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Courses - Spring 2025
HNUH
University Honors
Open Seats as of
12/21/2024 at 10:30 PM
HNUH100
(Perm Req)
Credits: 1
Grad Meth: Reg
First-semester orientation and exploration seminar required of all UH students.
First-semester orientation and exploration seminar required of all UH students.
HNUH218C
Globalizing the American Revolution
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F, Aud
GenEd: DSHS, SCIS
Cross-listed with: HIST223.
Credit only granted for: HNUH218C or HIST223.
How is the American Revolution a creation story in the making of our multi-cultural and interconnected modern world? Consider the Declaration of Independence. When first published on July 5, 1776, it was printed by an immigrant Irishman on Dutch paper that had been brought over from England. This was the first such declaration of independence ever issued, but its ideas and forms traveled far and wide. More than 100 other declarations of independence have been issued since then. The people that declaration mobilized are similarly diverse: the American Revolution is as much the story of Creek farmers, Spanish soldiers, French slaves, Canadian fugitives, Indian tea-growers, and African statesmen as it is of the Minutemen and Sons of Liberty. In this globe-trotting class, students will be positioned to debate how the familiar story of the American Revolution changes when we place it in transnational context.
HNUH218C is the required Big Question course in the Butterfly Effects thematic cluster. Butterfly Effects courses will be offered through Spring 2026.
HNUH218O
The Butterfly Effect in Writing
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
How does investigative journalism impact change among individuals, local communities and global events? Stories have the power to change the world. In this course, we will examine how writing and multi-media storytelling in journalism have the power to impact change at local, regional and international levels. This course will introduce students to journalism that has had a mighty ripple effect, often around the world. Students will examine investigative and breaking-news journalism that has impacted individuals and global institutions alike. Once they have studied the work of writers who have effected change, particularly those of the African Diaspora, students in this course will have an opportunity to research their own investigative features and seek out ways to share them to make change in their own communities.
HNUH218O is part of the Butterfly Effects thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH218C to complete the cluster. Butterfly Effects courses will beoffered through Spring 2026.
HNUH218Q
Plants and Empires: Historical Issues and Contemporary Consequences
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSNS
Although seldom mentioned in the grand narratives of war, culture, and technology, plants have profoundly influenced the course of human history. Plant domestication and human civilization have been co-evolving ever since the origins of agriculture. This perspective leads to a number of provocative multidisciplinary questions: How did certain cereal grasses and legumes civilize a nomadic hunting-and-gathering primate at a few advantageous locations? How did the cultivation of sugar, tobacco, and cotton affect the colonization and exploitation of the world? What roles did tea, coffee, opium, rubber, and quinine play in the spread, economics, and military actions of the British Empire? Students will apply their appreciation of historical human-plant dynamics to address such contemporary challenges as global climate change, genetic engineering, biodiversity, industrial agriculture vs. sustainable stewardship, and the use of indigenous medicinals in modern cultures.
HNUH218Q is part of the Butterfly Effects thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH218C to complete the cluster. Butterfly Effects courses will beoffered through Spring 2026.
HNUH218R
Stealing from the Poor, Giving to the Rich: The Political Economy of Global Capitalism
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSHS, DVUP
Street names and museum exhibits are being renamed in Europe to erase the ghosts of their colonial history. Yet, this speaks of the colonial "era" as the past, when in fact it is very much our present. The economic principle driving colonialism--capitalism--encouraged an insatiable appetite for territorial acquisition, human bondage, and destruction that stole wealth, life, and joy from racialized "others" to fuel European development. We maintain and further these thefts, oppressions, and exploitations through our purchasing habits and justify them through cultural ideas and ignorance. What would it mean to undo these oppressions? What must we understand to begin this process? This course surveys colonial capitalism and its legacies in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa to explore how history informs the present robbing of the Global South for the Global North's development, as well as pathways towards resistance and reconciliation.
