Honors First Year Inquiry Series
Through the Honors First-Year Inquiry Series (HONR 1310), first-year Honors students explore topics through an interdisciplinary lens. Talented faculty from departments across the university custom design and teach these small-group seminars for Honors students. Popular First-Year Inquiries have dealt with colonization and efforts for peace, developments in sustainable energy, and covert intelligence operations.
Fall 2024 Courses
HONR 1310-01
Of Princes and Utopias: the Foundations of Modern Political Thought
Times: MW, 2:50pm-4:30pm
CRN: 13079
NUPath: IC
Robert Cross, Department of History
CSSH
Is there such a thing as an ideal society, and if so, of what does it consist? What form of government is the most just, and is it achievable in the real world? Are the qualities of a good leader the same as those of a good person? Indeed, are human beings by nature fundamentally good, evil, or somewhere in between? People have been asking these sorts of questions since they first began to write things down, and the answers they have come up with have continued to inform countless debates about society, government, and the human condition to this very day.
This course will focus on a selection of the Western tradition’s key thinkers, taking an in-depth look at some of the most influential works in the history of political thought, from ancient Greece through eighteenth-century Europe. Along the way, we will follow two simultaneous paths: one literary/philosophical, and one historical. You will have the opportunity here to read, consider, and discuss a number of history’s great books. But you will also come to understand how these works fit in their historical and cultural context. It is not enough simply to read Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics, More’s Utopia, or Machiavelli’s Prince. These texts need to be considered in dialogue with one another, and in the light of subsequent thinkers who read them, adapted them, borrowed from them, copied them, and ultimately established them as the foundation of a “canon” of thought that has been passed down to us over the years. Recent decades have brought a re-evaluation of this canon, questioning its merit in general as well as the makeup of its particulars, which will be a part of our continuing dialogue and analysis. As will the artistic, philosophical, and multicultural milieux that helped develop these ideas, as well as those that developed from them – extending beyond the traditional relationship with the text, to include occasional use of film, music, and art.
HONR 1310-02
Humans and Nature: The Psychology of Socio-Ecological Systems
Times: W, 1:35pm-4:30pm
CRN: 20013
John Coley, Department of Psychology
Brian Helmuth, Department of Marine & Environmental Science
COS
Some of the most critical challenges facing our species are environmental, from the climate crisis to biodiversity loss and sustainable living. Meeting these challenges will require widespread changes in human behavior. However, to influence how people behave toward the natural world, we need to understand how people think about the natural world. Cognitive Psychology has documented how humans use powerful intuitive frameworks arising from an interaction of evolved cognitive structures, personal experience, formal education, and culture to understand, explain, and predict the world around us. Environmental Science has recognized that human activity has profound implications for ecological function and ecosystem health, which, in turn, have profound implications for people living as part of a Socio-Ecological System. In this course, we’ll weave together themes from both disciplines to examine how people understand the environment and their place in it, how this understanding varies with culture, informal experience, and formal education. We’ll also examine relations between environmental cognition, environmental attitudes, values, and norms, and sustainable behavior.
HONR 1310-03
Mathematics, Magic, Games, and Puzzles
Times: MR, 11:45am-1:25pm
CRN: 14394
NUPath: CE, EX, Service-Learning
Stanley Eigen, Department of Mathematics
COS
This is a Service-Learning Honors Course. Topics and mathematical sophistication will vary depending on the ages of the Service Learning Partners and the interests of the students taking the course.
The course will go into depth on the mathematics behind some classic magic tricks, puzzles and games. Mathematical topics may include, but are not limited to, combinatorics, graph theory, group theory, number theory, topology, dynamics, binary arithmetic and coding theory. Connections will be made to a wider range of areas. For example, some magic tricks connect to DNA analysis and coding theory. Some puzzles connect to logic and ethical dilemmas. Some games connect to social skills and economics.
