Spring 2012 Courses

HRAP courses are for HRAP students only and do not appear in the regular listings of CU courses. Registration must be done through HRAP.

Friendly Reminder: HRAP students must take one HRAP course each semester. Enrollment and housing in HRAP is dependent upon it. All first-year Honors students may only take one Honors course during Fall semester, and for HRAP students that Honors course must be in HRAP. HRAP students do not have classification restrictions on upper division courses. One lower division and one upper division written communication courses are required for A&S students.

* WRTG 1250:  AP score of 4 in English Lang & Comp = 3 credits of WRTG 1150; AP score of 5 in English Lang and Comp = 6 credits for both WRTG 1150 and WRTG 1250 in which case 1250 would be considered a repeat course for no credit.  Enrollment in WRTG 1250 may be taken to fulfill elective credits.

All HRAP courses fulfill core requirements for students in the College of Arts and Sciences.

ARTH 1709-888: Critical Introduction to Art History: Freshman Seminar
This course provides a broad introduction to understanding and appreciating art. The focus in this class will be selected topic that will broadly cover issues including landscape, place and art, and art in public spaces. It will conclude with a discussion of how (or if) museums incorporate some of those concerns. Topics will also include a brief introduction to the elements and techniques of the visual arts and will include visits to the Denver Art Museum and other regional and campus galleries and collections. The purpose of this course is to explore some of the critical issues that inform the world of art. How, for example, do some artists define a sense of place through their artwork? How does, or should, art in public spaces function? Whose interests are served with public art? Whose interests should be served? How do museum display practices impact how we perceive “art” and overlap with issues of place and public space? The course is not intended to be an art history survey. It is intended to provoke thought and discussion that will focus on specific issues that inform the artwork, and are particularly relevant in the 21st century. [Top ↑]

CAMW 2001-888: The American West: Living on the Land
This interdisciplinary course weaves together environmental policy, ethnic history, and Western literature to understand the American West today. As we study the West, we will place particular emphasis on the ways in which specific Western landscapes have fostered distinct cultural identities and diverse worldviews. We will follow the stories of native peoples and newcomers from different cultures who have sometimes clashed, sometimes cooperated in order to sustain themselves on the land. We will also follow the story of the land itself as we examine past Western land use patterns and current natural resource policies. This seminar-style class is interactive and experiential. Invited speakers will enrich classroom learning and field trips with Open Space and Mountain Parks naturalists will foster first-hand knowledge of western landscapes and ecosystems. Welcome to this exploration of the American West! The American West fulfills the U.S. context requirement in the core curriculum and serves as the foundation course for the Western American Studies Certificate Program offered by CU’s nationally recognized Center of the American West. The Center provides first-year students with opportunities to join the University’s lively discourse on the past, present, and future of the West. [Top ↑]

EBIO 1040-888: Biology: A Human Approach 2
Did you know that poor oral health can make you more susceptible to heart disease? Did you know that severe allergies to peanuts have been steadily increasing in the United States but are virtually non-existent in the developing world? This course (EBIO 1040 - Biology: A Human Approach) focuses on the biology of the human body and is intended for non-science majors. We will employ a combination of diagrams, models, movies, podcasts and animations to learn about the various systems of the human body and, ultimately, to understand why amazing facts like those listed above are true. As we discuss each body system and study its function, we will then apply our newfound scientific knowledge to more interactive topics like Lance Armstrong's Lungs, Meditation & Metabolism, Veganism, and 'Roid Rages. Throughout the semester, students will also organize round-table discussions on controversial topics in modern biology, such as the pervasiveness and safety of pharmaceuticals, childhood obesity, and the effects of exposure to hormone-like compounds in our environment. Guest speakers and field trips will round out our exploration of human anatomy and physiology. [Top ↑]

