Honors Program Courses

Fall 2025: Seminars 

ENGL 245-H: LGBTQ Literature with Professor Alice Eaton

The study of literature has long been a fruitful place to consider issues of identity.  In LGBTQ Literature, we will read a variety of texts that overtly or covertly consider queer identity in its many forms.  Starting with Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night, we will explore hidden and not-so-hidden indicators of queerness in literary texts, and how scholars have responded to coded indicators of identity.  In more recent texts such as Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home, we will examine ways in which LGBTQ+ writers create coming-out narratives, and how such narratives often end up on banned book lists.  

HIST 210-H: African American History with Professor Ian Delahanty

In this class, we study African American history in its regional, national, and global contexts between the early-1600s and early-2000s. Across this broad chronological and geographical scope, we consider what Black history tells us about what it means to be free.

MUSC 332-H: Music as a Form of Social Protest with Professor Chris Gagne

This course provides a survey of music that is rooted in an expression of sociopolitical protest. Throughout the course, students will explore various styles and subgenres of protest music demonstrated throughout history. Additionally, students will analyze the compositional elements, as well as the relevant cultural context, of all representative works. As a final project, enrolled students will compose their own protest song on a subject of their choosing as a means of assimilating the concepts discussed in class, and also as an exercise in creative self-expression.

RELI 209-H: Religion and Food with Professor Katherine Dugan

Think about the last time you ate a meal with your family–how was eating with loved ones different from eating alone? Are there special traditions that your family has–a specific meal before a big event or a birthday tradition? Does someone in your family have a special dish that they always bring to family meals? Food matters, and how we share it reflects our culture, values, and personalities. Food is a tangible way that religious norms are expressed, and religious ideas shape how humans eat or do not eat. We’re going to spend the semester exploring norms around religious foods, and ideas about food, religion, and power. We’ll look at food and ritual, food and values, religious food and communities.

SCSM 101-H: Springfield College Seminar with Professor Rebecca Lartigue

The Springfield College Seminar is an interdisciplinary, thematic course developed for students entering the College. The course provides an introduction to the Springfield College Core Curriculum, as well as to the intellectual culture and Humanics mission of the College. The course is designed to engage students through practicing the fundamental skills necessary for academic success: critical thinking, effective writing, analytic reading, and oral communication. In our section, we’ll form a community with fellow honors students who are new to Springfield College as we dialogue about complex real-world issues. The course helps you learn how to have vibrant, student-led discussions while you explore how to make connections and integrate ideas across a range of subject areas.

Fall 2025: Colloquia

HNRS 192: Fiction in Science--Interpreting Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype with Professor Luke Pelton

This course will provide an in-depth examination of some of the many challenges and flaws within scientific inquiry. Using Stuart Ritchie's Science Fictions as a primary text, students will explore critical issues such as data manipulation, publication bias, and ethical misconduct, all of which undermine the credibility of scientific findings. The course will emphasize how systemic pressures, personal biases, and negligent practices can distort the scientific process, leading to exaggerated or false claims. Students will learn how to critically evaluate scientific literature, identify red flags in research practices, and understand the broader implications for policy, public trust, and the advancement of knowledge. Learning outcomes will be achieved via class discussions, case studies, and analyses of current and historical examples. This course will equip students with tools to navigate, recognize, and interpret the complex landscape of modern scientific research with skepticism and rigor.

HNRS 192: The Human Body Under Stress with Professor Mindi Fried

Stress can affect all aspects of life, from body system function to pregnancy, genetics, and sleep. The effects of stress can influence relationships and even community health. This colloquium will explore the effects of stress on the human body. It will include explorations of different types of stress management techniques, including discussions of ways to make stress work for you.

HNRS 192: Making a Museum Exhibit with Professor Ian Delahanty

In this colloquium, students will extend the work of HIST 201 / HNRS 284: Making History Public (spring 2025) to create a new Springfield College Museum exhibit, to be revealed at the end of the semester.

HNRS 192: Scientific and Cultural Drivers of Medical Innovation with Professor Chris Abdullah and Elizabeth Marathas

Scientific innovations progress forward influenced by technological advancements, cultural values, and societal needs. This colloquium explores the interdisciplinary nature of scientific progress through the paradigm of the medical field including medical devices, treatments, infrastructure, and policies. We will explore the scientific breakthroughs (and failures!) that have allowed for progress in the medical field. These advancements will be framed in historical context as we time travel back to ancient times to discuss the origins of medicine, through colonial times, and come back to the future to discuss contemporary topics like CRISPR and personalized medicine.

Spring 2025: Seminars

DRAM 220-H: Scene Study with Professor Martin Shell

This is a practical “hands-on” course for developing actors that is primarily focused on scene work, and we’ll work from a wide range of plays and styles of theater. We’ll connect performance abilities and ensemble skills to the exploration of a variety of physical and vocal techniques needed for everything from the classics of Western theater to contemporary dramas to experimental original works. Students learn research methods for characterization, period movement, and interpretation of scenes that reflect a deepening understanding of how theater illuminates its society and culture. We’ll demonstrate our learning in ongoing actor training, frequent scene presentations, rehearsal logs, research papers, and a final presentation and critique.