HONR 1310-04
Illusions of Reality
Times: TF, 9:50am-11:30am
CRN: 14395
Ennio Mingolla, Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders
Bouvé
Can we trust our senses to accurately inform us about our world? Under what conditions can our capacity to attend to our surroundings play tricks on us, leaving our understanding of events at odds with the events themselves? How can we resolve disagreements between individuals about what just happened? This course takes an experiential approach to varieties of illusions. It explores illusions based on capture or misdirection of attention, as in magic performances, and also considers illusions of hearing and “cognitive illusions,” where judgments made by humans vary as a function of the narrative framing of a question. The course surveys the role of illusions in development of philosophical and scientific thought from ancient Greece through the “method of doubt” of René Descartes and into the modern era of psychology and cognitive science. Using software tools or pre-programmed online demonstrations, students can investigate how the strength of various illusions varies as a function of parametric variations in display variables, including images, videos, or narrative “displays.”
HONR 1310-05
Angels and Demons: Violence in the 21st Century
Times: TF, 1:35pm-3:15pm,
CRN: 17599
NUPath: SI
Gordana Rabrenovic, Department of Sociology & Anthropology
CSSH
In this course, we will use the concept of borders and boundaries to explore our understanding of violence in the 21st century. The idea of borders is often used to discuss conflict around land boundaries. These conflicts are often bloody, prolonged and characterized by interpersonal and intergroup violence. However, ethnic, racial and economic disparities — both within and between nations — tend to exasperate territorial conflicts and create new tensions. Political and environmental crises further complicate our understanding of what causes conflict and how best to address it. This course will employ the concept of borders to analyze various examples of contemporary violence. As we explore different instances of conflict, we will also examine innovative ways to intervene, reduce and even prevent violence. Examples will range from Boston to the global arena.
HONR 1310-06
Conflict in Northern Ireland
Times: 2:50pm-4:30pm
CRN: 13232
NUPath: DD
Michael Patrick McDonald, John Martinson Honors Program
Office of the Chancellor
On January 30, 1972, British soldiers released 108 rounds of live ammunition, killing 14 unarmed citizens (7 teenagers) who were peacefully marching for civil rights. The day is remembered as “Bloody Sunday.” After 38 years, the British government released The Saville Report, acknowledging that British soldiers’ actions were “unjustified and unjustifiable.” While this is just one of many truth inquiries sought by people in the North of Ireland today, the families of Bloody Sunday’s victims were elated that their loved ones – long labeled IRA “terrorists” by an earlier British Army report – were vindicated. To many, though, this is about something bigger, as one survivor attested:
Just as the civil rights movement of 40 years ago was part of something huge happening all over the world, so the repression that came upon us was the same as is suffered by ordinary people everywhere who dare to stand up against injustice. Sharpeville. Grozny. Tiananmen Square. Darfur, Fallujah, Gaza. Let our truth stand as their truth too. — Tony Doherty (son of slain Civil Rights marcher on Bloody Sunday)
This course examines the colonization of indigenous Gaelic Ireland by Britain—Britain’s first settler colony, first plantation system, and rehearsal stage for global British geopolitical and cultural hegemony. We will study the centuries-long struggle (both through constitutional means as well as by armed, physical force) for an independent Irish republic, the early 20th century partition of Ireland and the creation of a “Northern Ireland” statelet remaining within the United Kingdom. The course then focuses on “Northern Ireland.” We will look at the non-violent Civil Rights Movement (1967-1972) seeking equality for the Nationalist/Irish-identified population in the still-colonized North (a movement eclipsed by a more militant struggle after the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre by British soldiers), and the armed conflict waged by Irish Republican paramilitaries and the British State which often colluded with Loyalist (Protestant/British-identified) paramilitaries. The bulk of this course will look at the North of Ireland’s journey to a 1994 Ceasefire among paramilitaries and the British Army, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, and the ongoing “post-conflict” process seeking lasting peace with justice. We will examine the recent Brexit crisis in the United Kingdom, its threat to the fragile peace achieved on the island of Ireland, and today’s constitutional movement for a decolonized United Irish Republic, completely independent of colonial Britain.
