Core Honors Courses Spring 2027

In Honors, we talk about cross-disciplinary curiosity, holistic journeys, and being more than your major. This course will use experiential learning, discussion, and reflection to help you discover how your curricular, extra-curricular, co-curricular, and otherwise non-school-related activities contribute to your future careers and civic lives. All undergraduate levels are welcome.

We will meet all together twice per week during Weeks 1-5 and 13-15 of the semester. Outside of class, you will be required to attend various events of your choice and pursue opportunities both on and off campus. In class, you will discuss your experiences with fellow students and use reflective writing to learn from those experiences. By the end of the course, you will be better able to make connections across various learning platforms both in and outside the classroom.

The Mind’s Illumination: Liberal Education and Long-Form Artworks and Argument
Liberal education (the arts and sciences) is a long tradition of integral formation. St. John Henry Cardinal Newman claimed that its primary orientation is toward “enlargement” or “illumination” of the mind through rigorous and communal intellectual discipline. Along with all the various reasons we humans have resisted such discipline down the ages, the proliferation of digital and short-form media over the last several decades has added new pressures. And yet to be savvy appreciators of artworks, consumers of media, astute thinkers in all disciplines, and self-possessed and responsible citizens of the world, we need the ability to see ever more clearly the variety of aspects, levels, and perspectives involved in the structures and problems we face as individuals and as social groups. In order to pursue this “illumination” or “enlargement” of mind, in this class we will train ourselves for sustained immersion in and discernment of complexity and association thru engagement with long-form artworks and arguments. We will begin with humanity’s first long-form genre, epic poetry, and proceed into other art forms and other disciplinary arguments. Ultimately, our goal will be to assess how the ways of thinking and knowing that we develop relate to the kinds of humans we want to be and who have to make a dwelling place in the world.

The Mind’s Illumination: Liberal Education and Long-Form Artworks and Argument
Liberal education (the arts and sciences) is a long tradition of integral formation. St. John Henry Cardinal Newman claimed that its primary orientation is toward “enlargement” or “illumination” of the mind through rigorous and communal intellectual discipline. Along with all the various reasons we humans have resisted such discipline down the ages, the proliferation of digital and short-form media over the last several decades has added new pressures. And yet to be savvy appreciators of artworks, consumers of media, astute thinkers in all disciplines, and self-possessed and responsible citizens of the world, we need the ability to see ever more clearly the variety of aspects, levels, and perspectives involved in the structures and problems we face as individuals and as social groups. In order to pursue this “illumination” or “enlargement” of mind, in this class we will train ourselves for sustained immersion in and discernment of complexity and association thru engagement with long-form artworks and arguments. We will begin with humanity’s first long-form genre, epic poetry, and proceed into other art forms and other disciplinary arguments. Ultimately, our goal will be to assess how the ways of thinking and knowing that we develop relate to the kinds of humans we want to be and who have to make a dwelling place in the world.

Culture and Narrative: The Power of Stories
Using a rhetorical approach, we will examine how writers and composers communicate to achieve different purposes and to connect with different audiences across various physical and digital spaces. We will look at writing and composing choices in personal narratives, social media, academic writing, and public discourse, aiming to understand how specific stories affirm, trouble, or counter larger dominant narratives. As our focus, we’ll examine how writers and composers create, engage with, and share stories, such as personal, familial, cultural, civic, environmental stories. We’ll learn about and apply theories about narrative and storytelling, as these approaches will help us explore the role stories have(personally, interpersonally, and within and across various communities), as well as the power they can wield. Throughout the course, we will complete narrative and analytical writing in different genres and explore how creative, multimodal approaches can support can enhance writing.

