Honors Colloquium

All SAS Honors Program students are required to complete at minimum one Honors Colloquium. Students who enter the SASHP as first-year students are required to complete a second Honors Colloquium, or an approved alternate: Byrne Seminar, FIGS Peer Instructor, or a credit-bearing study abroad program/course.

The goal of the Honors Colloquium is to stimulate intellectual curiosity and discussion as well as provide students with an interdisciplinary approach to learning. Through discussions, lectures, film screenings, and museum visits, students will explore topics of social, scientific, and philosophical significance.

  • 01:090:111 | Fall Semester
  • 01:090:112 | Spring Semester

Fall 2018 Colloquium

GRAPHIC: The Vietnam War, Migration, and Memory

This Fall 2018, the SAS Honors Program will build our mission course around our Honors summer reading, Thi Bui’s graphic memoir The Best We Could Do (2017).  Bui’s epic memoir explores the history of the Vietnam war, her family’s daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, and the challenges they faced creating a new life as immigrants in America. Bui narrates her family’s story of displacement against the backdrop of her own journey into motherhood. Key themes regarding the impact of war on daily life and personal identity, the meaning of home, and the enduring strength of family will provide us with much to analyze, contemplate, and discuss. Bui’s narrative technique, which combines a compelling interplay of words and graphic images, will challenge us to consider the powerful role of images in graphic fiction and non-fiction.

Thi Bui herself will provide the first lecture for our course at the Summer Reading Celebration and Induction Ceremony, open to all incoming Honors Program students, on Friday, August 31 at the College Avenue Student Center. https://www.thibui.com

01:090:224:H2 Politics and Migration in 1980s American Cinema

01:090:224:H2 Politics and Migration in 1980s American Cinema
Tuesdays (double period) 1:10-4:10PM (5 course meetings)
Honors College, Room S-126
Dean Julio Nazario

The course will explore the themes of Politics, Revolution and Migration in Central America in American films made in the 1980s against the backdrop of revolutions in Central America. We will screen films such as Salvador (1986) directed by Oliver Stone, Romero (1989) directed by John Duigan, El Norte (1984) directed By Gregory Nava and Latino (1985) directed by Haskell Wexler to understand how the issues of politics, revolution and migration are interpreted and presented through American cinema.

We will consider the following questions: What question(s) and/or issues does the film raise? What is the narrative conveying about the social, cultural and historical events? How and what does the narrative convey about the geographic location of the main story line? What does the central narrative convey about the individuals caught in the particular historical period?

Students in this special topics Honors Colloquium will also be required to attend two "outside events" connected to the theme of the course.

01:090:224:H1 The Great Short Reads

01:090:224:H1 The Great Short Reads
Wednesday 4:30-5:50 PM during select days
35 College Ave, Third Floor
Professor Paul Blaney

Do you love reading fiction? Enroll in this one-credit Pass/No Credit course and join fellow students reading great short novels under the guidance of SAS Honors Program Writer-in-Residence, Paul Blaney.