HNUH218R is part of the Butterfly Effects thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH218C to complete the cluster. Butterfly Effects courses will be offered through Spring 2026.
HNUH228C
The Fiction of Fact: Race, Science and Storytelling
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSHU, SCIS
What is a fact? Science is often viewed as an unbiased, fact-based, analytical discipline. However, throughout history, science has sometimes been the most potent weapon for creating and supporting political fictions and social hierarchies. Not unlike the discipline of the humanities, the sciences practice interpretation: scientists observe behaviors, of subject or objects, and necessarily provide an interpretation of the data. But it is the recourse to the "real" that has made science so powerful in underwriting cultural constructs. Whether we observe how science is manipulated in the public sphere, or how it is practiced for good or ill, it has been used to naturalize hierarchies of race, class or gender. Through a range of materials--fiction, film, visual arts, scientific articles, public humanities and political theses - this course will explore one of the most potent cases of this phenomenon of "scientific" storytelling: the case of race.
HNUH218C is the required Big Question course in the Science & Fiction thematic cluster. Surveillance courses will be offered through Spring 2026.
HNUH228Q
Science, Fiction, and our Environmental Future
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
What will the world look like in 2070? Bladerunner imagined the Earth's environment as desolate and inhumane. Black Panther shows us a country where technology and the natural world are in balance. Such scientifically charged fictions have long helped us face our fears about the future. If we hope to find 'greener' alternatives to our present courses of climate change and biodiversity loss, we must again look to the creative flights of fiction, as well as science. This course explores how science fiction can inform future visioning by expressing and challenging ideas about nature, culture, society, and politics. We will read and watch science fiction sub-genres of future scenarios to understand how science fiction thinking is applied in environmental science, design, and planning. The course challenges students to think about how 'smart', 'just', 'green' and 'resilient' visions can be integrated into sustainability transitions informed by collaborations between science and fiction.
HNUH228Q is part of the Science & Fiction thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH228C to complete the cluster. Science & Fiction courses will beoffered through Spring 2026.
HNUH228R
The Picture of Health and Illness: Modern Medicine in Illustration
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSHU, DVUP
From prehistoric carvings, through King Tut's burial mask and Michelangelo's David, to the Lincoln Memorial and Body Worlds, images have long been used to communicate what people can and should be. After the "Scientific Revolution" in Europe, when identity was increasingly tied to biology, medical illustrations communicated theories of the ideal body and how it should, and should not, look. Doctors working in the midst of scientific revolution unequivocally tied health to race, gender, and sexuality by enlisting engravers, photographers, and printers to depict the healthy body as a European man and all others as weak, flawed, or ill. This course takes up questions about science, illustration, and identity. Can science tell us who we really are? Do pictures reveal the truth about our bodies? In this class, students will develop their own theory of how science continues to shape who we think we can be and how we might resist those limitations.
HNUH228R is part of the Science & Fiction thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH228C to complete the cluster. Science & Fiction courses will be offered through Spring 2026.
HNUH229P
Climate in Crisis: Strategy and Advocacy
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSSP
This theory and practice track examines theoretical frameworks for understanding climate change and concrete cases that shed light on the complexity of managing it. In this, the practical component of the Climate in Crisis track, we explore several domestic energy and climate policy case studies, examining the competing roles played by various interest groups that influence legislative and regulatory outcomes, with a focus on differing organizational advocacy strategies. Once we have mastered organizational advocacy strategies, students bring those tools to bear on the most recent US Federal policy mandates and legislation. In 229T, students will complement this work with a deep dive into the nature of public goods and climate change policy, among other crucial considerations.
HNUH229P pairs with HNUH229T to complete the Climate in Crisis Theory/Practice track. This pair of courses can be taken in any order.
