The College Fellows were asked to design their dream courses - ones they've always wanted to teach but never had the opportunity - and then teach them to first-year students. These Engagements pose different types of questions that are fundamental the way we think about everything - from medicine, to policy, to business, to philosophy, to science and everything in between.
The Engagement courses are the highlight of the College Curriculum that offer a seminal experience for first-year students in the College.
Classes emphasize group work and discussion in a seminar-like environment, where they engage with big questions and challenges with the College Fellows, some of UVA’s best faculty.
Students will take 8 credits worth of engagements courses in their first year, 4 in each semester.
Engagement courses are offered in two formats: 2-credit, half-semester courses are offered that cover a single Engagement, or 4-credit, full-semester courses are offered that cover two different Engagements. See the course catalog in SIS for exact details.
A general education should help you explore our world through the lens of human creativity in its many forms. In their shaping of materials, language, space, and sound, artists, architects, writers, and composers reinterpret the world, showing us vital ways of thinking about our present, our past, and the natural world. We will explore how their work provokes our most visceral emotional responses and invites engaged intellectual reflection and interpretation. Engaging Aesthetics courses will help you:
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Think critically about the nature of art and artistry;
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Describe and analyze aesthetic experiences and objects;
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Reflect on the historical, geographical, and cultural differences that shape human responses to aesthetic experience;
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Take stock of the moral and ethical capacities of the arts at moments of social, political, and environmental crisis.
Courses
- EGMT 1510: Art - Inside/OutHeadshot:
Sarah Betzer
EGMT 1510: Art - Inside/Out
In this course, you will explore our world through the lens of artistic creation and aesthetic encounter in its many forms: from the arts of painting and sculpture to literature, music, and theater, to experiences of the natural world. Through a series of encounters with specific objects, interpretive and critical readings, interactions with practicing artists, and your own hands-on creative exercises, you will become familiar with some of the many ways that art and aesthetics shape human experience and culture. By the end of the semester you will have learned:
- some of the principles of description and analysis of aesthetic experience and objects;
- how historical, geographical, and cultural differences have shaped ideas and experiences of arts;
- what creativity looks like “from the inside”: that is, from the perspective of practicing artists an in your own creative enterprises;
- how art has been understood to affect and even transform us as individuals and cultures.
With the UVA Grounds and the Charlottesville community as our laboratory, our work in this course will embrace visits to studios and from practicing artists, and will extend to museums, film, and musical and theatrical performance. In every case we will bring to bear our readings and discussion of arts criticism, philosophy, and commentary--including your own. We will think together about the power of art as well as notions of art’s ‘aura’; about the range of cultural frameworks for art and aesthetic encounter (institutions, experience, critique); about the “time” of art and its changing nature over historical periods; and about aesthetic wonder and artistic creativity as dispositions you can harness and take forward into other realms of your lives.
- EGMT 1510: Black and White - Race and Photography in AmericaHeadshot:
Grace Hale
EGMT 1510: Black and White - Race and Photography in America
What does it mean to see the world in black and white? How has photography as a medium shaped how we understand race? How have ideas about race shaped aesthetic practices in photography? This course explores the overlapping histories of photography and race in the nineteenth and twentieth century US.
Technologies for seeing and making sense of the world, race in a post-emancipation society and photography as a medium evolved together in the US. As the ex-slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, the most photographed American of his era, argued in the 1860s, the new “picture-making faculty” was “a mighty power,” an effective tool for defining the identities of both enslaved and emancipated Americans. Race and photography depended on vision and on an appeal to aesthetics for this authority. Both also claimed to present rather than represent—to reveal the material world in ways unmediated by human agency.
In the contemporary moment, we no longer understand photography as a transparent documentation of the real world. We no longer argue that race is an identity that people can see. Yet photography continues through its aesthetic and documentary power to shape the meaning of race. In this course, we will examine images by photographers including James Van Der Zee, Frances Benjamin Johnston, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Gordon Parks, Danny Lyon, Emmet Gowin, Dawoud Bey, Carrie Mae Weems, and Sally Mann. We will visit the Fralin Museum of Art and UVA’s Small Special Collections Library.
- EGMT 1510: Cultures of Play - Listening, Collaborating, ImprovisingHeadshot:
Michelle Kisliuk
EGMT 1510: Cultures of Play - Listening, Collaborating, Improvising
It can be unnerving to make something from what seems like nothing. But we all improvise when we play, so what is it that you draw upon? Is playing fun because it offers an avenue to re-imagine yourself, to get to know other people, even to form communities? These are some questions we delve into during this course.
We will attend to practices from several places in the world, both nearby and distant, ranging from kids' clapping games to song styles from the African rain forest. We'll explore proportions of freedom versus constraint, preparation versus spontaneity, and individuality within a collective, considering how these dynamic balances inform our sense of taste -- that is when and why an expression, experience, or style just feels "right" or doesn't. Working with live materials (rhythms, speech, gestures, melodies, beats, fragments of text or conversation, memories, dreams, jokes) we’ll develop a grab bag of shared practices/skills. Our active responses to reading, research, and poetic invocations about play and improvisation will take the form of "reading collages" (drawn from weekly reading assignments and spoken aloud), along with brief writing activities. We will pay attention to our poetic sensibilities -- noticing moments of affect and micro-politics in our everyday lives. As the course progresses, we will test out a variety of mini-projects in groups that range in size, devising brief ‘happenings’ in class and around grounds. We end the term with an all-class flash mob or related event that we design and enact together. The details of any of these endeavors will depend on: 1) who is in the class and how we combine to create a shared aesthetic 2) our immediate circumstances moment to moment and our responses to local, national, or global events, and 3) the directions we decide to take along the way. Students should expect to step out of their comfort zones, to be challenged to think independently, and to engage in lively and open debate.
