Honors Colloquia
Spring 2025 Honors College Signature Seminar
HNRS 401H3-001: Animal Minds
Professor: Ed Minar
Colloquium Type: Humanities
**The deadline to apply to Honors College Seminars (via this application form) is 11:59 p.m., Thursday, October 10th.
Is there is a great divide between human beings and other animals, marked by mental or psychological characteristics that distinguish “us humans” from even our closest animal relatives? Such features might include rationality, language, tool use, culture, and self-awareness or sense of self. The idea of a wide gulf between humans and animals reinforced by perceived difficulties in obtaining knowledge of animal minds. After all, they cannot tell us what they think or feel. Some have regarded radical differences between humans and non-humans has as rationalizing the use of animals for human purposes. For example, if animals are thought not to be self-aware, their capacity to suffer, or at least the significance of their suffering, might be called into question.
Such (until recently, widespread) skepticism about animal minds contradicts the experience of animal trainers and others who work with animals on a daily basis. Moreover, their “folk knowledge” of the animals with whom we live, often criticized as anthropomorphic, is supported by recent advances in the scientific study of animal behavior. Researchers increasingly find – as Darwin and evolutionary theory would suggest – that the basics of rational thought, communication, culture, and self-consciousness are present in non-human species. In other words, the differences between “us” and “them” have in some ways been exaggerated. Does the breakdown of such a stark human/animal divide have consequences for how we human beings should treat our fellow creatures?
In this seminar, we shall explore some of these recent developments in our knowledge of animal minds. Questions will include: What is consciousness, what is it for, how did it evolve, how widespread is it in the animal kingdom? How much can we learn about what it is like to be a dog, a bat, an octopus? Can we experience the world from an animal’s point of view? What about self-consciousness or self-awareness in animals? And about knowledge of “other minds”? (Can your dog know what you are thinking or feeling?) What range of emotions do animals have? What do we know about animal communication, and how is it best studied? What is culture, where and how is it exhibited in animals? How should our approach to these and related questions affect our attitudes toward the moral status of animals?
HNRS 401H3-005: Cancer and Chronic Disease in the American Healthcare Ecosystem
Professor: Tim Muldoon
Colloquium Type: Natural Science
**The deadline to apply to Honors College Seminars (via this application form) is 11:59 p.m., Thursday, October 10th.
In the United States in 2024, there will be over 2 million newly diagnosed cases of cancer, and over 600,000 will die from the disease. One out of three people will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during the course of their life. Despite an overall improving trend in cancer-related death rates over the recent decades, annual expenses for the medical care of these patients will total more than $125 billion, but even this staggering figure ignores the broader costs to society- financially as well as socially. Despite these daunting numbers, we are at the cusp of a revolution in the way we understand, diagnose, treat, and prevent cancer.
Cancer is not a single disease, but rather, a broad collection of various classifications and subtypes. Any cell type in the body may lead to its own unique form of cancer, and even two people with exactly the same type and stage of cancer, treated in exactly the same way, may not have the same outcome. Despite these challenges, we have never understood the basic biology of cancer better than we do now, and current research has lead to great strides in the way we treat- and often cure- many types of cancer.
There is significant progress to be made, scientifically as well as societally. How do we allocate resources to combat cancer? Can we better treat patients as a whole person, rather than just their disease? How can we better address healthcare disparities to improve overall outcomes? The enormous funding and attention that cancer has received also raises concerns about the “cancer / industrial complex:” are funding agencies prioritizing the right things when it comes to treating an aging population and other chronic diseases? This course will explore these broad and complex issues that cut across science, medicine, industry, and society.
Spring 2025 Honors Colloquia
ENGL 392H3: Literature of Nonviolence
Professor: Sidney Burris and Geshe Thupten Dorjee
Colloquium Type: Humanities
The philosophy and practice of nonviolence are venerable disciplines that reside in every major religious tradition and stand at the beginning of Indian spirituality. Yet to this day, nonviolence, or ahimsa in Sanskrit, remains a marginal topic, often ignored in serious discussions of protest and civil disobedience. In this class, we will read a few of the classic texts that make the case for nonviolence, as well as spend a generous portion of our time looking at a few contemporary applications of the philosophy, including mental health, wellness, and meditation.
