• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Asian American Studies
• Instructor: John Park
• Instructor Email: jswpark@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Tuesday 4:00-5:50 in HSSB 1207
• Enroll Code: 60749

Course Description:  This seminar explores moments in American history when people of color and white Americans disobeyed American law in coordinated ways.  We explore first the origins of white supremacist rules from the 18th century into the 20th century, and then we examine several compelling forms of disobedience to those rules.  Throughout, we examine our own moral assessments of the American legal system, while also debating the moral and ethical debates about the force of law.  This seminar will be of special interest to students interested in American legal history, comparative ethnic studies, and jurisprudence.

Bio:  John Park has been a Professor of Asian American Studies at UCSB since 2002.  He has published several books on American immigration law and American legal history.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies
• Instructor: Hangping Xu
• Instructor Email: hangping@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Monday 5:00-6:50 in GIRV 1108
• Enroll Code: 59469

Course Description:  A recent Foreign Affairs article, “Geopolitics in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Strategy and Power in an Uncertain AI Future,” frames AI geopolitics largely as a U.S.–China rivalry, often cast in zero-sum terms. This techno-nationalist dualism illustrates how AI is not merely a technical revolution, but also a geopolitical imaginary, one in which techno-futurism can easily slide into techno-Orientalism or ideological binarism. This course invites students to situate today’s cultural fascination with AI within a transnational and global context, with particular attention to the rhetoric of U.S.–China rivalry. Drawing on cultural and literary studies, political theory, and sociology, students will critically examine the narratives, discourses, and power formations that shape how AI is imagined, contested, and mobilized across national and global contexts.

Bio:  Hangping Xu is Assistant Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in Chinese Literature from Stanford University, where he received the Centennial Teaching Award. His teaching and research interests include modern Chinese literature and film, comparative literature, new media studies, critical AI studies, and disability studies. His publications have appeared in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, PRISM: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature, Chinese Literature and Thought Today, Queer Literature in the Sinosphere, and The Cambridge History of Literature and the Environment, among other venues. His book, Crip China: Ablenationalism and Disability Aesthetics, is forthcoming in 2026.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Chemistry & Biochemistry
• Instructor: Bruce Lipshutz
• Instructor Email: lipshutz@chem.ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Wednesday 12:00-1:50 in  HSSB 1223
• Enroll Code: 59477

Course Description:  Chemistry, especially as it applies to the fine chemical industries (such as pharmaceutical and agrochemical companies), is today practiced very traditionally. As a result, these contribute heavily to existing existential problems, such as climate change. Throughout evolutionary time, however, Nature has shown that chemistry can be done without dependence on petroleum-based products, and in particular, organic solvents; that the key to success is to develop technologies that follow Nature's lead and hence, are dependent on Nature chosen reaction medium:  water. Thus, this series of presentations will focus on how to accomplish the same outcomes that lead; for example, to drugs that keep people alive, and to the development of herbicides and pesticides that enable the feeding of the planet. These new technologies are "faster, better, and cheaper" and do not deplete planetary resources and thus, do not generate large amounts of organic waste leading, e.g., to climate change.

Bio:  Professor Lipshutz is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at UC Santa Barbara and has been teaching and conducting research there since 1979. He earned his B.A. from SUNY Binghamton and his Ph.D. from Yale University. His research focuses on making chemistry more environmentally friendly by developing ways to run chemical reactions in water instead of using harmful organic solvents. His work has received many awards, including the EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award, the ACS H.C. Brown Award, and the 2024 IPMI Tanaka Award.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Political Science
• Instructor: Andrew Norris
• Instructor Email: anorris@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Monday 10:00-11:50 in HSSB 1211
• Enroll Code: 59485

Course Description:  Existentialism is one of the definitive philosophical movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.  It is centrally concerned with the meaning of life in a world in which there are no fixed and authoritative guidelines for human action.  In this course we shall read selections from three of the most prominent authors associated with this movement: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre.  We shall also read Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”  Emphasis will be placed on the careful study of the assigned texts.  For each meeting, members of the seminar will write a short (one paragraph, double-spaced, 12-point font) account of a confusing passage in the assigned reading, explaining (1) why the passage appears to be important and (2) why it is difficult to understand.  No summation of the reading as a whole is necessary.  The point of these exercises is twofold: first, to demonstrate that the student has read the assigned material with care; and, second, and more importantly, to present a problem that the class can help to solve.  These must be emailed in pdf or Word format (not Google docs) with the author’s name on them to the professor by 5 p.m. the day before class.  They will be shared with the rest of the seminar and will provide the basis for our discussions; for this reason, no late papers will be accepted.  Papers be evaluated on the scale of plus, check, or minus.  Attendance and active participation in class is required: students missing more than two classes will not pass the course.

