Roadside America

I look forward to meeting all of you in the fall – welcome to your first-year seminar and to the Honors Progam at Worcester State. This website, along with the course Blackboard, will be your roadmap for the fall semester. If you’d like a head start over the summer (as many honors students do…)

List of books we’ll read
Meet your professor

About this course: College has a lot in common with a road trip along the lesser-known highways of America’s past. It’s familiar and foreign at the same time; you’re embarking on a grand adventure into the unknown. “Roadside America” takes a semester-long tour of the USA through history, literature, popular culture and kitsch, while introducing you to the joys and rigors of university life and the honors program through inquiry, writing and seminar-style discussion. We’ll explore history and scholarship about the US interstate highway system and America’s collective love affair with cars and consider tourism, pilgrimage, memory, truckers, diners and being “on the road.” From the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters… this land is your land, so embrace it!