The Bigger Picture: We will examine the history of violence in this locale – in its various forms: paramilitary or state violence, physical or economic violence, the violence of discrimination; or, more recently, post-conflict youth anti-social violence and a suicide epidemic. We will do all the above with a critical eye on the implications this particular history and ongoing peace process may have for other places of post-colonial conflict or discrimination. How is the conflict in the north of Ireland related to the history of struggle in South Africa? How were Civil Rights activists in The North influenced by the American Civil Rights movement? How might the ongoing peace process in the North of Ireland provide lessons for Israel/Palestine? We will also draw parallels to social justice issues and efforts in Boston and other U.S. cities, e.g. policing issues, trauma and painkilling epidemics, and quests for peace with justice on our own streets. How might developments in American urban youth organizing to prevent violence and promote access and opportunity provide lessons to post-conflict cities like Belfast & Derry, which have seen a new type of conflict manifesting among its young people in the form of what is called “anti-social behavior”?
We will discuss all of this, while reading memoir, histories, poetry, and articles, as well as watching films, examining songs and the political murals in the North, and engaging in personal journaling about all the above, all while reflecting on personal, local, as well as broader, global parallels.
This course will be taught by Northeastern University Honors Department’s Professor of the Practice, Michael Patrick MacDonald. Professor MacDonald is the bestselling author of two memoirs set in Boston: All Souls: A Family Story from Southie and Easter Rising: A Memoir of Roots and Rebellion. He is a long-time grassroots social justice organizer working to promote leadership among those most impacted by poverty, inequality, and violence. And he has been engaged in parallel issues in the North of Ireland for 25 years. He was selected as a 2019 Fulbright Scholar at Queen’s University in Belfast, where he taught transformative storytelling and implemented transformative storytelling projects in communities dealing with the ongoing legacy of the Troubles.
HONR 1310-07
Rhetorics in Contact: Exploring Persuasion across Cultures and Nations
Times: MWR, 10:30am-11:35am
CRN: 17630
Jonathan Benda, Department of English
CSSH
What happens when people try to communicate persuasively with each other across cultural boundaries? How do participants’ histories, traditions, and communication patterns shape cross-cultural encounters, and how do those encounters shape future communication within and across cultures?
In this course, we’ll be looking at different examples of how rhetorical traditions or legacies affect communication across cultural boundaries and how cross-cultural encounters are represented differently by the participants. Through the course readings, we’ll be developing a specialized vocabulary for talking about intercultural rhetoric and thinking about methods for studying it. We’ll go on to apply some of these methods to documents in the Special Collections of the Northeastern Archives, analyzing the discourses of social organizations and movements in Boston, such as the Chinese Progressive Association and the movement to desegregate Boston’s public schools. We’ll also reflect on how rhetoric across cultures affects (or should affect) advocacy in the complex global and local contexts that we currently face.
HONR 1310-08
Oppenheimer, Nuclear Science and the Women Scientists of the Manhattan Project
Times: 10:30am-11:35am, MWR
CRN: 18026
Rein Kirss, Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology
COS
The development and use of nuclear weapons in the Second World War through the Manhattan Project represents a watershed in human history. Starting from the 2023 blockbuster movie “Oppenheimer”, this course will examine the nuclear science depicted in the movie in its historical context. It introduces the basic concepts of atomic structure, nuclear decay and health effects of radiochemistry which underlie the creation of the first atomic bomb. The course will also highlight the contributions of the women physicists, chemists, mathematicians and technicians who, despite many barriers, made significant contributions to 20the century nuclear science. Lastly, it will introduce students to how research and scholarship are done by studying the key experiments in 20th century nuclear science.
HONR 1310-09
How to Flourish Despite Almost Anything
Times: MW, 2:50pm-4:30pm
CRN: 20897
Jacob Stump: Department of Philosophy & Religion
CSSH
What is a good life and what does it mean to flourish? This course aims to equip students with the intellectual skills and character traits needed to live a flourishing life no matter what happens. We will go about that by adopting philosophy as a way of life, that is, by practicing living philosophically in our own lives and then reflecting together on what the experience discloses to us.