Bio:  Professor Norris is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  He is the author of Becoming Who We Are: Politics and Practical Philosophy in the Work of Stanley Cavell (Oxford University Press, 2017) and the editor of Truth and Democracy (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), with Jeremy Elkins; The Claim to Community: Essays on Stanley Cavell and Political Philosophy (Stanford University Press, 2006); and Politics, Metaphysics, and Death: Essays on Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer (Duke University Press, 2005).  He works primarily on post-Kantian existential philosophy, broadly conceived.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Black Studies
• Instructor: Roberto Strongman
• Instructor Email: rstrongman@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Monday 2:00-3:50 in TBD
• Enroll Code: 26211

Course Description:  Yoga is a Sanskrit term that can be best translated as "Integration." The course aims to develop an integral understanding of the history of yogic knowledges with roots in South Asia, creolization with XIX Century European body culture during the era of British imperialism, and a capitalist and often culturally-appropriative global spread in the late XX Century and beyond. This historical and philosophical material will be "yoked" (a cognate of "yoga") with a physical asana practice: the class will be organized in weekly two-hour sessions, with the first hour devoted to lecture, presentation, discussion and journal writing and the second hour to a physical postural and breathing practice thematically wedded to the readings. As such, the deeper, even metaphysical, goal of the course will be to bring "union" to the budding scholar, fomenting a balanced, equanimous and holistic body-mind.

Bio:  Ph.D. Literature (UCSD 2003). I am a scholar of embodiment, specializing in trance states. My latest book "Queering Black Atlantic Religions" (Duke UP, 2019) speaks to my interest in fomenting an awareness of the unity within the body-mind construct, the goal of "yoga." In addition to my academic credentials, I am also a health care provider certified by the state of California, a massage therapist through the California Massage Therapy Council and an experienced registered yoga instructor at the 500-hour level (E-RYT 500, the highest recognizable credential in the field) through the Yoga Alliance.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Earth Science
• Instructor: Alex Simms
• Instructor Email: asimms@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Thursdays from 4:00-4:50 in GIRV 1106 *This seminar has an overnight fieldtrip (Friday-Saturday)
• Enroll Code: 26229

Course Description:  This seminar will discuss the geology of the California Coast.  We will discuss topics including tectonics, geomorphology, and sea-level changes.  The focus of the course will be an overnight camping trip along the central California Coast. 

Bio:  Alex Simms grew up in eastern Oklahoma and after earning a BS in Geology at Oklahoma State University, pursued a PhD at Rice University in Houston, Texas. His PhD work focused on the depositional systems and Quaternary history of the Texas Gulf Coast. After a stint as an assistant professor at his alma matter in Stillwater, Oklahoma, he moved to the University of California Santa Barbara where he is a Professor of Earth science today. Alex’s research focuses on the processes that shape and the Quaternary history of shallow marine settings with a particular emphasis on reconstructing past records of sea-level change. He has conducted field work on coastlines across the globe including Antarctica, Texas, California, and recently the UK. Although he is most comfortable describing shallow marine sediment cores, he occasionally enjoys looking at real rocks too.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Linguistics -- English for Multilingual Students
• Instructor: Karyn Kessler
• Instructor Email: kkessler@linguistics.ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Wednesday 9:00-10:50 in HSSB 1211
• Enroll Code: 59493

Course Description:  How do language, learning, and writing researchers design studies to explore concepts such as development, integration, process, and improvement? In this seminar, students will be introduced to the landscape of inquiry across multiple disciplinary fields, including applied linguistics, writing studies and education. Drawing on foundational understandings of epistemology and the ways in which disciplinary researchers come to conclusions and implications, students will work in small, interdisciplinary teams to identify and design their own research study in response to a genuine curiosity that is relevant to language, writing or education studies. Learning outcomes for this course include 1. an increased understanding of “the disciplinary lens” through which research is designed, 2. a demonstrated ability to identify and design an interdisciplinary research study, and 3. a deepened sense of collaborative learning and problem solving.

