Core Courses Spring 2026

In Honors, we talk about cross-disciplinary curiosity, holistic journeys, and being more than your major. This course will use experiential learning, discussion, and reflection to help you discover how your curricular, extra-curricular, co-curricular, and otherwise non-school-related activities contribute to your future careers and civic lives. All undergraduate levels are welcome.

We will meet all together once per week during Weeks 1-4 and 13-15 of the semester. Outside of class, you will be required to attend various events of your choice and pursue opportunities both on and off campus. In class, you will discuss your experiences with fellow students and use reflective writing to learn from those experiences. By the end of the course, you will be better able to make connections across various learning platforms both in and outside the classroom.

Conversation and Education for Democracy
This class focuses on the practice of productive dialogue about complex topics -- a practice that is crucial in personal, professional, and public contexts.  Each co-taught section focuses on three timely social conundrums, and each includes weekly small-group meetings in which we build skills through mentored debates and deliberations. 

Conversation and Education for Democracy
This class focuses on the practice of productive dialogue about complex topics -- a practice that is crucial in personal, professional, and public contexts.  Each co-taught section focuses on three timely social conundrums, and each includes weekly small-group meetings in which we build skills through mentored debates and deliberations. 

Culture and Narrative: The Power of Stories
Using a rhetorical approach, we will examine how writers and composers communicate to achieve different purposes and to connect with different audiences across various physical and digital spaces. We will look at writing and composing choices in personal narratives, social media, academic writing, and public discourse, aiming to understand how specific stories affirm, trouble, or counter larger dominant narratives. As our focus, we’ll examine how writers and composers create, engage with, and share stories, such as personal, familial, cultural, civic, environmental stories. We’ll learn about and apply theories about narrative and storytelling, as these approaches will help us explore the role stories have (personally, interpersonally, and within and across various communities), as well as the power they can wield. Throughout the course, we will complete narrative and analytical writing in different genres and explore how creative, multimodal approaches can support can enhance writing.

Culture and Narrative: The Power of Stories
Using a rhetorical approach, we will examine how writers and composers communicate to achieve different purposes and to connect with different audiences across various physical and digital spaces. We will look at writing and composing choices in personal narratives, social media, academic writing, and public discourse, aiming to understand how specific stories affirm, trouble, or counter larger dominant narratives. As our focus, we’ll examine how writers and composers create, engage with, and share stories, such as personal, familial, cultural, civic, environmental stories. We’ll learn about and apply theories about narrative and storytelling, as these approaches will help us explore the role stories have (personally, interpersonally, and within and across various communities), as well as the power they can wield. Throughout the course, we will complete narrative and analytical writing in different genres and explore how creative, multimodal approaches can support can enhance writing.

Complicated Joy: The Radical Power of Delight and Wonder
In this course, we’ll interrogate the complexities of joy, wonder, and delight. The author Zadie Smith argues that joy lives at the intersection of pleasure and sorrow, the tolerable and the intolerable. We’ll explore what it means to cultivate a “delight muscle,” a term Ross Gay uses for the daily practice of noticing what moves us, especially in challenging times.

The theme of joy will be our vehicle for developing rigorous skills as a writer, reader, and critical thinker. We will explore “outlaw genres” like hermit crab essays and zines, and use interdisciplinary research to connect personal joy to broader academic conversations to examine how joy intersects with justice, climate change, identity, and community. Drawing on writers like Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Amy Tan, we’ll explore how tuning into awe can be an act of resistance and survival.

Complicated Joy: The Radical Power of Delight and Wonder
In this course, we’ll interrogate the complexities of joy, wonder, and delight. The author Zadie Smith argues that joy lives at the intersection of pleasure and sorrow, the tolerable and the intolerable. We’ll explore what it means to cultivate a “delight muscle,” a term Ross Gay uses for the daily practice of noticing what moves us, especially in challenging times.

The theme of joy will be our vehicle for developing rigorous skills as a writer, reader, and critical thinker. We will explore “outlaw genres” like hermit crab essays and zines, and use interdisciplinary research to connect personal joy to broader academic conversations to examine how joy intersects with justice, climate change, identity, and community. Drawing on writers like Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Amy Tan, we’ll explore how tuning into awe can be an act of resistance and survival.