HNUH238C
Surveillant Society, Surveillant Selves
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSHS, SCIS
Do the social and individual benefits of surveillance outweigh its risks? Surveillance is a ubiquitous practice in contemporary society. Governments surveil populations; corporations surveil customers and users; and individuals surveil themselves and others. From red light cameras and doorbell security cameras to geo-tracking apps and smart appliances, surveillant practices shape 21st-century lifestyles. Many take these practices for granted as acceptable trade-offs for individual and collective benefits. Others sound the alarm on the dangers of being tracked and monitored, with concerns over individual liberty, social inequalities, and more. In this course we will debate how surveillance shapes social practices and selves. Students will draw their own conclusions about the role of surveillance in society, and what, if anything, should be done to change it.
HNUH218C is the required Big Question course in the Surveillance thematic cluster. Surveillance courses will be offered through Spring 2026.
HNUH238O
Surveillance, Technology, and the "Death" of Privacy
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
In 1949, when George Orwell published "1984," few imagined how much the future would resemble the fictional surveillance state he depicted in his novel. Yet, 75 years later, surveillance technologies have not ceased to expand thanks to advances in computing and big data. We are at a point where many decry the "end of privacy," a world sketched with frightening detail in the popular Netflix series "Black Mirror." Are we destined to live in a dystopia like those described in popular science fiction books and films, or can we take steps now to ensure that privacy does not fall into oblivion? This course traces the rise of surveillance technologies used in homes, schools, workplaces, and everywhere in between to understand how we got here and where we are headed. Students will explore various framings of surveillance in Western culture, critically assess the challenges surveillance technology raises for vulnerable populations, and explore ways to stop the seemingly inevitable push toward a society without privacy.
HNUH238O is part of the Surveillance thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH238C to complete the cluster. Surveillance courses will be offered through Spring 2026.
HNUH238R
Invasive: Feminist Perspectives on Power, Politics, and Ecosurveillance
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSHU
Invasive species play a key role in 60% of plant and animal extinctions, constituting a serious threat to global biodiversity and costing over $423 billion annually. But what is at stake in the impulse to frame a species as "invasive"? What modes of watching, tracking, and surveilling emerge in the context of invasive species management? What are the material and ethical implications of these practices? As the cost of invasive species management has quadrupled every decade since 1970 and is likely to continue to increase, what alternatives exist? Reading through the lens of feminist science studies, this course asks what species movement might teach us about the possibilities and challenges of multispecies environmental ethics. Students will examine theoretical, historical, cultural, and practice-based accounts to better understand how our collective and individual actions continue to unevenly shape the biodiversity of our changing planet.
HNUH228R is part of the Surveillance thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH228C to complete the cluster. Surveillance courses will be offered through Spring 2026.
HNUH239I
Globalization & Sustainability; How Does the Transformation of Global Value Chains Drive Equity and Sustainability?
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg
Cross-listed with: BMGT271.
Credit only granted for: BMGT271 or HNUH239I.
We live in an increasingly interconnected world. This course explores the fundamentals of international trade that form the basis for the complex modern network of global value chains and how these relationships can be adapted to address their vulnerability while also transformed to build a more equitable and sustainable future.
HNUH239I is self-contained but paired with HNUH239T in the Geopolitics of Finance track, which explores how globalization has brought about fundamental changes to our daily lives by making the world more interdependent.
HNUH248C
The Societal Impact of Artificial Intelligence
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSHS, SCIS
How will AI change society? AI is changing not only business, but the nature of society itself. This course investigates the nature of those changes and forecasts their future development. With a focus on the implications to business, including the nature of human jobs as AI does an increasing amount of work, students will debate the implications of AI through a variety of lenses. From definitions of consciousness and the potential for robots to claim rights to the gender implications of AI, we will explore its philosophical and political implications. As AI is also capital, we will interrogate what the advance of AI means to capitalists and for labor. Finally, we will enter the debate around whether AI will require more than machine learning to approximate general intelligence and whether it can truly be creative. Through the exploration of the unprecedented pitfalls and opportunities that AI represents, students will learn how best to cope with a world that is dependent on AI.