Culture and Narrative: The Power of Stories
Using a rhetorical approach, we will examine how writers and composers communicate to achieve different purposes and to connect with different audiences across various physical and digital spaces. We will look at writing and composing choices in personal narratives, social media, academic writing, and public discourse, aiming to understand how specific stories affirm, trouble, or counter larger dominant narratives. As our focus, we’ll examine how writers and composers create, engage with, and share stories, such as personal, familial, cultural, civic, environmental stories. We’ll learn about and apply theories about narrative and storytelling, as these approaches will help us explore the role stories have(personally, interpersonally, and within and across various communities), as well as the power they can wield. Throughout the course, we will complete narrative and analytical writing in different genres and explore how creative, multimodal approaches can support can enhance writing.

Finding Hope in Dystopic Times
Stories about the walking dead, climatic apocalypses, and world-ending disasters are in no way new. Yet they continue to saturate films, novels, and other media today. Our society seeks out stories of apocalyptic environments and dystopic futures – why? Perhaps, it is in such stories that moments of hope for humanity are found.

In this rhetoric-based course, we will explore both fictional dystopias and real-world dystopic environments in pursuit of moments of hope, care, and action. We will investigate how writing and multimodal communication support rhetorical action amidst dystopic conditions. Students will work collaboratively to unpack complicated issues as they seek to learn from diverse perspectives. This course is set up for students to dig into what popular culture, alongside traditional scholarship, can teach them about effective and meaningful communication and listening practices in the classroom, in their communities, and in the digital public spaces they inhabit in our increasingly socioecological, dystopic world.

Finding Hope in Dystopic Times
Stories about the walking dead, climatic apocalypses, and world-ending disasters are in no way new. Yet they continue to saturate films, novels, and other media today. Our society seeks out stories of apocalyptic environments and dystopic futures – why? Perhaps, it is in such stories that moments of hope for humanity are found.

In this rhetoric-based course, we will explore both fictional dystopias and real-world dystopic environments in pursuit of moments of hope, care, and action. We will investigate how writing and multimodal communication support rhetorical action amidst dystopic conditions. Students will work collaboratively to unpack complicated issues as they seek to learn from diverse perspectives. This course is set up for students to dig into what popular culture, alongside traditional scholarship, can teach them about effective and meaningful communication and listening practices in the classroom, in their communities, and in the digital public spaces they inhabit in our increasingly socioecological, dystopic world.

TBA

Indigenous Milwaukee
In this class, we will explore the Indigenous peoples, cultures, and communities of Wisconsin and the city of Milwaukee from the pre-Columbian era to the present day. In particular, we will consider the collective experience of Wisconsin’s Native Peoples – “Indians” – while also appreciating the complexities that made, and continue to make, each Indigenous peoples and culture distinct from one another. This class will also focus on the themes of colonization and decolonization, settler colonialism, cultural inclusivity, violence and intimacy, removal and “survivance,” assimilation and allotment, along with sovereignty and self-determination. This class will also grapple with contemporary issues related to Native mascots, treaties, casinos, cultural representation, and more. In addition, this course is an experiential class, meaning that we will engage with the Indigenous peoples and communities of Wisconsin and Milwaukee throughout the course of the semester.

Reckoning with History in Milwaukee
This class is about Milwaukeeans reckoning with their past. We will explore what it means to reckon with the past, especially in urban contexts, and what happens when we ignore history. You will learn about local historical developments including efforts at Indigenous removal, antislavery activism, a Civil War-era lynching, early physical education, the Great Migration, industrialization, highway construction, and Civil Rights activism. You will also learn inspiring stories of how Milwaukeeans have reckoned—and are reckoning—with the past through art, fiction, protest, commemoration, community organizing, and urban planning. Class trips and outside visitors will give you a new appreciation of the city in which we live. 

Engaging the City of Milwaukee: Philosophy, Space, and Place 
We will explore the themes of community, historical memory, oppression, accessibility, and city design in relation to Milwaukee. Our class will be organized around a mix of theory and experiential events, including required movement around the city of Milwaukee. The class will ask questions such as: “How do certain spaces support certain forms of life?” “How does the history of Milwaukee impact contemporary forms of racism, sexism, and other isms?” “What makes Milwaukee a unique city?” “How does art and the expression of art in our urban landscape impact living the good life?” “What does it mean to live an examined life?” This class will encourage students to experience the city on their own and with the class as a whole. Students will be expected to retain a bus pass or find a way to visit spaces throughout Milwaukee. This course is a great option for students who are enthusiastic about Milwaukee or want to learn about the city in person.