There will be an emphasis on increasing awareness of our mental lives, developing mindfulness of the world around us, and training ourselves in the skill of accepting what is there. As these are difficult activities, we will seek guidance from philosophers who have made progress before us. In all of history, two main philosophical schools promise reliable strategies for living well no matter the circumstances: Stoicism and Buddhism. We will practice mental techniques from both traditions and use them to increase our self-knowledge, improve our relationships with others, develop a sense of spirituality (broadly construed), and relate to our work in a meaningful way. Class will consist largely of discussion, and a significant number of assignments will require students to gain experience in developing virtue.
Spring 2024 Courses
HONR 1310-01
Leonardo da Vinci Between Science and Art
Times: Tue, Fri / 1:35 – 3:15pm
CRN: 39154
Cammy Brothers, Department of Architecture/Art & Design
CAMD
In our own era, Leonardo da Vinci is as fascinating as he is difficult to classify. But in the fifteenth century, he was only one among many artists making a broad range of inquiries into the nature of the world surrounding him, whether human anatomy, the course of rivers, and movement of air, or the flight of birds. The aim of the course will be to explore the territory shared between what we have come to consider divided realms of art and science through a close study of the drawings, notebooks and writings of this extraordinary Renaissance artist. Students will learn to analyze a range of original sources, both visual and textual, and will hone their descriptive and critical skills as well as their tools of aesthetic discernment. We will also consider issues of authenticity, conservation and the value of art, in reference to the controversial recent attribution and sale of the “Salvator Mundi.” The class will include visits to the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Conway Medical Library.
HONR 1310-02
Humans and Nature: The Psychology of Socio-Ecological Systems
Times: Mon, Wed / 2:50pm – 4:30pm
CRN: 39155
John Coley, Department of Psychology/Marine & Environmental Sciences
COS
Brian Helmuth, Department of Marine & Environmental Sciences
COS
Some of the most critical challenges facing our species are environmental, from the climate crisis to biodiversity loss and sustainable living. Meeting these challenges will require widespread changes in human behavior. However, to influence how people behave toward the natural world, we need to understand how people think about the natural world. Cognitive Psychology has documented how humans use powerful intuitive frameworks arising from an interaction of evolved cognitive structures, personal experience, formal education, and culture to understand, explain, and predict the world around us. Environmental Science has recognized that human activity has profound implications for ecological function and ecosystem health, which, in turn, have profound implications for people living as part of a Socio-Ecological System. In this course, we’ll weave together themes from both disciplines to examine how people understand the environment and their place in it, how this understanding varies with culture, informal experience, and formal education. We’ll also examine relations between environmental cognition, environmental attitudes, values, and norms, and sustainable behavior.
Fall 2023 Courses
HONR 1310-01
Of Princes and Utopias: the Foundations of Modern Political Thought
Times: Mon, Wed / 2:50-4:30pm
CRN: 13484
NU Path: IC
Robert Cross, Department of History
CSSH
Is there such a thing as an ideal society, and if so, of what does it consist? What form of government is the most just, and is it achievable in the real world? Are the qualities of a good leader the same as those of a good person? Indeed, are human beings by nature fundamentally good, evil, or somewhere in between? People have been asking these sorts of questions since they first began to write things down, and the answers they have come up with have continued to inform countless debates about society, government, and the human condition to this very day.
This course will focus on a selection of the Western tradition’s key thinkers, taking an in-depth look at some of the most influential works in the history of political thought, from ancient Greece through eighteenth-century Europe. Along the way, we will follow two simultaneous paths: one literary/philosophical, and one historical. You will have the opportunity here to read, consider, and discuss a number of history’s great books. But you will also come to understand how these works fit in their historical and cultural context. It is not enough simply to read Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics, More’s Utopia, or Machiavelli’s Prince. These texts need to be considered in dialogue with one another, and in the light of subsequent thinkers who read them, adapted them, borrowed from them, copied them, and ultimately established them as the foundation of a “canon” of thought that has been passed down to us over the years. Recent decades have brought a re-evaluation of this canon, questioning its merit in general as well as the makeup of its particulars, which will be a part of our continuing dialogue and analysis. As will the artistic, philosophical, and multicultural milieux that helped develop these ideas, as well as those that developed from them – extending beyond the traditional relationship with the text, to include occasional use of film, music, and art.