- EGMT 1510: Extinction in Art and LiteratureHeadshot:
Adrienne Ghaly
EGMT 1510: Extinction in Art and Literature
Scientists recently designated the contemporary era as the sixth age of mass extinction, and the first in which humanity has played the primary role. This course explores how man-made, or anthropogenic, extinction is being conceptualized and represented in literature, visual art and other cultural artifacts. We’ll explore how writers and artists think about and with the idea of our age of extinction as an urgent conceptual, representational and ethical problem, and the modes and media they use. Aesthetic approaches to this environmental crisis implicitly or explicitly force us to address the question of the ethical possibilities of the arts and encourage us to rethink what ethical engagement might look like across longer timescales and global networks of action.
We’ll address one of the most pressing global issues of our time through the close analysis of literary texts, visual art, data visualizations, audio recordings, photojournalism and film that try to give a shape to a process that is not always visible, immediately experienced, or easily apprehended. We will ask how extinction has been imagined, through what forms and aesthetic expressions, and to what uses it has been put. What kinds of historical narratives and innovative visualizations emerge from efforts to imagine extinction? What aesthetic strategies do writers and artists use to conceptualize the idea of extinction within and alongside other historical, cultural and scientific processes – imperial expansion and colonization, conflict, fantasies of lost worlds, “deep” time, re-wilding, and so-called “de-extinction,” the resurrection of species?
- EGMT 1510: Immortality - A User's GuideHeadshot:
Chip Tucker
EGMT 1510: Immortality - A User's Guide
Shall we live forever? Why not? While ours is the species that knows it must die – or because of that brute fact – humankind has a long, broad tradition of indulging immortal longings by imagining a life beyond this one. The gods live forever, we say, or the soul does, or the durable productions of culture and art do. The return of our mortal remains to the planet’s biomass may represent a mode of ecological life after death; so may the survival into posterity of our selfish genes. The recent proliferation of photographic and phonographic modes, and the contemporary possibility of perennial cryogenic storage, have in modern times afforded new versions of technological afterlife. Meanwhile, religion and art continue to rehearse what might be called the eternity of the now, through ritual and aesthetic patterns that step not outside mortal time but right inside it. After comparing imaginations of immortality that are found in cultural practices both secular and devout, we’ll focus on a set of aesthetic versions drawn from poetry, painting, science-fiction, and cinema. Our survey will dwell on the challenge of describing immortality in mortal human terms. Our abiding questions will be on one hand whether immortality is something we really want after all, and on the other hand whether it’s something we can ever quite live without.
- EGMT 1510: Meaning and SayingHeadshot:
Emily Ogden
EGMT 1510: Meaning and Saying
Fertile gaps between meaning and saying can exist in all sorts of verbal expression. Poets, satirists, and all of us in ordinary life sometimes have to speak or write with double or hidden meanings in order to communicate the truth as we understand it. Critics sometimes call this gap between meaning and saying irony. We might think that irony is a way of being sarcastic, or saying the opposite of what you believe. (An example in two words: yeah, right!) These things are, however, only a small part of irony. Irony can also reflect disappointed expectations, conflictedness, even a sense of humility about our ability to say what we mean at all. Ultimately, irony is a way of approaching the world and ourselves that affords unique possibilities for self-criticism and reflection. We’ll work together to understand how we can both use and appreciate the rifts between meaning and saying that irony creates. We’ll read poetry and essays from James Baldwin, Frederick Douglass, Robert Frost, Jonathan Lear, Audre Lorde, Marianne Moore, Susan Sontag, Oscar Wilde, and others. Course members will also work throughout our seven weeks to develop and curate their own anthologies of irony, with examples carefully selected from their reading, listening, and viewing beyond class. These anthologies introduce us to the pleasures and problems of curating a collection of texts and explaining why they belong together.
- EGMT 1510: On GhostsHeadshot:
Jack Chen
EGMT 1510: On Ghosts
Do you believe in ghosts? Or rather: What does it mean to believe in ghosts? What are ghosts as objects of belief and why are they confined to the framework of belief, as opposed to knowledge? If one could “know” ghosts, how would one prove their existence—and what would proof or evidence mean in these contexts? At the same time, ghosts exist, at least in stories told across many cultures in the world and over the long histories of these cultures. And, to be sure, the representation of ghosts differs across these cultures and time spans, in ways that are often dependent on historical contexts, cultural understandings, and belief systems. For some cultures, the ghost is an unwanted guest, but for others, the ghost is connected by kinship and owed certain services and dignities; and in some periods, the ghost speaks to (and for) larger religious frameworks, while for others, the ghost is a malevolent force unmoored from all logics.
This course will take up the problem of the ghost from a variety of perspectives—aesthetic, epistemological, ethical, and empirical. As a class, we will read ghost stories, watch ghost films, and even participate in a ghost tour (and consider the critiques of such tours). Much of our work will begin with the question of how to think critically about cultural texts, whether these are literary works, films, philosophical writings, religious texts, or folkloric tales, and to be able to read these in a rigorously analytic manner. We will also discuss what the ghost represents in its specific cultural locus and historical moment, how the ghost complicates the boundaries of the living and the dead, what we owe to ghosts (if anything), what it means to be haunted, what evidence there is for the existence of ghosts, how we recognize a ghost, and above all, why there should be ghosts in the first place?
- EGMT 1510: Sounds of ResistanceHeadshot:
Liza Flood
EGMT 1510: Sounds of Resistance
This class explores the aesthetics of resistance in social and political life, emphasizing sound. We will rely on a broad understanding of “resistance,” from street protests to campaign theme songs to Super Bowl performances. Likewise, “sound” will refer primarily to music, but will also include other audible outputs of voices, bodies, and environments. Students will consider how sounds can straddle and influence the intimately connected domains of the aesthetic and the sociopolitical. We will ponder questions such as: how does sound mean? Is sound capable of provoking social change? How do people draw on their own experiences to interpret what they hear? How can the same song or sound inspire some to love and others to hate? Can sound be used as a weapon? How can sound foster inclusivity or exclusivity, or allow individuals to heal, motivate, resist, or change?
