Spring 2025 KHC First-Year Seminars

Please use the information below to identify your spring 2025 seminar preferences. Note that courses with a MyBU Class Number (e.g., 18053) after the course title below are currently viewable in the MyBU Student portal; courses without a Class Number below are not yet in MyBU, but will be soon. All seminars are 4 units.

KHCAN 105: Conflict: The Human Condition (19721)
Stephanie Ahrens, Kilachand Honors College
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 am-12:15 pm

What can we learn about the human condition when we think through conflict? Unlike premodern forms of political authority and social organization, modern sociopolitical forms sanction specific forms of adversarial interaction as positive, regulative forces while banning forms of conflict as unwanted, corrosive influences on sociopolitical order. Students will engage with a rich array of multidisciplinary writings on human conflict as well as theatrical, literary, and cinematic takes on the primacy of adversarial relations for understanding the human condition.

Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, The Individual in Community, Critical Thinking

KHCAN 106: Scientists in Society (20028)
Jean Morrison, CAS Earth and Environment; Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences
Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:45 pm

Understanding the nature of science and the role of the scientist in society is critically important in an increasingly technologically driven and interconnected world. Through an examination of the work of 5 impactful scientists and their interactions with prevailing institutions and societal norms, we will explore the fundamental nature of science and how individual scientists have navigated unique challenges created by their work. We will examine the work and controversies that surrounded:

Galileo Galilei and Church authorities in the 1600’s
Alan Turing and the British Government post WWII
Percy Lavon Julian and higher education in the US in the 1900’s
Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier and the battles over credit and patent rights for CRISPR-9 technology
Antony Fauci and his leadership role in the nation’s public health during COVID-19

Through a combination of assigned readings, lectures and interactive classroom discussions, students will explore the scientific achievements of each person(s) and then explore their broader circumstances and interactions with society. Using this knowledge students will consider and reflect on the nature of scientific contributions and important societal institutions and norms.

Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry I, Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings, Critical Thinking

KHCEN 103: Poetry as Activism (18053)
Jessica Bozek, CAS Writing Program
Tuesday and Thursday, 3:30-4:45 pm

Do artists have a responsibility to bear witness to their times? This course explores the work of contemporary poets who directly engage the current moment, who show us that art can function as political action. Among the controversial topics that these authors draw attention to and comment on are racial injustice, mass incarceration, war, LGBTQ rights, immigration policy, and environmental devastation. Through our course texts and students’ own poems, we will consider the ethics of appropriation and representation, as well as the use of personal experience and found documents in poetry.

Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, The Individual in Community, Creativity/Innovation

KHCHI 107: History of a Movement (18051)
Andrew David, CGS Social Sciences; CAS History
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 9:05-9:55 am

It is difficult for us in our historical moment to discern the degree to which the social, political, economic, and intellectual life of the world was riven by conflicts between competing ideologies/movements as they imagined the future of the global system. Through careful attention to our shared archives of art, fiction, and primary-source texts, this course will explore movements like communism, feminism, and decolonization across time and space in order to understand these movements as global phenomena that continue to structure the unfolding of history in our present.

Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy

KHCIR 104: The Ethics of War and Political Violence
Alexander de la Paz, Pardee School of Global Studies
Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 am

This course surveys key debates in the ethics of war and political violence. When, if ever, is resorting to war justifiable? How should wars be fought? Are these two questions at all interrelated? Does it even make sense to speak of the ethics of war and political violence? Are arguments for pacifism or nonviolence, for example, more compelling? Are these hopelessly political questions, unsuitable for ethical consideration? Throughout this course, we will study a range of perspectives on these issues—many of which have informed international law, including the Charter of the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions. In the process, we will also address topical debates in international ethics, including the ethics of self-defense and preemptive war; humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect; combatant liability and noncombatant immunity; “proportionality” in collateral damage; guerrilla warfare and terrorism; and more. Course materials draw widely from political philosophy, international law, literature, and film.

Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings, Critical Thinking, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy

KHCPH 103: Seeing Poverty (18052)
Sophie Godley, School of Public Health; Kilachand Honors College
Wednesday, 6:30-9:15 pm (The current day/time listed in MyBU is incorrect, but will be updated soon)

How do we understand poverty in modern America? Images of poverty might lead us to believe poverty is exclusively a problem of urban people of color, but what do historic and modern depictions of poverty in popular culture — reality TV shows, or films tell us? How is data on poverty calculated and understood? This course will explore the ever-changing and ever-political sociological and public health issues of measuring poverty in America today. Using literature, film, photography, and public data sets, the course will explore the true meaning of “poverty.”

Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, The Individual in Community, Critical Thinking

KHCPO 100: Democracy & the Climate Crisis: Politics on a Changing Planet (19555)
Richard (Sam) Deese, CGS Social Sciences
Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 am-12:15 pm

This course explores how democratic societies can respond to and survive the unprecedented disruptions of the climate crisis. Students will trace the global history of government by consent, the evolution of the climate crisis, and weigh possible reforms to protect democratic norms and institutions on a changing planet.

Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry I

KHCRH 103: Reexamination of Childhood (10290)
Sheila Cordner, CGS Humanities
Monday, 2:30-5:15 pm

How have authors of classic works of children’s literature addressed the liminal space between childhood and adulthood? How might this study give us insight into our own experiences? By studying childhood at the intersection of children’s literature and community-based learning, students will deepen their understanding of how individuals are shaped by the stories that define their childhood. The course traces the development of children’s literature in Western culture from classic fairy tales to the development of the novel and short story to today’s picture books.

Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, The Individual in Community, Critical Thinking

KHCSO 102: Health Justice (18054)
Joseph Harris, CAS Sociology
Wednesday, 2:30-5:15 pm

This course puts five pressing social problems related to human, animal, and planetary health under a microscope, examining the dynamics that led to these problems and innovative policies and practices that are being developed to address them.

Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Research and Information Literacy

KHCUC 107: Sexual Ethics (19718)
Peng Yin, School of Theology; CAS Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program
Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45 am

Sexual activity has attracted a bewildering range of preoccupations. At various times, in various places, an ethics of sex has meant prompting procreation, preventing disease-transmission, controlling pleasure, policing gender, creating privacy, or defending romance from commerce. These shifting concerns raise questions about what “sex” means, how it becomes ethically problematic, and how it might still matter to our lives. We will pursue these questions through current debates around sexual identity, monogamy, polyamory, sexual violence, sex work, and pornography. You will be encouraged to use the course material to clarify and refine your own ethical reasoning about sex.

Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking