156 / 242
ACADEMIC PROGRAMS
Birmingham-Southern College Catalog 2016-2017
155
America I focuses on Native-American and Chicano history and literature and on the
European context of American society. Prerequisite: Harrison Honors Program.
HON 231 Plural America II (1)
An introduction to the plurality of the American culture from within the liberal arts
traditions of history and literature. The intent is to recognize the aspects of our cultures
appropriated into the Western tradition but often either unacknowledged or glossed over.
The end should be an appreciation of the achievements and limitations of our Western
heritage, and a heightened sensitivity to the cultural diversity of the world-at-large. Plural
America II focuses on African-American and Asian-American history and literature and
on the 1960s as a catalyst for multi-culturalism. Prerequisite: Harrison Honors Program.
HON 233 W.E.B. Du Bois and American History (1)
An introduction to the life and thought of one of America’s foremost public intellectuals,
W.E.B. Du Bois. Students will cover essential facts about Du Bois’ life and work and be
able to situate his arguments and their significance in the broader currents of American
history. Prerequisite: Harrison Honors Program.
HON 241 Flappers, Philosophers, and All that Jazz: The Fiction and Culture of F.
Scott Fitzgerald (1)
A seminar focusing on the fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald with emphasis on the social and
cultural issues of the era. Cultural issues that Fitzgerald’s texts investigate include class
conflict, material culture, female idealization/female resistance, immigration, race and
ethnicity, The Great War, homoeroticism, youth culture, and more. Prerequisite: Harrison
Honors Program.
HON 243 Dissecting the Text: Literature, Medicine, and the Body (1)
An investigation of the relationship between literature, medicine, and the body. This
seminar examines all aspects of the medical humanities as represented in literary texts
about the experience of health, illness, and doctoring from medical professional,
physician, and patient perspective. By analyzing the way we represent, interpret, and
“read” the body, this course dissects the politics of health and suffering, illness and
recovery, hope and healing. Prerequisite: Harrison Honors Program.
HON 246 Holy Ground: Space and Place in Art, Literature, Politics, and Religion
(1)
A seminar that examines the way we view place and invest it with meaning. Subject
matter ranges from landscape painting as visual storytelling to landscape gardening as
political statement; from a contrast between urban, suburban, and rural spaces to the ways
in which the American frontier myth generated popular culture phenomena; from debates
over sacred ground to clashes over the habitats of endangered species. Prerequisite:
Harrison Honors Program.
HON 247 An Arthurian Primer (1)
An investigation of three prominent strands of the Arthurian legend: the Grail quest, the
adulterous love of Lancelot and Guinevere, and Arthur as the Once and Future King.