Arts and Humanities
Students complete two sections of HONR 2053 between their second and fourth years. HONR 2053 courses offer a thematic, multidisciplinary, and cross-cultural analysis of the arts and artistic expression.
Spring 2025 Courses
Cross-listed Honors courses
NOTE: Students must be registered in the HONR section in order to receive UHP credit. For courses that are cross-listed with another department, the UHP can add "credit" for a course to the student's DegreeMAP within the major and/or minor's requirements block. Students must have officially declared the major or minor with their respective school, and it must be reflected on their DegreeMAP at the time of the request. Students may also petition their school/major to accept HONR courses they find are relevant to their curriculum requirements. For any questions, please see a UHP Program Manager.
A cross-listed course is a course that is shared with another department, please pay careful attention to the GPAC attributes associated with each cross-listed course.
- Hatred on Trial
- The Crisis of Liberalism
- Dialectic and Dialogue
- Nietzsche & Political Thought
- NYC: City of Immigrants
- Buddhist Philosophy
- Social Change and Storytelling Arts
- Plato of Athens
- Reading in Creative Writing
- Introduction to Critical Theory
Upper-Level Course Substitution Option
On occasion, a UHP student may have a particular interest in a certain course or topic outside of their major which we are not able to offer formally through the UHP but which may nonetheless conform to some or all of the ideals of an Honors course. If a UHP student can demonstrate that they will benefit personally and intellectually from that course, they may be granted an exception to count one non-UHP course toward the UHP upper-level course requirements. Please review the upper-level course substitution option webpage for more information.
Language and Law
Professor Michael McCourt
HONR 2053:12 - 3 Credits
CRN: 28484
TR 9:35AM - 10:50AM
Fulfills:
- GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities
Course Description: This course pursues questions that arise at the intersection of political philosophy, legal studies, and linguistics. First, speech is used to persuade voters and citizens. But not all persuasive speech is morally equal, as we see in cases of propaganda or the use of "dog whistles." This course will study the different forms that persuasive speech can take, evaluating real world examples with tools from moral philosophy, linguistics, and the philosophy of language. Second, laws are expressed in a linguistic medium, raising familiar challenges when it comes to their interpretation. For example, if laws are texts, who are their authors? Also, should we interpret laws relative to the context in which they were written, or our contemporary context? We'll pursue such questions by applying tools from linguistics and the philosophy of language to case studies drawn from the courts. Third, there are laws that protect rights to speech, as well as laws that regulate the exercise of that right. So, we will discuss the value of "free speech" and the justification of laws that regulate the use of language.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A History
Professor Christopher Brick
HONR 2053:13 - 3 Credits
CRN: 25635
TR 12:45PM - 2:00PM
Fulfills:
- GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities
Course Description: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of the world’s most recognizable documents, “the foundation of international human rights law,” according to the United Nations, and one of the most widely-reprinted texts in human history. While its framers theorized the UDHR as a “Magna Carta for all,” opponents and detractors have routinely cast it instead as an empty vessel, at best, and at worst a dangerous tool of oppression. Is it either of these things, neither, or something else entirely? This course will invite students to consider these questions anew as it examines the Declaration’s conceptual origins in the ancient past, the historical context that led the UN General Assembly to formalize and promulgate a human rights coda in 1948, and the UDHR’s colorful evolution into a flashpoint of controversy for activists, policymakers, intellectuals, and the international community writ large. Please note that in researching their term projects for this course, students will be required to draw upon resources from the permanent collection of the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, a research center of the GW History Department and archive of UDHR materials that UNESCO has designated “vital to global heritage and personhood."
Bio: Dr. Brick is an editor and principle investigator of the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers project at GW and one of the hosts of the Organization of American Historians’ podcast Intervals.
Music in Film, Film on Music
Professor Douglas Boyce
HONR 2053:14 - 3 Credits
CRN: 28065
TR 9:35AM - 10:50AM
Fulfills:
- GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities
Course Description: In "Music in Film, Film on Music" we engage with films' playful manipulation of audiences' feelings and expectations through its use of music and representation of music making. This course has no prerequisite besides an interest in film (and in the arts in general). We develop analytic skills and terminological fluency through the descriptions of shots, scenes, scores, leitmotifs, and other tools of filmmakers, and question how filmmakers use these devices to support and articulate ideologies, structures of thinking around genius, race, gender, and the nature of music itself. This happens through the study of mainstream movies, indie films, and avant-garde cinema, ranging from Forman's 'Amadeus,' Gray's 'Straight Outta Compton', Wright's 'Pride and Prejudice', Satyajit Ray's 'The Music Room (Jalsaghar)', and Bela Tarr's 'Werckmeister Harmonies', among others.
