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The Judy Genshaft Honors College offers courses located on all three USF campuses, as well as off-site locations. Judy Genshaft Honors College courses are open to students from any home campus.
Courses listed as online (AD) will meet synchronously at the time and days listed and will have no face-to-face component. Courses listed as hybrid (HB) will offer a minimum of 9 hours of in-person class time as well as online class meetings at the designated time/days. Students who enroll in a hybrid course may select to attend any/all sessions as a remote student unless otherwise noted.
Narrative, Storytelling, and the Circus ArtsIDH 3100-501 (Hybrid)Instructor: D. Davis-CottonSummer AMTWR | 9:30am – 11:50am
Circus Talk! This course provides an archival exploration of narratives central to circus artists. Using a variety of media, students will be asked to examine the sociocultural survey of the circus performance experience that is unique to Sarasota, Florida . A primary focus will be on readings, research, writing, speech delivery, communication, and performance. Students will develop storytelling techniques to share information that connects perspectives, personalities, and pride.
We will discuss the lives of the people who lived and worked on the grounds of the Ringling Circus and Circus Arts Conservatory. Students will review and discuss featured narratives by the circus artists, analyze written and film documentaries, and they will create and present storytelling posts on how the past contributes to the understanding of sociocultural dynamics of the circus. Using primary and secondary sources, each student will create a short original storytelling video (5-10 minutes) on the legacy of a circus artists.
Politics & Literature IDH 3100-601 Instructor: Thomas Smith Summber A | On-line with some synchronous sessions TR | 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
This class examines political violence through literature and film. We explore British imperialism and current-day violence in India, the weight of the Holocaust on a survivor’s family, Stalin’s GULAG, the culture of the cold war, the brutality of the Cultural Revolution in China, dystopian sexual totalitarianism, and the personal and political fallout from the Iraq War. Questions to be considered include: What is the relationship between politics and art? How is power wielded responsibly? When is the use of violence justified? Is violence legitimate if done for “reasons of state”? What, if any, personal responsibility do citizens bear for violence committed by their governments? What are the hopes for peaceful conflict resolution?
Politics & Literature IDH 4000-601 Instructor: Thomas Smith Summer A | On-line with some synchronous sessions TR | 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
Honors ThesisIDH 4970-601Instructor: Thomas SmithSummer C | On-line with some synchronous sessions F | 1:00-2:00
St. Petersburg Students in the Judy Genshaft Honors College should register for this section of thesis.
Food and History IDH 3400-001 (Hybrid) Instructor: Gary Mormino Summer B: June 28 – August 6 T/R | 9:30am – 1:00pm "Tell me what you eat," wrote a French gourmand 200 years ago, "and I will tell you who you are." This class examines history through the lens of food. The way we eat/ate is always changing. We will discuss how invaders, wars, immigrants, ethnic groups, technology, the media and politics change our food habits. Students will maintain food journals and write a mini-term paper.
Political Grievances, Populism, Nationalism: Understanding the fight for freedom and liberation through the examination of political speeches and documentsIDH 3600-001 (Hybrid)Instructor: Stephanie WilliamsSummer B: June 28 – August 6T/R | 9:30am - 1:00pm This course is designed to cultivate an understanding of how rhetoric, political opinions, and political documents both articulate political grievances inform nations values. Further, students will read and discuss speeches from historical figures whose grievances challenges the ideals of freedom and who is entitled expand or restrict the expansion of political, social, and economic rights through government institutions and policies.
Physicians of the Soul: Medicine, Philosophy, and the Good LifeIDH 3600-002 (Hybrid) Instructor: Benjamin Scott YoungSummer A: May 17 – June 25T/R | 11:00am – 2:30pmThis course is certified as part of the Medical Humanities in a Global Context (MHGC) pathway; it is open to all Honors students.
The origins of medicine and philosophy are deeply connected. This is true not only in the Western traditions, but in many cultural and intellectual settings throughout the world. Moreover, not only is the historical development of philosophy and medicine inseparably interwoven, but they share a common motivation—and so also a common intellectual and emotional pattern. This motivation might best be expressed simply as “care for well-being.” Medicine cares for the well-being of the body and philosophy cares for the well-being of thoughts, beliefs, and experience. Both traditions struggle to articulate what “well-being” means for human beings—body and mind—and both develop methods and procedures by which to remedy and avoid identifiable pathologies and errors.
