem/Jewelry Making                                        Instructor: Saracino, S.           Quota: 18              

Students are exposed to a hands-on experience in the designing and creation of a piece of jewelry. They are taught basic design concepts and the techniques necessary to fabricate pins, rings, pendants, and bracelets from non-precious and precious metal. Over the duration of the course they are also taught simple stone setting and are exposed to the thought processes a designer follows as they create, start-to-finish, a piece of wearable art.

HON 103                                 CRN: 1786                                        Day/Time: online asynchronous     Arts Sem/Creative Process in the Arts                          Instructor: Guzski, C.              Quota: 24

This seminar examines the role of the creative process across a wide range of fine and performing arts (music, dance, theater, visual arts, film) through lectures, readings, discussion, and particularly digital artistic experiences nationally, internationally, and in metropolitan Buffalo.  Students will explore their own relationship to the expressive power of art and consider interdisciplinary perspectives on the impact of political, economic, historical, social, and environmental factors on the artist in society.  Oral class presentations (presented digitally) on selected creative individual/ artwork(s) culminate in the preparation of a research poster intended for presentation to a broad audience.

HON 103                CRN: 3012                       Day/Time: MWF 10:00-10:50 am, online synchronous          Arts Sem/Intro to Theater                                Instructor: Beckley, C.                          Quota: 10                             

This course looks at the collaborative art of theater from script to stage.  It is a deep dive into the many elements and personnel that join forces to produce live theater.  In this synchronous online format, students will explore the role of the playwright, director, performers, designers, management, and staff that come together to tell a story for an audience.   The course also takes a shallow dive into theater history, the changing theater space, and the transitions that shaped theater along the way.

HON 104                                 CRN: 3010                                        Day/Time: online asynchronous          American History Seminar/US History 1607-present        Instructor: Mernitz, K.          Quota: 24            

This course includes a basic framework of political and economic historical developments in U.S. history, but it will focus more on post-1877 social, ethnic, cultural, and religious movements within a nation having ever greater interaction with the rest of the world.  Instead of using a traditional textbook, we will read a wide range of documents from a variety of people in the past, to research, analyze and discuss problems, proposed solutions, and outcomes over the past century and a half.

HON 201                                 CRN: 2943                                     Day/Time:  online asynchronous          Non-Western Civ Sem/Indigenous Hawaiians            Instructor: Anselmi, L.            Quota: 15                 

Lifeways of the original inhabitants of the Islands of Polynesia, especially the Hawaiian archipelago. Origins, geography/ecology, cultural identity and agency, political struggles from the 10th century to today of Indigenous Hawaiian peoples using archaeological, historical documents, and oral tradition evidence. Representations of Indigenous Hawaiians originating inside and outside the region. Encounters and transformation by first inhabitants, explorers, missionaries, colonists, and recent global flows of people. Modern sovereignty movements, reclamation of sacred landscapes, and the return of cultural meanings associated with hula and surfing.

HON 201                                       CRN: 2948                                       Day/Time: online asynchronous      Non-Western Civ Sem/Imperialism 19^th and 20^th Centuries     Instructor: Orosz, K.       Quota: 15         

This course surveys modern European imperialism in Asia and Africa from1800 through decolonization.  Although some attention will be paid to theories of imperialism, emphasis will be on the political and social history of European imperial expansion.  This will include an exploration of the clash between European and native cultures as well as examining the effects of this conflict on the development of colonial rule.

HON 201                 CRN: 4073                        Day/Time:  TR 1:40-2:55 pm, online synchronous          Non-Western Civ Sem/Women in Islam          Instructor: Randaccio, S.C.           Quota:  10                   

This course examines the history of women and gender in Islam from Muhammad to contemporary times. We will begin by building an understanding of Abrahamic faith traditions that precede the Revelations to Muhammad. We will study the Revelations received by Muhammad, the birth of Islam, and the traditions of the early Muslim community.  We will then look at the traditions as well as how women practice and experience Islam and Muslim culture in the Golden Age of Islam through the Ottoman period, looking at religious, social, and legal trends. The second half of the course will focus on the impact of the rise of the West and appraise the impact of colonialism, modernist reform, nationalism, and Western orientalist perceptions, looking at the examples of  Egypt, secular Turkey, and Saudi Arabia in the 19^th  and 20^th century as case studies.  Lastly, we will look at contemporary experiences of faith for Muslim women worldwide, including in Western migrant communities. 

HON 201         CRN: 3119             Day/Time: MWF 9:00-9:50 am, online synchronous      Quota: 15    Non-Western  Civ Sem/Mindfulness, Meditation, and Philosophy                    Instructor: Duffy, L.     

This course investigates the Eastern philosophical roots of mindfulness and meditation practices found specifically in Zen Buddhism and yoga. We will discuss the way these Eastern Philosophical traditions answer important questions about the nature of the universe, about humanity, about the nature of the mind, about personal identity, and about how to live a good life. We will look at the ways in which mindfulness and meditation are related to those answers and the methods of investigation and how they have changed. We will also practice mindfulness and meditation exercises as a class. The personal practice will allow us to develop a deeper understanding of the philosophy and the tools to find more peace and contentment in life. 