Students develop mastery of these concepts and terminology through seminar discussions and individual and group projects; these lead toward projects on the ideological, historical, cultural, and philosophical entailments of individually chosen films, presented on video, shared with the class in an end-of-semester collective reflection on both the role of music in film, but our received beliefs as to the nature of music itself.
Bio: Dr. Douglas Boyce is a Professor of Music in GW's Corcoran School of the Arts & Design. He writes chamber music that draws on Renaissance traditions and modernist aesthetics, building rich rhythmic structures that shift between order, fragmentation, elegance, and ferocity.
Hatred on Trial
Professor Jenna Weissman Joselit
HONR 2053:80 - 3 Credits
CRN: 28233
M 3:30PM - 5:25PM
Fulfills:
- This course has no GPAC designations
***Note that UHP students will only receive Arts & Humanities credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2053 section (CRN: 28233)***
Course cross listed with HIST 2001.81 (CRN: 27877)
Course Description: This seminar explores the public face of prejudice by looking at a series of landmark trials and courtroom dramas that span the 15 th century through our own day. Through a series of case studies that draw on the law, popular culture, art and technology, it examines the ways in which legal institutions in the US and abroad were complicit in the dissemination and legitimation of racist beliefs and practices – and now and again, successfully refuted and overturned them as well. A timely consideration of an evergreen topic.
Bio: Dr. Joselit is the Charles E. Smith Professor of Judaic Studies & Professor of History. Among her many areas of academic study, she specializes in the history and culture of America’s Jews and also writes a monthly column on American Jewish culture for Tablet: The Online Magazine of Jewish Culture.
The Crisis of Liberalism
Professor Daniel Schwartz
HONR 2053:81 - 3 Credits
CRN: 28234
TR 2:20PM - 3:35PM
Fulfills:
- This course has no GPAC designations
***Note that UHP students will only receive Arts & Humanities credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2053 section (CRN: 28234)***
Course cross listed with HIST 2001.89 (CRN: 27906) and JSTD 2002.83 (CRN: 28261)
Course Description: What is liberalism? Is there a 'crisis of liberalism' occurring in the United States, as well as around the world? If liberalism is in crisis, what are the features of this disorder and what are possible responses? Is it possible to believe in the further progress of liberal societies, or have they fallen into a decadent condition?
Bio: Dr. Daniel Schwartz is a Professor of History. Dr. Schwartz specializes in modern European and American Jewish intellectual, cultural, and urban history and was recently named a fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research.
Dialectic and Dialogue
Professor Joseph Trullinger
HONR 2053:82 - 3 Credits
CRN: 24398
TR 9:35AM - 10:50AM
Fulfills:
- GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities
- Philosophy: Declared majors/minors see department
***Note that UHP students will only receive Arts & Humanities credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2053 section (CRN: 24398)***
Course cross listed with PHIL 3100.10 (CRN: 27302)
Course Description: This course is about the philosophy of dialogue, asking such questions as: what are the conditions for genuine dialogue, and not the trite lip-service beloved by focus groups and PR campaigns? can dialogue be of any use when your oppressor sees you as subhuman? and so on. It is also a course about philosophy as dialogue—for instance, a dialogue in writing, or between written “fragments,” and so on.
This course on dialectic and dialogue will be a sustained exploration of how reality, no less than the mind exploring it, is inherently dynamic. It takes as its starting-point that nothing is “plain and simple”: reality is always realization. The Truth is not simply “out there,” as a readymade, but unfolds in a process that makes no sense without a process of involvement that transforms us as we climb out of what Plato called “the cave” of half-truth. This liberation never happens alone; only together can any of us live truthfully. As it turns out, the commonplace failure to engage in this process perpetuates a kind of mischief in our social relations, enabling political despotism, religious dogmatism, racist and sexist discrimination, and many other forms of self-blindness that dehumanize the oppressor as well as the oppressed.
