• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Chicana/o Studies
• Instructor: Giovanni Batz
• Instructor Email: gbatz@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Tuesday 3:00 - 6:50 in  HSSB 1237 *meets the first 5 weeks of the quarter
• Enroll Code: 63339

Course Description:  The course examines Maya History and Culture in the Mayab’, or where the Maya live/are. It attempts to de-center the nation-state, while also recognizing the ways that governments have played a role in repressing Indigenous Peoples. The course analyzes the Maya through time and space, with each week focusing on a particular topic.

Bio:  Giovanni Batz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of La Cuarta Invasión: Historias y Resistencia del Pueblo Ixil, y su Lucha contra la Hidroeléctrica Palo Viejo en Cotzal, Guatemala (AVANCSO 2022); and The Fourth Invasion: Decolonizing Histories, Megaprojects, and Ixil Maya Resistance in Guatemala (University of California Press 2024). He received his PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Texas in 2017. Batz has researched and published on Maya history, culture, society, and identity, extractivist industries in Guatemala, and Guatemalan-Maya transnational migration to the US. He was a 2020-2022 President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis, and a 2018-2019 Anne Ray Fellow at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Batz was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor at Miami University in Ohio, and New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Germanic and Slavic
• Instructor: Elisabeth Weber
• Instructor Email: weber@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Tuesday 4:00-5:50 in  HSSB 1207
• Enroll Code: 55483

Course Description:  In collaboration with Scholars at Risk (SAR), this course will work as the case-responsible entity for a writer / thinker persecuted for their ideas. We will choose a case, conduct background research on the region and the politics of the case, build a dossier, then develop and implement an advocacy strategy.  The seminar will be a hybrid between the editorial room of a news agency and the planning meeting of an NGO. Students also will explore the connection between expression, repression, and critical thinking.

Bio:  Elisabeth Weber is Professor of German and Comparative Literature. Relevant recent publications include the books "Speaking about Torture" (co-edited with Julie Carlson),  "Living Together: Jacques Derrida's Communities of Violence and Peace," and "Kill Boxes. Facing the Legacy of US-Sponsored Torture, Indefinite Detention and Drone Warfare."

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Black Studies
• Instructor: Roberto Strongman
• Instructor Email: rstrongman@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Mondays 2:00-3:50 PM in Rob Gym 1410
• Enroll Code: 26443

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 certified as a massage therapist by the state of California and as a yoga instructor at the 500-hour level (the highest recognizable credential in the field).

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Anthropology
• Instructor: David Lawson
• Instructor Email: dlawson@anth.ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Monday 8:00-9:50 in HSSB 2001A
• Enroll Code: 62406

Course Description:  Recent years have witnessed growing criticism of ‘parachute’ or ‘parasitic’ research in fields like global health, anthropology, and cross-cultural psychology. Too often, visiting researchers drop into a foreign country, make use of local infrastructure, personnel, and research subjects, and then go home and write up academic papers with little regard to impacts on local people and the growth of local research capacity. In this seminar, you will learn about attempts to establish more equitable models of international collaboration and to ‘decolonize’ academic research. Taking a case study of anthropological research in Tanzania, students will be invited to participate in meta-research about these issues and produce materials to support the establishment of new guidelines that reimagine the future of anthropological scholarship. The course will be ideal for students with an interest in research ethics or any field that involves cross-cultural data collection.   

Bio:  Professor David W Lawson is an evolutionary and cultural anthropologist interested in family life, gender and global health. He directs the Applied Evolutionary Anthropology Lab at UCSB (www.aea-lab.com).

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Physics
• Instructor: Deborah Fygenson
• Instructor Email: fygenson@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Friday 9:00-10:50 in Broida 3302 *First week ONLY in Broida 3302* This seminar requires students to spend two 3-hour blocks (6 hours per week) in the student machine shop (PSB-South 1707). Because the number of students that can be safely accommodated in the shop at one time is limited, part of the introductory meeting of the seminar, which will take place on the first Friday of the quarter, will be devoted to having students sign up for 3-hour blocks of available shop time that can work with their course schedules. 
• Enroll Code: 26450

Course Description:  Subtractive manufacturing is an umbrella term for machining and other material removal processes (e.g., cutting, boring, drilling, and grinding) by which solid pieces of plastic or metal are shaped to specification. This is a project-based course geared towards sophomores and motivated freshmen who want hands-on experience with subtractive manufacturing.  The majority of course hours will be spent in the Physics Department Student Shop. The mission of the course is to instill a deep appreciation of machining, its capabilities, limitations and risks.  Safety is paramount. Students must pass a safety screening, sign a liability waiver, adhere to rules regarding dress and comportment, and commit to schedules allowing adequate supervision.

