Core Seminars: Honors Core Seminars are learning communities that integrate courses from different disciplines around a common theme. They always meet for at least 2 class periods, both professors are always present, and the assignments and material are integrated. Core Seminars are recognized to be high impact learning experiences and Oakton Community College is one of the few places where you can take one.

You must take at least one Core Seminar to graduate or transfer with the Honors Scholars designation on your transcript.

For spring 2019 we are offering TWO Core Seminars:

Cultural Landscapes: Environmental & Social Justice in Dialogue

This Honors Core Seminar combines Environmental Ethics (PHL 204) and Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology (ANT 202) to engage students around questions of culture and environmental justice. Using contemporary and diverse texts in philosophy as well as ethnographic readings and film, this course will explore how human experiences with nature are both shaping of and shaped by culture.

This seminar is worth 6 credits. ANT 202 satisfies a Gen. Ed. for transfer and PHL 204 can transfer as a Gen. Ed. or an elective. This core seminar fulfills an essential requirement for the Honors Scholars Certificate. It also counts towards completion of the Environmental Studies Concentration and Women's and Gender studies!

Days/Times:

This Core Seminar meets on TR from 9:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

Professors:

Professors Megan Klein & Thomas Bowen

Register for:

ANT 202 0H1 (CRN: 11618) & PHL 204 0H1 (CRN: 11766)

Binary Breakdowns: Gender, Sexuality and Creativity

Who we are depends upon what we can imagine for our lives. Art, film, literature, music, dance, and philosophy offer places to play with dimensions of identity, adopting roles, exploring expressions of gender and sexuality, and sometimes reimagining these categories altogether. Adopting an intersectional perspective, we will study cultural texts that challenge assumptions about gender and sexuality as they challenge oppressive social contexts. We will especially consider representational strategies used by LGBTQ, non-binary, third-gender, and Two-Spirit writers and artists as they upset notions of worth and privilege associated with binary divisions between fine arts and pop culture and craft, the beautiful and the ugly, the natural and the artificial, the human and the animal, and male and female. In addition to studying creative works, this class will present students with several opportunities to meet with visiting artists and writers at Oakton, and to showcase their own creative projects at events such as the Women's and Gender Studies conference, the Creating Justice Symposium and Earth Week.

This seminar is worth 6 credits. Both HUM 142 and EGL 132 transfer as Gen. Ed. and elective courses. This core seminar fulfills an essential requirement for the Honors Scholars Certificate. It also counts towards completion of the Environmental Studies Concentrations and Women's and Gender Studies!

Days/Times:

This Core Seminar meets on MW from 9:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

Professors

Professors Kristin McCartney & Marian Staats

Register for:

HUM 142 0H1 (CRN: 11765) & EGL 132 GH1 (CRN: 11764)

Single Section/Stand Alone Honors Courses: These classes are not part of a Core Seminar, but are Honors classes! You should take them!

EGL 102 0H1: Composition II: Honors

Course introduces strategies for planning, writing and revising advanced expository essays and the college research paper. Content includes critical reading and analysis, the structure of argument and the use of sources.

Composition II is a core General Education Credit. It is required for completing an Associate's degree and is required for most (if not all) Bachelor's degrees. It always looks good on a transcript for transfer!

Days/Times:

This course meets on TR from 12:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.

Professor:

Professor Marian Staats

Register for:

EGL 102 0H1 (CRN: 10521)

PHL 215 0H1: Asian Philosophy: Honors

Course introduces selected philosophical themes from historical and contemporary sources based in one or more of the following broad traditions: Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Islamic, Jewish, and Southeast Asian.

Days/Times

This course meets MW 12:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.

Professor

Professor Mohamed Mehdi

Register for:

PHL 215 0H1 (CRN: 11989)

PHL 290 0H1: The Thought of Franz Fanon: Honors

Among the foremost social problems facing us today is the persistence of racism and racial discrimination. Where does racism come from, what forms does it assume, and can it ever be eradicated? Few thinkers delved deeper into the issues than the Martiniquan-born philosopher, Frantz Fanon (1926-1961). His studies of colonialism, anti-colonial movements, and the impact of racial discrimination on its victims and perpetrators has made him one of the most influential thinkers on issues of race, racism, and revolution of the twentieth century. In this class we will explore his major philosophical works, as well as selections from his psychiatric and political writing, in light of ongoing debates in post-colonial studies, feminist theory and social and political philosophy.

Days/Times

This course meets R 2:00 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.

Professor

Professor Peter Hudis

Register for:

PHL 290 0H1 (CRN: 10940)

BIO 240: Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Laboratory Research

Course provides undergraduate research experience. Interdisciplinary course co-listed with CHM 240. Team-taught by faculty from several disciplines. Content includes active participation in selected research experience: performing experiments, collecting data, analyzing results, interactive research with other students and professors; reading and critiquing research articles in selected area of research, and presenting results at end of semester. This course can be repeated once for credit.

CHM 240: Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Laboratory Research

Course provides undergraduate research experience in an interdisciplinary course co-listed with BIO 240. Team-taught by faculty from several disciplines. Content includes active participation in a research experience that involves performing experiments, collecting data, analyzing results; interacting with other students and professors in the research; reading and critiquing research articles in the same research area and presenting at the end of the semester. Course can repeated once for credit.

Days/Times:

This course meets on M 12:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. & W 12:00 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.

Professors:

Professors: Suzanne Ziegenhorn & Melodie Graber

Register for:

BIO 240 0H1 (CRN: 11282) or CHM 240 0H1 (CRN: 11283)

Co-listed Honors Tandem Sections at the Skokie Campus: These classes are listed along with non-Honors sections of the same class. However, registering for these classes count as taking an Honors course (rather than an Honors Contract) when working towards the Honors Scholars Certificate.

Tandem Course: African-American Culture and Arts (HUM 124) and Introduction to Literature (EGL 129)

In this learning community, we will trace the history of violence against and within the African-American community. While there is a long history of white on black violence in this country which precedes and contextualizes the current violence, we are witness to it through the new media of cell phone and dash camera videos. We will explore the continuity of this new media through literary works and pop culture ranging from film, TV shows, advertising, and music. Also covered will be how these add to the discussion of racial violence in America. Examining texts ranging from slave narratives to current new Twitter hashtag movements, such as "#starbuckswhileblack." The course will analyze racial violence, exclusion and the ways black movements have theorized, debated, challenged, and overcome white supremacy and violence in the struggle for justice and freedom.

African-American Culture and Arts (HUM 124)

Course offers an interdiciplinary and comparative survey of the intellectual, artistic, historical, and cultural chievements of people of African descent in America. Content includes examination of literature, philosophy, visual art, music, film, and other performing arts.

Introduction to Literature (EGL 129)

Course introduces students to the study of literature through critical reading and analysis in multiple literary genres. Content includes terminology and methods for literary analysis and evaluation as well as discussion of social, intellectual and historical influences on literary works.

Days/Times:

This course meets on MW from 9:30 a.m. - 12:15 p.m at the Skokie Campus

Professors:

Professors: Will Crawford & Tina Fakhrid-Deen

Register for:

HUM 124 0H2 (CRN: 11882) & EGL 129 0H2 (CRN: 11528)