Accy 201 Section 9: Introduction to Accounting Principles I
The course objective: The course will aide in establishing a firm understanding of accounting principles for financial reporting. An understanding of financial reporting is crucial to the understanding of business and the way our economy allocates scarce resources. Through this course students will learn technical skills regarding the collection and ordering of basic financial information. Students will also develop problem solving skills related to financial information. Specifics that distinguish it from a regular section: Students will receive greater exposure to real world examples of the accounting reports and disclosures studied in the course. Students will be introduced to the SEC filing website and how to access companies financial reports. The honors course will offer more in depth discussion of the role of financial reporting information in the economy, and its needs and uses, culminating in a term paper on the topic.
AH 202 Section 2: History of Art II, Renaissance to Contemporary Art
The objective of this course is to familiarize students with the major stylistic, thematic, and historical trends in art history from the Renaissance through today. This course is designed to encourage a critical understanding of the meaning and function of art objects, architecture, and design artifacts within their original historical contexts. Class sessions consist of lecture and group discussion. Students will explore the University museum’s collection and compare and contrast artworks of the same or different cultures using the skills of formal analysis. Students will read and discuss scholarly articles tied to the examined time period. The Honors section of Art History 202 will aim to develop oral presentation skills throughout the semester, as well as writing essays related to artworks belonging to different time periods.
Bisc 336 Section 14: Genetics
The Honors version of Bisc 336 Genetics is designed to present an overview of genetics for Biology majors and students planning careers in STEM fields. The small class size will facilitate informal discussion of key advances in genetic research, the emerging approach of precision medicine and controversial bioethical issues. Active learning exercises will be incorporated to illustrate genetic concepts. The associated laboratory, also taught by Dr. Liljegren, will include newly developed research modules that delve into next generation sequencing, developmental genetics, phylogenetics, and genetically modified foods.
Econ 202 Section 12: Principles of Microeconomics
Microeconomics is the study of how individuals and firms make choices, and how these choices affect society. Economics shares with other behavioral sciences the general goal of explaining and predicting human behavior. The distinguishing feature of the economic approach is the emphasis on rational decision making under conditions of scarcity. This course is an introduction to the basic concepts and tools of microeconomics. The emphasis of the class is on economic reasoning. Throughout the class, we will concentrate on applying the concepts that we learn to real life situations. In the honors section, students will be given some additional readings, including suitable chapters from The Economic Report of the President. Students are also encouraged to read the economics sections of newspapers and magazines, and to suggest articles or ideas which they would like to discuss. The smaller size of the honors section makes it more suitable than regular sections of Econ 202 for such discussions. In addition, students in the honors section are expected to answer essay test questions rather than multiple-choice. By the end of this class students should 1) develop a deep understanding of a small number of core concepts of microeconomics that are essential to informed analysis of any economic issue; 2) develop an ability to use key economic ideas in evaluating public policies; and 3) develop an ability to critically analyze economic arguments put forth in public policy debates. For instance, they should be able to read and evaluate general material in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or the Economist.
Econ 203 Section 5: Principles of Macroeconomics
Macroeconomics is the branch of economics that studies the aggregate (usually national-level) economy. In the first part of class, you will gain an understanding of several common measures of national-level economic conditions that are often cited by the popular press, such as employment, the unemployment rate, gross domestic product (output), inflation, deficits, and debt. Next, you will learn a framework for modeling the macroeconomy and assessing economic conditions. Using this framework, you will gain an understanding of 1) how the federal government through fiscal policy can influence economic conditions, as well as the limitations and effectiveness of Keynesian economic policies; and 2) the Federal Reserve System and how (effectively) the Fed can use monetary policy to influence the macroeconomy. While an understanding of these later topics are important generally, they are quite time-appropriate now given the recent recession and financial crisis. The material we cover in class will provide you with a better understanding of what caused the financial crisis and the recession and how effective were fiscal and monetary policies to combat the recession. We will also study how political markets can affect policy design since many economic policies are conducted in a political environment – and as a result, perhaps the best macroeconomic policy is no interventionist policy at all. This is for you to decide, using the knowledge you gain in this class. In addition to the above material, I have a personal objective for this course: I want you to gain the skills and knowledge necessary to effectively analyze macroeconomic policy decisions. I hope that each of you will become better-informed consumers and voters, armed with the tools necessary to critically analyze economic policy. You will most certainly be influenced by economic conditions and the macroeconomic policies of the federal government and the Federal Reserve when you start searching for a job, become a member of the workforce, buy a home, pay taxes, and save for retirement.