901 LEC M 12-12:50pm Michael Hennessey 
941 Lab M 2-4:50pm Michael Hennessey
942 Lab M 2-4:50pm Michael Hennessey
943 Lab T 9:30-12:20pm Michael Hennessey
944 Lab T 9:30-12:20pm Michael Hennessey

901 LEC MF 9-10:15am
Adam Fiedler

941 Lab W 9-11:50am
Vijay Vyas      

*For Chem 1014H, a permission number is required, please use this form to request.

901 TTh 12:30-1:45pm
A. Jay Wagner

902 TTh 2-3:15pm
A. Jay Wagner

Draws on books, films, television shows and other elements of popular culture to consider the historical and conceptual foundations of new media technologies and their impact on contemporary culture.

TTh 9:30-10:45am
Ethan Schmick

Institutions and processes of market specialization and exchange. Supply and demand and their determinants. Pricing and production decisions of the firm under varying competitive conditions. The role of government in a modern mixed economy. Microeconomic analysis applied to selected economic problems.

Racine Correctional Institution (RCI)

PHIL 3770 Feminist Philosophy
Thur 5:30-8:00pm
Theresa Tobin

EDUC 4200/5200 Restorative Justice in Education
Mon 9-11:30am
Gabe Velez

SOWJ 3170/CRLS 3170  The Invisible Sentence
Tues 5:30-8pm
Wendy Volz Daniels

Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center (REECC)

CRLS 3150 Reentry and Life After Incarceration
Wed 5:30-8:00pm
Darren Wheelock

Racine Youthful Offender Correctional Facility (RYOCF)

HIST 4135/5135 African American History
Tues 5-7:30pm
Rob Smith

**EPP courses require an application and the deadline to apply is Dec. 1, 2026. Use this application link to apply.

**These courses are not officially Honors sections, but Honors student who enroll will receive Honors elective credit.

TTh 12:30-1:45pm
Liza Strakhov 

Discover the origin of the very discipline we now call “English,” in its emphasis on “close reading” and “critical thinking,” in the medieval habits of reading the Bible allegorically for figurative meaning. Then as now, medieval bookworms sought to uncover the hidden truths that lay just below its surface. In the process, they read, absorbed and in turn produced their own allegorical texts, in which they clothed alien concepts in layers of symbolism and myth. Prerequisite: ENGL 1001 or HOPR 1955H.  

This is not officially an Honors section, but Honors student who enroll will receive Honors elective credit.

** This course requires a permission number to enroll and spots are limited, so please use this form to request a permission number.

TTh 11-12:15pm
Leah Flack 

What should literature be and do in an era of war, revolution and cataclysmic cultural change? Modernist literature emerged across Europe and North America in the early twentieth century in response to this question. Old ideas and forms suddenly seemed ill-equipped to respond to the twentieth century, which led modernist artists to rebel against convention. Writers such as Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, H.D., W.B. Yeats and Gertrude Stein worked across languages, national traditions and genres to reinvent the literary past and change contemporary history. In the process, they created some of the most astonishing, daring and rewarding poems, novels and plays of the twentieth century.
Prerequisite: ENGL 1001 or HOPR 1955H.  

This is not officially an Honors section, but Honors student who enroll will receive Honors elective credit.

** This course requires a permission number to enroll and spots are limited, so please use this form to request a permission number.

T 9:30am-12:15pm
Theresa Schnable, Nursing

HEAL 1025H does not require a permission number. If you have trouble enrolling, please contact the Nursing department.

Th 11-12:15 pm
Amy Newman, Nursing

*This is a hybrid course, including both in-person and online components. The first week will be in-person. Further details pertaining to meeting dates and delivery methods will be provided in the course syllabus at the start of the semester.