HONR 1310-02
Twentieth-Century Espionage
Times: Mon, Wed, Thurs / 1:35-2:40pm
CRN: 13449
Jeffrey Burds, Department of History
CSSH
Using case studies, documents, literature and film, we will explore various aspects of the world history of spies in the twentieth century. Themes include the Great Game (Anglo-Russian-French-German rivalries in Central Asia and the Near East); World War I (Mata Hari, Alfred Redl); the Russian Revolution; the interwar era; World War II; and the Cold War. Sub-themes will include women spies, human intelligence versus signals intelligence, double agents and moles, agent recruitment, technology, sexpionage, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Six-Day War (1967), and assassination.
HONR 1310-03
Mathematics, Magic, Games, and Puzzles
Times: Mon, Thurs / 11:45am-1:25pm
CRN: 15128
NU Path: EI
Stanley Eigen, Department of Mathematics
COS
This is a Service-Learning Honors Course. Topics and mathematical sophistication will vary depending on the ages of the Service Learning Partners and the interests of the students taking the course.
The course will go into depth on the mathematics behind some classic magic tricks, puzzles and games.
Mathematical topics may include, but are not limited to, combinatorics, graph theory, group theory, number theory, topology, dynamics, binary arithmetic and coding theory. Connections will be made to a wider range of areas. For example, some magic tricks connect to DNA analysis and coding theory. Some puzzles connect to logic and ethical dilemmas. Some games connect to social skills and economics.
HONR 1310-04
Illusions of Reality
Times: Tue, Fri / 9:50-11:30am
CRN: 15129
Ennio Mingolla, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Bouvé College of Health Sciences
Can we trust our senses to accurately inform us about our world? Under what conditions can our capacity to attend to our surroundings play tricks on us, leaving our understanding of events at odds with the events themselves? How can we resolve disagreements between individuals about what just happened? This course takes an experiential approach to varieties of illusions. It explores illusions based on capture or misdirection of attention, as in magic performances, and also considers illusions of hearing and “cognitive illusions,” where judgments made by humans vary as a function of the narrative framing of a question. The course surveys the role of illusions in development of philosophical and scientific thought from ancient Greece through the “method of doubt” of René Descartes and into the modern era of psychology and cognitive science. Using software tools or pre-programmed online demonstrations, students can investigate how the strength of various illusions varies as a function of parametric variations in display variables, including images, videos, or narrative “displays.”
HONR 1310-05
Angels and Demons: Study Violence in the 21st Century
Times: Tue, Fri / 1:35-3:15pm
CRN: 20142
NU Path: SI
Gordana Rabrenovic, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
CSSH
In this course, we will use the concept of borders and boundaries to explore our understanding of violence in the 21st century. The idea of borders is often used to discuss conflict around land boundaries. These conflicts are often bloody, prolonged and characterized by interpersonal and intergroup violence. However, ethnic, racial and economic disparities — both within and between nations — tend to exasperate territorial conflicts and create new tensions. Political and environmental crises further complicate our understanding of what causes conflict and how best to address it. This course will employ the concept of borders to analyze various examples of contemporary violence. As we explore different instances of conflict, we will also examine innovative ways to intervene, reduce and even prevent violence. Examples will range from Boston to the global arena.
