Fall 2024 Courses

This course provides an in-depth introduction to medical terminology, with a focus on body systems and medical specialties. It provides the student with guided practice and assessment of prefixes, suffixes, word roots, and combining forms of standard medical terminology (or medical nomenclature). Additionally, the student will learn to read and interpret medical case reports. Presentation of medical case reports, problem solving, and written/verbal use of medical terminology will be the key focus of in-person meetings. 

Human activities and climate change have significantly altered water supply and water quality. Watersheds have become the planning and management unit for many water issues. There is an increasing trend that employment opportunities in agriculture, environmental science, and other related areas are preferably given to those graduates who earned training and hands-on experience in watershed, water quality, and aquatic science. This course provides an opportunity for honors students to gain a fundamental knowledge of watersheds and water resources. Such knowledge can be inspiring to students in all majors, and can be especially beneficial to students aiming at fields of professions related to environmental consulting, engineering, urban planning, natural resource management, environmental journalism and sociology.

This Honors course takes an ecological perspective on the topic of marine biology. It provides a broad overview of life in the sea; biological processes in marine environments in the context of the physical and chemical environment; the structure and function of marine biological communities; productivity in the oceans and food webs; diversity, evolution and adaptations of marine organisms; the role of the oceans in global cycles; marine fisheries and marine pollution.  It offers an introduction to planktonic, soft-bottom, coral reef, estuarine, intertidal, deep-sea communities and environments, and the effects of human activity on life in the sea, as well as key societal and policy issues confronting those who use, enjoy and manage marine resources. 

One Health is a concept that understands that human, animal, and environmental health are interconnected, and one cannot be optimized without consideration of the other two. There are several benefits of One Health approaches to growing human, animal, and animal health problems. By considering complex problems in terms of the relationships among parts rather than addressing each piece discretely (systems thinking), new emergent and global challenges can be met head-on. Disciplinary silos should be avoided so that redress of one problem doesn’t unintentionally exacerbate others. Educating future leaders in One Health is critical to tackle complex, multi-sectoral challenges for the improvement of the global condition.

Italy is often labelled il Belpaese, i.e. the Beautiful Country. In Italy, beauty transpires in the landscape, art, architecture, cuisine, and literature. With more than 61 million people over a surface smaller than California, Italy’s landscape has also become a “fragile body” that requires care, awareness, civic engagement and much respect. This course will analyze the relationships, within an Italian context, between human beings and their physical environment as well as between literature/cinema and the environment. This course will foster ecocritical approaches to Italian novels, short stories, poems, and movies, mainly from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

A study of the life, career, and legacy of Richard Milhous Nixon is as Ronald Reagan described the man himself—complex and fascinating, a worthy pursuit for a university Honors student. You will learn not so much what to think, but how to think. A rigorous university History course will impress upon you that historical figures such as Nixon are much more than “hero” or “villain.” They are incredibly complex human beings and politicians. Applying the lessons of the history you learn here will lead you to becoming a valuable informed and thinking citizen—no matter your political persuasion or philosophy. The critical thinking skills you learn here—objectively examining historical issues, conflicts, and personalities—will be valuable in your future career—be it law, medicine, the arts, or whatever field you choose.

While this course will emphasize the impactful presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, this is primarily a cradle-to-grave study of the 36th President of the United States and the 20th century world in which he grew up and greatly shaped. One cannot properly understand American history without comprehending Lyndon Johnson’s Texas Hill Country and its history as an American frontier, Lyndon Johnson’s family legacy, and how this shaped him into the man and politician he became. An ongoing theme throughout the semester is the struggle described in the Amazon banner on your textbook, the constant tension in Lyndon Johnson’s life and career “between political expediency and getting things done for the American people.” He was the ultimate politician and the original (and best) practitioner in American political history of the “art of the deal.” Learning about Lyndon Johnson the political dealmaker not only increases our understanding of American History, but provides lessons—both do’s and don’t’s—for your own future careers in politics, law, medicine, or where ever your ambitions take you.