Bio:  Karyn E. Kessler, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Teaching and the Director of the English for Multilingual Students Program. As a teacher and scholar, she is particularly interested in the higher education concept of academic integrity, source-based writing across the disciplines and across languages, language program leadership, and genre studies. She works closely with TESOL minor students and teaches Second Language Acquisition as well as English Grammar for Teachers. Professor Kessler is a writer and editor as well as a linguistic consultant for the American Board of Family Medicine where she reviews medical board exam questions for potential racial, ethnic, gender, or linguistic bias. Dr. Kessler has given a TEDx talk on the subject of linguistic diversity. Beyond work, Karyn is a long-distance runner, organ donation advocate, returned Peace Corps Volunteer, and mom.

• Department: Department of Spanish and Portuguese
• Instructor: Silvia Bermúdez
• Instructor Email: bermudez@spanport.ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Tuesday 2:00-3:50 in HSSB 1207
• Enroll Code: 59501

Course Description:  This seminar explores the emotional impact of short stories from the nineteenth century to the present within the Spanish-speaking world. We will engage with short narratives by influential authors from Spain and Latin America, using frameworks from Cultural Studies and Gender Studies, along with introductory concepts from Affect Theory and Affective Neuroscience. The course emphasizes detailed literary analysis to foster critical understanding.

Bio:  Silvia Bermúdez is a Professor of literature and Iberian Studies in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Her current scholarship examines Iberian feminisms, with particular attention to the contributions of afroespañolas, who challenge racial structures, reclaim historical memory, and construct new cultural and political narratives that redefine Spanish identity.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: College of Creative Studies
• Instructor: Michelle Petty
• Instructor Email: mnpetty@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Monday 10:00-11:50 IN ILP 4209
• Enroll Code: 59519

Course Description:  Afrofuturism re-envisions the past, present, and future in order to show what the Black community does and can look like in imaginative and yet intensely real ways. In a time when people question how the past should be represented and a time when creative, diverse imaginings of the future are desperately needed, we will use Afrofuturism to speculate new possibilities in different areas: STEM, climate change, and land stewardship; representations of the past; and the ways music, the arts, and humanities are invigorated by Afrofuturist works. Come ready to discuss, come ready to listen, come ready to learn, come ready to imagine inclusive futures.

Bio:  Michelle Petty is an assistant teaching professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She researches higher education pedagogy and writing studies through the lenses of intersectionality and critical digital literacies. She has previously published in multiple academic journals on Black language and literature in the college classroom, in addition to several poems and a short story in literary journals. 

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Physics
• Instructor: Paul Hansma
• Instructor Email: phansma@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Monday 10:00-11:50 in  ILP 4105
• Enroll Code: 61960

Course Description:  Chronic pain—defined as pain persisting for at least three months—affects one in five American adults and stands as the most costly health problem in the nation, exceeding the combined costs of cancer and heart disease.

This seminar introduces students to the multidimensional science of chronic pain and its recovery, while offering hands-on experience with a novel, patient-operated biofeedback device developed at UCSB. You will experiment to find optimized ways of using this device both in class and outside of class in a study for possible publication. Over the quarter, expert guest lecturers will share cutting-edge perspectives on pain neuroscience and evidence-based recovery strategies.

For the first 3 weeks students will participate in an experiment to see if a booklet with motivational quotes and comfort tracking before and after each biofeedback session improves outcomes over just doing the biofeedback sessions. Then, working in small groups (1-3 people), students will design and execute a small-scale experiment using a UCSB made biofeedback device, analyze your data, and present your findings alongside insights from at least 1 peer-reviewed literature. Designed to prepare students for both clinical and non-clinical research paths, including running studies. This course introduces essential neuroscience terminology and research methodologies.

Bio:  Paul Hansma, PhD, is a physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a researcher in the Neuroscience Research Institute. His current research focuses on designing and testing novel biofeedback devices to help individuals increase physical comfort and manage chronic pain. He also engages in fundamental neurobiology research, exploring human brain organoid activity via multi-electrode arrays. Dr. Hansma has authored over 390 publications with more than 50,000 citations (h-index: 119), with his most recent work centered on neuroscience, biofeedback, and chronic pain recovery.

Website: https://hansmalab.physics.ucsb.edu/

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Chemistry and Biochemistry department
• Instructor: Luc Jaeger
• Instructor Email: jaeger@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Thursday 10:00-11:50 in HSSB 1206
• Enroll Code: 59741

Course Description:  This Honors Seminar is essentially intended to provide a deeper understanding of Life and its origin from scientific, philosophical and Judeo-Christian religious perspectives. Rather than opposing science and religion, this class aims at reconciling these two visions of the world, which both originate from a common quest for truth. Implications for the future of science and civilization will be discussed. Some of the class topics will be covered by articles, book extracts and other reading materials posted on Canvas.