HONR 1310-06
The North of Ireland: Colonization, Armed Conflict, and the Quest for Peace with Justice
Times: Mon, Wed / 2:50-4:30pm
CRN: 13663
NU Path: DD
Michael Patrick MacDonald, Professor of the Practice
University Honors Program
On January 30, 1972, British soldiers released 108 rounds of live ammunition, killing 14 unarmed citizens (7 teenagers) who were peacefully marching for civil rights. The day is remembered as “Bloody Sunday.” After 38 years, the British government released The Saville Report, acknowledging that British soldiers’ actions were “unjustified and unjustifiable.” While this is just one of many truth inquiries sought by people in the North of Ireland today, the families of Bloody Sunday’s victims were elated that their loved ones – long labeled IRA “terrorists” by an earlier British Army report – were vindicated. To many, though, this is about something bigger, as one survivor attested:
Just as the civil rights movement of 40 years ago was part of something huge happening all over the world, so the repression that came upon us was the same as is suffered by ordinary people everywhere who dare to stand up against injustice. Sharpeville. Grozny. Tiananmen Square. Darfur, Fallujah, Gaza. Let our truth stand as their truth too.— Tony Doherty (son of slain Civil Rights marcher on Bloody Sunday)
This course examines the colonization of Ireland by Britain, the long struggle (both through constitutional means as well as by armed, physical-force) for an independent republic, the 20th century partition of the island of Ireland and the creation of a “Northern Ireland” statelet remaining within the United Kingdom. The course then focuses on Northern Ireland. We will look at the non-violent Civil Rights Movement (1967-1972) for equality for the Catholic/Nationalist/Irish-identified population in the North (a movement eclipsed by a more militant struggle after the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre by British soldiers), and the armed conflict waged by Irish Republican paramilitaries and a British State which often colluded with Loyalist (Protestant/British-identified) paramilitaries. The bulk of this course will look at the North of Ireland’s journey to a Ceasefire among paramilitaries and the British Army, the peace process, the 1998 Good Friday Peace Accords, and the ongoing post-conflict quest for a lasting “peace with justice.” We will examine the very current Brexit crisis in the United Kingdom, its potential impact on the fragile peace achieved on the island of Ireland, and revived calls for a United Ireland independent of the United Kingdom.
HONR 1310-07
Green Chemistry and Climate Justice
Times: Mon, Wed, Thur / 9:15-10:20am
CRN: 20175
Vaso Lykourinou, Department of Chemistry
COS
The course is based on the UNIDO-Yale & Beyond Benign Curriculum and will provide a brief introduction to key chemical principles such as stoichiometry, molecular structure, chemical and physical properties and periodic trends of chemical behavior by connecting them to central environmental and health issues tied to toxicology to create awareness of these issues and ways they are currently addressed. The course will introduce basic concepts and then tie them to case studies and fundamentals of green chemistry and toxicology. All majors are welcome. Students will most enjoy this course if they are knowledgeable about chemistry principles. Thus completion of AP or IB Chemistry (or similar) or co-enrollment in an Introductory Chemistry course is appreciated, but not required.
HONR 1310-08
Invisibility, Disability and Family Life
Times: Mon, Thu / 11:45am-1:25pm
CRN: 20589
NU Path: DD
Linda Blum, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
CSSH
According to the World Health Organization, some 20 percent of the world’s population lives with disability – and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, finding similar rates, coined the apt slogan, “Disability Impacts All of Us.” Yet what exactly is a disability? While we most often think of a person in a wheelchair or with a cane or leg braces, there is much we do not see. From President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) concealing the extent of his impairment from polio, to social-emotional and learning issues like depression, anxiety and ADHD, to those struggling with the mysterious symptoms of long-haul Covid-19, many disabilities are far from visible. Moreover, there are many ways to live and even thrive with varied bodies and minds.
In this course students will consider invisible disabilities from multiple perspectives but emphasizing – just as in FDR’s case – that disability is lived and experienced within families – and families of diverse backgrounds and social locations. Through readings, films, and social media, we will explore the voices of disability self-advocates and activists; and in conversations with guest experts, we will learn of important contributions from researchers across the disciplines. Students will become conversant with theories of stigma and of neurodiversity, the social-historical construction of disabilities, the contributions of disability rights activism, and the thorny bioethical questions about difference raised by medical technologies