Finding Hope in Dystopic Times
Stories about the walking dead, climatic apocalypses, and world-ending disasters are in no way new. Yet they continue to saturate films, novels, and other media today. Our society seeks out stories of apocalyptic environments and dystopic futures – why? Perhaps, it is in such stories that moments of hope for humanity are found.

In this rhetoric-based course, we will explore both fictional dystopias and real-world dystopic environments in pursuit of moments of hope, care, and action. We will investigate how language, digital platforms, and other communicative resources support rhetorical action amidst dystopic conditions. Students will negotiate the complications with using stories – both fictional and lived – for activist endeavors in response to social injustices. We will work to uncover how and why stories are used to drive movements and inspire hope for humanity amid a world that feels more and more like a dystopic film. This course is set up for students to dig into what popular culture, including social media, can teach them about effective and meaningful writing and communication in the classroom, in their communities, or in the digital public spaces they inhabit in our increasingly socioecological, dystopic world.

Engaging the World: U.S. Cities and the Narratives of Crisis
The last few years have brought a number of radical disruptions to the daily lives of people living in the United States. Political and civic leaders, pundits, and academics speak of a three-part crisis wrought by a global health pandemic, an economic recession, and a reckoning with a centuries-long national history of white supremacy. For urban residents across the country, however, many of whom have taken the streets in protest after facing public health disparities, a ballooning wealth and income gap, and racism for decades, this concept of ‘crisis’ is not a new one. To better understand the history of these ‘urban crises’ narratives in the United States, this class will interrogate a number of questions, including: what are the origins of these ‘crises,’ and how have communities living in urban centers grappled with them across the twentieth century? How and why have urban populations changed, and how have residents understood the communities that develop in urban spaces? Who holds economic and social power in urban areas, and who has the ‘right’ to live in an urban space? And, how do urban residents organize to mitigate or reverse the effects of these economic, public health, and racial ‘crises’ on their communities? With these questions in mind, this course offers an introduction to the twentieth-century history of cities in the United States, focusing specifically on the development of a crisis narrative in urban space. Throughout the course we’ll pay special attention to the complicated and conflicting ideas about cities that have emerged in relation to adjoining rural and suburban areas, examine the rise of the modern metropolis, interrogate the role of public health in urban development, and analyze the political, social, and environmental dimensions of cities’ growth. We will examine the relationships between cities and migration, while also studying the ways in which the distinctions of city and country have been continually drawn and redrawn over time. We’ll seek to understand what caused these massive fluctuations in urban life, with a special focus on cities in the Midwest, as well as how these shifts connect to larger national and transnational trends. Focusing on economic, social, environmental, demographic, and cultural change, this course offers an introductory overview of what it has meant to be an urban denizen across the twentieth and early twenty-first century.

The City – Indigenous Milwaukee
Description & Objectives: In this class, we will explore the Indigenous peoples, cultures, and communities of Wisconsin and the city of Milwaukee from the pre-Columbian era to the present day. In particular, we will consider the collective experience of Wisconsin’s Native Peoples – “Indians” – while also appreciating the complexities that made, and continue to make, each Indigenous peoples and culture distinct from one another. This class will also focus on the themes of colonization and decolonization, settler colonialism, cultural inclusivity, violence and intimacy, removal and “survivance,” assimilation and allotment, along with sovereignty and self-determination. This class will also grapple with contemporary issues related to Native mascots, treaties, casinos, cultural representation, and more. In addition, this course is an experiential class, meaning that we will engage with the Indigenous peoples and communities of Wisconsin and Milwaukee throughout the course of the semester.

Engaging the City: Reckoning with History in Milwaukee
This class is about Milwaukeeans reckoning with their past. We will explore what it means to reckon with the past, especially in urban contexts, and what happens when we ignore history. You will learn about local historical developments including efforts at Indigenous removal, antislavery activism, a Civil War-era lynching, early physical education, the Great Migration, industrialization, highway construction, and Civil Rights activism. You will also learn inspiring stories of how Milwaukeeans have reckoned—and are reckoning—with the past through art, fiction, protest, commemoration, community organizing, and urban planning. Class trips and outside visitors will give you a new appreciation of the city in which we live. 

