Spring 2017 HNRS Courses

The sky is part of our environment. This course will investigate the many ways at which ordinary people as well as famous characters interact with the sky, from ancient times, and even a little into the future. This is not your usual history-of-science class giving the linear development to modern... Read More...

During the 20th Century the British fought two world wars, lost an empire, and developed a welfare state. From Winston Churchill to Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair, their Prime Ministers have played a prominent role in world affairs.

The British Invasion of the 1960s brought the Beatles, the Rolling Stones,... Read More...

This seminar is intended to introduce able students to selected major events in the history of Nazi Germany, 1933-1945, as well as the Holocaust—the eradication of European Jewry. Students will be introduced to a variety of styles of historical explanation— memoirs, polemics, novels, and works of analysis by professional historians.... Read More...

Throughout the semester we will examine the Italian American experience by analyzing historical, cultural, literary and cinematic representations. Our analysis will provide an overview of Italian emigration to America in the 19th and 20th centuries (with specific references to Italians in Louisiana) and the conditions within the United States as... Read More...

This course is the gateway course for the LASAL Scholars Program. At its conclusion, students should have a basic understanding of the root causes of poverty in Louisiana; a basic understanding of the daily challenges that Louisiana children and families face who live in poverty; and a basic understanding of... Read More...

This course will examine the lives, actions, and phi-losophies of three of the greatest leaders of the 20th century – Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mohandas Gandhi. Each of these men led social movements of the masses within their own countries, seeking redress for injustices imposed upon them... Read More...

We will investigate the determintive role of character in the strategy of 20th Century U.S. corporations. What does character account for? Are the strategies of 20th Century U.S. corporations characteristically American?

Under what political conditions did feminism emerge in Muslim societies? What are the issues involved in feminist debates on Islam today? Are there ways in which we can accommodate practice of religion and cultural diversity with equal opportunity and freedom for both men and women? This course will allow students... Read More...

Enjoy the many varieties of murder—political, personal, serial—in a dozen of the greatest films by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, “the Shakespeare of cinema,” and the undisputed Master of Suspense. We will do close readings of such masterpieces as The 39 Steps, Rear Window, North by Northwest, and Psycho, and we’ll see... Read More...

This class will give students an opportunity to explore in-depth the life and work of Pablo Picasso, arguably the most important visual artist of the twentieth century. We will study Picasso in the broader framework of the evolution of modern art, and relate key events in his artistic career to... Read More...

Virginia Woolf Willa Cather George Bernard Shaw T.S. Eliot Igor Stravinsky Rupert Brooke Wilfred Owen...

Creative artists respond to the Great War.

Through lectures, readings, and discussion, this course will explore how contrasting and contested memories of the Civil War emerged—among whites in the North, whites in the South, and African Americans. It will then explore manifestations of those memories in various novels and movies as well as in movements and public... Read More...

What do we treasure and what do we trash? What do we try to remember and what do we want to forget? Ideas and questions about the transient and the durable form the basis of our value system and our sense of identity. “Archive” and “Dump,” as categories, structure our... Read More...

Throughout the semester, we will read widely of the history of slavery in the United States, the internal slave trade, and historical memory. A special focus will be the Louisiana descendants of a group of slaves sold by Georgetown University in 1838. The course will consist of common readings and... Read More...

Students will study the entirety of Dante’s Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise), a work of great scope that aims to provide a complete picture of the reality of the cosmos and of human virtues and vices. One of the great masterpieces of world literature, Dante’s poem is a compendium of... Read More...

Who were Homer, Achilles, Thucydides, Plato, Virgil, Aeneas, Cicero, and Dante? Have you heard their names and always wanted to know more about them? Take this class!

Who is the better hero, Achilles or Aeneas, and why should we care? Why did Medea kill her children? Why did Socrates drink... Read More...

Course objectives: 3D imaging and animation is a dynamic, multidisciplinary field with applications in basic and applied sciences. This course is an excellent preparation for pre-professional students planning to enter the health sciences professions (e.g., medical and veterinary schools, biomedical engineering, medical physics, etc. The course will combine lectures and... Read More...