Summer 2026 Courses

This is a Summer A course

• Course: AGR3303
• Class Number: 15183
• Instructor: Kara Riggs

This honors work will require the student to view beekeeping in a scientific light, read peer reviewed scientific literature related to honey bee biology and beekeeping, and allow the student to dive into subjects that are of interest for them. Students will gain a deeper understanding of course material as they independently research scientific papers and additional resources to write a useful EDIS document.

This is a Summer C course

• Course: ENY4573
• Class Number: 15792
• Instructor: Jack Cameron

Who are you? Where are you from? The dynamics of migration have shaped identity throughout human history. Migrations change how we consider ourselves, how we view others, and how we think about our positions in the world. As we move through time and space, our identities transform, becoming trajectories in their own right. Most contemporary analysis of migration and identity, however, lacks historical depth. In order to make better sense of our globalized present, this course presents a comparative assessment of migration around the world. Rather than focusing on a discrete region, the course emphasizes a series of case studies. These include: the Great Migration of Late Antiquity, the deliberate and forced mobility of the Armenians, the Viking migration to the North Atlantic region, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Jewish expulsions, Irish and Zoroastrian diasporas, displacement in Europe between and after the two World Wars, and migration to the United States.

• Course: WOH1421 
• Class Number: 19539
• Instructor: Florin Curta

This course explores how false or misleading information is propagated, using examples from medicine and agriculture. Students learn critical thinking and evaluation skills by analyzing clinical case studies, popular press, and social media claims. Students then learn how to engage in productive communication strategies to dispel false assertions.

 

• Course: IDS2935
• Class Number: 14994
• Instructor: Kevin Folta
  
• Course: IDS2935
• Class Number: 14996
• Instructor: Kevin Folta

 

Perhaps no art form is as commonly shared across cultural, geographic, ethnic, and other boundary lines as film. In theaters, homes, and other public spaces people of all kinds gather in the dark to take in this consummately modern form of storytelling. Of course, there is high entertainment value in movie watching, but also films often involve rich stories that take our minds to places beyond the film itself. Indeed, the ideas conveyed through film frequently create an internal reflective mindset, sometimes resulting in casual conversations with others. And yet, rarely do we make room for a collective intentional conversation to discuss a movie we’ve just watched. This class seeks to do exactly that: to watch films together and then to talk about their relevance to our lived experience. Specifically, we will explore a reinvisioned version of documentary films called creative non-fiction. These films, based in reality, offer imaginative and creative crafting of compelling storytelling rooted in some vision of the real. Creative non-fiction films are centrally driven by the complex stories that lead to curious questions about life in the world, so they become opportunities for talking about subjects that are sometimes difficult, sometimes thorny, sometimes joyous, sometimes restorative, and often something else! The class will begin with some introductory readings and lecture to equip students with adequate tools and conceptual frameworks for our film discussions, then lead into viewing films together and talking about them.

This class will seek to do three main things:

1) teach students how to read a film, considering the technical structure, the story itself, and the story beyond the story in the mind of viewers
2) watch films in the creative non-fiction genre
3) discuss films in a context of community learning

 

• Course: IDH2952
• Class Number: 18446
• Day/Period: T/5-6
• Instructor: Todd Best

Embark on an intellectual adventure where speculative fiction meets profound philosophy. In this one-credit honors seminar, we journey into the imaginative worlds of Becky Chambers’s A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. Explore a universe where the quest for purpose and the mystery of identity challenge our deepest assumptions about what it means to be human. Through dynamic online discussions and lively Zoom sessions, you'll dive into conversations that question whether life’s meaning is predetermined or something we create for ourselves. Join us for a thrilling exploration of human existence in a post-scarcity future, where every page invites you to rethink purpose and discover fresh perspectives on what it truly means to live a meaningful life.

 

• Course: IDH2930
• Class Number: 16924
• Day/Period: W/5
• Online
• Instructor: Jessi Aaron

Inspired by medical anthropologist Emily Mendenhall’s work with long COVID patients, this course examines the social, cultural, and institutional dimensions of complex chronic illness. Focusing on conditions characterized by multiple, intersecting health challenges, the course explores why biomedical research and clinical practice often fail to meet the needs of patients whose illnesses do not follow uniform or predictable patterns.

Students will critically analyze the disconnect between lived experiences of chronic disease and dominant medical assumptions that treat illness as standardized and easily categorized. Particular attention is given to the politics of visibility and credibility in healthcare, including how race, gender, class, and other social identities shape who is believed, diagnosed, and treated. Through cultural history, ethnographic research, and patient narratives, the course highlights the structural limitations of the American healthcare system and invites students to imagine more equitable, patient-centered approaches to care.