Thus this course will show how social justice is woven together with metaphysics, epistemology is woven together with the ethics of dialogue, substance is woven together with style, and philosophy is woven together with art, seeing each together in con-text (literally, “woven together” in Latin). We will see these common threads running through a few emblematic works from two overlapping philosophical canons, the tradition of Greco-Germanic idealism and the tradition of Black radical thought, putting those traditions themselves into a dialogue with one another, in what will hopefully be a productive tension. The results of that dialectic, we aim to discover in the experiment of this course.
Nietzsche & Political Thought
Professor William Winstead
HONR 2053:83 - 3 Credits
CRN: 26001
T 3:30PM - 6:00PM
Fulfills:
- GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities
***Note that UHP students will only receive Arts & Humanities credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2053 section (CRN: 26001)***
Course cross listed with PSC 2991.80(CRN: 25903)
Course Description: Nietzsche is a fierce critic of modern politics and a relentless advocate of the agonistic politics of the Greek citystate. He argues that modern politics is beset by decay, evident in the slackening of citizen vigor (or will-power) and the timidity of the age's most powerful political movements, above all liberalism and socialism. We will begin our course this semester with Nietzsche's antidote to modern politics, the vigorous politics of the ancient Greek polis, which serves as the normative model for all of his writings. By embracing the Greeks, and particularly the tragic Greeks, Nietzsche turns away from modern rationalism and the systematic political philosophy inaugurated by Plato in favor of an experiment in new modes of political thinking that are at once anti-modern and post-modern. After considering Nietzsche's image of antiquity, we will turn to his interpretation of modernity and its political forms, and examine his critique of the political ideals of the age (liberalism, equality, and rights). Throughout the semester, we will pay close attention to the relationships that Nietzsche draws between art and politics, culture and the state, justice and rights, and freedom and asceticism.
NYC: City of Immigrants
Professor Jenna Weissman Joselit
HONR 2053:84 - 3 Credits
CRN: 25776
M 12:45PM - 2:25PM
Fulfills:
- This course has no GPAC designations
***Note that UHP students will only receive Arts & Humanities credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2053 section (CRN: 25776)***
Course cross listed with HIST 2001.82 (CRN: 27875)
Course Description: This interdisciplinary seminar explores one of the world’s most fabled cities and how, over time, it came by its reputation. Taking in some of the city’s well-known touristic sights and sounds, it pays especially close attention to the ways in which immigration shaped its distinctive urban fabric. With the neighborhood as its frame, the course encompasses the Lower East Side and Harlem, Chinatown and Williamsburg. There’ll be many highlights along the way – wonderful readings, special guests, a dance class - culminating in a visit to the Tenement House Museum, with which the students will also be collaborating on a semester-long project. New York City: Here we come!
Bio: Dr. Joselit is the Charles E. Smith Professor of Judaic Studies & Professor of History. Among her many areas of academic study, she specializes in the history and culture of America’s Jews and also writes a monthly column on American Jewish culture for Tablet: The Online Magazine of Jewish Culture.
Buddhist Philosophy
Professor Eyal Aviv
HONR 2053:83 - 3 Credits
CRN: 26270
TR 2:20PM - 3:25PM
Fulfills:
- GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities
- Philosophy: Declared majors/minors see department
***Note that UHP students will only receive Arts & Humanities credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2053 section (CRN: 26270)***
Course cross listed with PHIL 3100.81 (CRN: 26318) and REL 3614.81 (CRN: 26735)
Course Description: In this course, you will be introduced to the philosophy of Buddhism, its assumptions, questions, and distinct perspectives. You'll learn about the Buddhist intellectual tradition, its ideas, and debates, as well as how its philosophy evolved over time. While the course covers Buddhist Philosophy throughout history, we'll focus especially on the School of Yogic Practice (Yogācāra). Additionally, we will take a comparative philosophy approach to highlight differences and similarities with the Western philosophical and psychological traditions. We will pay particular attention to the relevance of these questions to our daily lives and their transformative impact.