Econ 303 Section 2: Money and Banking
It is important to distinguish between monetary policy formulation, which specifies what the stance of monetary policy should be, and monetary policy implementation. In the United States, the FOMC sets the stance of monetary policy by choosing the appropriate level of the federal funds rate. It uses certain tools to make sure that the fed funds rate will indeed be at the chosen level. In this class, we will discuss this practical aspect of monetary policy: how monetary policy is implemented in the United States. Monetary policy implementation is heavily influenced by how other financial players –especially banks- react to monetary policy. Therefore, we will first discuss banking issues such as how banks are managed and interact with each other. Following the discussion of the Federal Reserve System, we will talk about how banks interact with the Federal Reserve System and how money is created. The implementation of monetary policy has changed a lot after 2008 financial crisis. Before we explore the post-crisis policies, we will first talk about the recent financial crisis and the role of monetary policy in this crisis. After that, we will compare traditional methods of monetary policy to the most recent policy implementation issues.
Edci 352 Section 8: Education, Society & the K-12 Learner
The course is an exploration of selected components of the education profession: purposes of education, American education system, education and the legal system, child and adolescent development, and diversity. The honors section will allow for in depth exploration of student-selected topics like Creativity in Education, Charter Schools, and Pedagogical Knowledge related to Technology.
Engl 223 Section 1: Survey of Am Lit to the Civil War
The history of English-speaking people in the New World has been a history of storytellers. Living in a newly colonized hemisphere produced new literary forms, templates which still define American culture to this day. English adventurers, Puritan settlers on the Massachusetts frontier, New England preachers, French expatriates, and eighteenth-century printer’s apprentices all created new kinds of texts examining new notions of American identity and society. We will read, examine, discuss, and write about the colonial accounts, Native American captivity narratives, Jeremiads, devotional poetry, sermons, autobiographies, and short stories that they produced, re-evaluating the expressive texts of our shared American pasts and presents. This course aims to be a more discussion-based, writing-intensive, creative, and rigorous alternative to the super-sized American literature lectures.
Engl 225 Section 26: Survey of British Lit to 18th Century
English 225 is a survey of English literature from its beginnings (roughly the 8th century) until the 18th century. We will attend not only to the artistry of these literary texts but also to the social and cultural contexts in which they were written. The particular choices on this syllabus collectively ask: “How do authors create ‘worlds’ in their literary texts?”
Engl 225 Section 27: Survery of British Lit to 18th Century
English 225 purports to cover English literature from “the beginning” to the eighteenth century; we will do our best to honor this sweeping and inclusive vision of English literature’s origins by starting with Beowulf, and reading many of the major authors and texts that follow, from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Milton, Pope and Swift—but we’ll also be looking at some “non-canonical” or less well-known writers, as well as at documents and other sources that provide a broader sense of how individual texts fit into cultural, political, or other trends. Thus we will take into account things like the experience of embodiment for pre-moderns, or their relations to animals and nature, or gender and social change, or sexuality and the changing conception of masculinity, or a number of other such topics. Students will complete readings from the Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol. I, and will take quizzes on the readings; everyone will do a short presentation on some aspect of historical context, and will write several short essays, plus a longer final project.
G St 301: Topics in Gender Studies, “Cinema and Gender”
This is an interdisciplinary course, which will examine representations of gender in 1970s American cinema. We will critically analyze films by such directors as Martin Scorsese and Don Siegel, filmmakers who often challenge and critically interrogate dominant ideological narratives that circulate in American culture, revolving around issues of race, class, sexuality, and notions of nationhood. The history of the women’s movement, feminism, the body in popular culture, and the formation of social hierarchies will be some of the key theoretical issues examined by the scholars we read in the fields of Gender Studies and Film Theory. In this class, you will be expected to participate in an active dialogue with your classmates, the films themselves and the written page.
His 101 Section 9: History of Europe to 1648
This course is an introduction to the history of Western Civilization, covering from ancient history down to 1648 C.E. We will be treating—necessarily in a very general manner—the political, social, economic, cultural, and intellectual developments that together defined Western Civilization. This Honors class differs from other sections of this course in that it is more reading- and discussion-intensive. The required readings will likely be the following: Aristophanes, The Complete Plays of Aristophanes; Carlo Ginzburg, Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; Thomas More, Utopia; Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars; Larissa Juliet Taylor, The Virgin Warrior: The Life and Death of Joan of Arc; Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances. Recommended textbook: Thomas F. X. Noble et alii, Western Civilization: Beyond Boundaries, Volume I: to 1715, 6th edition. Students will write two mid-term exams and a final examination. They will also write three papers (about 4-6 pages each, double-spaced), based on the assigned readings, on which they may also be quizzed.
