HON104 Honors Seminar: Visions of Utopia

This interdisciplinary course will introduce honors students to a single broad topic that will be studied from a variety of perspectives. Emphasis will be placed on integration of material, critical thinking, cooperative learning, and independent research.. Students enrolled in this course must have a GPS of 3.3 or higher. Fall13 - Students will use their imagination in visualizing and critiquing utopian models that have been proposed in philosophy, political science, literature, and film. Negative utopias, or dystopias, will also be considered. The issue of human nature, which involves both political philosophy and psychology, will constitute a key focus. Relevance to contemporary American society, including the recent Occupy movement, will be an important aspect of the course.