ENGL 250-H: Literature and the Law with Professor Justine Dymond

Literature as wide-ranging as Sophocles’s drama Antigone, Franz Kafka’s story “The Trial,” and Layli Long Soldier’s contemporary poetry collection Whereas focuses on how the law– legal and political contexts– shapes human experience. What does it mean to be wronged? What avenues do we have for seeking justice? How do we reconcile the horrible injustices of the past with the hope for peace in the present? How does literature intersect with law, and how might we bring the tools of literary analysis to bear on our understanding of the law? These are some of the key questions that will drive our inquiries in this course into the myriad intersections of literature and the law.

HNRS 284: Seminar in History—Public History with Professor Ian Delahanty

This course introduces students to the field of museum and archival studies. Students collaborate to research, plan, and produce a museum exhibit about Springfield College’s history based on research in the Springfield College Archives and Special Collections. Students select the archival materials to be exhibited, prepare captions and other explanatory materials for the museum exhibit, and consider how best to display the results of their archival research.

RELI 209-H: Religion and Food with Professor Katherine Dugan

Think about the last time you ate a meal with your family. How was eating with loved ones different from eating alone? Are there special traditions that your family has–a specific meal before a big event or a birthday tradition? Does someone in your family have a special dish that they always bring to family meals? Food matters and how we share it reflects our culture, values, and personalities. Food is a tangible way that religious norms are expressed and religious ideas shape how humans eat or do not eat. We’re going to spend the semester exploring norms around religious foods, and ideas about food, religion, and power. We’ll look at food and ritual, food and values, religious food and communities.

Spring 2025: Colloquia

HNRS 192: The Business of Sports Venues with Professor Daigo Yazawa 

This colloquium will explore the business aspects of sports venues in the United States. Students will examine a chosen sports stadium/arena from a variety of business perspectives, including management, marketing, design, finance, and economics. We will explore all of the behind-the-scenes and other unique aspects that go into a sports venue. The goal of this colloquium is to gain new perspectives and skills to analyze a sports venue from multiple business perspectives and apply them to other sports venues around the world.

HNRS 192: Fiction in Science with Professor Luke Pelton

This course will provide an in-depth examination of some of the many challenges and flaws within scientific inquiry. Using Stuart Ritchie's Science Fictions as a primary text, students will explore critical issues such as data manipulation, publication bias, and ethical misconduct, all of which undermine the credibility of scientific findings. The course will emphasize how systemic pressures, personal biases, and negligent practices can distort the scientific process, leading to exaggerated or false claims. Students will learn how to critically evaluate scientific literature, identify red flags in research practices, and understand the broader implications for policy, public trust, and the advancement of knowledge.

HNRS 192: Future Studies with Professor Rebecca Lartigue 

In this colloquium, we’ll analyze the ways that past and present societies have envisioned “the future.” To what degree can the past help us understand and anticipate the future, and how are our visions of the future affected and shaped by the past? We’ll consider a wide range of topics, from the calendar-making of ancient societies, to the cultural role of prophecy and divination, to competing dystopian and utopian visions in sci-fi, to myths about the Apocalypse. By studying the methodologies different disciplines use to model or “predict” the future (e.g., actuarial math, trendcasting, meteorology and climate science, economic forecasting, political science election predictions), we’ll attempt to identify the limitations of these methodologies and their resulting models. 

HNRS 192: Music and Movement with Professor Jasmin Hutchinson

This colloquium delves into the dynamic interplay between music and movement, with a particular focus on how music influences physical activity, sports performance, and exercise behavior. By integrating research from psychology, kinesiology, neuroscience, and musicology, students will explore how music can enhance motivation, improve athletic performance, and facilitate the psychological and physiological aspects of exercise.

HNRS 192: Puzzle Me This with Professor Chris Hakala 

This colloquium will study the popularity of intellectual puzzles and brain games similar to those in the New York Times. The focus of the colloquium would be the psychology behind them with a goal of understanding the cognitive strategies involved in solving puzzles, the emotional impact of puzzles, and the social and interactive nature of solving intellectual puzzles. The course will be grounded in social and cognitive psychology and would also draw from the world of statistics. The colloquium would be applicable to a number of different applications, including real world problem solving and work-related challenges.

HNRS 192: Sustainable Springfield College with Professor Chelsea Corr-Limoges

This colloquium introduces key sustainability principles and explores how they are applied to address the complex environmental problems of today. We will analyze a diverse range of sustainability efforts, spanning from personal decisions regarding natural resource consumption to collective international initiatives outlined in the U.N. Sustainable Development Agenda. These discussions will inform a culminating collaborative project that addresses a specific sustainability challenge on campus. We'll work together with other campus partners to design and implement a project that promotes sustainable practices (e.g., waste reduction) at the College to better our campus community and planet. 
 

View Past Honors Program Courses: 

Honors Colloquia (HNRS 192)       Interdisciplinary Seminars (HNRS 282)

Seminars in a Discipline (HNRS 283)   Guided Study Courses (HNRS 141 and HNRS 499)