ENGL 1600-888: Masterpieces of American Literature
Masterpieces of American Literature explores a few of the great works of 19th-century American Literature, including Herman Melville’s masterpiece, Moby-Dick and selections from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, as well as works by Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Kate Chopin and the early 20th-century author, William Faulkner. The novels and poetry map the developing stages of the idea of the American individual, in the context of movements and social concerns like Transcendentalism, slavery, the Civil War and new personal freedoms. The classes are discussion based, with online components and the chance for students to develop their reading and critical skills. [Top ↑]

ENGL 3060-888: Modern and Contemporary Literature
Modern and Contemporary Literature explores the connection between the great experimental writers of the Modernist Period, including names like William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Langston Hughes, with contemporary and postmodern authors like Jeannette Winterson, Toni Morrison, J. M. Coetzee, Jorge Luis Borges, Art Spiegelman, August Wilson, and others, working in fiction, drama, the graphic novel and poetry. The course is a survey of some of the most important writers of the last century and recent years, developing techniques of flash fiction, stream-of-consciousness, graphic media, ethnic and cultural expression, postmodernism and pop culture. The classes are discussion based, with online components and the chance for students to develop their reading and critical skills. [Top ↑]

FILM 2003-888: Introduction to Documentary Film Poetics
This course is an introduction to thinking about and making documentary films. Through, short projects, film screenings, readings, class discussions, and research students will become acquainted with a variety of concepts and practical issues pertaining to creative documentary filmmaking. This course will explore and cross-reference a variety of media, such as photography, as we examine the documenatry "impulse" in art. We will likewise explore the contributions of digital cinema to documentary image making. [Top ↑]

GEOL 1010-888: Introduction to Geology
We live on a planet with wonderful natural features like mountains and glaciers and rivers and oceans and deserts. During the course of even multiple generations, these things appear to change very little. But on geologic time-scales, planet earth is all about change; it is a dynamic world where nothing is permanent. GEOL 1010 is a Core Curriculum course, and can be used towards three of the required 13 credit hours in Natural Science. It is a course that addresses the materials, processes, and history of our planet. Earth materials are minerals and rocks. They come and go as a result of Earth processes that include volcanoes, earthquakes, moving continents, glaciers, rivers, streams, and oceans. The grand machine of planet Earth has not droned along in monotonous fashion. Our planet’s four and one-half billion year history has been anything but boring. Several class sessions will be taught outside—not on the grass underneath a tree, but by way of field trips and hikes—examining rocks and fossils that reveal a fascinating tale involving dinosaurs, mountain-building, glacial epochs, and oceans that rise and fall between drifting continents! We will also spend some time looking back at the scientists who helped put it all together. In doing so, we’ll find that as new bits and pieces of information are acquired, scientists are forced to re-interpret their models. If nothing else, we learn the important lesson that scientific ideas are malleable and that a truly complete understanding of the world is something we strive for, but never fully achieve. [Top ↑]

HIST 1025-888: History of the United States Since 1865
This course studies the history of the United States since 1865, with emphases on the history of war, working people, racial and ethnic minorities, the history of ideas, and social and political change. We will incorporate memoirs, film, and music into our study of American history for the last 150 years. [Top ↑]

HIST 2112-888: Early Modern Societies: (Aztecs, Incas, and Iberians in the New World)
The hundred-year period from about 1450 to about 1550 marks what is arguably the most important time of transition in the history of the Western Hemisphere. At the center of this transition is the extension of Europe to the Americas, which resulted in a fundamental reshaping of societies on both sides of the Atlantic. This course examines the indigenous societies and peoples known to us as the Aztecs and the Incas, beginning in about 1450, and continues the indigenous focus through the conquest into the Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese) colonial world, ending in about 1550, when the main features of the colonial system are firmly in place. The course also considers the history of Iberians, the people who were then becoming Spaniards and Portuguese, and the early formation of the states that were in the process of becoming Spain and Portugal. The beginning of the Atlantic slave trade and African slavery in the Americas are central themes of the course. Particular attention is also given to two other themes: the origins and nature of modern ethnic or race thinking, and the world-wide economic revolution (the first global economy) which comes in the wake of the discovery of immense quantities of silver in Mexico and Peru. [Top ↑]

