1:05 p.m.
Dear Advising Centers,
I write with possible additional course opportunities for your students for the Fall 2017
semester. The Honors College has three Fall 2017 courses whose enrollments would benefit
from more students with demonstrated academic ability. The three course titles and
descriptions are below. Each course can take up to approximately 10 more students.
Could you please advertise the courses to your students? The requirement is that students
have a UTSA GPA of 3.25 or higher. If you have a student that would like to take the
course, please email their name and ID to Diana Howard
(diana.howard@utsa.edu<mailto:diana.howard@utsa.edu>).
Many thanks,
Jill
HON 3223.002, Reading, Writing, Building San Antonio - H: "Reading, Writing &
Imagining San Antonio as a Global Metropolis" As a city with a three hundred yearlong
history, born in the epic of Mexico and adopted into the American republic, San Antonio
has a unique story to tell; an age-old crossroads of cultures, and a modern metropolis
that embodies many of the core themes of globalization---a capital of what American is
becoming. Using an interdisciplinary approach incorporating history, literature, oral
history, archaeology, anthropology, architecture, and a survey of urban theory, this
Honors Seminar will explore ways of understanding the complex palimpsest of San
Antonio's narratives as a seminal text that reveals the promise and challenges of life
in the borderlands of the American Southwest, a place of complex heritage and immanent
futurity. In addition to readings and weekly writing, Students will undertake one
substantial project of individual research, in concert with a civic engagement project
relating to San Antonio's Tricentennial Commemoration.
HON 3223.006: Autobiographical Fiction with J.R. Helton - H: Students will write,
workshop, revise, edit and draft pieces of writing based initially or partially upon fact
and/or any personal real life experience, the more truthful the better. First drafts can
come in a variety of non-fiction forms with the goal of producing a fictional short story,
a professional personal essay, or even the beginnings of a novel or memoir. This technique
should free you up as a writer because you will not be constrained by the strict rules of
conventional memoir or narrative non-fiction in your initial drafting process where every
word, every detail of your final product must indeed be factual. That said, we will also
analyze the published writing of others that has been officially categorized as memoir and
note how the definition has and has not changed over time in literature. We will also
explore fiction that may have been based upon the author's personal experiences in
work and life. Students have a wide variety of topics then as unique human beings and
therefore should note: the experience we start with may or may not seem to be an
"exceptional" event in one's own life; a long, seemingly mundane afternoon
spent alone, or talking with a friend, can be turned into an intriguing piece of fiction
or personal literary essay.
HON 3253.003, Modern Food Systems - H: In this discussion-based course, The History of the
American Food System, we will begin by discussing our modern food system as it is today.
We will consider the kinds of foods produced, the methods and control of production,
distribution and issues of consumer access. During this portion of the class, we will
highlight the strengths and weaknesses of our current system and discuss the current
controversies inherent to it. We will then shift focus to its history. Beginning with a
brief introduction to pre-industrial America, we will proceed in greater depth with the
industrial revolution, through to the revolutionizing developments in plant science at the
beginning of the twentieth century. We will proceed chronologically covering the major
events in the 20th century and how these influences shaped the food system.
*************
K. Jill Fleuriet, Ph.D.
Associate Dean, Honors College
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
The University of Texas at San Antonio