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.
Fall 2026 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.
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.
The History of Coups d'tat in the Twentieth Century: A Comparative Examination of the Nature of Political Power and Violence
Professor Seth Rotramel
HONR 2053: 13 - 3 Credits
CRN: 54511
M 3:30PM - 6:00PM
Fulfills:
- GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities
Course Description: This course examines the timing and causes of the seizure of executive power by the use or threat of force by some segment of a state’s ruling class or state apparatus. By looking at both long and short-term causes of coups, we will seek to better understand the nature of political power through the lens of political violence. After defining what a coup is and investigating theoretical underpinnings, the course will take a deep dive into a number of case studies that occurred during the twentieth century. Not confining ourselves to any one country or region, these case studies provide a comparative approach that will augment our theoretical understanding with real world examples. Investigating the dramatic events leading up to and following a coup d’état will also serve as a vehicle to examine broader issues affecting humanity. Thus, by examining illegal seizures of governments, we will also be studying the political consequences of poverty, inequality, modernization, political fractionalization, and coercive production structures.
Bio: Dr. Rotramel has served as a historian for the State Department since 2011 and focuses on the history of American diplomacy. He recently compiled and edited a Foreign Relations of the United States document focused on the Carter administration’s approach to the South Asia region in response to the shifting political landscape at the end of the 1970s.
Music in Film, Film on Music
Professor Douglas Boyce
HONR 2053: 14 - 3 Credits
CRN: 56751
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.
Language and Law
Professor Michael McCourt
HONR 2053: 15 - 3 Credits
CRN: TBD
TR 2:20PM - 3:35PM
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.
Exhibiting History
Professor Jenna Weissman Joselit
HONR 2053: 81 - 3 Credits
CRN: 55965
M 3:30PM - 5:00PM
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 81 (CRN: 55965)***
Course cross listed with HIST 2001. 83 (CRN: 57207)
Course Description: These days, as long standing monuments topple to the ground and troubling questions about the meaning of history and its relationship to the public square continue to loom large on the contemporary landscape in both the United States and Europe, this interdisciplinary seminar explores the variety of ways in which the past visually and materially intrudes on and affects the present. These days, as long standing monuments topple to the ground and troubling questions about the meaning of history and its relationship to the public square continue to loom large on the contemporary landscape in both the United States and Europe, this interdisciplinary seminar explores the variety of ways in which the past visually and materially intrudes on and affects the present.
Focusing on a number of case studies, ranging from the “1619 Project” to “Hamilton,” and from Kehinde Wiley’s anti-monument monument, “Rumors of War,” in Richmond, Virginia, to a recent controversy in Sandomierz, Poland, over an anti-Semitic painting that has hung for centuries in its cathedral, the course looks at the cultural, social and visual practices by which history is constituted, interpreted, circulated, displayed, downplayed, or erased.
Bio: Dr. Joselit is the Charles E. Smith Professor of Judaic Studies & Professor of History. She specializes in the history of daily life, especially its relationship to religion, and in the modern Jewish experience. For many years, in addition to publishing books, Weissman Joselit wrote a monthly column on American Jewish history and culture for the Forward newspaper and Tablet magazine. She is now a contributing writer for the Jewish Review of Books.
The 1920's
Professor Bibiana Obler
HONR 2053: 83 - 3 Credits
CRN: 55966
R 12:45PM - 3:15PM
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 83 (CRN: 55966)***
Course cross listed with CAH 4150. 10 (CRN: 57879)
Course Description: The Jazz Age. The Roaring 20s. Prohibition. The rise of radical political movements, left and right. A recalibration of world powers in the wake of World War I. A lot was going on a century ago. In this undergraduate seminar, students will delve into the art and culture of the 1920s, from the 1920 International Dada Fair in Berlin to the birth of Surrealism, from Soviet Constructivism to the Anthropophagic Manifesto in Brazil. The seminar will coincide with an exhibition on the 1920s, drawn from the GW Collection, at the Luther W. Brady Gallery. The readings and research will have a practical component: students will develop tours of the exhibition. They will also conduct research, on topics of their own choosing, to present at a public symposium that will complement the exhibition.
Bio: Dr. Obler is an art historian with a focus on modern and contemporary art and craft. Her publications include Intimate Collaborations: Kandinsky and Münter, Arp and Taeuber (2014), Fast Fashion / Slow Art (a catalogue for a co-curated exhibition), and an essay in Lynda Benglis (2022). She is also the arts editor for Feminist Studies.
Jane Austen: Literary Icon
Professor Maria Frawley
HONR 2053:84 - 3 Credits
CRN: 58045
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 84 (CRN: 58045)***
Course cross listed with ENGL 3820. 80 (CRN: 57103)
Course Description: This course focuses on the literary achievements of Jane Austen and on her continuing relevance to our own culture. Our reading will include her published novels, some unpublished early writing, and work unfinished at her death. Understanding the social, historical, and political contexts that shaped Austen’s work will be a major preoccupation. Among topics for consideration will be the ways Austen both reflects and responds to social hierarchy and class relations in Regency England; the relationship between gender ideology, “conduct book culture,” and Austen’s representations of women’s lives; Austen’s views of national identity in the era of the French Revolution; and her innovative narrative and linguistic techniques. We will also think deeply about new perspectives on Austen’s writing emerging in our own age, and we will take advantage of an array of opportunities to interact with other Austen communities, thanks to celebrations of her work planned for the fall of 2025 (to coincide with her 250th anniversary)! Students can also expect to come away from this course with the ability to critically assess how and why Austen’s works have been received and adapted over time.
Bio: Dr. Frawley is a Professor of English whose research interests focus on nineteenth-century British literature, social history, and print culture. She served as Executive Director of the UHP for many years and was awarded GW’s Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Faculty Prize in Teaching in 2022