Social Change and Storytelling Arts: Performance Narratives and Public History
Professor Kerric Harvey
HONR 2053:88 - 3 Credits
CRN: 26002
TR 2:20PM - 3:35PM
Fulfills:
- This course has no GPAC designations
***Note that UHP students will only receive Arts & Humanities credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2053 section (CRN: 26002)***
Course cross listed with SMPA 3195.84 (CRN: 27770)
Course Description: This hybrid classroom and practicum course explores the history, effectiveness, and best practices of using a wide range of the performative arts -- screen media, audio drama, comedy sketches, and live theatre -- as types of strategic communication for addressing social justice issues. We’ll begin by looking at the range of ways in which narrative has always found its way into public dialogue about eruptive social issues, asking questions such as: “When is storytelling a better educative and/or empathy-building tool than other types of communication?” Who gets to decide which version of a historically-based story is the ‘right one’ to use as the backbone for a play, film, museum exhibit, or spoken word piece,” What responsibility do I, as a storyteller, have to bear in mind when I’m writing something essentially fictional in nature, but based on true events?” “Is music a type of storytelling? How about historical walking tours? Are museum exhibits a type of narrative, including themed eating in culture specific museums cafes, such as the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and The American Indian Museum” and, in preparation for their final projects: “How do I know which form of storytelling is best suited for my own social change goals in any particular instance?”
Interwoven with this classroom-based material will be a variety of trips to several D.C. museums, art galleries, historical properties, public art spaces, and storytelling venues, including but not limited to the National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Portrait Gallery, the Tudor Place Historic House and Gardens, the Oak Hill Cemetery, the National Museum of African Art, the Freer Gallery, the National Building Museum, at least one D.C. or Alexandria historical walking tour, at least one D.C. area ghost tour, The Octagon House, the Decatur House, and Anderson House. In particular, we’ll work closely with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, spending significant time exploring the degree to which several of their unique exhibits can/could/should/should not be translated into the performative versions of themselves.
What happens to the credibility of a photograph when it “becomes” a spoken word performance? Can we transform a Motown song into a ten-minute play and still preserve the things that made that song unique, timely, and precious in the first place? Does an historical artifact lose its power when it gets turned into a ten-minute play? Can the annual Chinese New Year parade be turned into song lyrics without losing its special balance of exuberance and dignity? And how would we even go about doing any of these things, in the first place?
Exploring these questions both in the classroom and out in the city, students will apply this conceptual material in a practical, hands-on way, creating their own original storytelling narrative as an integral part of the course. No previous scriptwriting or related type of creative expertise is required.
Bio: Dr. Kerric Harvey is an Associate Professor of Media and Public Affairs as well as a working playwright and multimedia producer. Dr. Harvey writes about the media arts and cultural archetype in the public imagination, the anthropological effects of new media technologies, digital storytelling and the relationship between new media narratives and political identity.
Plato of Athens
Professor Mark Ralkowski
HONR 2053:89 - 3 Credits
CRN: 25340
W 12:45PM - 3:15PM
Fulfills:
- GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities
- GPAC Oral Communications
- Philosophy: Declared majors/minors see department
***Note that UHP students will only receive Arts & Humanities credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2053 section (CRN: 25340)***
Course cross listed with PHIL 4198.10 (CRN: 25003)
Course Description: TBD
Readings in Creative Writing
Professor Jennifer Green Lewis
HONR 2053:90 - 3 Credits
CRN: 27248
MW 12:45PM - 2:00PM
Fulfills:
- This course has no GPAC designations
***Note that UHP students will only receive Arts & Humanities credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2053 section (CRN: 27248)***
Course cross listed with ENGL 3210.80 (CRN: 23324)
Course Description: TBD
Bio: Dr. Green-Lewis is a Professor of English. She specializes in nineteenth and early-twentieth century British literature and considers how literary questions may be illuminated and recast through consideration of the visual arts, especially photography.
Introduction to Critical Theory
Professor Alice Alexa Joubin
HONR 2053W:80 - 3 Credits
CRN: 26869
TR 2:20PM - 3:35PM
Fulfills:
- WID Course
- This course has no GPAC designations
***Note that UHP students will only receive Arts & Humanities credit if they are enrolled in the HONR 2053 section (CRN: 26869)***
Course cross listed with ENGL 2800W.81 (CRN: 21725)
Course Description: Through the lens of social justice, this course examines critical theory in the context of cinematic representations of embodied identities. In particular, we will focus on theories of racialized bodies, performance of sexuality, trans / feminist interventions, and intersectional identities in pop culture. We focus on theories that are most relevant to our contemporary political and cultural life. Students will gain fluency in the conceptual frameworks associated with feminism and critical race, and queer studies. More importantly, students will learn how to apply theoretical tools to global films in the interest of producing scholarship that instigates changes.
Bio: Dr. Joubin is a Professor of English, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Theatre, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Cultures. Her recent books include Shakespeare and East Asia and an open-access interactive textbook entitled Screening Shakespeare, and she was awarded GW's 2022 Trachtenberg Prize for Scholarship.