HIST 2629-888: China in World History
Chindia emphasizes critical reading of English-language works on China and India. It compares the developmental experiences of both countries, focusing on the reforms that have been implemented since the late 20th century. It begins with how Westerners have perceived or misperceived both countries, reviews earlier efforts at development, and analyzes the reasons for later success. Finally, the course considers the impact of the current global financial crisis and its implications for the development of China and India during the remainder of the 21st century. [Top ↑]

HONR 2500-888: Topic: Media Utopias and Dystopias
This course has two parts. The first part reviews some of the most important discussions media in Western philosophy plus a few artistic treatments that amplify those discussions. Authors studied will include Plato, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Ray Bradbury, and Don DeLillo. The second part will focus entirely on the Digital Age, with readings on Web 2.0, Facebook, gaming, and other recent innovations. Authors will include Clay Shirky, Sherry Turkle, Nicholas Carr, Steven Johnson, Maggie Jackson, and many other prominent figures. The course will balance enthusiastic and alarmist judgments of digital media, offering students the full range of opinion about the impact and prospects of digital technologies in individual lives and in American society. [Top ↑]

IPHY 2420-888: Nutrition, Health, and Human Performance
This course is designed to promote critical thinking related to topics of nutrition and health. The course aims to educate students about basic nutrition principles and how to implement these principles into an overall healthy lifestyle. Basic principles of nutrition and exercise physiology will be discussed along with the latest “hot topics” in the field. Discussions will include the following general topics: What is healthy nutrition? How does the human body utilize nutrients? What foods should I buy and eat? What is metabolism and energy balance? What are the special nutritional needs of athletes? How can I tell the fads from the true nutrition principles? What do consumers need to know about food safety? What personal choices do I have related to food selection? Special emphasis will be placed on exploring the differences in ideology between the fast food industry and the newly-emerging slow food movement. Other popular topic will include: obesity in the U.S., fad diets, weight loss, nutritional quackery, functional foods, genetically-engineered foods, organic foods, body image and eating disorders. There is no doubt about it; nutrition is an exciting topic of discussion these days. There is mention of health and nutrition everywhere – on television, in magazines, on the radio and on the internet. Through our class discussions and critical thinking exercises, students should become capable of determining their own, individual dietary needs. One primary goal of the course is to assist students in interpreting the almost constant bombardment of nutritional articles and advertisements, to help them become better-informed consumers. Texts: (1) The Science of Nutrition by Janice Thompson, Melinda Manore and Linda Vaughan, First Edition, copyright 2007 (2) CD: My Diet Analysis – available at CU bookstore second week of classes. [Top ↑]

IPHY 3660-888: Dynamics of Motor Learning
The course focuses on two main issues related to human motor control and learning. First we explore how the nervous system controls human movement by tracing the pathway and processes from the brain to the muscles. Secondly we focus on how we learn motor skills and the factors that influence the speed of the learning process. We approach the study of motor skills from both an information processing and dynamical systems approach. Lectures are augmented by lab activities to highlight the principles covered in class. Students help run the labs and also provide write-ups on the lab activities. Counts for Arts & Science Core: Natural Science (non-sequence), an elective for the Neuroscience Certificate, and an elective in Integrative Physiology. [Top ↑]

MUEL 2752-888: Music in American Culture
This course is a survey of various folk and popular musics of the United States. This is a non-majors class; no prior knowledge of music or cultural studies is expected. Our main goal in the first 1/3 of the course is to get a working sense of what folk culture is and how it operates in people’s (including our own) lives. We will also briefly survey some main strands of folk culture that form the basis of “American” (in this case, U.S.) culture. In the remaining 2/3 of the course, we will first explore the nature of popular culture and then undertake a chronologically-based survey of various United States popular music styles from roughly 1840 to the present. Throughout the course, music is regarded to be one aspect of culture—part of a complex of outer activities and practices that expresses and reinforces inner concepts and beliefs. To place musical examples in cultural context, we will combine multiple evaluative approaches—e.g., sociological and historical as well as purely musical—in attempt to explore the “meaning” of musical examples. Class activities and assignments are designed to give students opportunities to go beyond fact gathering/reiteration, to explore and experience for themselves how American folk and popular musics operate as part of everyday cultural life. [Top ↑]