Bio:  Dr. Jaeger joined the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department in 2002. He has been full professor since 2012. His highly interdisciplinary research encompasses fields as diverse as RNA biochemistry and biophysics, nucleic acid nanotechnology, astrobiology, synthetic biology and nanomedicine. He is also interested in the dialogue between science and religion. This honors seminar is essentially based on the research he carried out when a fellow scholar at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, in 2017-2018.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Writing Program
• Instructor: Paul Rogers
• Instructor Email: paulrogers@writing.ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Tuesday 11:00-12:50 in HSSB 1211
• Enroll Code: 59824

Course Description:  This seminar explores the dynamic field of social entrepreneurship, where changemakers combine business tools, community engagement, and civic power to solve pressing social and environmental problems. Over the last 40 years, this field has emerged as a distinct hybrid model that disrupts traditional nonprofit and corporate boundaries to drive practical, systemic change. Through discussions, hands-on projects, and guest lectures, students will analyze real-world case studies and map out their own changemaker journeys.

Core Learning Outcomes

·         Understand the Field: Learn how social entrepreneurship differs from traditional charities and philanthropy, analyze how leaders measure impact, and master foundational changemaking skills like empathy, teamwork, and leadership.

·         Habits of Mind: Apply systems thinking to diagnose complex problems, pinpoint root causes of systemic failure, and identify critical leverage points for lasting change.

·         Communicative Competence: Practice designing and pitching complex, audience-appropriate messages across various media platforms to advance entrepreneurial solutions.

·         Ways of Being: Cultivate self-awareness regarding your personal passions, limitations, and strengths while deepening your sense of purpose and willingness to take calculated risks.

Bio:  Paul Rogers is an associate professor of Writing Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he also earned his PhD in education (2008). He is a cofounder and former chair of the International Society for the Advancement of Writing Research. Paul’s primary focus is on educational research and advancing transformation in policy and practice related to writing and literacy through data-informed decision making at all levels. Paul has served as a strategic advisor to Ashoka- the world's 5th ranked NGO and a leading sponsor of social entrepreneurs around the world. He has worked in a variety of capacities ito advance the vision of 'Everyone a Changemaker' in K-12 schooling and higher education. Paul is a recipient of AAC&U’s K. Patricia Cross Award for leadership in higher education, and NCTE’s Janet Emig Award for research in English education. He is the editor of eight coedited volumes, including the 2022 book International Models of Changemaker Education and numerous other publications. His favorite activities are spending time with his family (the Seven Hearts Tribe), surfing, hiking, playing basketball, and reading.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Spanish and Portuguese
• Instructor: Silvia Bermúdez
• Instructor Email: bermudez@spanport.ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Tuesday 4:00-5:50 in GIRV 1108
• Enroll Code: 59527

Course Description:  This Honors Seminar investigates a lesser-known aspect of 20th- and 21st-century Spanish art and culture: the significant contributions of women artists in photography, painting, and multimedia productions. The course examines their creative output within historical, political, and artistic contexts to demonstrate that art serves both personal and social functions. Understanding these functions reveals how art validates emotions, strengthens communities, and preserves cultural identity.

Bio:  Silvia Bermúdez is Professor of literature and Iberian Studies in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Her current scholarship focuses on Afro-Spanish feminisms and the work of Galician women photographers.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Earth Science Department
• Instructor: Syee weldeab
• Instructor Email: sweldeab@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Friday 2:00-3:50 in GIRV 1108
• Enroll Code: 26278

Course Description:  The focus of this seminar is to unravel and discuss the manifestation of ongoing climate changes in various parts of the ecosystem. The seminar informs how our understanding of past climate changes improve and refine the impact and feedback mechanism of current and future climate changes.

Bio:  I am  Earth Scientist and study Earth's climate, For more see my website: https://weldeab.geol.ucsb.edu/

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Communication
• Instructor: Daniel Linz
• Instructor Email: linz@comm.ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Thursday 2:00-3:50 in HSSB 2202
• Enroll Code: 26443

Course Description:  This course will require students to observe attorneys in the courtroom, at trial, in the Santa Barbara courthouse. The students may choose to focus on a number of topics relevant to effective communication. This may include making effective opening statements, visual presentation of evidence, interviewing witnesses on the stand and increasing jury persuasion. The course instructor will facilitate meetings and discussions with attorneys and the judge participating in the trial. This course may be especially useful for students considering a career in the legal system.