We will attend public events in the area to enhance our studies. Importantly, students will examine their own engagements with sonic and musical resistance and will complete self-designed projects that allow them to experiment with sound’s capacities to engage in social action.
- EGMT 1510: The Aesthetics of TraumaHeadshot:
Hanadi Al-Samman
EGMT 1510: The Aesthetics of Trauma
What is the difference between the beautiful and the grotesque? What is the gravitational pull of the iconic Vietnamese “Napalm Girl” 1972 picture and the drowned Syrian refugee boy’s picture on the shores of Turkey in 2015? How does art allow us to grapple with trauma? What jarring or therapeutic effects can one extract from traumatic recollection and expression? How Can individual and collective trauma intertwine to create a narrative witnessing, and an everlasting artistic and national remembrance?
This course will explore the artistic and ethical engagements of traumatic recall and expression. It will address the moral capacities of art at times of national and cultural crisis. We will cover the various ways in which certain groups have grappled with catastrophic events such as: slavery, genocide, holocaust, Nakba, Maffa, and the unfortunate aftermath of the Arab Spring. In particular, we will evaluate the effectiveness of art installations, interactive drama, digital music, films, and literature in covering the tragic outcome of the Syrian revolution, its toll in terms of lost lives and refugee world crises. We will explore art’s potential to provide healing and activism despite utter loss.
- EGMT 1510: The Lives of Everyday ObjectsHeadshot:
Adrienne Ghaly
EGMT 1510: The Lives of Everyday Objects
The Lives of Everyday Objects: Material Culture and What Your Stuff Means
What are the hidden stories of your stuff? Pens, stockings, wrist watches, your rubber duck. From Marx’s idea of the commodity fetish as governing modern life and Sherlock Holmes’s uncanny ability to analyze the cultural markers of the things worn and carried by his suspects, to the shock of Tracey Emin’s late twentieth-century art installation My Bed and the webs of globalization in which everyday objects are embedded, how do we think about everyday objects, and how can literature and art help us think about them? We will look at the objects around us through a variety of aesthetic expressions in art, advertising and literature. This course will introduce students to key critical concepts of material culture and explore these ideas through aesthetic representations of the world immediately around us. How are you linked to the world through what you wear, the things you carry, the material residue or debris you leave behind? What social meanings, cultural values and emotional values do we invest in them?
- EGMT 1510: The Politics of Popular MusicHeadshot:
Josh Mound
EGMT 1510: The Politics of Popular Music
Why did it take a white artist like Elvis covering a song like “Hound Dog” to make it a hit, and why did his performance of the song on television ignite such controversy? Who decided holding a “Disco Demolition Night” between the two halves of a 1979 Chicago White Sox/Detroit Tigers doubleheader was a good promotional idea, and why did it turn into a riot? What made Ronald Reagan praise Bruce Springsteen at a 1984 campaign stop, and why did Springsteen tell a concert audience two days later that Reagan must not have understood his songs? Why did a conservative pundit dismiss Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” as “paranoi[d]…Millennial groupthink,” and what does that reaction have to do with the song and its video’s content? The answers to these questions tell us that popular music is more than just a collection of artistic works and cultural commodities. In “The Politics of Pop Music,” you will examine pop music as an art form, a social movement, and a business. In doing so, you will consider how and what studying aesthetic products such as pop songs, albums, videos, and performances can tell us about the historical moment in which they were created and, in turn, the world they helped create.
- EGMT 1510: Virtuosity and Its OthersHeadshot:
Ted Coffey
EGMT 1510: Virtuosity and Its Others
What do a urinal in a museum and a silent piece of music have in common? What’s wabi-sabi? How far behind the beat is not far enough? Why talk wrong? And who gets to? When is trying and failing more beautiful than trying and succeeding?
In this class, we’ll explore conceptions of virtuosity — where they come from, what they mean, and how we might like to re-form them. Engaging with ideas and exemplars found across all the arts, we’ll gain a more profound appreciation for scribbles and bad guitar solos, obsessive repetition, breathless oversharing and restraint. Some of the major projects in the class will be creative works (e.g., visual and music / sound), affording opportunities to play with critical perspectives on virtuosity through artistic expression. We’ll use computer applications for manipulation of sound and image, and some experience with DAWs, Photoshop, and video editing software, may be useful though not required.
- EGMT 1510: What is Noise?Headshot:
Bonnie Gordon
EGMT 1510: What is Noise?
What is Noise? Who gets to make noise and who gets punished for making it? What are some sites of Noise in Charlottesville today? What are the differences between sound, noise, and music? How has the concept of noise changed through history? What for example was the loudest sound imaginable in 1607, when settlers came to Jamestown? How do birds respond to car alarms? This class engages aesthetics through the concept of noise. We will use the idea of noise to ask questions about aesthetics and difference. We will think about the ways that our positions as listeners effect our ability to move through the world. We will listen to noise as it relates to power, economics, the environment, love, the body, race, gender, and class. in our own city. The class will include a playlist of aural encounters including music, readings from a variety of fields, and hands on noise making activities. Readings will range from primary sources in Special Collections Library, fiction, to acoustics, environmental science, and journalistic accounts of public debates around noise pollution. Through listening, close reading, shared experience, small group work, sound walks and other experiences, this course encourages you to make an unmake your ideas about noise. The course will create a space for students to productively engage others in discussions of aesthetics, creativity, and politics. Finally, we will make some noise!