HEAL 4901H does not require a permission number. If you have trouble enrolling, please contact the Nursing department.

MWF 9-9:50am
Alan Ball

The origins, nature and consequences of the Cold War, with emphasis on the 1945-1970 period. Topics include the continuing effects of the Cold War, prospects for new international rivalries and the domestic consequences of the Cold War.

*This course will be open for registration, no permission number required. This is not officially an Honors section, but Honors student who enroll will receive Honors elective credit.

TTh 11-12:15pm
Kris McLain, Honors 

The Ancients, they’re just like us! This course asks why we tend to think of figures of antiquity as radically different than ourselves. Sure, they didn’t have social media, but they definitely liked to talk. This course takes a humanistic approach to the ancient world through the study of (mostly) Greek philosophy and adjacent disciplines to explore the deeply human negotiations of frustration, truth, annoyance, secrecy, rebellion, and respectability wrought by figures of antiquity. How was power, justice, right and wrong, and care crafted via conversations held in the agora (public square) and the oikos (private home-space)? This course encounters the ancients as people with lives, interests, and convictions (often not so different than our own!) that were tried and tested in community. This course is for advanced undergraduates who want to push their ability to think critically, develop a robust understanding of practices of communication and argumentation, and learn how thinking is manifest in community with others.

MWF 2-2:50pm
Richard Arndt, Political Science

One of the more remarkable things about human beings is that we have the ability to collaborate with others in ways that allow our communities not only to survive, but to thrive. Have you ever wondered why some societies work and some fall apart? Political philosophy is, in part, the study of political communities and the human beings who make them up with a view to finding out what works, what doesn't work, and why. Instead of hearing from political philosophers, this course considers what can be learned about such matters from reading books that many students have found interesting. This course would be a good fit for any student, regardless of major, who likes to read good books and talk about them.

MATH 1700H 901 LEC TTh 8-9:15am Carl Mueller, 3 cr

PSYC 1700H 901 Lab W 9-9:50am Debra Oswald, 1 cr

PSYC 1700H 902 Lab W 10-10:50am Debra Oswald, 1 cr

The PSYC 1700H lab is required to earn Honors credit for the course. It is not intended only for PSYC majors.

Wed, Sun 5-7 pm
Andrew Mountin

^please note MUSI 1120H is 1 credit. 

M 5-6:50pm
Debra Duff

^please note MUSI 1160H is 1 credit. 

901 MWF 12-12:50pm
Emily Lange

902 MWF 1-1:50pm
Emily Lange

903 TTh 9:30-10:45am
Javier Ibanez-Noe

904 TTh 11-12:15pm
Javier Ibanez-Noe

905 TTh 12:30-1:45pm
Paul-Herve Quesnel

906 TTh 2-3:15pm
Paul-Herve Quesnel   

907 MW 2-3:15pm
Kris McLain

901 LEC MWF 10-10:50am Bill Hirsch   

902 LEC MWF 11-11:50am Bill Hirsch

903 LEC MWF 12-12:50pm Chris Stockdale

942 Lab W 3-4:50pm Mike Nichols

961 Disc M 6-8pm, T 5-5:50pm Mike Nichols

901 MWF 1-2:50pm
Andrew Kunz

TTh 9:30-10:45am
Noelle Brigden

Patterns of interaction among nations and subnational and supranational entities. Cooperation and conflict. National interest, elements of power and war. Morality and human rights issues; economic, environmental, and resource issues in world politics. Recent developments and their impact.

MWF 12-12:50pm
Richard Arndt

Explores the difference between justice and power with special reference to the authority of a higher law or principle of right; selections from the works of Thucydides, Plato, Machiavelli and others are read.

TTh 11-12:15pm
John Steichen

Origins and varieties of contemporary atheism. The existence of God and Christian theistic interpretations. Prerequisite: THEO 1001/THEO 1001H.