Content and theory related to basic health information; critical health issues, economic, political and cultural influences on health and wellness; improving and maintaining optimal health and wellness. 

This course is designed as an interdisciplinary exploration of Brazil. Brazil’ s turbulent political history and contemporary struggles with violence, economic disparity, and inclusion have become cultural currency producing some of the most globally recognizable cultural production—particularly cinema and music. Students will survey different types of scholarship on Brazil--journalism, social sciences, music, TV & film, and cultural theory--to understand the relationship between Brazilian society and culture. 

The main purpose of this course is to provide students with a broad-based overview of issues related to intercollegiate athletics. Utilizing a critical lens, the course will examine intercollegiate athletics vis à vis historical, legal, sociological, economic, and organizational contexts, among others. 

Homelessness in the United States is a significant social problem, but there are ways we can understand the issue more deeply, and there are approaches that have worked and are working to get individuals and families into permanent housing. In this course, we will explore experiences and public perceptions of homelessness and how policymakers have responded. 

Religious leaders and movements have been at the heart of positive social and cultural change for millennia and around the globe. How did they do it, and what would it mean for you to take the ideas and principles of their transformative efforts to make your own impact on the world? This course examines religious and spiritual leaders who have changed their communities, and in some cases the world, is remarkably humane ways. This course studies their biographies, but also the principles and practices they used to guide their own personal transformative efforts.

The idea that the physical world in which we currently reside is not the only reality, that there exist other worlds above, below, alongside, and beyond our own, and that human beings may, under special circumstances, access these other worlds, may not represent a cultural universal, but it’s very close. In this course, by reading about, writing about, and discussing together, various historical, literary, anthropological, sociological, and even scientific approaches to the question of other worlds, you’ll develop a strong grasp of how this rich and compelling theme has emerged in so many diverse historical and cultural contexts. Ultimately, you’ll employ the theoretical tools we’ve practiced together to conduct your own, original study of the ways in which this theme plays out in contemporary culture and present the results of your study to your peers.

This course looks at how social media, digital technology, a resurgent populism and severe polarization in American life have energized a wave of fake news designed to confuse, frighten or shape certain behavior in American elections and in society generally. It will examine the different forms of fake news, how social media fuels fakes and hoaxes, and how readers pass on bad and good information. Fake news, made-up stories and just pure fiction masquerading as news have a long history. During numerous periods of religious conflict and war, fake news has ebbed and flowed often aimed at influencing opinion and behavior. To understand fake news, we will also examine real news reporting in general. Our class will be partly about journalism history, partly a primer on how to be a smart news reader, partly a study of how information moves through society and partly an examination of how stories are distorted. It will also look at how our information flows can be manipulated with disinformation. We will also examine what we as readers and listeners can do to guard against bad journalism and fake news. Various government and media investigations after the 2016 election looked into the manipulation of various sources of media by foreign agents, troll farms and political advocacy groups.  We will review these investigations to understand how social media played a role in exacerbating the problem of disinformation and what can be done about it.

Ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865 abolished slavery, but its relationship to some of our most fundamental institutions remains one of our most challenging social issues. Contentious contemporary debates about policing practices, voting rights, affirmative action, incarceration and prison labor, Confederate monuments, education, reparations, book bans, and so on all involve the legacy of slavery. At universities, faculty members and students across the social sciences and humanities have long studied many aspects of slavery as if their own institutions stood entirely apart from it. Only recently have we begun to engage the legacies of universities’ involvement in slavery, whether through enslaving people on campus, deriving endowments from the slave trade, engaging in racist research, or building campuses on former plantations. My own involvement in that effort gestated for many years but came to fruition when I was awarded an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship for a study of southern universities built on former plantations, employing LSU as a case study. In this seminar, we will read and discuss some of the emerging literature on universities and slavery as well as conduct a class project relevant to LSU that connects the abstract, general ideas in that literature to our concrete experiences of the legacies of slavery on campus and how to engage the resulting social challenges. The topic should appeal to anyone who is a student at LSU in order to better understand the institutional context in which they learn but will be of particular interest to those majoring in the social sciences or humanities and those entering professional fields such as architecture, landscape architecture, law, social work, education, or library and museum studies.