There are no textbooks required for this course. All necessary texts will be supplied on Blackboard by the instructors.
HUMN 392H3: Tibetan Philosophy and Culture
Professor: Thupten Dorjee
Colloquium Type: Humanities
Until the time of the Chinese invasion in the 1950’s, Tibet had maintained one of the richest cultural and religious traditions in the world. Now, with many of its citizens living in exile, Tibetans have been striving to maintain abroad the same traditions that were native to their homeland. This course will examine many of those traditions and offer the student a unique opportunity to participate in them under the guidance of an extraordinary teacher: a Tibetan Buddhist monk who has received the highest degree awarded by an Indian institution in Buddhist studies and who has passed examinations administered by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Students will not only learn about the major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism from an acknowledged authority, but they will also have an opportunity to participate in many of the activities that are central to the culture. Students, for example will construct a simple sand mandala as well as work side-by-side with Geshe Dorjee in preparing authentic Tibetan cuisine. Students will also study Tibetan chanting and construct simple religious objects, such as the prayer flag, while gaining an understanding of the place each of these objects occupies in the Tibetan cosmology.
JOUR 392H3: Government and the Media
Professor: Joel Reed
Colloquium Type: Humanities or Social Science
This class examines relations between the media and government. The course will focus specifically on the role of strategic media and reporting during political campaigns. The course investigates foundations and trends in media and politics such as polarization, populism, and partisan issue ownership and then applies those theories to four contexts of campaign communication. We first explore strengths, limitations, and ethical concerns in political reporting. The second unit focuses on political campaign advertising, its intricacies, and effects. We then explore political campaign debates and their importance as focal points for campaign communication. The class concludes with an investigation of public relations as a function of government and political campaigning.
PHIL 392H3: The Ethics of Climate Change
Professor: Jenna Donohue
Colloquium Type: Humanities
What are individuals, scientists, businesses, and governments morally required to do to prevent catastrophic climate change and to mitigate its effects?
How should governments respond to the problem of climate change? What should happen to the level of greenhouse gas emissions and how quickly? How much can the present generation be expected to sacrifice to improve conditions for future generations? How should the costs of mitigation and adaptation be apportioned between countries? Should significant funds be allocated to the study of geo-engineering? We will consider these and other questions in an effort to understand our responsibilities in respect of climate change. Along the way, we will sharpen our ability to ask good philosophical questions, clearly explain arguments, articulate compelling objections, and adopt opposing points of view with an eye toward charity. The ethics of climate change has never been more pressing than it is now, and we will engage with important contemporary questions while building on the resources of great philosophical, economic, and policy-making thinkers from both past and present.
PHYS 392H3: Thinking Outside the Box: Physics, soccer and much more
Professor: Laurent Bellaiche
Colloquium Type: Humanities or Social Science
PLSC 392H3: Political Violence
Professor: Jeffrey Ryan
Colloquium Type: Social Science
Please contact instructor (jeffr@uark.edu) for more information.
WLLC 392H3: Intro to Game Design II
Professor: David Fredrick
Colloquium Type: Humanities
This course will build upon the game design concepts and hands-on Unity skills learned in Game Design 1. However, while GD1 focused on providing students with a shared vocabulary of coding approaches for building basic games (including visual scripting), GD2 will dig into key aspects and features of Unity essential for games, but generally associated with art rather than coding. These include shaders and materials, lighting, VFX, animation, and game audio. Working in groups, students will create 3 games based on the Popul Vuh, the creation story of the Maya (K’iche’), to accompany a critical exploration of the emergent voices of indigenous designers in video games. While completion of Game Design 1 is strongly recommended, students without this course may enroll in Game Design 2 with instructor approval.