HUHC 020 A-Z - Liberal Arts Seminar

Semester Hours: 1-4

Fall, Spring

Liberal Arts Seminars are specialized courses offered to students of Stuart and Nancy Rabinowitz Honors College. Each seminar is proposed, designed, and led by a member of the Hofstra faculty. Multiple seminars are offered each semester on a wide variety of topics. The purpose of the seminars is to provide HUHC students and faculty an opportunity to explore subject matters and topics that do not typically present themselves in regular departmental offerings.

Current Special Topics

HUHC 020A - NEW YORK SLAVERY: COMPLICITY AND RESISTANCE

In this seminar, we examine claims made by The 1619 Project about the role of slavery and racism in the history of the United States by focusing on the role played by New York City and the metropolitan area in the American and global slave system during the colonial era, the early national period, events leading up to the Civil War, and post-Civil War Reconstruction. A major theme is that we cannot understand the history of the United States unless we understand the role of race and slavery. Few people realize that there was slavery in New York State until 1827, that New York was the center of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 19th century, or that free and enslaved Africans from the New York region were major participants in the struggle to end enslavement in the United States. Enslaved Africans built the infrastructure of the Dutch colonial outpost, clearing forests, dredging harbors, planting crops, and laying roads. The Dutch Director-General Peter Stuyvesant was the largest slaveholder in the New Netherland colony. Enslaved Africans made up approximately 10% of the population of New York City up until the American Revolution and larger percentages in surrounding counties, including 30% in Kings County and 20% in Suffolk County. Their lives were sharply restricted, and suspected resistance was brutally suppressed. In the 19th century, major New York City institutions, including banks, merchant houses, and corporations, were initially financed with profit from the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the processing and sale of slave-produced commodities. The New York region was both the center of abolitionist struggles to end slavery and political movements to block emancipation and citizenship rights for African Americans after the Civil War. Prominent abolitionists with ties to the New York region included David Ruggles, Henry Highland Garnet, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Lewis and Arthur Tappan. Alexander Hamilton’s legacy was mixed, while Aaron Burr was a much stronger proponent of ending slavery. Fernando Wood, New York City’s Mayor at the outbreak of the Civil War, called on the city to secede from the Union along with the South to ensure its prosperity and, after the Civil War, as a Congressman, fought against the reconstruction amendments. Much of this has been erased from history. We conclude by analyzing how past events influence race in American society today.

The primary sources are Walvin (2011) The Slave Trade (History Files), Lepore (2005), New York Burning, Gellman and Quigley (2003), Jim Crow New York, Singer (2018) New York’s Grand Emancipation Jubilee (SUNY); and Berlin (2015), The Long Emancipation. Other resources include Calonius (2006), The Wanderer, Papson and Calarco (2015), Secret Lives of the Underground Railroad in New York City, Wells (2020), The Kidnapping Club, Bernstein (1990), The New York City Draft Riots, Hodges (2010), David Ruggles, Sernett (2007), Harriet Tubman, Barnes (2013), Frederick Douglass, Northup (), Twelve Years a Slave, and the New York and Slavery: Complicity and Resistance Curriculum Guide (available online https://alansinger.net/slavery-curriculum/).

HUHC 020B - ROCKET SHIPS: FROM SCIENCE FACT TO SCIENCE FICTION

Introducing how rocket travel works using concepts from classical physics, particle physics, nuclear physics, and special relativity, with a little bit of history, ethics, and sci-fi literature thrown in. No calculus or physics courses as pre-requisites. However, if a student has never taken chemistry or physics in high school, and is uneasy with rudimentary algebra, then this course probably isn’t for them. Exams will be a mix between multiple choice scantron-style facts and short-answer questions where students will be expected to do rudimentary algebra with provided formulas.

HUHC 020C - ACTIVISM AND DISABILITY AT HOFSTRA AND BEYOND

This seminar will examine disability activism historically, sociologically, politically, and as a practice that students can undertake. What, for example, enabled a broad disability rights movement to arise in the 1970s and 1980s but not in earlier decades when more isolated groups advocated for people with disabilities? How did grassroots groups interact with political elites and professional politicians to drive the passage and implementation of legislation? How did Black civil rights, women’s, LGBTQ+, and disability rights movements interact and intersect? We will study watershed moments such as the San Francisco Section 504 sit-in and the Deaf President Now protests at Gallaudet University. We will also consider the history of disabled student activism on the Hofstra campus as well as Hofstra alums’ contributions to wider disability advocacy. We will bring our explorations up to the present by studying the neurodiversity, decarceration, and disability justice movements.

Guest speakers will enrich our conversations. Students will be encouraged to develop projects that contribute to contemporary initiatives in disability activism. In addition to papers and exams, requirements may include oral presentations on modest research projects. This seminar will review fundamental concepts in disability studies; consequently, no prior knowledge of disability studies is required.

The Director of Disability Studies has indicated that this seminar may be counted as an elective toward completion of the Disability Studies minor.

HUHC 020D - GRAPHIC MEDICINE: DISCUSSIONS OF COMICS IN A HEALTH CONTEXT

What do Superman, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and South Park all have in common? They all discuss health and medical topics using a combination of cartoon images and words. In this course, we will consider the field of “graphic medicine” and the functions that comics can play in learning about, expressing, and communicating health-related information in various contexts.

The Writing Studies & Rhetoric department chair has indicated this course may be counted as a departmental elective toward the completion of the requirements for Writing Studies & Rhetoric majors or minors.

HUHC 020E - HEALTH POLICY AND THE 2024 ELECTION

The 2024 election comes at a pivotal moment in the development of U.S. health policy. The Republican and Democratic Parties are more divided than ever on many critical health policy issues, including the future of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act; management of infectious disease outbreaks; climate change; reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, gun violence, mental health and substance abuse, and racial and income inequality. If one of the Parties assumes control of both the presidency and Congress, we can expect major changes in national health policy. If the election produces a divided government, we are likely to experience incremental but potentially significant change.

”Health Policy & the 2024 Election” will provide a brief history and overview of U.S. health policy and the U.S. healthcare system and discuss some of the major challenges facing the system, including high cost, inconsistent quality, and significant socio-economic and racial disparities in access and health outcomes. The COVID-19 Pandemic has exposed and exacerbated many of these challenges. The course will also review the major proposals to address these health policy challenges being debated in the 2024 election campaign. Students will work in teams to analyze one of the significant health policy issues that will be debated during the campaign.

The chair of the Community Health department has indicated this course may be counted as a departmental elective toward the completion of the requirements for Community Health majors or minors.

Prerequisite(s)/Course Notes:
Liberal Arts Seminars are open to Honors College students in good standing and, with the permission of the instructor and the HUHC Deans’ Office, to other students who meet HUHC entrance criteria. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.

Search