Summer 2020 Honors Courses

Foundations Courses

HONS 282 Approaches to Public Policy: The American Experience (Professor Kendall Deas)
*Note: this course is available only to matriculating SPECTRA students

This interdisciplinary honors course is an introduction to public policy in the U.S. Through examining a series of policy issues that are relevant to current policy debates and past administrations, this course aims to help students develop an understanding of how the policy process itself can influence public policy. We will consider why some problems reach the public agenda, why some solutions are adopted while others are rejected, and why some policies appear to succeed while others appear to fail. The course focuses upon areas of both domestic and foreign policy and examines cases of policymaking at the national, state, and local levels. Students will examine topics in areas such as education policy, health care policy, and the classic Cuban missile crisis under the Kennedy Administration as case studies. This course can be used by Honors students to satisfy social science general education requirements.

Colloquia

British Gothic Literature (Professor Tim Carens)

(A CofC faculty-led study abroad course offered in London, England during Summer I: June 2 – July 1)

This course traces the development of British gothic literature through a period of about 150 years following its emergence in the middle of the 18th century. Class discussions and writing assignments will focus on the elaboration of classic motifs – the foreign castles, horrifying monsters, grim villains, earnest heroes and ardent heroines – but will also examine how Gothic literature uses terror and sensation to tap into anxieties about gender identity, class structure, evolution, racial difference, imperial power and many other contemporary issues. What better place than London to study the British obsession with Gothic monsters? Students will read tales of horror by Jane Austen, Emily Brontë, R.L. Stevenson, Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle, and explore the gloomy moors and dark city streets where they set their stories. We will visit art museums, attend the theater, stroll through urban parks, and walk down village lanes.

*This class is offered as transfer credit and fulfills requirements for the English major and minor, Gen-Ed. humanities, and Honors College Interdisciplinary or Complexity and Diversity Colloquium (the equivalent of HONS 381) and Honors Immersed classes