HNUH248C is the required Big Question course in the Artificial? Intelligence? thematic cluster. Artificial? Intelligence? courses will be offered through Spring 2026.
HNUH248R
Artificial Intelligence: Critical Examinations through Science Fiction and Technology
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSHU
AI permeates our world, but science fiction (SF) told stories about it centuries before AI became a reality in the 1950s, shaping our understanding and expectations through words and images. In this course, students will trace AI's evolution through SF to critically examine how key SF works have shaped how we think about AI and intelligence. Through an exploration of existing AI, like autonomous weapon systems, generative AI, and AI assistants, as well as a visit to UMD's AI department, students will learn to be critical viewers, readers, and developers as they grapple with AI's moral and social implications. Using the context of SF and technological developments, we will explore what the creation, existence, and evolution of fictional and real AI means for technology and humanity.
HNUH248R is part of the Artificial? Intelligence? thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH248C to complete the cluster. Artificial? Intelligence? courses will be offered through Spring 2026.
HNUH249T
National Security: Domestic Dilemmas
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg
GenEd: DSHS
Credit only granted for: HNUH249T or HONR278D.
Formerly: HONR278D.
The police detain a man thought to be plotting a terrorist attack the next day in a U.S. city that would kill or injure thousands. They want to subject him to "enhanced interrogation," which some consider to be torture. Should the police be permitted to use enhanced interrogation techniques? Who decides? This course will ask key questions raised during the efforts of our national security apparatus to protect the nation. Given the tension between the powers of the government to protect citizens, and the necessary limits on that power, what are the fundamental principles that should govern our efforts to protect the nation while preserving our values? Students will try their hand at finding the delicate balance of these principles in difficult national security dilemmas. This course is self-contained but paired with HNUH249P in the National Security track, which explores post-9/11 policy decisions around the U.S. effort to create a sustainable democracy in Afghanistan.
HNUH258B
The Ecology of Childhood Poverty
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg
GenEd: DSSP, SCIS
How does poverty shape the relationship between humans and their environment? It may seem obvious that being poor in childhood has enduring effects on development. What is less obvious is how experiencing poverty in childhood shapes relationships between children and their surroundings, including family interactions, peer relationships, adult dynamics, and the health of the community. Less clear still is the extent to which positive interactions with caretakers and social supports can protect children from potential harm as they grow up. This course focuses on the complexity of poverty as a social force and community concern. Students will investigate the nature of poverty through an interdisciplinary lens that includes social theory, developmental psychology, and empirical studies. After analyzing various approaches to the study of child poverty, students will be in a position to use research on parenting and poverty to evaluate public policy and social programs in their own backyard.
HNUH258B is the required Big Question course in the Metamorphosis themat ic cluster. Metamorphosis courses will be offered through Spring 2025.
HNUH258I
Forced Metamorphosis: The "Unnatural" Creation of Future Humans
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg
Credit only granted for: HNUH228U or HNUH258I.
Additional information: This course is an amended version of a course Dr. McReynolds taught for UH until spring 2024 in the Redesigning Life cluster, which has cycled out and will not be taught again. That is the reason for the 'credit only granted for' caveat.
What will future humans look like? Will technology or mutations alter our bodies to survive on other planets? Will widespread cloning create a population of genetic copies? Even as we celebrate the advances in genetics that make imagined futures more realistic, we need to acknowledge that these impulses are often rooted in schools of thought -- for example, eugenics -- that want to alter racial and other biological characteristics of future generations. In this class, we'll use science fiction to extrapolate what might happen as the natural processes of growth and change continue to be disrupted or rerouted by human intervention. Through the lens of disability studies, students will be invited to rethink how we talk about changing human bodies and which bodies society seems willing to let disappear.
HNUH258I is part of the Metamorphosis thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH258B to complete the cluster. Metamorphosis courses will be offered through Spring 2025.