We will use the key ideas of postcolonialism to understand popular cultural phenomena, political and public figures, and, more generally, the world around us: Hamilton: The Musical, Bridgerton, Game of Thrones, Bollywood Cinema, Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Rishi Sunak, Prince Harry, and our very own Mike The Tiger! Readings will include extracts from postcolonial critics such as Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Spivak. 

From its inception, the Zionist movement, which sought to establish a Jewish state in Palestine and did so, had a rocky relationship with Judaism.  At the same time, the Palestinian national movement, which arose in tandem with Zionism, wrestled with the question of whether or not the national cause was also the cause of Islam, writ large.  Palestinian Christians found themselves caught in the middle.  This course will examine debates over the role of Judaism in the state of Israel.  It will also address Islamic politics among Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and in Israel.  It will also address the interlinked emergence of religious extremism among Israeli Jews and Palestinians.  Finally, the difficult question of the relationship between Jewish ethnicity (European or Afro-Asiatic) and Jewish religiosity, will be explored. 

Many of the Ogden Honors College students plan on careers in health care. This course will enable those students to grapple with some of the ethical concerns they will face in their careers; for other students not planning a medical related career, bioethical issues will no doubt concern them in their interactions as patients, family members, or friends of people receiving medical care. Furthermore, the issues involved in bioethics affect all of us and will spill over into the laws that govern our society. Hence an awareness of and ability to discuss these issues is paramount to our future. The course will begin by reviewing the history of bioethics including pertinent landmark historical cases followed by discussion of various principles of bioethics. The main focus will be on the four-principles approach championed by Beauchamp and Childress (respect for autonomy; doing no harm; helping; and being just), but the course will also include feminist, utilitarian, and other approaches. The second half of the course reviews current bioethical issues, including health care reform, human enhancement, abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, public health and healthcare rationing in a crisis, the concept of futility, reproductive bioethics, and several others. We will present the basic information on these topics and then discus them as a class, including a “mock ethics consult” on the topic at hand. 

This course is designed to approach the issue of art and its role in the commercial marketplace from a variety of perspectives. It is divided into two parts. Part I will retrace the origins of the various “players” in the modern art market setting (dealers, auction houses, collectors, museums, etc.) from seventeenth-century Holland to the end of WWII. Part II will investigate the structures and strategies of the contemporary art market. Issues will include marketing, psychology, economics, finance, ethics, and the social role of art in capitalist society. Guest lectures and visits to exhibitions will supplement and enrich class discussions. As capstone projects, students will curate a hypothetical exhibition on the subject of “Art & Money,” as well as write and present a research project.

This course will focus on reading and analysis of science-based theatrical plays and films. Plays will be the primary emphasis, such that the course content ratio for the two genres will be about 80% plays, 20% movies. Texts to be studied will be fictional and creative non-fictional narratives that have high scientific content, or underlying scientific content that is critical to the work. Classical science fiction will not be included. 

This course is an introduction to contemporary global cinema covering the films of internationally recognized filmmakers from a diverse range of countries. We will examine the aesthetic, cultural and political aspects of the films, their cinematic techniques and genres, their distinctive national cinemas and the composition of their film audiences. We will particularly focus on the different images of the body represented in contemporary global cinema. Main topics are gendered bodies, digital bodies, racialized bodies, body and trauma, religious bodies etc. The course’s theoretical framework includes readings by film critics. 

In this course, we'll write about films & make films about poems. We'll explore the realm of the image-makers where the pen becomes a camera and the camera a pen. A creative class for Louisiana's image-makers by Louisiana's image-makers. Examining the power of image-makers, the course reveals the tools of both poet and filmmaker. Students will learn by reading and watching, discussing and writing, and by doing. We will read poems and watch films in order to ground ourselves in the techniques unique to each medium. Through discussion and further inquiry and research we will identify the most effective means of integrating words and video to create original work. Throughout the semester, students will experiment with words and video images in order to understand both mediums more completely. Ultimately, students will create videopoems, a unique medium that integrates words and visual images.

