HON-H 399 Colloquium Courses

What is an Honors Colloquium Course?

An Honors Colloquium is an HON-H 399 seminar course. Typically, it is led by different instructors in different semesters and the topic changes from semester to semester. To complete the Honors Program each student must complete two HON-H 399 Colloquium courses.

Upcoming Colloquium

HON-H399 Social Dimensions of Climate Change (13283)

6 week, Online, Summer Session II, 7/7- 8/13
Summer 2025 (Online)
Dr. Nick Baxter, Assistant Professor of Sociology

This class will evaluate the social causes, consequences, and responses to climate change. The course relies on a social science approach (sociology, anthropology, and psychology) to analyze climate change as an environmental social problem. Students will examine the role of individual behavior, culture, and social structures like capitalism in driving climate change. They will evaluate the social consequences of climate change, including patterns of concern/anxiety, privilege/inequality, geographic impacts, migration, etc. They will also analyze social responses to climate change, including environmental activism and social justice patterns, climate denial, misinformation/disinformation, policy solutions, and attempts at green capitalism.

HON-H399 Diseases, Epidemics, and the Environment (31045)

Fall 2025
In-Person, T TH 10 to 11:15 A.M.
Christian Chauret, Professor of Biology

The class will focus on the impact of the changing environment (such as climate change) on infectious diseases in humans, animals, and plants. Students will be introduced to notions of scientific inquiry, epidemiology, and infectious diseases. We will analyze how infectious diseases emerge and the factors associated with epidemics. Students will read relevant books on these topics, analyze them, and discuss them. Individual and group projects will be included to study the topics further.

Possible books (final list TBD):

  • The ghost map. The story of London’s most terrifying epidemic – and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world. 2006. Steven Johnson.
  • Fevered Planet: How Diseases Emerge When We Harm Nature. 2023. John Vidal.
  • Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History. 2021. Kyle Harper.

Five Gold Rings: Why Are We Afraid to Sing?

Fall 2022 (Tuesday/Thursday 2-3:45 p.m.)
Wendy Grice

Why is singing no longer participatory? Until recent decades, people sang at work, at family gatherings, in church, and just for fun. Ask yourself, when was the last time you sang outside of your car or in the shower? We will discuss singing in Eastern versus Western cultures, the gender factor, social anxiety, and how singing impacts us emotionally, spiritually, and physically. We will also touch on the benefits of singing to stroke and Alzheimer's patients. Let's talk!

We've Created a Monster!

Fall 2022 (Tuesday/Thursday 10-11:15 a.m.)
Dr. Jim Coby

Monsters: they haunt our thoughts, patrol the periphery of our imaginations, and keep us awake at night. And yet...

Be they cryptids, vampires, zombies, or aliens, we find ourselves compelled by and drawn to monsters and the monstrous. In this HON 399 seminar, we will investigate our love/repulsion dilemma with monsters through readings of several critical texts exploring concepts such as monstrosity, the uncanny valley, abjection, and othering. To help reify these theoretical ideas, we will engage with several popular pieces of film and literature. Authors who will likely populate the syllabus include Jefferey Jerome Cohen, Sigmund Freud, Octavia Butler, Carmen Maria Machado, Jordan Peele, Stephen King, and a host of other nightmare instigators. Enroll...if you dare.

Fostering a Brighter Future

Spring 2023 (Monday/Wednesday 11:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m.)
Deb Jaworski

In this seminar, we will investigate current issues impacting foster care in the United States. Students will discuss readings, explore regulations, analyze statistics, perform cost analysis, and consider issues such as racial bias in the system. Students will engage in service learning, conduct interviews, select an area of focus, and develop a proposal. At the end of the seminar, students will present their proposals on how we can create a brighter future for students who have been in foster care.

I Don't Know what to Believe!: A Sociology of Moral Panics

Spring 2023 (Online)
Stephanie Medley-Rath

Historical moral panics include the Salem witch trials among Puritans, the satanic panics of the 1980s, the Red scare during the Cold War, the war on drugs, among others. More recent moral panics include misplaced or disproportional concern about trans rights, the war on Christmas, human trafficking, crime surges, and cancel culture. Moral panics involve disproportionate media coverage and social media attention of a phenomenon thought to threaten societal values. Claims of harm and the size of the problem are typically exaggerated. Further, more legitimate threats may be minimized resulting in a moral calm, or lack of concern for other phenomena (e.g., viewing Covid-19 vaccines for children as unnecessary or lack of concern around the climate crisis).

This course will focus on a variety of moral panics and moral calms and sociological approaches to studying them. Urban legends and conspiracy theories may also be explored. Students will research a moral panic or calm, urban legends, or a conspiracy theory of interest and use data to make the case that society should be more or less concerned about the phenomena, whether societal concern or lack of concern is misplaced, or both. Students are expected to present their research at the IU Kokomo Research Symposium.