His 160 Section 2: Intro to Latin American History
This course surveys the history of Latin America from 1492 to the present. We will not attempt to examine in depth the history of all nineteen nations in the region. Instead, our course will focus on countries whose developments are representative of larger political, economic, social, and cultural trends in a given time period. Over the term, we will examine the fascinating pre-contact origins and subsequent interactions of Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans. Simultaneously we will witness the changes taking place in the Iberian Empires they came to inhabit as these lands evolved from the proving grounds of explorers and adventurers into a mature colonial society and eventually into a multitude of autonomous and culturally-distinct polities. After studying how these countries gained their independence, we will trace how nation building and social organization occurred through phenomena such as export-driven economies, dictatorships, revolutions, industrialization, foreign intervention, and globalization. The Honors College section of this course will consist of general class discussion and lectures to provide historical context. Discussion will be generated from a mix of primary and secondary source readings that expose students to diverse and often contradictory perspectives on historical events and actors. Despite being an introductory course, HIS 160 will encourage students to think of Latin American history as contested ground where all topics are open to interpretation.
His 309 Section 1: World War I
The First World War was an unprecedented cataclysm, a global and modern conflict that cost millions of lives and set in motion the twentieth century. This course will provide students with an opportunity to examine this conflict in detail. It will pay equal attention to the combatant and civilian experiences of this war, and to the war in all its theatres: primarily Europe—both East and West—and the North Atlantic, but also the war as fought in Asia and Africa, and with the participation of imperial subjects and in imperial sites. Along with studying the origins and legacy of this war, students will be able to gain a critical understanding of just what it meant to wage modern war on this scale. In addition to covering the basic history of the conflict, students will examine closely the impact of this war on participant nations’ politics, economies, societies, and cultures as well as on individuals.
His 399 Section 4: Problems in History, “Representations of History in Video Games”
Over the past three decades, videogames have evolved from a technological oddity to an omnipresent form of mass media, raising in the process fundamental questions about issues that range from the possibilities of non-linear narratives to the nature of a reality that is not “virtual”. Although it remains largely ignored by academic historians, this phenomenon also includes a large number of games with increasing pretensions to offer an “accurate” representation of history, either using it as a storytelling context or claiming to dissect the very principles that guide history’s flow. This seminar will examine the representations of history in a variety of videogame genres not only to evaluate their accuracy against the standards of academic history, but also to investigate the assumptions that guide such representation and even to determine whether the media of history-themed videogames can bring new questions and perspectives to academic history. In the first half of the semester, three games will be examined in relation to scholarly works taken from a particular field of historiography, over a period of two weeks for each one of them. In the second half of the semester, students will produce and present research papers on the representation of a historical phenomenon, event or character in a given video game, and its relation to research performed and published by professional historians.
Hon 391 Section 2: Honors Conversations
My section of Honors 391 in the Fall 2016 semester will focus on the issue of social justice. This is a weekly class, and we’ll see topics shift each week or two but all will relate to social justice in one form or another. We’ll begin with a review of some of the classic writings on social justice—from the Bible to Rousseau to 20th century writers like Jacob Riis, Simone Weil, Dorothy Day, Saul Alinsky and Upton Sinclair and modern-day thinkers like Noam Chomsky and Leonardo Boff. We will discuss poverty, civil rights, labor rights, race and gender issues, and the environment. Students will emerge from this course with a solid grounding in social justice traditions as well as current debates.
Hon 391 Section 5: Honors Conversations
Issues in medicine and health care will be presented as readings and documentaries which students review outside of class. Weekly classroom sessions will discuss and analyze the issues. Topics will include human genomics and personalized medicine, obesity and chronic diseases, antibiotic and vaccine controversies, cancer, aging and death, and U.S. and global health care policies.
Hon 399 Section 1: Special Topics in Honors, “Political Pundits and the Presidential Election”
For election year, the class will follow – on a week-to-week basis – the campaign for the presidency and its aftermath with a critical evaluation of the accuracy and objectivity of various news commentators. The class will look at television “talking heads” as well as print commentators, with special attention given to New York Times columnist David Brooks (who also appears regularly on PBS News Hour) because Brooks will be the featured speaker at the Honors College fall convocation. The course will be taught by Curtis Wilkie, who spent most of his journalistic career with the Boston Globe and covered eight presidential campaigns.