Hand-springing across a grand, circus-worthy expanse of clown-centric disciplines—stand-up, performance arts, film, television, fiction, poetry, paintings, and theater—we will ultimately seek the answer to the question: Is the clown an integral part of the human condition? Beginning with a swift history of clown—and quickly dispelling all pejorative connotations that only recently have begun to cling to its polka-dot coat—we will survey the various ways that failure provides a universal springboard for the some of the most fruitful, dynamic artworks ever created. This honors class is designed for the material, cross-genre thinker who would like to learn erudite theories and concepts as they pertain to a whoopie cushion, squirting flower, or banana peel. We will study the gag as cultural artifact, the semiotics of clown makeup and costume, as well as investigate and analyze the manner in which clown is represented by famous and lesser-known works of literature, cinema, and pop culture.

Music-making, in its manifold forms, constitutes one of the most powerful and fascinating human activities. As such, it has the power to both heal and hurt. It also has the power to help process violence and the infliction of it. This course explores the connections between music (and sound) and violence. We will begin by understanding the effects of sound in and on the body and theorizing violence itself, before moving on to the study of how music can express, enact, explain, support, and resist different kinds of violence. We will consider historical perspectives, but case studies will be primarily drawn from popular music of the fifty years. Through engagement with course reading, listening, and viewing, students will learn to listen closely and critically, and to articulate how distinct sonic practices interface with the larger cultural issue of violence. Students will complete independent research as part of this course.

In this course, students will learn, practice, and analyze the transferable skills learned from improvising theatre, including gaining a broader understanding of Improvisation in theater history, modern culture, and the business world. By studying and applying the principles of spontaneous problem-solving, listening, and teamwork, students will gain a strong foundation in how this art form can improve one's work and social life. The various improv tools and step-by-step techniques will help students overcome self-consciousness while discovering how to analyze outcomes proactively and impersonally. Lessons will be experiential, and as the course continues, the complexity of the experiments will deepen. The student will read and compare renowned improv practitioners' and teachers' writings with the classwork. Improv is an exciting art form and a way to experience Theater and Performance without a script. Students will asked to research a specific theatrical genre (for example, Chekhovian, Magical Realism, Southern Gothic, or Brechtian ) and then analyze it. Assigned class teams will be asked to present their findings to the class in a presentation by incorporating this research into practical application through Performance.  

The works of composers and artists who employ systems of order in their creative practice offer insight into creative agency in interaction with (and within) the design of such systems. Such insights inform our understanding of interactive and networked systems more broadly defined and the affordances and limitations they offer and impose on participants. The design and use of automated systems in creative application complicates notions of agency for composer, performer, participants, and audience members. Through a review of works and writings, this course will explore these topics.

This course explores music in society and its cultural relevance, and is designed to increase the students’ appreciation of music as well as enhance their listening skills. We will use classical music as a starting point for developing listening skills by examining Western classical art music of the Medieval Period to the 21st century. Students are introduced to various periods, styles, and composers of music from various cultures and times. By placing individual pieces, techniques, and composers into context, we can observe how individuals innovate or disrupt the norm to create lasting change. There are many different kinds of music, and all music has value. You’ll have several opportunities to apply your new knowledge and analysis skills to your favorite kinds of music. This course will also provide an introduction to the fundamentals of music and musical notation. 

In the Music Composition for Non-Majors course, students will explore methods for crafting musical works, utilizing composition to learn the fundamentals of music. This process follows a "discover, drill, create" technique, where students uncover musical concepts with guidance from the teacher, practice through improvisational exercises using those concepts, and finally, compose original pieces employing these newfound skills. There will also be study of important historical pieces in many genres. You will write a paper and do a presentation on one of these pieces. Each class will commence with a listening and discussion session centered around significant classical or art music pieces, incorporating the study and critique of compositions from both historical and contemporary periods. In addition to weekly composing assignments, students will undertake a "final composition project" and be required to write a paper and deliver a presentation on a historically significant piece of "art music.” Upon completing the Creative Music Composition course, students will gain enhanced knowledge and skills in music composition, a deeper understanding of music history, and proficiency in collaboration, presentation, critical thinking, & discussion.