A general education should help you makes sense of the world by analyzing observable facts. Both within and beyond the university, you will encounter claims about the natural and social worlds and be confronted with situations that require you to evaluate and make decisions based on evidence. We will explore how questions and hypotheses are formulated and evaluated based on evidence. Empirical and Scientific Engagement courses will help you:
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Develop a framework of knowledge to discern what is empirical in the natural, physical and social worlds;
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Evaluate empirically supported claims by framing empirical questions and interpreting the claims in the context of new data;
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Recognize that empirical methods are a crucial component to addressing and answering a broad range of essential questions;
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Articulate the limitations of using empirical, data based inquiry to describe complex phenomena.
Courses
- EGMT 1520: Boundaries of Knowledge in the UniverseHeadshot:
Kelsey Johnson
EGMT 1520: Boundaries of Knowledge in the Universe
What happens inside black holes? What caused the Big Bang? Are there other dimensions? Despite major technological advances of the last century, we still know shockingly little about the universe in which we live. This Engagements course will explore why we think we know what we do, why we don’t know what we don’t, and the fundamental strengths and limits of empirical inquiry. The class will be grounded in epistemological understandings of knowledge, and discussions will focus on the borderlands between science, theology, and philosophy. Throughout the 7 weeks, students will be charged with nurturing their curiosity, and challenged to ask meaningful questions.
- EGMT 1520: Exploring Your GenomeHeadshot:
Jessica Connelly
EGMT 1520: Exploring Your Genome
What is a genome? What can you do with your genome? How can others use your genome? In this course, you will learn about the human genome, from how it is measured to what information it contains. You will have the opportunity to take a glimpse at your own genetic information and we will discuss the implications of this knowledge. Through this course, you will gain an understanding of the profound role that the human genome plays in your life and your future.
The Takeaway (what will you know 5 years from now… My hope for students upon completion of this course is the ability to discuss genetic concepts confidently with their colleagues, to know what can and can’t be done with their genetic information especially as reported by the popular press, and to use this information to guide them in making informed decisions in their own lives in years to come. And along the way, you will become empirically engaged.
Our objectives this semester... By the end of this course, you will have glimpsed at the foundation of life and you will:
- Be able to describe and discuss the human genome and its utility in medicine and life
- Become curious about the ways in which you and others can use your genome
- Gain skills that will allow you to think about and interpret genetic data
- Help others better understand the use of genetic information in their future
- EGMT 1520: Genetics: Solutions for Life!?Headshot:
Claire Cronmiller
EGMT 1520: Genetics: Solutions for Life!?
How can we cure sickle cell disease? Why don’t snakes have legs? How do we make a seedless (insert your favorite fruit or vegetable here)? How do we bypass egg allergies by genetically modifying chickens? What contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire? Was Thomas Jefferson the father of Sally Hemings’s children? Is violent behavior a genetic disease? Can we cure (insert disease of interest here) through gene therapy?
These are all analytical questions/problems that have been addressed through genetic/DNA analysis. We’ll use examples like these to explore how our increasingly sophisticated understanding of genomes and the genetic basis of life can be used to approach a wide variety of puzzles or problems. In each case, we’ll examine how investigators framed a specific scientific question, what analytical approach was designed to address that question, what results were produced by the analyses, and what conclusions could be drawn from those results. Wherever possible, we’ll consider any related ethical dilemmas that continue to arise, as our rapidly expanding genetic knowledge impacts both individuals and society. And, best of all: You’ll learn some genetics along the way!
- EGMT 1520: Life On the MoveHeadshot:
Dorothy Schafer
EGMT 1520: Life On the Move
We cannot work or play, fight or express love without an accompanying movement, however subtle, somewhere in the body. But does movement accomplish more than just getting from one place to another? Will running nurture resilience? Can we dance our way around chronic diseases? Do big biceps lead to bigger brains? Did humans evolve to run? What are the consequences of a sedentary lifestyle? Should couch potatoes take “exercise” pills? We will address questions like these by applying empirical approaches to explore the scope and scale of nature’s movements -- from the tiny trajectories of molecules and cells to the global migrations of animals and people. By observing and measuring your own patterns of movement, you will also learn to think like a scientist and to consider the limitations of empirical approaches. By hypothesizing how novel types of movement might occur and how you might test your ideas, you will come to appreciate that discovery about the unknown is a creative process limited only by an infinite imagination.
- EGMT 1520: Making Truth Claims - The Power & Limits of Empirical ReasoningHeadshot:
Sarah Corse
EGMT 1520: Making Truth Claims - The Power & Limits of Empirical Reasoning
What makes a truth claim powerful and persuasive? In our everyday lives, most of us rely on at least some version of empirical reasoning to advance our own truth claims and assess others. For example, a person might say “Everyone is either male or female” because that person has never met anyone who isn’t and so s/he imagines the world is fully represented by male and female people. However, someone with different experience may assess this claim as ridiculous and obviously untrue. This is an example of rudimentary empirical reasoning – we have an idea of how things work in our heads and we check it against the “real world.” This is a central tenet of the scientific method – we test our theories against empirical data to see if they are supported. But we all know examples of “bad” science, or disputed “facts,” or questions that empirical data don’t seem to help answer. In this course, we will think about the process and evaluation of empirical observations and scientific reasoning. Through activities and discussion students will grapple with question such as: What are the strengths of these knowledge systems and what might undermine them or make them less relevant? How do we turn the “real world” into data and what problems does that cause? What are the similarities and differences in empirical reasoning about the natural world and the social world?