 

• Course: IDH2930
• Class Number: 18753
• Day/Period: R/2
• Instructor: Sara Agnelli

This course explores the growing research base that supports engaging in and prescribing nature for all- including and especially college students, and this year's class will focus on how individuals can find those campus spaces that are particularly salubrious. They also will map these spaces, using a medium that speaks to them. These maps will be shared with others and if students are willing, will be made available for others to experience. In general, and through discussion, the reading and on-campus field trips, it will research how individuals can find a way into, and a place in nature that is essential to their well being.

 

• Course: IDH2930
• Class Number: 15808
• Day/Period: T/3
• Instructor: Nina Stoyan-Rosenzweig

This discussion-based seminar uses George Orwell’s 1984 as a critical lens for examining contemporary global events. Through close reading, guided discussion, and analysis of current news and media, students will explore themes of power, surveillance, propaganda, truth, and resistance. The course emphasizes how political language, the media, information systems, and technologies shape public understanding and democratic life. Students will develop skills in critical reading, information evaluation, and civic analysis by connecting Orwell’s dystopian framework to modern political, social, and technological contexts.

 

• Course: IDH2930
• Class Number: 18579
• Day/Period: W/3
• Instructor: Patricia Takacs

 

This course will look deeply into a wide range of methodologies for communicating in an embodied state and ushering in the essence of lasting change that transforms stagnancy into sustainable global community. Mindfulness, while a popular practice in the temporality of 2026, must be grounded in culturally affirmative approaches and creative pizzaz. Embodied listening and relevant texts of evidence-based methodologies will help foster liminal states of awareness within the context of academic language and ecological experience.

Seminal texts of this course will include and focus mainly on “Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds,” by Adrienne Maree Brown and The Embodied Mind, Revised Edition: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, by Varela, Thompson & Rosch.

Participants of this course can expect to engage regularly in directive, creative activities of embodied and cultural discussions and directly learn from assignments in mindful communication.

 

• Course: IDH2930
• Class Number: 18490
• Day/Period: M/4
• Instructor: Elizabeth Lunior

 

This course invites students to explore contemporary threats to the integrity of scientific knowledge. Using James Lawrence Powell’s The Misinformation Machine as the central reading, the course examines how scientific fraud, predatory journals, automated bots, and the rapid spread of deceptive research and misinformation—now amplified by artificial intelligence—undermine public trust and distort the scientific enterprise. We will discuss historical and modern examples of corruption in science, analyze how misinformation spreads through digital channels, and consider why scientific credibility matters for public health, policy decisions, and civic life. The course will encourage critical thinking about how individuals and institutions can safeguard scientific truth and mitigate misinformation.

 

• Course: IDH2930
• Class Number: 18813
• Day/Period: T/2
• Instructor: Jamie Lynn Loizzo

Dates: August 8th -12th
Instructor: Michael Amish
Location: Appalachian Trail, Virginia 

The Roan Highlands, famous for their sweeping balds, high‑elevation ecosystems, and uninterrupted horizon lines, serve as both classroom and catalyst in this immersive expeditionary learning course. Over several days of hiking along one of the most celebrated stretches of the Appalachian Trail (AT), students engage firsthand with the living landscape that helped shape America’s conservation ethic.

Blending field exploration with interdisciplinary study, the course traces the story of the land itself: its Indigenous histories, its ecological significance, and the cultural forces that led to its protection. Students examine the origins and evolution of the Appalachian Trail, diving deep into the vision of its founder, Benton MacKaye, who imagined the trail not simply as a footpath, but as a “wilderness belt”—a place of refuge and renewal where people could escape the pressures of industrial life and reconnect with something larger than themselves. Through team-building exercises, reflective writing, and group discussions, participants analyze the enduring importance of wild spaces in modern society. Themes include conservation ethics, public land policy, the social history of the AT, the role of wilderness in human well-being, reliance on self and others, and the collective responsibility of preserving America’s long‑distance trails for future generations.

By journey’s end, students will have done more than traverse ridgelines—they will have engaged deeply with questions of environmental stewardship, cultural memory, and the meaning of wildness in an increasingly connected and industrialized world. The elements and activities associated with this multi-day backcountry, backpacking expedition will be demanding, but it will be worth it. The trip-based portion of this course will take place August 8th -12th. 

The course fees and cost are estimated to be $235 including transportation, meals, camping reservations, canoes, and all group gear. Standard tuition applies.  Honors students who enroll in this course will be eligible to apply for $100 in Wentworth Scholarship funding, bringing the course fees down to $135.

Students who wish to enroll must complete this form. Space is limited. 

 

• Course: IDH3931
• Class Number: 18915
• Instructor: Michael Amish