This is a broad introductory course in the current research into the biological underpinnings and evolutionary origins of morality. The course is interdisciplinary, combining psychology, biology, neuroscience, and philosophy; it is both an introduction to cutting-edge research and a chance to revisit perennial questions. Since humanities, social science, and STEM work is increasingly done in teams, students will be assigned to groups after 2 weeks and encouraged to submit group-produced work.

This is a seminar designed to explore some of these complex issues concerning food in East Asia, especially in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.  The seminar takes an interdisciplinary approach by engaging studies and ideas from sociology, anthropology, history, Asian studies, film studies, art history, and of course food studies.  We will read and discuss readings concerning the ritual use of food and food implements, the use of food as medicine, the impact of European and Asian colonialism, racial and class stereotypes associated with food, etc.  We will explore representation of different food and cuisines through movies, TV, and Youtube series like Bizarre Food with Andrew Zimmern, Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, Sonny Side’s Best Ever Food Review Show, Tampopo, and Spirited Away.  Students will have a chance to find and analyze a popular cooking series on Youtube from Asia (e.g. Liziqi, Dianxi Xiaoge, Indian Village Cooking, etc.), focusing on the intersection of nostalgic longing for a simple rural past and a rapidly urbanizing modernity.

This is a broad introductory course in the current research into the biological underpinnings and evolutionary origins of morality. The course is interdisciplinary, combining psychology, biology, neuroscience, and philosophy; it is both an introduction to cutting-edge research and a chance to revisit perennial questions. Since humanities, social science, and STEM work is increasingly done in teams, students will be assigned to groups after 2 weeks and encouraged to submit group-produced work. 

This course will examine German historical and cultural roots in the state of Louisiana from the 18th Century to present day. We will concentrate on the early arrival of German settlers, the historically German geographic areas of Louisiana, the influence of German customs on Louisiana culture, shared traditions between both Louisiana and Germany, and analyze the current state of the German presence in Louisiana. Texts will include films and fiction, as well as historical and theoretical literature by European and American scholars. Course taught in English. No knowledge of German required. 

In this class, we will examine the pursuit of holiness in early and medieval Christianity by exploring three themes - martyrdom, monasticism and mysticism. How did ideas about the pursuit of holiness change as Christianity transformed from a marginal, persecuted religion to a powerful one? What do we learn about a religious tradition by understanding what practitioners held up as exemplary behavior? How did ideas about gender influence the practice and experience of devotion in early and medieval Christianity? What factors determined whether individuals received praise or blame for their efforts to pursue holiness as they understood it? We will look at how these practices and the beliefs behind them developed in ancient and medieval Christianity, keeping in mind the social context in which they emerged.

We will read August Wilson’s Century Cycle, a ten-play epic representing the African-American experience during the twentieth century, considered by many critics to be one of the crowing achievements of the American Theater. Also known as the Pittsburgh Cycle because most of the plays are set in the Hill District of Pittsburgh where Wilson grew up, the Century Cycle connects Hill District experiences to larger narratives of African-American history, such as slavery, the Great Migration, the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights era, Black Power, and mass incarceration. Wilson’s plays attempt to document previously marginalized voices and histories; as he put it in an interview: "My plays are talky; I say shut up and listen. They are about black men talking, and in American society you don't too often have that….”  Wilson asks us to “bear witness,” so our job will be to listen to Wilson’s characters and discover what they have to tell us.

This course is designed to develop and improve students’ scholarly reading, writing, presentational, and research skills. In this seminar students will conduct research in multiple ethnic heritage and racial identities depending on their interests. Students will explore the cultural practices and social experiences that have given shape to the identity of the other person in our country. Integrated learning allows students to make simple connections among ideas and experiences and across disciplines and perspectives. The LSU Integrative Learning Core (ILC) curriculum is designed to develop student abilities to transfer their learning to new situations and demonstrate a sense of self as a learner. A fundamental goal of the ILC is to foster students’ practical and intellectual capacities associated with integrative learning in preparation for high competence and functionality in their post-baccalaureate careers. This course fulfills the BOR Area of humanities and provides students experience with the ILC proficiencies of inquiry and analysis and written communication.

