On April 5th, Honors students in Professor Faye McMahon’s ANT300/HNR340/HNR360: “Aesthetics Across Cultures,” spent the afternoon with Bosnian community members in Syracuse. At the Bosnian Eurobazar, they learned to “ćejf” with our very own Samir Malovic, who is the Data Administrator here at the Honors Program. Samir gave an engrossing and informative talk about the history of the Balkans and the culture of his native land, Bosnia, and introduced the students to ćejf-ing. Though the term is untranslatable in English, according to Bosnians, it is a very important part in understanding the everyday aesthetics of Bosnian culture. In a way, it is about enjoying life. The students experienced one form of ćejf by eating savory Bosnian foods, indulging in traditional homemade sweets, and listening to Bosnian music while drinking Bosnian coffee to their hearts content–all made and served by our Bosnian hosts, Kasim and Mrs. Muhovic and their children, Selma and Almas. To learn more about Bosnian ćejf-ing, stop by Samir’s desk on your way to class!
On Friday, November 15th, honors students in Professor Parker’s HNR 240 Food Stories class traveled to Wilson Park, an after school program in downtown Syracuse, to implement a “Harvest of the Month” program. With their program, group members Ella D’Amico, Jessie Gwilt, Sydney Karp, Luis Loor, and Ashlee Newman hoped to help fill the nutritional education gap for these children by educating the Central New York youth on the importance of eating seasonally and locally. They also provided participants with a yearly food guide.
You can grab a copy of the Harvest of the Month booklet HERE
Do you miss your childhood? Well you may have seen the new ‘IST 400: Gamification Journey‘ course we are offering. Some of the most rewarding courses we’ve offered here in Honors focus on the idea of play, games, and the purposes for them. Professor Scott Nicholson at the iSchool is a game designer, and not only does he design board (and other) games, but he focuses on “transformative gaming”… that is, using the concepts of “gamification” to transform people, communities, and other civic spaces.
Those Honors students ever so lucky enough to have enrolled in HNR 210 The Evolution of the Comic Book Movie journeyed into the Dark World….of Destiny USA to see the opening of Thor. Great fun was had by all. After a brief trip to the comic book store, we took our seats (with huge buckets of popcorn–see class photo) in a sparsely populated theater. Consensus was that this Thor was even better than the first. No plot spoilers here, but *my* favorite line from the movie: “why are there so many shoes here?” Watch for this and a cool Stan Lee cameo appearance.