HNUH258V
Collective Behavior in Natural and Artificial Systems
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSSP
From fish schools to traffic jams, natural and artificial systems alike exhibit forms of collective behavior. In fact, the onset of collective behavior in a system of interacting individuals often corresponds to a period of broader transition in the system from a disordered to ordered state. Why do environments as diverse as the ocean and human society follow the same pattern of emergence? The course takes up this question through an exploration of physical and biological systems, such as insects and animal groups, and human crowds; and case studies in transportation, robotics, and social networks. Students will learn to model, analyze, predict, and even synthesize collective networks of all kinds using quantitative methods such as graph theory, dynamical systems theory, agent-based modeling, and data-driven approaches. No prior knowledge of systems theory or methodology is necessary.
HNUH258V is part of the Metamorphosis thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH258B to complete the cluster. Metamorphosis courses will be offered through Spring 2025.
HNUH258W
Migration, Myth, and Memory: Humanity and Hope in the Immigrant Novel
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSHU
Stories of immigrants to the United States reveal the metamorphosis of the nation itself: labor, culture, religion, and politics have all been transformed by diverse waves of new Americans. Simultaneously, the outlook and traditions of migrants have been profoundly affected by these processes. As a result, both migration and Americanism remain highly contested notions, particularly in light of forced migrations that mark the nation's early history. This course grapples with the complex ways that identity, memory, and culture are made and remade. Moreover, students engage these concepts at the granular level, considering how individual experiences interface with broad historical trends. Through discussions centered on novels about diverse immigrant experiences, students will learn to contextualize problems, re-humanize individuals associated with major social trends and political controversies, and transcend cliches about immigration and American culture through humane interrogation.
HNUH258W is part of the Metamorphosis thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH258B to complete the cluster. Metamorphosis courses will be offered through Spring 2025.
HNUH259T
Drawn to D.C.: Reading the City
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg
GenEd: DSHU
A movement known as the Metropolitan Revolution has recognized cities as sites of concentrated economic growth and political power. What does that movement have to do with you? Not only does the city change who you are, but the ambitions and fears that you bring to it also alter what is already there. With Washington, D.C. as a case study, this course considers cities in the context of the ambitious plans that developed them and the unbuilt spaces that open us to imagining them anew. From the ideological tensions and competing policies that politicize urban space, to the construction challenges and social implications of choices made, why we build is as important as what we build. We will experience Washington through its history of spaces, stories, music, art; and learn to see ourselves as co-designers of its present. This course is self-contained but paired with HNUH259P in the Drawn to D.C. track, which explores the created spaces we inhabit, and how they inhabit us.
HNUH268B
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSHS, SCIS
What traction does the past have in society today? This course explores globally how the past gains traction in society today and becomes remade in the present. That inquiry will be guided by the idea of heritage, as it mobilizes the past within a broad spectrum of social, political, economic, and environmental issues. We will examine western relationships to the past as intimately tied to property and the drive to plunder, collect, and catalogue. Increasingly, conceptions of heritage include landscapes, as well as intangibles such as music, dance, and folklore. This broad definition honors the diversity of present-day relations to the past, even as it strains heritage management models that are organized around definitions and regulations, and bear the weight of historical injustice. Close examination of heritage at work within global crisis and struggle prompts questions on who owns the past, and who owns up to it. What do we owe the past, and will we be good ancestors to the future?
HNUH268B is the required Big Question course in the Heritage thematic cluster. Heritage courses will be offered through Spring 2025.
HNUH268I
Origin Stories: Case Studies in American Identity
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
E Pluribus Unum, the motto on U.S. currency, is one way to describe how America sees itself as a nation. Yet, the United States has always been a country of disparate, converging cultural identities brought together through circumstance and movement such as colonization, immigration, and the transatlantic slave trade. Despite unifying notions such as the melting-pot metaphor and the Pledge of Allegiance, the American experience is one that features racial and ethnic tensions, varying in intensity depending on the geopolitical context of the moment. If we say we are American, where does that shared heritage align with individual identity and where does it diverge? With theories and tools drawn from Cultural Studies, Sociolinguistics, and Microhistory, this course will explore the construction of racial and ethnic differences to understand the dynamic nature of our heritage(s) and how it shapes our identities.
