Capstone
By the end of their senior year, students will take an Honors Capstone course. The Honors Capstone can be taken either semester and does not need to be taken at the same time as the Senior Thesis
The Honors Capstone is separate from the Honors Senior Thesis and is a 1-credit, pass/no pass course. It invites students to re-engage with core questions and issues related to the Honors Program curriculum, reflecting on their learning in relation to enduring questions and challenges of our world.
As the capstone only meets a few times, you must attend each meeting. Please check your availability on all meeting dates carefully prior to enrolling in a capstone, and be sure to keep each time reserved. If your availability changes, you will need to switch to a different capstone. If you have any questions, please speak with a Program Manager.
Spring 2025 Courses
The Happiness Industry
Professor Joseph Trullinger
HONR 4199:10 - 1 Credit
CRN: 28066
T 4:00PM - 6:00PM
This section will meet on January 21, 28 and February 4, 11.
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HONR 4199:13 - 1 Credit
CRN: 28070
R 4:00PM - 6:00PM
This section will meet on January 23, 30 and February 6, 13.
Course Description: This capstone centers on a central irony of our era: everywhere we look we find psychologists, advertisers, city planners, pharmaceutical companies, politicians, life coaches, self-help gurus, economists, sociologists, neuroscientists, spiritual leaders, and seekers of every type willing to help us be happier...and yet nobody can quite pin down what happiness is. This capstone explores the philosophical and scientific reasons why happiness eludes measurement, and the social reasons why businesses and governments are nonetheless so deeply invested in the idea that happiness can be quantified. The happiness industry touches on every aspect of our lives, and William Davies' 2015 interdisciplinary book of the same title will guide our class through this industry's history and limitations. Thinking critically about the immeasurability of happiness will (hopefully) help us reclaim happiness from those who would determine it for us.
Art of Love
Professor William Winstead
HONR 4199:11 - 1 Credit
CRN: 28067
W 7:00PM - 9:00PM
This course will meet on February 5, 12, 19, 26.
Course Description: Love and work have rightly been described as the great defining activities of our lives. Of the two, love is undoubtedly the more difficult and by far the more fascinating. Love gives meaning to our lives, brings ecstasies and sorrows, and entangles itself in thorny questions of power, possession, knowledge, and truth. If love often seems to liberate, it just as often threatens to enslave. What is love? How is it practiced? What are its historical forms? Is human happiness ultimately dependent upon deep and abiding love? Must love involve submission and possession? These questions and others will inform our capstone seminar this year as we discuss a selection of the most illuminating visions of love through the ages. Readings will include Plato, Freud, de Beauvoir, Ovid, Fromm, and bell hooks.
Is Love Really Such a Good Thing?
Professor Mark Ralkowski
HONR 4199:12 - 1 Credit
CRN: 28070
R 4:00PM - 6:00PM
This course will meet on April 3, 10, 17, 24.
Course Description: “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member. That’s the key joke in my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women” (Woody Allen, Annie Hall). We will begin and end this little seminar by asking whether this joke tells us anything important about love. Our discussions will not be aimed at any final answers about the nature of love. How could they be? Our only goal will be to think freely, with the help of great literature and film, about love’s aspirations and desires, its special kind of knowledge, its profound risks, and its unusual powers. We will read one little novel (a light read, but full of insight rooted in psychoanalysis and philosophy), a book on “the female search for love” by bell hooks, and a short book on the Buddhist art of loving by Thich Nhat Hanh. Our experience will be organized around four serious conversations, and there will be a dinner at the end, which we will enjoy while discussing a beautiful movie. Please come prepared to read carefully and talk a lot!
Meditation
Professor Eyal Aviv
HONR 4199:14 - 1 Credit
CRN: 28236
M 6:00PM - 8:00PM
This course will meet on January 27 and February 8.
Course Description: Stress, anxiety, and exhaustion have become inevitable in modern life, especially in college. In this capstone, we will practice several Buddhist meditative techniques that proved successful antidotes for stress. We will learn to cultivate states of mind that lead to insight, spaciousness, and joy. The capstone will include two meetings: One preparatory meeting and the second time for a day-long (9 am - 5 pm) experience in a beautiful Buddhist meditation center in rural Maryland. We will meet with the local monks, read and discuss texts, practice different forms of meditation, and enjoy food and nature. The day-long meditation experience will be on a Saturday, February 8th. A bus will take us and bring us back. Please note that this capstone requires a $25 fee, payable to the Honors Program main office in January (if you would like to participate in this capstone but the fee represents a financial hardship, please speak with Prof. Aviv).