Summer 2022 Courses

Registration Guidelines

Meeting times, locations, CRNs, specific section numbers, are all listed in WyoRecords under the “Look Up Classes” search function. 

Pre-Requisites: All Honors Upper-Division Classes (3000 and 4000 level) require students to have completed their COM 1 and COM 2 requirements.

Main campus Honors College fall courses will open to non-Honors College after the early enrollment period. Non-Honors College students wishing to register for these courses need to have at least a 3.25 cumulative UW GPA and will need to request an override from the Honors College. Students should email Cass Tolman at ctolman2@uwyo.edu to make this request. Online Honors classes are open to all students.

*Please note that Honors College FYS courses are open to all UW students with no override necessary.

Advising

Please reach out to the Honors Advising Team for more information and guidance when registering.

Course Modalities

• Traditional – This means that the class is scheduled to be in-person and students will meet face-to-face.  

• Asynchronous Online –  This means that the course will be completely online, without any scheduled meeting dates or times. 

• Synchronous Online – This means that the course will be completely online, but there will be a synchronous requirement, meaning students will have specific day/times scheduled for Zoom sessions.

Course Descriptions

Have you ever wondered what makes a place special? This course will explore the theory, practice, and experience of place by exploring and responding to local landscapes, engaging with texts from expansive fields of study, building reflective practice, and thinking big to understand, challenge, and represent the power of place.

We’ll explore ideas coming from scholars, artists, journalists, and other voices in environmental studies, anthropology, literature, ecology, architecture, philosophy, cultural studies, art, Indigenous studies, and more as we answer big questions: What does it mean to experience a place? How do we read a landscape? How do places inform our humanity and how does our humanity shape places? 

The course kicks off with an intensive, Laramie-based field week, May 16-20, 2022.

Beginning on campus and using the surrounding landscapes as our “classrooms,” the course continues until June 10^th online, in a mix of individual, small-group, and full-class interaction, making the most of in-person and flexible online experiences. Class will culminate in sharing individualized creative, public-facing, or scholarly projects.

Apply to enroll: https://forms.gle/cjsQuuJpi1okDmjk9

Information Session:

Tuesday, March 1 (first day to register for summer session!) @ 12:30pm

Join on Zoom: https://uwyo.zoom.us/j/3072232072

The Colorado River has many stories to tell if we are willing to listen, especially with regard to our changing climate. What the River Says: Canyonlands Culture & Climate is a field course in which you will investigate the histories and cultures of the Colorado River canyonlands, with a special focus on the experiences of the eleven tribes living near what is now Grand Canyon National Park. The course opens with an online component, introducing canyonlands cultures and life-ways, stewardship, tourism, and economic development in the context of climate change. A road trip beginning near the river’s headwaters will introduce the four course themes—Origins, Borders, Sustenance, and Pathways—as we visit culturally significant sites in this ecoregion. At the heart of the experience is an eight-day guided raft trip through the Grand Canyon. The purpose of this experience is to achieve a deeper understanding of the region’s past and to explore the ideas, practices, and wisdom that will help the Colorado River to sustain life far into the future.

“The canyon is a place of origin. The canyon is a place where the spirits return to the afterlife. The canyon is a place of wonder, of fear, of life and death. The canyon teaches you humility by its vastness, by its hostility, and by its peace at the same time.” – Ed Kabotie, Hopi

“The Grand Canyon from the Havasupai perspective is the embryotic, the emergence, the origin of how we came to be. Living at the bottom of the canyon, I feel like I hear the heartbeat of Mother Earth a lot closer than I would on higher ground.”– Ophelia Watahomigie-Corliss, Havasupai

“If there is a point to being in the canyon, it is not to rush but to linger, suspended in a blue-and-amber haze of in-between-ness, for as long as one possibly can. To float, to drift, savoring the pulse of the river on its odyssey through the canyon, and above all, to postpone the unwelcome and distinctly unpleasant moment when one is forced to reemerge and reenter the world beyond the rim.”– Kevin Fedarko, author of The Emerald Mile

HP 3151: Harry Potter
Instructor: Dr. Tammy Mielke
Modality: Asynchronous Online
Honors College Attributes: Upper-division elective
USP attributes: none
A&S attributes: none

This course focuses on gaining a greater understanding of Harry Potter as literary and cultural phenomena. Together, we will study the critical discourse that has emerged over the last decade or so as it relates to the Harry Potter novels and other cultural and artistic manifestations. We will further explore this series in terms of their relation to the world of the Muggles (us); and the broader social and political implications of this series.