HNUH268I is part of the Heritage thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH268B to complete the cluster. Heritage courses will be offered through Spring 2025.
HNUH268V
Art Museums and the Politics of Cultural Heritage
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSHU
Despite the great variety of art museums in the world, these institutions share a common goal: to preserve and interpret cultural consciousness through objects or other material facets of human agency. While these collections often feature the cultural heritage(s) of their lands, in many cases, they also hold objects that have been taken away through illegal or morally questionable practices from their original context. Thus, they prompt discussions about who these holdings really belong to, how they should be displayed and interpreted, and whether they should return to their places of origin. This course explores a number of these issues by asking some fundamental questions: why do art museums matter? How have they evolved over time? What can they become in the future? Students will debate these questions to gain a finer understanding of the complex role of these institutions as custodians of cultural heritage.
HNUH268V is part of the Heritage thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH268B to complete the cluster. Heritage courses will be offered through Spring 2025.
HNUH269T
Building Community: Showing up for Social Change
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
A neighbor in an area without a supermarket plants a public vegetable garden at their curb. A group of activists comes together to support each other's mental health. What do these initiatives have in common? They are instances of showing up for change and helping yourself in the process. In this course, you will delve into a social issue you care about and be empowered to make change. We will take up thorny questions - When individuals work to restore social ties, how do we know our efforts are welcome? How does helping ourselves actually help others, and vice versa? - to understand why individuals must forge community to catalyze real change. Through discussions and hands-on activities, you will learn the social value of showing up, for the world and for yourself. This course is self-contained but paired with HNUH269P in the Building Community track, where you will learn the science of connection and apply these skills to build more meaningful relationships in your life.
HUNH269T pairs with HUNH269P to complete the Building Community Theory/Practice track. This pair of courses can be taken in any order.
HNUH278B
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSHU, SCIS
How do ordinary citizens power democracy? At the age of 18, every American citizen is endowed with the right to vote, but what if democracy demands more than voting? With democratic processes seemingly in peril all around us, what can and should ordinary citizens do to safeguard democracy? Looking beyond the basic right to vote, this class will instead explore the complex ecosystem of citizenship practices necessary for collective self-governance. Turning to both philosophy and history, the course material addresses the power and peril of such civic habits as mutual aid, economic participation, tolerance, attention, organizing, protest, and more. We consider what resources these habits require, what virtues they inspire, and what happens when they conflict with each other. Students in this course will acquire the tools to develop and act on their own answer to the pressing question of what it will take to save democracy.
HNUH278B is the required Big Question course in the Civil Bonds thematic cluster. Civil Bonds courses will be offered through Spring 2025.
HNUH278I
Bonded: Loneliness, Health, and Quality of Life
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg
Society has become more and more disconnected, with 61% of American reporting being lonely. The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community reports that "The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and even greater than that associated with obesity and physical inactivity." Disconnection is devastating for health and for society. Particularly in a democracy predicated on the health of civic life, which requires interpersonal and community relationships, where does this predicament leave us as a society? This course illuminates the potential root causes of disconnection: early familial relationships, attachment styles, and broader technological trends. Students will leave the course with a toolkit of evidence-based strategies they can use - and share - to help heal these divides and repair our core social connections.
HNUH278I is part of the Civil Bonds thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH278B to complete the cluster. Civil Bonds courses will be offered through Spring 2025.