HON 202                                        CRN: 2666                                    Day/Time:  online asynchronous        Social Sci Sem/Human Geography                       Instructor: Vanchan, V.                   Quota: 24           

This course provides an introduction to human geography through examination of the spatial organization of human activity and the relationships between people and their environments. Topics include population, migration, diffusion, ecology, culture, religions, languages, ethnicities, urbanization, development, and globalization. In-class exercises, assignments and a field trip (if appropriate) are included to enhance student’s understanding of various subjects examined throughout the course.

HON 202                                   CRN: 2942                                       Day/Time: online asynchronous          Social Sci Sem/Political Science                      Instructor: McGovern, P.                          Quota: 24       

This course provides students with a venue to examine the nature of democracy as it is understood in its Western and global contexts.  The course begins with a discussion of the nature democracy and its relation to various social sciences [e.g. political science, history, sociology, and economics].  Attention will then turn to the nature of modern democracy, charting its historical rise and its recent recession.  Students will engage in intensive reading and writing about several important ideas and theories that have contributed to the development of democracy over the past 200 years and attempt to explain why democracy appears at present to be in retreat.

HON 209                CRN: 2952             Day/Time: online asynchronous            Instructor: Abromeit, J. Western Civilizations Sem/History of Europe in 20^th Century                                    Quota: 15                               

In this introductory survey course we will examine the main forces and events that shaped Europe and its relationship to the rest of the world from 1914 until the end of the twentieth century.  Topics include World War I, the Russian Revolution, the rise of fascism, World War II, the Cold War, the end of European overseas empires, and the collapse of Soviet Communism. Most attention will be paid to political history, but we will also pay attention to important social, economic, cultural and intellectual developments. This will be a fully on-line course with a mixture of recorded lectures and asynchronous discussions.

HON 303                        CRN: 3011                        Day/Time: TR 4:30-5:45 pm, online synchronous  Diversity Sem/Writing Against the Empire: Postcolonial Literature in Conversation with the Canon       

This course will examine post-colonial writers who write back to the literary canon. Specifically, we will look at writers from the British, French, and American empires, and examine the way that they write texts that explicitly respond to canonical literary predecessors. As such, this course will cross national and temporal boundaries, as we examine texts from the contemporary (post) colonial world—mostly the Caribbean—writing back to texts from early centuries. Some texts we may examine include Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre next to Jean Rhy’s Wide Sargasso Sea, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights alongside Maryse Condé’s Windward Heights and Caryl Phillips’ The Lost Child, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby with Ernesto Quinoñez’s Bodega Dreams and others. Some questions we will consider will be: What do reading these texts in conversation with one another tell us? What are the author’s writing back to the canon trying to demonstrate or make clear? What kind of assumptions do the original texts contain that the re-writes are addressing? Students should expect to navigate a significant reading and writing load in this class, which will culminate in a substantial research paper. Over the course of the semester in addition to our primary texts, students will also consider literary criticism as part of the reading, in preparation for their own research and writing.

HON 309                      CRN: 2146                           Day/Time: MWF 1:00-1:50, online sychronous   Western Civilizations Sem/Western Ideals                    Instructor: Grinnell, J.            Quota: 24

In this course we will explore several conceptions of ethical excellence, from the Greeks through the Enlightenment to the modern world. We will also investigate the theoretical framework and values that lie at the heart of western ethical reasoning. Among other things, we shall trace a gradual but very important shift from aretaic to deontic ethical theories and then (to some extent) back to aretaic again and attempt to evaluate what we have lost and what we have gained with that shift. Along the way, we will assess how fundamental concepts such as freedom, duty, character, and happiness have changed over the course of western civilization. By the end, you should have a broad foundation for ethical reasoning as well as a broad perspective on western normative concepts. Ideally, we shall be able to identify a principled ethical framework and use it to resolve specific problems of both personal and professional ethics. 

HON 400              CRN: 2487                    Day/Time: M 3:00-5:40 pm                  Instructor: Guiati, A.       Colloquium Sem/The Oppressed & the Exploited in Contemporary Cinema        Quota: 24      

Oppression can only survive through silence. Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when we see it. The class will discuss the cultural, political, economic and historical milieu of each film. On the positive side, there is exploitation for the promotion of persons or resources to their greatest possible advantage. On the negative side, people and resources are exploited through being used for selfish or greedy purposes, meaning both development and victimization can be confusing. We will watch and analyze films that cover topics of diversity, violence, unemployment, euthanasia vs. assisted suicide, child abuse, racism, war, political oppression and corruption, discrimination, childhood marriage, roles of women. Successful completion of the process of developing and sharing a research/ creative project at the SRCC in May 2021 will be an integral part of the final grade for this course.

HON 444            CRN: 4083            Day/Time: online asynchronous (occasional virtual meetings)            Honors Senior Seminar (Dean’s Honors Students only)      Instructor: McMillan, A.            Quota:40

Dean’s Honors Students should enroll in this course if they are preparing to graduate – preferably taken in the fall or spring of your senior year. This is a one credit course – DHP students are also allowed to take the HON400 – but scholarship students may not take HON444.

Final course in the Buffalo State Honors sequence. Students evaluate and share career goals, skills and professional dispositions. We will spend some time reflecting on your academic journey related to the Buffalo State institutional learning outcomes and the required applied learning experiences you each should already have or will be completing. This course includes a Social Justice component that includes reading and discussing a contemporary author and using this, as well as other media, to produce a final project.