Hon 399 Section 2: Special Topics in Honors, “Dystopias”
This seminar explores dystopian worlds. A premise of the class is that the social ills of present day lead to the shattered societies of fictional futures. We will examine ideas and themes that are fundamental in either place, imagined or real: cultural norms; religious values; societal governance; gender roles; ethnic and racial conflict; economic systems; technological dependence; and, environmental deterioration. To understand these ideas and themes, we will rely on works of fiction (novels and short stories), films, and contemporary non-fiction. The readings will include selections from dystopian classics (e.g., Brave New World; 1984; Fahrenheit 451), less well known but formative writings (e.g., A Canticle for Leibowitz; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep; The Cat’s Cradle; The Handmaid’s Tale; The Children of Men), contemporary works (e.g., The Road; Station Eleven; J: A Novel), and nonfiction, such as The World Without Us. The films we view will likely come from the following: Blade Runner; Children of Men; Soylent Green; The Giver; Gattaca; Fahrenheit 451. Hope you will join us for an intriguing journey into imaginative worlds and human realities.
Hon 420 Section 1: Honors Experiential Learning, “Water Security Policy Challenges on a Global to Local Scale”
This course will introduce students to the policy challenges of “water security” on individual, local, regional, and global scales. Water security refers to the capacity of a population to ensure sustainable access to adequate quantities of clean water to support human health and economic well-being. Water insecurity can arise for many reasons including pollution, over-utilization, drought, and climate change. This course will examine the legal regimes that have developed in the United States to manage water resources and the connections between water quantity and water quality. Throughout the course, local and regional case studies will be used to examine the effectiveness of the current legal regime and proposed policy solutions. This course will also explore human rights and environmental justice issues associated with access to water. This course will challenge students to wrestle with complex water security policy issues through simulations and problem exercises. Field experiences will also be incorporated as scheduling permits.
Hon 420 Section 2: Honors Experiential Learning, “Art and the Republic–Constructing and Questioning Identity”
This course will explore some of the ways in which the work of artists helps construct community and individual identity, even when – maybe especially when—self and society are in conflict. Through class discussion and visits with guest lecturers, students will grapple with making distinctions among and connections between artistic and societal values, methods, and outcomes both expected and unexpected. A major component of the class will require students to design and carry out a project in their own community to test the ways that Art and Republic are in complement, conflict, and concert in the creating of identity. The instructor is our own artist-in-residence, Bruce Levingston.
Hon 420 Section 3: Honors Experiential Learning, “Water Security of Urban Ecosystems–A Case Study of Jackson, MS
Explore issues with the water system in Jackson, MS, and grapple with how to solve those problems. This section is 1-credit hour.
Hon 420 Section 4: Honors Experiential Learning, “Conservatism in the 21st Century”
Conservatism as a political theory is in crisis. The broad divisions within conservative ranks have been laid bare in the last half decade. This course will explore different facets of conservatism and how those facets might change in coming years. We will discuss topics like the rise of Donald Trump and whether his brand of protectionism/isolationism could be incorporated into conservatism; the eroding norms of social conservatism and whether they can survive, particularly on same-sex marriage; the judicial philosophy of originalism, post-Scalia; and question of where conservatives stand on international intervention, post-Iraq. Classes will meet for two hours on five away game Saturdays in the fall. Between each class, students will be expected to engage in one hour of guided experiential learning. The course is open to any honors student, regardless of political beliefs, who wants to explore questions of an evolving conservative ideology.
Hon 550 Section 2: Honors Advanced Study in Law I
(Honors College version of Law 580, Intellectual Property)
In our shrinking world full of new technologies, intellectual property (“IP”) has become an important field of law for all businesses, big and small—and most individuals as well—to understand. This is a survey course that will provide an overview of the four topics that comprise the heart of IP law: trade secret, trademark, patent, and copyright. This course will provide you with the foundation to recognize situations where IP is involved and to properly analyze the implications of such situations. This course will focus both on established legal precedent as well as the practical impact of this precedent on economy, society, and culture, both at home and abroad. Course assignments will be composed of a mixture of cases, law review articles, and readings drawn from current events. In addition, written exercises will occasionally be given to illustrate how the knowledge learned from the readings, lectures, and class discussions might be applied in legal practice.