Bio:  Professor Linz’s research and teaching involves empirically testing the social psychological assumptions made by the law and legal actors in the area of communication. This research spans the topics of First Amendment and freedom of speech and censorship, forensic communication, sexual violence, media violence, pornography, sex-oriented entertainment in the community, communication and race, and transgender rights and law.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Asian American Studies
• Instructor: John Park
• Instructor Email: jswpark@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Tuesday 4:00-5:50 in HSSB 1207
• Enroll Code: 26450

Course Description:  I've taught this seminar several times before for the College, it's about the moral and legal dilemmas that Americans have faced when implementing or obeying American law.  Rules governing slavery, rules about exclusion, rules in favor of segregation--Americans have oftn disobeyed and resisted such rules, and this seminar examines those dilemmas in their historical context.

Bio:  John Park has been a Professor of Asian American Studies at UCSB since 2002.  He has published several books on American immigration law and American legal history.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Spanish and Portuguese
• Instructor: Silvia Bermúdez
• Instructor Email: bermudez@spanport.ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Tuesdays 4:00-5:50 IN HSSB 3202
• Enroll Code: 61580

Course Description:  The course examines some of the most famous 20th- and 21st-century Latin American women pioneers—composers and singers—within the musical traditions of boleros, salsa, Mariachi, Tejano music, and contemporary pop, among others. We’ll investigate how these individual women, through their performances, established their status as musical stars, some of whom became globally recognized, by embodying an iconic identity. We aim to comprehend the profound cultural impact and extensive influence of these performers within the social, political, and cultural contexts that have shaped Latin American music.

Bio:  Silvia Bermúdez is Professor of literature and Iberian Studies in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Her current scholarship focuses on Iberian feminisms, Latin American music, and the work of Galician women photographers.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Black Studies
• Instructor: Roberto Strongman
• Instructor Email: rstrongman@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Monday 2:00-3:50 in Rob Gym 1410
• Enroll Code: 26492

Course Description:  Yoga is a Sanskrit term that can be best translated as "Integration." The course aims to develop an integral understanding of the history of yogic knowledges with roots in South Asia, creolization with XIX Century European body culture during the era of British imperialism, and a capitalist and often culturally-appropriative global spread in the late XX Century and beyond. This historical and philosophical material will be "yoked" (a cognate of "yoga") with a physical asana practice: the class will be organized in weekly two-hour sessions, with the first hour devoted to lecture, presentation, discussion and journal writing and the second hour to a physical postural and breathing practice thematically wedded to the readings. As such, the deeper, even metaphysical, goal of the course will be to bring "union" to the budding scholar, fomenting a balanced, equanimous and holistic body-mind.

Bio:  Ph.D. Literature (UCSD 2003). I am a scholar of embodiment, specializing in trance states. My latest book "Queering Black Atlantic Religions" (Duke UP, 2019) speaks to my interest in fomenting an awareness of the unity within the body-mind construct, the goal of "yoga." In addition to my academic credentials, I am also a health care provider certified by the state of California, a massage therapist through the California Massage Therapy Council and an experienced registered yoga instructor at the 500-hour level (E-RYT 500, the highest recognizable credential in the field) ) through the Yoga Alliance.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Earth Science
• Instructor: Alexander Simms
• Instructor Email: asimms@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Thursday 4:00-4:50 in HSSB 2202 *This seminar has an overnight weekend fieldtrip
• Enroll Code: 26500

Course Description:  This course will provide an overview of the geology of the California Coast.  We will discuss plate tectonics, coastal geomorphology, sea-level changes, and physical threats to our coastline.  The majority of the course will be an overnight campout to explore a portion of the Central Coast of California.

Bio:  Professor Simms has taught at UCSB since 2010.  Prior to that he was a professor at his undergraduate alma mater, Oklahoma State University.  He earned a PhD in Earth Science from Rice University.  His research interests include sedimentology, with a particular emphasis on the geologic history of coastlines. He has conducted research on coastlines across the globe including Texas, Antarctica, Scotland, and California.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Computer Science
• Instructor: Maryam Majedi
• Instructor Email: majedi@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Monday 5:00-6:50 in ILP 4207
• Enroll Code: 57174

Course Description:  In an era where technological advancements are occurring at an unprecedented rate, the course Ethical Tech: Navigating the “Should” in Innovation offers a crucial perspective on the intersection of ethics and technology. This seminar invites students to embark on a thought-provoking journey, exploring not just the limitless possibilities of what they can create with technology, but more importantly, reflecting on whether they should create them.