Description to come

 TBD

CHEM 1002H 901 Lecture MWF 11 -11:50am Vijay Vyas

941 Lab W 1 - 3:50pm, Vijay Vyas

942 Lab W 1 - 3:50pm, Vijay Vyas

961 Discussion T 9:30 - 10:20am, Vijay Vyas

962 Discussion  TT 11 - 11:20am, Vijay Vyas

You must enroll in a lab first. Once you enroll in a lab, you will automatically be enrolled in the lecture and then you can choose a discussion section.

CHEM 1014H   901  MF 9 -10:15am, Nicholas Reiter

Lab 941  W 1 - 3:50pm, Vijay Vyas      

*For Chem 1014H, a permission number is required, please use this form to request.

COMM 4750H Media, Technology, and Culture
Section 901 TTh 12:30-1:45pm, A. Jay Wagner
Section 902 TTh 2-3:15pm, A. Jay Wagner

Draws on books, films, television shows and other elements of popular culture to consider the historical and conceptual foundations of new media technologies and their impact on contemporary culture.

CRLS 3140: Race, Crime, and Punishment
Instructor: Dr. Darren Wheelock
Meets: Tuesdays, 5:30-8:30pm

PHIL 4931/5931: Emotions of Moral and Political Transformation
Instructor: Dr. Theresa Tobin
Meets: Mondays, 6:00-8:30pm

PSYC 4740: The Narrative Self
Instructor: Dr. Ed de St. Aubin
Meets: Thursdays, 9:00-11:30am

**EPP courses require an application and the deadline to apply is Nov. 26, 2025. Use this application link to apply.

**These coursese are not officially honors sections, but honors student who enroll will receive honors elective credit.

**Check out the EPP course page.

ENGL 4615 Text in Context: Les Miserables TTh 8-9:15am, Brittany Pladek

This is not officially an honors section, but honors student who enroll will receive honors elective credit.

** This course requires a permission number to enroll and spots are limited, so please use this form to request a permission number.

ENGL 4746 Game Studies MWF 12-12:50pm, Gerry Canavan 

This is not officially an honors section, but honors student who enroll will receive honors elective credit.

** This course requires a permission number to enroll and spots are limited, so please use this form to request a permission number.

HEAL 1025H Honors Culture and Health
901 T 9:30am - 12:15pm Theresa Schnable

HEAL 1025H does not require a permission number. If you have trouble enrolling, please contact the Nursing department.

HEAL 4901H 901 Th 11 - 12:15 pm Amy Newman

*This is a hybrid course, including both in-person and online components. The first week will be in-person. Further details pertaining to meeting dates and delivery methods will be provided in the course syllabus at the start of the semester.

HEAL 4901H does not require a permission number. If you have trouble enrolling, please contact the Nursing department.

HIST 4255H Honors The British Empire MWF 1 - 1:50pm, Tim McMahon

Survey of the creation, expansion and dismantling of the world's largest empire from the 16th century to the present. Explores political, social, economic and cultural factors. Emphasis on contrasting the views and experiences of Britons and of natives of various colonized areas. As an Honors Program course, includes a more intensive research or project component.

HOPR 1964H M 1 - 1:50pm, Lindsay Daigle

Looking to broaden your college experience or get more involved? Want to make the most of being an Honors student at a Jesuit university?

In Honors, we talk about cross-disciplinary curiosity, holistic journeys, and being more than your major. This course will use experiential learning, discussion, and reflection to help you discover how your curricular, extra-curricular, co-curricular, and otherwise non-school-related activities contribute to your future careers and civic lives. All undergraduate levels are welcome.

We will meet all together once per week during Weeks 1-4 and 13-15 of the semester. Outside of class, you will be required to attend various events of your choice and pursue opportunities both on and off campus. In class, you will discuss your experiences with fellow students and use reflective writing to learn from those experiences. By the end of the course, you will be better able to make connections across various learning platforms both in and outside the classroom.

HOPR 3953H 901 MWF 10 - 10:50am, Joong Won Kim

What makes a sound subcultural? Can music build community? Or does it reinforce boundaries? Is the Grateful Dead a band or a lifestyle? What does it mean to be a Swiftie? Is Sabrina Carpenter’s rise a product of pop machinery or genuine cultural resonance? What did Brat Summer mean? And who was it for?