 HP 3152: Modern Japanese Society and Culture
Instructor: Noah Miles
Modality: Asynchronous Online
Honors College Attributes: Honors Non-Western. Note: Students who have already completed their Honors Non-Western requirement may use this course as an Honors upper-division elective
USP attributes: (H) Human Culture
A&S attributes: (G) Global
This course is designed to introduce Japanese society and culture.  The class will take a thematic approach to the study of Japan.  We will integrate history and literature from the Jomon to the Edo periods, covering a diverse range of topics including: language development, the introduction of Buddhism, poetry, classical and modern literature, traditional arts and holidays concluding with the development of popular culture.

HP 3153: Art and Culture of Hip-Hop
Instructor: Adrian Molina
Modality: Asynchronous Online
Honors College attributes: Upper-Division Elective
USP attributes: (H) Human Culture
A&S attributes: (D) Diversity in the US

This course is an inter- and multi-disciplinary course that explores a culture and form of music that hundreds of millions of young people throughout the world identify with. Hip-Hop was born in the South Bronx, NY in the early 1970s, where African-American, Latino, and immigrant populations were essentially cast off as a result of the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway, white flight into the suburbs, and the politics of abandonment. Hip-Hop music and culture has now spread throughout the world, and regardless of whether the discussion is about mainstream gangster rap or underground, socially and political conscious Hip-Hop, this emerging field of study has broad, cultural, social, political, and economic implications. Students will explore the following issues in this course: race relations, racism, sexism and misogyny, class struggle, urbanization, white flight, pan-ethnicity and ethnic/cultural diasporas, civil rights era activism, post-civil rights Black and Latina/o leadership, activism through art, globalization, the commodification of art and culture in corporate America, and the perpetuation of racism and sexism through mass media.

HP 3153: American Popular Music
Instructor: Zachary Taylor
Modality: Asynchronous Online
Honors College attributes: Upper-Division Elective
USP attributes: (H) Human Culture
A&S attributes: (D) Diversity in the US

Music as an idea, an expression, a practice, and an experience can create personal feelings of connection, evoke emotional responses, and even bridge language and cultural barriers. This course is an exploration of the ever-growing compendium of songs and genres that make up American Popular Music. As our society’s development of music has evolved, so has its reflection of cultural, political, and technological contexts. American Popular Music addresses “pop” music both in its personal sense (e.g. how individuals interact with music, what role it plays in daily life, etc.) and in its systemic sense (e.g. the record industry, professional musicians, etc.) as they influence American Culture. While some course content will deal with the theory and historical context of popular music, the remainder of the course will focus on the effect of music as a practical application of culture and socialisation.

HP 4151: Future Southwest Studies
Instructor: Adrian Molina
Modality: Asynchronous Online
Honors College Attributes: Upper-division elective
USP attributes: none
A&S attributes: none

Cultural Studies is for everyone. With a wide lens on culture, arts, music, literature, film, food, social trends and political movements, this course opens a broad and inviting door to students interested in the future of the Southwest.  

The coursework naturally roots itself in Latina/o/x Studies themes. The writings of Gloria Anzaldúa will serve as foundational texts that explore race, gender, cultural identity, bilingualism, indigeneity, mestizaje (mixed identity) and spirituality from an integrated perspective, with a focus on radical imaginings of the future.  Building on this history, we will survey contemporary social, cultural, artistic and critical voices of the Southwest. What does their innovation, their work, and their movements tell us about what is now, what is new, and what is next for the Southwest? We will conclude with a look at grassroots creative and social movements that are taking on issues of immigrants’ rights, indigenous land rights, GLBTQ rights, water rights, climate change, and gentrification of Southwest cities and towns. 

HP 4151: Terrorism and Film
Instructor: Ruth Bjorkenwall
Modality: Asynchronous Online
Honors College attributes: Upper-Division Elective
USP attributes: none
A&S attributes: none

Terrorism matters—and particularly now because we live in an age of globalized terrorism. But what is terrorism? Is it really a new phenomenon? Who commits acts of terrorism? In what parts of the world? Why? This is a course in which we get to ask and answer such questions. Through films as case studies and readings on (some of) the history of terrorism—including the rise of ISIS terrorism—we’ll explore terrorism as a strategy, a means to an end based on calculated decisions that individuals, groups, and state actors make. 

Study Away and Study Abroad Courses | Summer 2022

For a list of the study abroad courses offered in Summer 2022 please see our Study Away/Abroad Course Descriptions.