Throughout this course, students will engage with fundamental ethical theories and principles, applying them to real-world scenarios and emerging technological trends. The seminars will foster critical thinking and ethical reasoning, encouraging students to contemplate the broader implications of technology on society, the environment, and future generations.

Possible topics include:

The Role of Ethics in Technology Development

Balancing Innovation with Moral Responsibility

Privacy, Security, and Ethical Dilemmas in the Digital Age

AI and Data Privacy: Where Should We Draw the Line?

Through a combination of interactive discussions, case studies, and presentations, students will gain insights into how ethical considerations can and should influence technological innovation. They will learn to identify potential ethical issues and develop strategies to address them, ensuring that the technology they create contributes positively to society.

Bio:  Dr. Maryam Majedi joined the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, as an Assistant Teaching Professor in 2023. She completed a teaching stream postdoc at the University of Toronto, where she worked with the Embedded Ethics Education Initiative (E3I) team and introduced the first ethics modules for CS courses in Canada. Dr. Majedi earned her Ph.D. in data privacy at the University of Calgary. Her Ph.D. work presents a novel privacy policy modeling technique. Prior to her Ph.D., she earned a Master of Science degree in High-Performance Scientific Computing from the University of New Brunswick. Dr. Majedi also completed a fellowship in Medical Innovation at Western University.

Dr. Majedi's research primarily revolves around Embedded Ethics and Data Privacy. She explores the intersection of computer science and ethical considerations, aiming to develop modules that facilitate the integration of ethics and data privacy principles into computer science education.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: College of Creative Studies
• Instructor: Michelle Petty
• Instructor Email: mnpetty@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Monday 2:00-3:50 in ILP 4107
• Enroll Code: 26542

Course Description:  In times where morality and ethics are hotly contested in arenas stretching from technology to climate, engaging in the study of monsters can help us discern our own moral code, which can help us stand straight in an increasingly crooked house. In this honors seminar, students will read and watch stories that help us explore together what makes someone or something monstrous, and ways in which people are taking on the monster as an identity to take up space and agency in a world that might render them monstrous.

Drawing on multidisciplinary monster studies, from horror to rhetoric, we will look at popular culture and literature as our source material. We'll explore the questions posed to children ("What makes a monster and what makes a man?" - Hunchback of Notre Dame) and to adults (What is scary, and to whom?), but we'll also look at how declarations like "I'm the monster, it's me" (Taylor Swift) have become rallying cries to activists in marginalized communities.

This will be a discussion-based course where student writing is designed to support that discussion and their own self-reflection. At the end of the course, students will write a short paper about how studying monstrosity has helped them refine their personal morals, ethics, and values.

Bio:  Michelle Petty is an assistant teaching professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She researches higher education pedagogy and writing studies through the lenses of intersectionality and critical digital literacies. She has previously published in multiple academic journals on Black language and literature in the college classroom, in addition to several poems and a short story in literary journals.

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• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Spanish and Portuguese
• Instructor: Silvia Bermúdez
• Instructor Email: bermudez@spanport.ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Tuesday 2:00-3:50 IN HSSB 3202
• Enroll Code: 61572

Course Description:  Our Honors Seminar offers a unique exploration of a lesser-known aspect of Spanish art and culture: the significant contributions of women artists. Within their historical, political, and artistic contexts, we will delve into the imaginative work of well-recognized personalities such as María Blanchard (1881-1932), Maruja Mallo (1902-1995), Remedios Varo (1908-1963), Roser Bru (1923-2021), Lucinda Urrusti (1929-2023), Marta Palau (1934-2022), Sofía Gandarias (1957-2016), and a Mar Caldas (1964).

Bio:  Silvia Bermúdez is Professor of literature and Iberian Studies in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Her current scholarship focuses on Iberian feminisms, Latin American music, and the work of Galician women photographers.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Earth Science
• Instructor: Syee Weldeab
• Instructor Email: sweldeab@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Wednesday 2:00-3:50 in HSSB 1211
• Enroll Code: 57182

Course Description:  The focus of this seminar is to unravel and discuss the manifestation of ongoing climate changes in various parts of the eco-system. The seminar informs how our understanding of past climate changes improve and refine the impact and feedback mechanism of current and future climate changes.

Bio:  I am  Earth Scientist and study Earth's climate, For more see my website: https://weldeab.geol.ucsb.edu/