Furthermore, like the analogy that Plato’s Socrates draws in Protagoras, whereby he imagines the similarities between those who care for the body—physicians—and those who care for the soul—philosophers (i.e., “physicians of the soul”)—the one who participates in the cultivation of culture might be thought of as a “physician of culture.” Both the body and the mind are experienced through the inherited cultural constellation of ideas, practices, and concerns that have shaped our lives from birth. To examine, compare, appreciate, and critique these inherited cultural ideas participates too in that same care for well-being.
Despite having been “thrown,” as it were, into an always already on-going constellation of cultural traditions, each of us is also always in the position to evaluate these, select some, discard others, and create still more. This process of evaluation and creativity with regards to the question of what sort of life is most worth of our love and striving might be summed up as: the question and quest for the good life. Therefore, our aim in this course is, ultimately, to draw on both philosophy and medicine—historical and contemporary—to enable us cultivate answers to the everyday practical and existential question about what it means for each of us to live a good and choiceworthy life with regards to mind, body, and culture.
Civic Literacy and Public Discourse IDH 4200-002 (Hybrid) Instructor: Dan RuthSummer A: May 17 – June 25 T/R | 9:30am – 1:00pm
This class is designed to give students an enhanced understanding of world events and civic institutions that influence their lives. Having a better grasp of swirling news events and the confidence to be able to articulate their importance is essential to becoming a more engaged citizen. To that end, students will be required to read both the Tampa Bay Times and New York Times, as well as follow other information platforms such as broadcast and cable news outlets, NPR and social media. This course will also include a weekly news quiz. Students will also participate in weekly team presentations exploring in depth some aspect of current news events and/or various civic institutions. It is said that journalism often represents the first draft of history. The goals of this class are two-fold. First, students will become better informed and thus more aware of stories that will help form their world view. Second, students will also gain a keener understanding of the journalistic challenges associated with bringing the news to the public’s attention.
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Time, Desire, and Satisfaction: Philosophical and psychological perspectives and phenomenological researchIDH 4950 - 001 (Hybrid)Instructor: Benjamin YoungSummer A: May 17 – June 25M/W | 11:00am – 2:30pm
In this course we will draw on [1] philosophical and literary thinkers (e.g., Epicurus, Seneca, S. Kierkegaard, L. Tolstoy, E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, H. Bergson, Dōgen Zenji) and [2] a selection of contemporary psychological research. With both perspectives in view, we will investigate the experience of time and its relationship to perception and anticipation, memory and imagination, sensation and mood, and ultimately, desire and satisfaction. Oriented with these ideas, and drawing on the resources of phenomenological hermeneutics, our primary object of investigation will be the structure and qualities of first-person experience. In addition to becoming acquainted with [a] some of the most influential ideas about time, desire, and satisfaction, and [b] research in phenomenological hermeneutics, students should anticipate deploying these in the conduct of their own phenomenological research project.
Innovation and Sustainability in EngineeringIDH 4950 – 002 (Online)Instructor: Lauren BartsheSummer A: May 17 – June 25Times vary, instructor will communicate with students.This course is limited to students registered in the Germany Innovation in Engineering Program.
As a country leading technical innovation globally, Germany provides an interesting case study for examining the impact of innovation on the course of environmental and social change. Innovation and Sustainability in Engineering is an integrative course starting with a two-week digital immersive with the Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences International Summer School (Germany). Host institution faculty and international guests will guide students on an in-depth investigation of recent developments in various research areas of engineering in Germany, with special focus on renewable energy technologies, postindustrial site development, e-mobility, and sustainable agricultural production. Students will engage in digital site visits to engineering facilities throughout Germany to learn about practices and interview professionals. The course concludes with a group research project and a presentation at USF.
This course integrates multiple disciplines of engineering and sustainable applications to contemporary, global challenges and is designed for students from all engineering fields. There are no pre-requisites; however, students should have a basic understanding of materials science, energy technologies, and electrical engineering.