Bio:  Deborah Fygenson received a BS in physics from MIT, and a PhD in physics from Princeton.  Her research seeks to understand and control biomolecular self-assembly and to use this knowledge to explore physical principles of molecular machinery and physical routes to the emergence of animate matter.  Her teaching focuses on making the lower-division laboratory experience of physics majors impart skills essential to experimental research.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Computer Science
• Instructor: Maryam Majedi
• Instructor Email: majedi@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Monday 4:00-5:50 in GIRV 1108
• Enroll Code: 26468

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.

Some possible topics include:

The Role of Ethics in Technology Development

Balancing Innovation with Moral Responsibility

Privacy, Security, and Ethical Dilemmas in the Digital Age

From 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: Linguistics -- English for Multilingual Students
• Instructor: Karyn Kessler
• Instructor Email: kkessler@linguistics.ucsb.edu
• Day – Time – Room: Monday 11:00-12:50 in HSSB 1232
• Enrollment Code: 63586

Course Description: How does one’s “disciplinary lens” affect their approach to inquiry – from question formulation to implementation? In this hands-on research design lab, students will be introduced to a landscape of inquiry across multiple disciplinary fields, including applied linguistics, writing studies and education. Specifically, students will participate in small, interdisciplinary teams and, in the end, work independently or with others to identify and design their own research study in response to a genuine curiosity. Learning outcomes include 1. an increased understanding of “the disciplinary lens” through which research is designed, 2. a demonstrated ability to participate in interdisciplinary research projects, 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.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Political Science
• Instructor: Clayton Nall
• Instructor Email: nall@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Monday 12:00-1:50 in HSSB 1215
• Enroll Code: 59873

Course Description:  This course delves into the politics of housing in California, with a focus on the state's unique challenges related to housing shortages and high prices. Through a political economy lens, we'll explore how institutions shape housing markets and create special interests. Weekly readings will cover topics such as why cities restrict housing development to benefit homeowners, why single-family homes receive tax benefits, and why effective housing reforms are unpopular.

We’ll address the following questions in our weekly reading discussions:

•             How does the politics of housing differ from other issues?

•             Why do cities restrict housing development, usually to the benefit of homeowners who control local land-use regulation?

•             Why do single-family homeowners receive so many tax benefits, especially in California?

•             Why are necessary reforms for affordable housing so unpopular while ineffective policies get bipartisan support?

Class members will contribute to a collective project related to Professor Nall’s research.

Bio:  My research seeks to explain how policies that change geographic space change American politics, and my broader research interests encompass American political development, public policy, political geography, and political methodology. My book, The Road to Inequality: How the Federal Highway Program Polarized America and Undermined Cities (Cambridge University Press, 2018) uses a range of new data sources constructed from public archives and databases to examine how the largest public works project in U.S. history created Republican suburbs, increased the urban-suburban political divide, and worsened spatial inequality in the nation's metro areas.

I am currently pursuing research broadly addressing the politics of housing, examining how much voters understand housing markets and how their economic self-interest in local politics interacts with ideologies forged in national politics.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Political Science
• Instructor: Amit Ahuja
• Instructor Email: aahuja@ucsb.edu
• Day – Time – Room: Thursday 12:00-1:50 in GIRV 2320
• Enrollment Code: 63867

Course Description: Militaries are premier symbols of national identity. But how do militaries engage the identities of the soldiers. This seminar will read six books on religion, ethnicity, Race, and gender in the Military. Students will have the opportunity to discuss the books with their authors. It will meet for two hours each week over ten weeks.

Bio: Amit Ahuja is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements and co-editor of Internal Security in India: Violence, Order, and the State, both published by Oxford University Press. At UC Santa Barbara, Professor Ahuja serves as the Interim Director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies and as Faculty in Residence at Manzanita Village.

Professor Ahuja is currently completing a book manuscript titled Building National Militaries in Multiethnic States. His first book received the prestigious New India Foundation Book Prize in 2020. In 2022–2023, he was a Scholar in Residence at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies. His dedication to student engagement was recognized with the Margaret T. Getman Award in 2015.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Earth Science
• Instructor: Jordan Clark
• Instructor Email: jfclark@geol.ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Friday 1:00-1:50 in GIRV 2135 *This seminar has a 3 day fieldtrip
• Enroll Code: 26492

Course Description:  This class focuses on a three-day field trip that will leave Friday morning, May 9, and return mid-afternoon on Sunday May 11. During the trip we will stop at important sites related to the LA Aqueduct, Mono Lake, and watch a PBS documentary.  Finally, the class will meet twice prior and once after the field trip.