HNUH278V
Climate Change, Infectious Disease, and Civil Society
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
Viruses that are lethal to human life have been on earth for centuries. Why are they surging now? And how can we respond to the recent breakneck spread of Coronavirus? This class begins its journey with Homo sapiens, our ancestor that dispersed out of Africa and carried infectious diseases across the planet. Human expansion into new ecosystems also provided opportunities for us to acquire new pathogens. While all of human history is marked by diseases caused by human migration, the Industrial Revolution greatly accelerated human mobility while planting the seeds of the human impact on climate change. Today, the increasingly rapid movement of people and goods, combined with a warming planet and the large-scale disruption of major ecosystems has witnessed an unprecedented spread of infectious diseases. Students will explore how these trends impact our lives and collectively challenge themselves to do what must be done to save our planet and ourselves.
HNUH278V is part of the Civil Bonds thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH278B to complete the cluster. Civil Bonds courses will be offered through Spring 2025.
HNUH288B
Race, Reproduction and Rights
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
GenEd: DSHS, SCIS
Can humanity thrive without ensuring reproductive freedom? The 2022 US Supreme Court decision that the right to an abortion is unconstitutional has generated impassioned debate about women's rights and access to reproductive health care in the US and globally. This debate opens space to think beyond "pro-choice or pro-life" polarization and create conditions that promote equity, respect for rights, and a healthy society. These conditions would need to address injustices such as the racism, gender inequalities, marginalization, and colonization that produce disparities in reproductive health care and jeopardize the well-being of individuals, families, communities, and countries. Who controls the bodies of marginalized women and men? What is the meaning of reproductive rights for people who have little power? This course challenges students to bring together multiple disciplines, become critical data consumers, and develop innovative ways to use this knowledge to influence policy.
HNUH288B is the required Big Question course in the Health Matters thematic cluster. Health Matters courses will be offered through Spring 2025.
HNUH288U
The Body Knows: Creating Healthy Intimacy on College Campuses
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg
How do we figure out what we physically desire? How do we know where our boundaries are and how do we communicate that to others? What would it look like to create a campus community where young people are confident about their sexuality and their ability to communicate the nuances of their needs to potential partners? This course is designed as a creative workshop to help students put their own embodied knowledge in conversation with theories and practices of healthy intimacy. Core texts explore the history of sexual violence as a tool of colonization, the relationship between feminism and sex-positivity in popular culture, and the consent theories that have become central to college campus responses to sexual violence. With the help of performance-based techniques, students will have the opportunity to research issues specific to UMD, design curricula for their peers, and advocate for an end to sexual violence on campus.
HNUH288U is part of the Health Matters thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH288B to complete the cluster. Health Matters courses will be offered through Spring 2025.
HNUH288V
Campus Well-being: Solving the Health Inequity Puzzle
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F
The last few years have highlighted the need to focus greater effort on health and well-being, and the challenge of doing it equitably. College campuses, in particular, have made student care and equitable access a priority. Yet, the data suggest that we are still not succeeding across the board. This seminar takes the current student body at UMD as its case study to understand the range of factors that contribute to well-being and health disparities. Students will review reports and relevant literature about the most recent campus surveys: the University New Student Census, Withdrawal Survey, the Food Access & Student Well-being Study, and surveys completed by Counseling Center clients. They will apply the study findings to their everyday lives, formulate evidence-based recommendations regarding student programs/services, brainstorm questions to be included in future campus surveys, and test ways to use research to promote positive change for all.
HNUH288V is part of the Health Matters thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH288B to complete the cluster. Health Matters courses will be offeredthrough Spring 2025.
HNUH300
Vantage Point Seminar
Credits: 2
Grad Meth: Reg
Goal-setting and project-design seminar required of all UH students and taken in the second semester of the sophomore year or the first semester of the junior year.
HNUH398P
(Perm Req)
Federal and Global Experiential Learning
Credits: 3 - 9
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F, Aud
GenEd: DSSP
Restriction: Permission of instructor. Repeatable to 9 credits if content differs.
Cross-listed with: FGSM398.
Credit only granted for: FGSM398 or HNUH398P.
This is the experiential course component of the Federal Fellows Program and Global Fellows Program.
Cross-listed with FGSM398. Credit only granted for FGSM398 or HNUH398P.