JWHC Course Descriptions
Students in the John Wesley Honors College take courses within four course sequences:
Christian Liberal Learning & Life Calling Courses
HNR 170 Liberal Learning & Life Calling Seminar I: What is Truth? (3 credit hours)
HNR 177 Liberal Learning & Life Calling Seminar IV: What is the Good Life? (3 credit hours)
HNR 270 Liberal Learning & Life Calling Seminar III: What is Humanity? (3 credit hours)
HNR 277 Liberal Learning & Life Calling Seminar II: What is Beauty? (3 credit hours)
"Do we love anything but the beautiful? What, then, is the beautiful? And what is beauty? What is it that attracts us and draws us to things we love? For, unless grace and beauty of form were in them, they certainly would not draw us to themselves." Augustine's questions serve to orient this course towards an understanding of beauty and its relationship to the Christian faith. As one of the transcendentals, an understanding of truth and goodness without beauty leaves them without attractive power. Seeing the beautiful helps as we seek to rightly order our loves. It also helps us to understand the nature of God. By coming to see the beauty in all acts of creation, we can see the goodness of the created world because of God's past and continuing work within it. The beauty of the Incarnation and the Sacraments and the grace given in them are the most obvious points of this work.
This course will explore the definition and understanding of beauty and how it reveals God's nature. Readings will come from major writers in the field of Christian aesthetics, as well as the great philosophers of Western culture. Works of art (all the arts-visual, performing and digital), both historical and contemporary, will be examined. Through seminar discussions, writing assignments, creating works of art and attending art events, students will come to understand the importance of the arts and artistic expression for giving meaning to human life and the Christian faith. Prerequisite: HNR 170
HNR 375 Liberal Learning & Life Calling Seminar V: Who is our Neighbor? (3 credit hours)
HNR 475 Liberal Learning & Life Calling Capstone: How then Shall We Live? (3 credit hours)
Interdisciplinary Humanities Courses
HNR 180 Foundation of the Christian Tradition (3 credit hours)
HNR 185 Rhetoric and the Sacramental Imagination (3 credit hours)
HNR 280 Wisdom, Culture & Justice through the Ages I (3 credit hours)
HNR 285 Great Texts in Context I (2 credit hours)
HNR 380 Wisdom, Culture & Justice through the Ages II (3 credit hours)
HNR 385 Great Texts in Context II (2 credit hours)
HNR 310/410/480 Advanced Topic in Interdisciplinary Humanities (3 credit hours)
HNR 325 Honors Research Tutorial (3 credit hours)
Honors Research and Scholarship Courses
HNR 350 Honors Research Seminar (3 credit hours)
HNR 497-498 Honors Scholarship Project I and II (3 credit hours between both courses)
HNR 499 Honors Scholarship Presentation (0-1 credit hour)
Honors Practica
HNR 130 Honors Practicum 1: Called to Love (0-1 credit hour)
HNR 135 Honors Practicum 2: Called to Create (0-1 credit hour)
HNR 230 Honors Practicum 3: Called to Contemplate (0-1 credit hour)
Students explore how the Christian practices that students participated in during HNR 130 and HNR 135 might be drawn together into lifelong habits of faithfulness that sustain their life calling.