Bio:  Dr. Clark is an environmental scientist who works in geochemistry and hydrology.  Much of his current research relates to water supply problems in California.  In particular, he investigates groundwater flow near Managed Aquifer Recharge sites.  He has taught a version of this class numerous times.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Earth Science
• Instructor: Alex Simms
• Instructor Email: asimms@geol.ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Mondays from 4:00-4:50 in 2135. *this seminar has a field trip
• Enroll Code: 26500

Course Description:  During this course we will discuss the causes of sea-level rise at several different time scales and its influence on the natural and geologic system.

Bio:  Professor Simms received his BS in Geology from Oklahoma State University and his PhD from Rice University.  After completing his PhD he started as an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University before moving to UCSB in 2010.  He has over 20 years of experience studying past sea-level changes from locations across the globe ranging from Antarctica to South Texas.

• Seminar Type: Honors
• Department: Writing Program
• Instructor: Paul Rogers
• Instructor Email: paulrogers@writing.ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Wednesday 1:00-2:50 in ILP 4211
• Enroll Code: 26534

Course Description:  Social entrepreneurship has its origins in the work of a group of actors, social entrepreneurs, who introduce solutions to pressing social and environmental problems (e.g., poverty, human trafficking, climate change). The object of social entrepreneurs, broadly stated, is to improve the quality of life for people in practical ways. To make these improvements, social entrepreneurs use the tools of enterprise and business in combination with community engagement and the power of ordinary citizens to create novel solutions to what are typically localized problems. Examples of these innovative solutions include the development of micro-finance, community-sourced emergency preparedness social media platforms, greenscaping programs for heavily polluted urban areas, integrated systems to combat human trafficking, and much more. While individuals fitting the description of social entrepreneur have lived throughout history, it is only in the past 40 years that social entrepreneurship has been galvanized into a recognized field of activity. In this sense, social entrepreneurship represents a deliberate reframing and destabilization of the narrative related to what we commonly refer to as the nonprofit sector; in principle, social entrepreneurs are individuals who play by a different and somewhat hybrid set of rules than that of either business or traditional non-profits as they apply “the mindset, processes, tools, and techniques of business entrepreneurship to the pursuit of a social and/or environmental mission” (Kickul and Lyons, 2016, p.1).  Through discussion, projects, reflection, and guest lecturers, students will gain an appreciation for the work of social entrepreneurship and explore their own changemaker journey.

The course aims to cover four primary learning outcomes:

1. Develop Knowledge of Changemaking and Changemakers (Including social entrepreneurs)

2. Habits of Mind

3. Communicative Competence

4. Ways of Being

UNDERSTAND THE FIELD OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP - How it differs from traditional non-profit activity, social enterprise, corporate social responsibility, philanthropy, and service projects.  Identify historical & contemporary examples of social entrepreneurs: the traits and qualities of social entrepreneurs and their organizations; the strategies and ideas they use to address local, national and global challenges; the nature of the organizations social entrepreneurs lead; the ways social entrepreneurs measure impact. Develop deep understanding of the competencies associated with social innovation and social entrepreneurship, especially empathy, teamwork and leadership, which have been identified as the foundational attributes for making change.

HABITS OF MIND Use systems thinking:  Possess the ability to analyze problems in context of systems, identify root causes of systemic failure, search for critical leverage points in leading systemic change.

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE Gain experience in creating and communicating new, complex, and audience appropriate messages in a wide variety of genres and media aimed at furthering entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges. 

WAYS OF BEING  Understand oneself: Gain awareness of personal passions, motivations, aspirations, abilities, limitations, and a commitment to work on cultivating strengths and well-being over the course of one’s professional and personal life. Deepened sense of purpose: Develop greater awareness of the change one wants to see in the world and the self-permission to take risks to pursue it.

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: Earth Science
• Instructor: Syee Weldeab
• Instructor Email: sweldeab@ucsb.edu
• Day - Time - Room: Friday 2:00-3:50 in GIRV 1108
• Enroll Code: 54999

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 Professor at Depart of Earth Science and I study past climate changes that inform us about the sensitivity of the climate system to changes in climate forcings (for instance greenhouse gases) and climatic amplifying feedback mechanisms. For more,visit my website: https://weldeab.geol.ucsb.edu/