- EGMT 1520: Poverty CountsHeadshot:
Josh Mound
EGMT 1520: Poverty Counts
The United States' definition of "poverty" dates to 1963, when Social Security administration economist Mollie Orshansky used the Department of Agriculture's "Thrifty Food Plan" to calculate the amount of economic deprivation in the U.S. But Orshansky never intended for her calculation to become the official poverty line, and it's been challenged by critics on the left and the right ever since. Orshansky's calculation has persisted, however, because (re)defining poverty is both complex and controversial. Like categories such as "race" and "disability," poverty is a socially constructed concept. When we say someone is "poor," what do we mean? Do we mean that his or her income falls below an absolute threshold (a dollar amount) or a relative one (such as a percentage of the median income)? Moreover, what do we mean by "income"? Should we even define poverty in material terms? In answering these questions and related ones, this course will ask you to consider the theoretical and empirical issues involved in operationalizing socially constructed concepts such as poverty. Through critical engagement with the interdisciplinary poverty literature, both qualitative and quantitative, and hands-on research, you will gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of carrying out empirical social science.
- EGMT 1520: The Big Bang - The Creation of Our UniverseHeadshot:
Mark Whittle
EGMT 1520: The Big Bang - The Creation of Our Universe
For many people “The Big Bang Theory” is a CBS sitcom following the tangled lives of four geeky Caltech students. But what is the real Big Bang Theory? Most people know it concerns the beginning of the Universe, but exactly what does the theory say and how firm is the evidence for it? In this class, we’ll journey out into the galaxies and back to the primordial fireball, always paying attention to how we know what we claim to know. Ultimately, we’re pursuing an idea that has been present in all cultures at all times: what is the origin of our world, with its land and sky, sun and stars, and even ourselves?
During this class, we’ll be exploring some wonderful themes. We’ll see how cosmic expansion helps us understand the unusual nature of the universe’s explosive origin about 14 billion years ago. We’ll use high-caliber data from large telescopes to unpack the evidence for two major, but invisible, components of today’s universe: dark matter and dark energy. Astronomers are extremely lucky because they can actually see the past simply by looking far away. Our largest telescopes reveal a billion year old universe filled with chaotic “infant” galaxies quite unlike today’s majestic “adult” spirals and ellipticals. We can even see the primordial fireball using microwave telescopes that reveal in exquisite detail the incandescent glow from hot gas, laced with deep harmonic tones of primordial sound. Pushing even earlier we arrive at the first hour and even the first minute, where we find conditions similar to the sun’s center or the inside a hydrogen bomb. Remarkably, the “heavy” hydrogen in the water you drink every day was made in that first minute! Finally, stepping back to frame everything, we’ll calculate the total energy of the Universe and find that it is zero – it sums to nothing! This in turn suggests a truly remarkable creation mechanism, called inflation, that creates everything from nothing and launches the expansion. While the evidence for inflation is not yet robust, there are important observations in the next decade or two that may help confirm its reality.
Throughout, we will honor the overall intent of the “empirical engagement” by using the Big Bang Theory as a test case to explore how science works – how observations are used to test and refine a theory that is built using the known laws of physics. After a century of effort, this theory – with the exception of the creation mechanism itself – is about as detailed and robust as the theories of evolution and atomic structure. While these theories reached maturity some time ago, modern cosmology has only recently gelled and is therefore, arguably, the greatest scientific narrative of our current time.
- EGMT 1520: Thrifting: A Case Study for Empirical InquiryHeadshot:
Gertrude Fraser
EGMT 1520: Thrifting: A Case Study for Empirical Inquiry
At semester’s end at any American University peruse the dumpsters, dorm hallways and suite common rooms and you are sure to see mounds of castaway objects, once deemed of highest importance to the life and welfare of it’s owners. Eventually some of these objects, especially clothing, will find their way into a thrift-store, or on-line via second-hand sales or will be remade into new fashionable objects. Who buys and sells second-hand clothes and why? Thrifting may seem a trivial issue but even when they disagree as to its specific functions and meanings, scholars across a range of disciplines agree that it is of increasing economic, political, cultural and personal importance in contemporary communities in the U.S. and globally. We will use the case study as an empirically grounded approach to investigate the real-world contexts of thrifting. The case study can be a powerful in-depth approach using multiple forms of empirical evidence to research complex issues, objects or activities when the phenomena is not well described and where there are multiple interpretations and points of view. Students will learn about the strengths and limitations of different types of empirical case study designs. They will then design a case study research project, explore related scholarly and popular literature, collect empirical evidence, and interpret their findings about some specific aspect of thrifting. The course will involve the students and professor in exploring how a case study method applied to a specific social practice can be a rich source for empirical inquiry into our social world, how we experience it, how it shapes our cultural identities and how it is structured across local and global sites.
- EGMT 1520: Why We Hold HandsHeadshot:
Jim Coan
EGMT 1520: Why We Hold Hands
Why do we hold hands? If you think about it, it's a peculiar behavior. What is its function? What does it accomplish? Why do so many people all around the world do it? I hadn’t given it much thought until I embarked on the scientific study of how—at the level of brain function—people soothe each other’s fears and anxieties. In my early work, hand holding was little more to me than a convenient way to study social support in the restrictive environment of the brain scanner. But as the years, and studies, have gone by, a deeper understanding of simple hand holding has unlocked for me many of the secrets of our shared humanity—and helped me explain why, for humans, social isolation is the quickest route to misery, poor health, and even early death. We’ll use the mystery of hand holding as our point of departure on a scientific journey toward understanding the way social relationships affect our earliest sensory experiences, the length of our lives, and everything in between. We’ll also explore the likeliest theories about the evolution of Homo sapiens, and how that evolution is reflected in the structure and function of the human brain.
A general education should help you explore the ways in which people become unlike one another. Both within the university and beyond, you will encounter an ever greater range of forms in which human difference is realized, such as differences of culture, religion, and nationality, as well as those of class race, gender, sexuality, ability, and privilege. We will recognize that these differences are occasions for greater knowledge but also failures to understand one another. Engaging Differences courses will help you:
- Analyze and evaluate the richness and complexity of variable experiences;
- Reflect upon the social inequalities historically produced and patterned along some lines of difference;
- Consider how we encounter one another across social boundaries, perform and express our differences, clash, develop prejudices, and construct forms of discrimination;
- Understand the need to engage with different lives and cultures in a spirit of a common good to make sense of human experience.