MUEL 2862-888: American Film Musical 1926-1954
In 1927, The Jazz Singer, the first full-length feature film to use recorded song, stunned audiences. From these not so humble beginnings the American Film Musical was born. From the dulcet tones of Jeanette MacDonald, to the extravaganzas of Busby Berkeley’s enormous choruses, to the athletic grace of Gene Kelly and the ballroom fantasies of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, to the croon of Bing Crosby, this uniquely American art form continues to entertain, inspire, and reflect a distinctive American outlook on life. In this course we will watch and listen to a multitude of films, examining the relationship of these films to the American society from which they were born. We will discuss themes, images, political and social content, technological developments of film and the use of song and dance. While this is not a performance class we may incorporate moments of song and dance in our explorations of the films leading to the final project for which the class will write its own musical. [Top ↑]

RLST 3000-888: Christian Traditions
Did you know that there are over 2 billion Christians in the world today? This class examines the diversities of Christianities with an emphasis on the cultural manifestations of this tradition throughout the centuries. Music, art, literature, film, architecture and more are some of the ways we will explore this vibrant religious tradition. [Top ↑]

THTR 1011-888: Development of Theater1: Classical Theatre & Drama
Remember playing superheroes, or doctor, or space aliens, when you were a child? You were taking part in one of the oldest activities of human kind, playacting; creating stories, characters, and dialogue to explore your identity, test boundaries and understand the values you were learning. This basic human behavior is referred to as “Imitation” by Aristotle and examples of this behavior can be found in every culture throughout human history. It is the formalized enactment of cultural stories that will be studied in this course. How a society chooses to represent itself through theatrical presentations and how those choices reflect, support or challenge that culture will frame our discussions. Covering the development of world theatre from the beginning of recorded history until about 1800, we will look for patterns and trends of theatrical activity. We will be learning about theatre as it is found in a wide variety of cultures, including Asian, African and Western, as well as from a multitude of historical time periods. We will examine theatre firmly within a cultural context which will include religion, language, society, colonialism, politics and more. We will continually ask WHY theatre developed as it did in that specific culture. Who benefitted? Who supported and watched it? What kind of censorship was in place? Who opposed the theatre? This is primarily a history class but as it is the history of performance we will read, watch and, at times, take an active role in order to understand the complexities of theatrical and cultural interactions. [Top ↑]

WMST 2050-888: Gender & Contemporary Culture
The primary objective of this course will be to encourage students to question the meanings of “male” and “female,” and gendered norms. We will seek to unravel the ways that ideas about gender shapes social roles and identities. Throughout the course of the semester, we will examine how contemporary culture socializes and disciplines us even as it desensitizes and entertains us. We will begin with the debatable assumption that our ideas about men and women, along with the intersections of race, ethnic groups, sexualities, and civil society are formed by cultural texts. For our class, the cultural texts to be discussed will include: Film, Television, The Internet, Advertising and Fashion Magazines, Club Culture, and Icons. Our class will be a space for critical engagement and dialogue regarding how forms of gendered expression and contemporary culture work and how we can become critical consumers of culture [Top ↑]

WRTG 1250-888: Advanced 1st Year Writing & Rhetoric: Honors
The course theme is contemporary global issues and readings center on the anthology, The New World Reader: Thinking and Writing about the Global Community. The course focuses on critical analysis, rhetorical strategies, persuasion, argument, inquiry, research, and information literacy. Taught as a writing workshop, students produce multiple drafts of each assignment and revise drafts based on feedback from the instructor and peers. The course places a premium on invention, drafting, and thoughtful revision. By reading civic discourses that engage strategic global questions such as the changing demographics of the United States, changing gender roles, culture wars and environmental preservation students are challenged to (re)consider their beliefs, values and perceptions of a rapidly transforming world, the role a research university plays in this process. [Top ↑]