Is fandom a form of resistance or just another form of consumption? How do race, gender, and class shape the way we hear? What does it mean to belong to a scene when the scene is digital, global, and constantly shifting?

This course invites students to explore music not merely as entertainment, but as a social force that organizes identity, space, and power. We will ask how musical subcultures (from jam band legacies to hyperpop aesthetics) create meaning, challenge norms, and circulate across borders. Drawing on sociology, cultural studies, and ethnomusicology, this course examines how sound becomes a tool for self-expression, protest, and connection.

Students will engage with theory, qualitative social science research methodology to investigate the politics of taste, the economics of scenes, and the ethics of cultural exchange. We’ll listen closely, think critically, and ask: What does your playlist say about you?

This course is open to all majors, especially those interested in humanities, social sciences, media studies, and anyone curious about the social lives of music.

MATH 1700H 901 LEC TTh 2 - 3:15pm Carl Mueller, 3 cr

         PSYC 1700H 901 Lab W 9 - 9:50am Debra Oswald, 1 cr

         PSYC 1700H 902 Lab W 10 - 10:50am Debra Oswald, 1 cr

The PSYC 1700H lab is required to earn Honors credit for the course. It is not intended only for PSYC majors.

MUSI  1120H  Wed, Sun 5-7 pm Andrew Mountin

^please note MUSI 1120H is 1 credit. To receive one full honors elective credit, students will need to complete three semesters of MUSI 1120H.

MUSI 1160 701 M 5 - 6:50pm Debra Duff

^please note MUSI 1160H is 1 credit. To receive one full honors elective credit, students will need to complete three semesters of MUSI 1160H.

PHIL 1001H 901 MWF 9 - 9:50am David Twetten

PHIL 1001H 902 MWF 10 - 10:50am David Twetten

PHIL 1001H 903 MWF 11 - 11:50am Staff

PHIL 1001H 904 TTh 12:30 - 1:45pm Peter Burges 

PHIL 1001H 905 TTh 2 - 3:15pm Javier Ibanez-Noe

PHIL 1001H 906 TTh 3:30 - 4:45pm Peter Burgess        

PHIL 3955H Honors Readings in Philosophy W 1 - 1:50pm, Yoon Choi
Kierkegaard, Fear, and Trembling

Provides students with the opportunity to develop skills and strategies for working through extended, challenging philosophical texts. Prerequisite: PHIL 1001 or PHIL 1001H. No permission number required, open for enrollment.

PHYS 1004H 901 MWF 10 - 10:50am; M 6-8pm Jax Sanders    

PHYS 1004H 902 MWF 11 - 11:50am; M 6-8pm Dave Haas

PHYS 1004H 903 MWF 12 - 12:50pm; M 6-8pm Dave Haas     

            942 Lab Th 5 - 6:50pm Melissa Vigil

            961 Disc W 5 - 5:50pm Melissa Vigil

PHYS 1014H 901 MWF 1 - 2:50pm Andrew Kunz

**For Chem 1014H, a permission number is required, a permission number is required, please use this form to request.

POSC 2201H - MWF 11-11:50am, Sam Harshner

POSC 2801H 901 MWF 12-12:50pm Richard Arndt

THEO 2200H 901  TTh 9:30-10:45am Andrew Kim

A study of the life and work of C. S. Lewis which focuses on theological themes in select writings of C. S. Lewis, including his understanding of God, the human person, and the life of faith as a moral challenge. The readings also bring to light Lewis's notion of "the Tao," by which he brought Christianity into dialogue with other religions and with emerging western secularism. As a Honors Program course, includes a more intensive research or project component. A study of the life and work of C. S. Lewis which focuses on theological themes in select writings of C. S. Lewis, including his understanding of God, the human person, and the life of faith as a moral challenge. The readings also bring to light Lewis's notion of "the Tao," by which he brought Christianity into dialogue with other religions and with emerging western secularism. As a Honors Program course, includes a more intensive research or project component.

THEO 4300H 901  TTh 12:30 - 1:45pm Joe Simmons

Origins and varieties of contemporary atheism. The existence of God and Christian theistic interpretations.