Hon 550 Section 7: Honors Advanced Study in Law I
(Honors College version of Law 635, Criminal Procedure I: Investigation)
This course focuses primarily on the constitutional issues confronting law enforcement and suspects during a criminal investigation as a result of the Fourth, Fifth , Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution. Specifically, we will cover the law of search and seizure, self-incrimination and the right to counsel as defined by the US Supreme Court. We will also discuss important selected procedural issues that arise during the prosecution of a criminal case including double jeopardy, discovery, pretrial hearings, jury selection, confrontation and the ethical responsibilities of a prosecutor. Students will learn the black-letter law concerning constitutional issues that arise during the investigation of a crime. They will also learn to brief a court’s written opinion and discuss/debate the legal principles involved and their applicability to different facts. This will assist them to think, speak, and act like an attorney. Finally, they will be exposed to the practical applications and problems that confront the criminal practitioner in the real world.
Lat 101 Section 5: Introduction to Latin I
As the catalog description succintly puts it, we will begin the process of mastering the essentials of grammar and of building a foundational vocabularly to read ancient Latin, especially the famous authors who lived during the 1st century BC and 1st century AD, from Cicero and Virgil to Ovid and Seneca. For the honors section of this course we will supplement the standard diet with a broad array of additional (short) readings of ancient graffiti and lofty gnomic utterances (and even some modern mottos, e.g., Pro scientia et sapientia!).
Pol 308 Section 2: Voting and Political Participation
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to some of the major research on political behavior. In particular, this course will focus on developing an understanding of the mechanisms that drive political participation, particularly during campaigns and elections. Special attention will be paid to the 2016 U.S. presidential and congressional elections. As an honors course, there will be more regular writing assignments, several of which will consist of students being assigned the role of “campaign adviser” to offer advice – based on evidence from political science – to (fictional) candidates.
Rel 101 Section 5: Introduction to Religion
This course is founded on the assumption that a critical, yet sympathetic, knowledge of the major religions of the world will better equip you to understand the world in which you live–whether you pursue a career in the military, business, the arts, politics, or nursing! Thus, this course will provide an introduction to the rudiments of some of the world’s major religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, & Buddhism. Our purpose is to gain basic familiarity with the rituals, beliefs, figures, sacred texts, and holy days that most generally characterize each of these distinctive traditions and to better understand religious diversity in contemporary societies. In addition to the introductory textbook, we will examine primary sources such as sacred scriptures and theological writings and contemporary events articles. While the basic content of the Honors section is similar to the regular section of Religion 101, the Honors section will include more seminar-style discussion, analysis of primary texts, and site visits to local religious communities.
Rel 312 Section 2: The New Testament and Early Christianity
This course is designed to introduce students to the academic study of the literature contained in the New Testament as well as of other early Christian writings that ultimately did not make it into the New Testament canon but which nonetheless shed significant light on the lives, beliefs, and controversies of early Christian communities. Our study will locate the development of Christianity (inferred from the texts we read) within the context of late Second Temple Judaism as well as within the larger milieu of the Greco-Roman world of the 1st century C.E. Please note that in this course we will be taking a humanist and academic approach to these early Christian texts, not a devotional or confessional one. This course will differ from the non-honors section in that the honors section will involve significantly more in-class discussion as well as a more challenging research project.
Soc 330/Soc 552 (cross-listed as Afam 330) Section 1: Racism and Religion
This is a Sociology course designed for Honors College and graduate students who are interested in examining the nexus between racism and religion in the United States: 1) by exploring Christianity and the African American experience after the beginning of the late 19th century; 2) the treatment of Jews during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; and 3) the racialization of Islam in the post-09/11.
Span 201 Section 1: Intermediate Spanish I
Spanish 201 is the third language course in the series 101, 102 and 201 or its equivalent at the University of Mississippi. Spanish 201 starts on the second half of the book ¡Arriba! Spanish 201 focuses on travelling and expressing influence, personal health and expressions of doubt and denial, the search for employment in expressions of future intent, and the impact of technology and of modern life on the environment. At the same time, students learn about the life and culture of Hispanics in the Caribbean and Andean region of South America, the River Plate area and the United States. Students learn by exchanging information about the real world and by expressing their opinions and concerns. Students in our class do all that while engaging in language activities. This communicative method makes the class meaningful and entertaining. Span 201 is also a computer-enhanced course that requires My Spanish Lab to submit online homework. The emphasis of this Honors section of Spanish, however, is on oral skills, pronunciation, communicative participation and leadership, role-playing and interaction. It also incorporates substantial audiovisual resources and technologies in order to better appreciate language learning. Our Honors section also encourages a deeper discussion of Hispanic and American intellectual life, of arts and culture, tolerance and diversity.