Courses
- EGMT 1530/1540: Do We Still Have Faith In Democracy?Headshot:
Nichole Flores
EGMT 1530/1540: Do We Still Have Faith In Democracy?
*Note: Since this class satifies both EGMT 1530 (Differences) and EGMT 1540 (Ethics), students must enroll in both Fall Session 1 and Fall Session 2 quarters.
Democracy is currently face daunting challenges in the U.S. and around the world. Authoritarian leaders and populist parties have undermined democratic values across the globe, including Brazil, Hungary, Algeria, Poland, and the United States. In the U.S., there are attempts to make it more difficult for citizens to vote. Practices of gerrymandering and unethical campaign finance undermine citizen’s interests in representative government. In Charlottesville, especially in the wake of events of August 2017, questions have been raised about the responsiveness of local government to the needs of its citizens and the city’s failure to protect the safety of those who protested against the actions of self-admitted racist and fascist groups.
In the midst of these challenges, do we still have faith in democracy and, if so, why? Must we have faith in democracy in order for it to succeed? What do we mean by faith? How might the resources of democracy itself (its ideas and its practices) help societies respond to these crises?
This course examines the character of democracy:
- What is a democracy and what distinguishes it from other forms of governments?
- What are the practices of democracy and the role of education in preparation for democratic participation?
- What does it mean to be a citizen of a democracy and who counts as a citizen?
- What are the challenges and opportunities of pluralism (religious, cultural, racial, political) to the life of democracy?
A major goal of the class is to prepare students to connect questions about democracy to the different settings they will encounter in their years at UVA, from the classroom to the many social and political situations they negotiate.
In addition to reading assignments and short papers, students will be required to move out of the classroom and select, observe and reflect upon a real-life instance of democratic politics in action (e.g., city council meetings, school board meetings, and so forth).
- EGMT 1530: #Stay Woke - Social Movements and Social MediaHeadshot:
Andrea Press
EGMT 1530: #Stay Woke - Social Movements and Social Media
Throughout history, the most egregious violations of human rights have been justified by exclusionary theories of human “difference.” These atrocities have been resisted by small groups of thoughtful individuals banding together to challenge the way dehumanizing notions of difference are used to justify large-scale oppression. This course will examine how oppositional movements intervene in and produce media to resist these oppressive practices and theories, both historically and in the context of current social movements. Movements for social change that are led by members of oppressed groups often face hostile, even physically violent, political opposition. This has necessitated that proponents of social change who are deemed “different” from the majority, challenge the majority public opinion —which often presents itself as the moderate voice of reason—through coordinated media campaigns. Students will examine a series of historical case studies focusing on how leaders of social change movements have engaged the media (or created their own media) to challenge conventional wisdom, to wrest rhetorical control from the dominant narrative, and to frame their struggle in terms which are politically favorable.
- EGMT 1530: Origin Stories: Identity, Migration, and HomelandsHeadshot:
Shilpa Davé
EGMT 1530: Origin Stories: Identity, Migration, and Homelands
Why do we attach importance to origin stories? How does knowing our heritage (family history or national history) influence the way we imagine the past, the present, and the future? In this course we will examine tales of creation myths in the superhero genre, stories of world building from immigration and science fiction narratives, and chronicles of the American Dream. We will ask why are different perspectives integral and valuable to the way we engage with others. Class discussion and assignments will be framed around questions of how origin stories frame and influence discussions about power, privilege, and difference. How does our sense of self and our cultural values relate to constructions and portrayals of American national narratives such as the settlement of the New World or icons such as the Statue of Liberty? We’ll examine how creation myths and origins appear in superhero films such as Black Panther and Wonder Woman, delve into companies that focus on ancestry and heritage tours, and document how origin stories are a part of our own family histories and where/what we call home.
- EGMT 1530: Other People's MusicHeadshot:
Liza Flood
EGMT 1530: Other People's Music
Musical sound is a way that people the world over imagine, imitate, and engage with people different from themselves. In the US, genres like hip-hop and country are ways we deal with and imagine the lived experience of race and class. ‘World Music’ and associated sounds—like Peruvian panpipes, Afro-Cuban rhythmic components, and Celtic melodies—tell us musical stories about people beyond our borders. But what do we really know about others when we listen to “their” music? And how do musical sounds come to represent certain bodies and identities in the first place, or even to “belong to” certain groups? What is the difference between cultural appropriation and creating or consuming music as a means of identifying with or advocating for others? How do technology and capitalism play a part in the power of music to cause both good and harm?
This course explores the processes through which sounds come to index certain cultural categories (race, gender, class, nationality, age, religion, sexuality) or global locations, and how musical material can be repurposed for political means. Students will investigate terms such as hybridity, exoticization, cultural appropriation, revivalism, and embodiment. We will look at case studies including minstrelsy in the US, “non-Western” college music ensembles, racial identity among Asian-American jazz musicians, bluegrass in post-Communist Czech Republic, white rappers, the international hip hop scene, and corrido listenership in the transnational Mexican community. Students will also have the opportunity to examine their own listening practices and to create and share playlists with peers.