What is the history of Latinos? Where do they come from why are so many here? Why is it the largest minority group in America? What is the evolution of Latin American identity from the 1500s to the present? What is the influence of the Latino population in Louisiana? Fostering an interdisciplinary and hemispheric approach to Latino/a Studies, this course will provide students with a critical overview of some of the central themes and issues that have shaped the experiences of Latino/a populations in the U.S. As a starting point for this seminar, we will use interviews of about one hundred people involved in politics, business, and pop culture and those who have lived through crucial moments in American history. We will study events from then and now to make comparisons and contrast between the intersections of these cultures.

This class is the first in a four semester sequence involved in completing an honor’s thesis in psychology.  This class will introduce you to the research process and culture.  Research is a complex, building process, and requires a grasp of the empirical principles and methods of psychology.  Critical thinking is a must to be a competent researcher; therefore, this ability will be developed and exercised in this course by reading and systematically critiquing a series of research articles.  We will also learn and practice the format for communicating scientific work.  Doing science is a lot of fun, but it only benefits the scientific community if you are able to effectively tell them about what you have found.  Another function of this course is to introduce you to the breadth of psychological research, and to enable you to find a mentor for your honor’s thesis. We will get hands-on experience with the research process by devising, carrying out and analyzing a small experimental project as a class. As part of this project, you will do an oral conference style presentation of a study relevant to the project.   After this group effort, we will move to individual project proposals.  Each student will design and write up an experimentally based research proposal in an area of their own interest.  The first draft of this will be critiqued and graded; this feedback will serve as a guideline for the final draft.  You will emerge from this class with a good understanding of the entire research process, and with the research and communication skills you need to start on your honor’s thesis. 

The rapid pace of new technology development over the past half century, has led to wide-spread changes in human activity and the institutions that surround them. Indeed, there is little question regarding how life has been dramatically altered through the assimilation of digital technologies. This alteration is manifest in visible and not so visible ways. It has produced subtle and not so subtle changes surrounding social values and norms, social structures and institutions, as well as the very character of human relationships. Such fundamental social and societal change gives rise to a myriad of ethical issues and challenges. This course examines these ethical issues by attempting to understand how digital technologies in its many forms, affects social relationships, institutional arrangements, ideological beliefs, human behavior, and in particular social values and norms. HNRS 3025 is an interdisciplinary course that will explore how digital technologies shape and are shaped by society and individuals’ beliefs and values. It will also consider how ethical issues have or have not been considered when designing and implementing digital technology at the individual, group and societal levels. Essentially, the course’s purpose is to allow students to develop a richer and deeper understanding of the social, ethical, and policy issues associated with society’s inextricable linkage to and use of digital technologies. The course will primarily focus on technologies and issues such as big data, artificial intelligence, privacy and surveillance, intellectual property, social media, cybersecurity, professional ethics and responsibilities, work arrangements, and the digital divide.

This course is intended for not only science and engineering majors who plan to take leadership positions, but also to all students who plan to use any form of scientific research in their future profession, including law, medicine and government. We will provide insight in the organization of experiments through hands-on workshops on present and newly proposed tools, instruments and methods of data analysis. These workshops are prepared for all audiences, even when we introduce new atto-mechanics and AI or AGI concepts. We will focus on novel approaches to scientific methods and large-scale data and knowledge integration and evaluation techniques. We will discuss related scientific report format for visual, oral and written communications and presentations to different audiences. Throughout the course, students will develop a research proposal of their own professional interest and based on their new learning experience. Students will identify limits of science and technology capabilities in their profession and will learn how to deal with obstacles when trying to overcome those limits. Not only attendance to all classes, but also contribution to all activities is mandatory for successful completion of this class. Attendance at seminars will help students critically assess their previous information, assumptions and information sources about science and related concepts.