Given the unprecedented conditions of the Spring 2020 semester, the Honors College recognizes many students have lost summer opportunities and are working to develop a summer plan that allows them to continue moving forward with their studies. The Honors College is here to help by offering a new variety of online summer courses! Students this summer will have the unique opportunity to take the same high-quality Honors courses they are used to, but from the convenience and safety of their homes. Contact your Honors advisor to register for Honors courses.
This course examines the rise and development of European civilization from its Mediterranean origins through the Renaissance and Reformation. Note: Carolina Core GHS – non U.S. History, Honors HistCiv requirement
This course examines several traditional sub-Saharan African societies and their political and economic transformation in the modern, colonial, and post-independence periods. Note: Carolina Core GHS – non U.S. History, Honors HistCiv requirement
Course considers the historical development of science and technology globally since the Urban Revolution. All four developments, (hierarchical authority, writing, agriculture, and material culture), which will be themes in this course, underlay the development of knowledge that allowed much broader and deeper uses of nature, which is the foundation of science. The things they made were technologies. The course is designed for students with a particular interest in science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics, though students need not be majors in these disciplines. Note: Carolina Core GHS (non U.S. History)/VSR, Honors HistCiv requirement
Following current news and other sources to understand this fast-changing pandemic and seismic cultural shift, we will identify people with stories to share. Exploring best practices for conducting, transcribing, preserving and giving access to oral history interviews, we will then conduct our own interviews using remote interviewing techniques to avoid face-to-face interactions. Reflection assignments, and a final project placing the interview in the context of the global crises will conclude the class. Class time will be split between online instruction and research/service and related activities. Note: Carolina Core GHS, Honors HistoryCiv, Humanities, Service Learning, Beyond the Classroom
A service course that provides students with an understanding and appreciation of the complex interactions of food with an emphasis on the United States. The course will address the three pillars of sustainability (people, profit, and place) and how these three impact the past, present, and future of food production. This course will have synchronous and asynchronous requirements, so students should be prepared to attend class at class time via the instructor’s preferred video conferencing platform (Microsoft Teams) and complete work on their own or in groups. Students will have the opportunity to complete service projects (from home) for the Gamecock Pantry as part of the course’s Beyond the Classroom theme. Note: Carolina Core VSR, Honors Service Learning, Social Behavioral Science, Beyond the Classroom
Podcasting is one of the most rapidly growing communication platforms in America today. This online course is designed to teach you the fundamentals of audio storytelling, from story conception and field gathering skills to writing for the ear and basic non-linear audio production. You will learn to distinguish the ways in which audio stories differ from those in print (or text), hone your writing skills for this platform, and produce stories and interview segments designed specifically for the listening audience. Class sessions will mostly be held synchronously, meaning students must be able to “attend” class through the instructor’s selected platform and participate in lectures and workshops during class time. This summer semester's topic will focus on gathering stories of COVID-19’s impact on communities and will include a service learning component. The service work for this course will require students to interview subjects remotely and will not require any direct contact with persons or communities affected by COVID-19. Note: Honors Service Learning, Beyond the Classroom
This course takes a social science perspective of women in psychological, sociological, historical, anthropological, economic, and political contexts in order to study their changing roles, images, and institutions. The course includes a required service learning component (completed from home) where students work with local non-profit organizations addressing a variety of the issues discussed in the course. Note: Carolina Core GSS, VSR, Honors Social Behavioral Science, Service Learning, Beyond the Classroom
This course provides an overview of the relationship between race relations and American Culture in 19th and 20th Century America. As “culture” remains one of the most complex and contested terms, the course will probe various meanings of the word, while questioning how historians have developed many, often competing, definitions of American culture. From early blackface minstrelsy to contemporary Hip-Hop, race has been a central component in the evolution of American popular culture, and the course will explore racial meaning in various contexts. Along with considering categories of whiteness and blackness, there will be a strong emphasis will be placed on gender, and the ways that popular culture shapes larger concepts of masculinity and femininity, as well as non-binary constructs. With attention to the ways in which both culture influences and is affected by racial ideologies and practices, the course will address such questions as: How has the concept of leisure changed? How has imagery changed over the course of the 20th Century? How has technology shaped the meaning of politics, war, and social movements? Although the course maintains a chronological structure, it will also feature consistent themes which students are encouraged to consider across decades. Students will submit weekly responses to readings, and films, participate in virtual discussion forums, and complete three longer essays in response to course themes. Note: Carolina Core GHS – U.S. History, Honors HistCiv requirement
This course will count as a non-US History. This seminar examines the ways history is presented in video games, a rapidly-growing and content-rich form of mass media that has so far only been seldom discussed in academic settings. By pairing selected games and pieces of written historical scholarship, students will assess the strengths and weaknesses of these games’ presentations of historical developments. Students will identify the assumptions inherent in the game-makers’ portrayals of history, and will also consider important new questions and perspectives computer games bring to the study of history. Students will be evaluated on the basis of: 1) participation in discussion; and 2) completion of three 5-page writing assignments comparing assigned games to assigned readings. Note: Carolina Core GHS – Non U.S. History, Honors HistCiv requirement