- EGMT 1530: Real or Fake? The Politics of AuthenticityHeadshot:
Sylvia Chong
EGMT 1530: Real or Fake? The Politics of Authenticity
Why do we say that “real men don’t cry” or that “real women have curves”? Who gets to cook pho and tacos, and who gets to eat them? What does it mean to be called, or even to call yourself, black or white or Asian or Latinx or Native American? Does shopping at Wal-Mart make you working class, or wearing Prada make you upper class? Can one change one’s racial, gender, or class identity, or are such identities given by birth? And can sexuality, religion, or disability be identities, since many people may change their sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or disability status over time? Who gets to police these identities? And what is at stake in these battles—what do we win (or lose) in deciding who is “real” and who is “fake”? This course will explore these questions by investigating various controversies involving authenticity and identity politics. We will draw our examples from law, politics, music, food, cinema, sports, literature, and other realms of U.S. culture and society from the 19th to the 21st centuries.
- EGMT 1530: The Individual and SocietyHeadshot:
Tico Braun
EGMT 1530: The Individual and Society
In this course we ask big questions, perhaps among the biggest. Who am I? How do I come to be who I am? How do I know myself? Can I know myself? What makes me who I am? Am I responsible for my own life? What are my relationships to others? What are my relationships to my society (societies)? What are my rights? What are my obligations? Does who I am in private say more about me than what I do in public? Can I live a moral life surrounded by immorality? Should there be a safety net in a society of individuals? If we are indeed individuals, or can be, how do we forge our lives, in our interests and in those of others, toward the public good?
This course considers these big questions in order to help us better understand the richness and complexity of individuals and communities. We will reflect on the historical impacts of society on individuals and consider how individuals begin to form societies – or even more important, communities. In particular, we will consider how we as individuals encounter one another in our differences and what it might mean to pursue a common good.
- EGMT 1530: UnnaturalHeadshot:
Karl Shuve
EGMT 1530: Unnatural
“That’s unnatural.” These words convey a judgment of a practice, a state of being, or a social arrangement; we hear them often, and likely even use them ourselves. To call something unnatural is to suggest that it is out of keeping with the natural of order of things and the way they ought to be. To render this judgment is to imply that no further debate, discussion, or argument is needed, because we take for granted that what is unnatural is to be avoided and rejected. Who can argue with biology or nature?
But what, exactly, is nature? On what basis do we evaluate whether something is natural or unnatural? Who gets to decide? And why do we consider this an important distinction to make? In this seminar, we will examine these questions as we work towards untangling how the concepts of “natural” and “unnatural” function in our society—and how they might function differently in other times and places. Our goal will be to denaturalize our understanding of nature. We will analyze how the naming of people, practices, and institutions as “unnatural” works to create and perpetuate various forms of difference and inequality in society, along the lines of gender, sexuality, race, class, the environment, and other categories. We will also examine how the concept of nature has been used in attempts to overcome inequality, specifically through the discourse of natural rights, and what are the possibilities and pitfalls of such approaches. This course encourages students to observe the world around them carefully and critically, so that they can be aware of and capable of responding to the ideologies that underlie their everyday experiences.
- EGMT 1530: Visions of the Future - Where's the Difference? Where's the Good?Headshot:
Brandy Daniels
EGMT 1530: Visions of the Future - Where's the Difference? Where's the Good?
What role should difference play in society? How should relations among men and women, rich and poor, citizen and alien be organized for the benefit of all? What kind of political system would guarantee peace, prosperity and plenty for all people? In what kind of society would “different” individuals find fulfillment? Should a society privilege concern for the collective or for the individual? How does difference function in a good society?
Visions of the future make claims about precisely these kinds of questions. They also tell us something about the present. Whether the visions are of radically better (utopic) or worse (dystopic) worlds, we catch a glimpse of what the constructors of such visions are unsatisfied with about the way the world is now and their desires and hopes of what could be. Significantly, as the above questions highlight, many of these visions of the future have a lot to say about what kind of good difference is and what it means to live well together amidst our differences, and in doing so offer some powerful commentary on the ways we do and do not understand and attend to difference here in our present time and place.
How does vicarously experiencing these visions of radically better or worse imaginary worlds as they’re presented in film, literature, and social experiments, then, shape our perceptions of the past, present, and future—of what is and what could be? How do different visions of the future shape our perspectives around difference, and how might closely examining these visions help us better understand, reflect upon, and grapple with ethical and social frameworks and questions around our differences?
In this course, we will examine and judge the answers provided by a range of utopic and dystopic visions of the future. In doing so, we will explore the complexities of ethical and political reflection on difference and the pursuit of the good amidst that difference—what kind of society do we want to create? What kind of life do we want for ourselves? How do we get there? Can we get there? Why haven’t we gotten there yet? In exploring, evaluating, and engaging with visions of the future as a lens of and for difference, we will explore the richness and complexity of the variability of human experience, reflect on the social inequities produced and patterned across lines of difference, and critically and constructively explore what it might mean to engage difference ethically in the present in light of the past and the potential futures in front of us.
- EGMT 1530: What is Inequality and Why Should We Worry About It?Headshot:
Robert Fatton
EGMT 1530: What is Inequality and Why Should We Worry About It?
This Engagement course is designed to explore how economic inequalities shape human differences and social conflicts nationally and globally, and whether they are compatible with the common good and democratic rule. According to Oxfam “almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population” and the wealth of that one percent totals approximately $110 trillion, which in turn amounts to “65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.” Are these disparities so extreme, and the lives of the haves versus the have-nots so fundamentally different, that it becomes a stretch to speak of a common humanity? Do income and wealth inequalities exacerbate other types of inequalities based on gender and race, and how do they affect human health and dignity? Are they an invitation to new forms of authoritarianism and a world of violent conflicts? Or, are current levels of inequality the just and legitimate rewards for entrepreneurial, innovating, and risk-taking behavior? In short, are economic disparities the logical and inevitable consequence of the contradictory processes of wealth creation and poverty reduction, and are they justifiable and ultimately sustainable?
Students will explore these questions by investigating various controversies involving the nature, and potential costs or benefits of inequalities. We will draw our examples from the experiences of both the advanced industrialized nations and the “global south.” We will also examine what analytical approaches scholars have used to study the social, economic, and political consequences of inequalities.
A general education should help you reflect upon and deliberate about your lives as ethical agents both within the University of Virginia community and beyond college. Engagement with ethical questions––questions of justice, liberty, equality, democracy, injustice, rights etc.––is inevitable, in as much as avoiding or ignoring conflict and controversy is itself an ethical decision. And consider how to integrate ethical reflection and practice while acknowledging that some differences on ethical questions are irreconcilable. Ethical Engagement Courses will help you:
- Reflect upon ethical traditions, your own and those of others;
- Grapple with the contingent and historically-rooted character of ethical action;
- Pose, evaluate and respond to ethical questions;
- Recognize yourselves as ethical agents within communities and the broader world.
Courses
- EGMT 1530/1540: Do We Still Have Faith In Democracy?Headshot:
Nichole Flores
EGMT 1530/1540: Do We Still Have Faith In Democracy?
*Note: Since this class satifies both EGMT 1530 (Differences) and EGMT 1540 (Ethics), students must enroll in both Fall Session 1 and Fall Session 2 quarters.
Democracy is currently face daunting challenges in the U.S. and around the world. Authoritarian leaders and populist parties have undermined democratic values across the globe, including Brazil, Hungary, Algeria, Poland, and the United States. In the U.S., there are attempts to make it more difficult for citizens to vote. Practices of gerrymandering and unethical campaign finance undermine citizen’s interests in representative government. In Charlottesville, especially in the wake of events of August 2017, questions have been raised about the responsiveness of local government to the needs of its citizens and the city’s failure to protect the safety of those who protested against the actions of self-admitted racist and fascist groups.
In the midst of these challenges, do we still have faith in democracy and, if so, why? Must we have faith in democracy in order for it to succeed? What do we mean by faith? How might the resources of democracy itself (its ideas and its practices) help societies respond to these crises?
This course examines the character of democracy:
- What is a democracy and what distinguishes it from other forms of governments?
- What are the practices of democracy and the role of education in preparation for democratic participation?
- What does it mean to be a citizen of a democracy and who counts as a citizen?
- What are the challenges and opportunities of pluralism (religious, cultural, racial, political) to the life of democracy?
A major goal of the class is to prepare students to connect questions about democracy to the different settings they will encounter in their years at UVA, from the classroom to the many social and political situations they negotiate.
In addition to reading assignments and short papers, students will be required to move out of the classroom and select, observe and reflect upon a real-life instance of democratic politics in action (e.g., city council meetings, school board meetings, and so forth).
- EGMT 1540: Does Reading Literature Make Us More Ethical? Really?Headshot:
Adrienne Ghaly
EGMT 1540: Does Reading Literature Make Us More Ethical? Really?
Does reading literature increase empathy for others, and, if so, are there limits to empathy? Does it provide models for human flourishing? Make us inhabit modes of life different from our own? If so, does that lead to different action in the world? And how durable are its effects? From antiquity onwards it has often been claimed that literature can have an ethical effect upon the reader; in short, that literary works can change us for the better, influence our sense of our obligations to others, even alter our behaviors and be a powerful driver of social change. We’ll explore the historical and cultural conditions that comprise our individual moral particularity and ask to what extent that particularity is malleable. And we’ll consider arguments about how literary works afford explorations of our obligations to others in ways that non-literary modes cannot, looking at how diverse thinkers have argued for – and against – links between ethics and literature and reading literature as a public good.
In this class we’ll be exploring these questions in depth in the context of the current global refugee crisis, examining a diverse set of ethical commitments both within literary works and in arguments about them, and considering these arguments in their potential application to an urgent contemporary issue. We will ask what kinds of ethical commitments those might be, and whether and how they may transfer from the page to the life beyond it. To do so, we will be running the class as a lab space for a collaborative investigation into the possible uses – and, perhaps, limits – of literature for humanitarian advocacy. The culmination of the course will be the collaborative creation of materials for the United Nations with recommendations for the incorporation of literature into UNOCHA’s refugee advocacy campaign and a student-created portfolio of suggested reading materials with accompanying critical tools and apparatus.
- EGMT 1540: Ethical Dilemmas and ScienceHeadshot:
Kevin Lehmann
EGMT 1540: Ethical Dilemmas and Science
Science and the technology it has spawned has radically transformed societies throughout history, at ever increasing rates. The traditional caricature of the scientist is as a dispassionate searcher of “what is true,” who is not concerned with the ethical implications of his/her work. It is not possible to escape ethical considerations and decisions – to ignore ethics is a choice with ethical consequences. Many think of ethics as merely a prescription against certain actions but the most interesting and vexing ethical choices involve trade-offs between options that have both positive and negative consequences. One goal of this course is to introduce you to ethical questions that face scientists and the broader society that financially supports and regulates science. Another is to consider consequences of choices to individual scientists, to institutions, to professions, and to society at different levels of organization. The three specific areas to be examined: (1) The ethics of medical research, including questions of potential conflicts between the interests of subjects and the possible benefits to the larger society. (2) The ethics of practice of science, including the influence of incentives and conflicts of interest. (3) The responsibilities of scientists for the uses and other impacts of their research on society. Examples for discussion will be taken from well-studied examples from the past, present controversies, and the impact of emerging transformative technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9 and Artificial Intelligence.
- EGMT 1540: How Do We Become Who We Are?Headshot:
Brandy Daniels
EGMT 1540: How Do We Become Who We Are?
"Now let’s get in formation!” While the command Beyoncé sings in the title track of her 2015 album Formation is at its most basic level an instruction to her dancers to get ready to perform, it is also something more than that. Throughout the song, Beyoncé reflects on how she has come to be who she is—where she comes from and the people that surround her, the work she has put in, and the traits, virtues, and dispositions that have shaped and been shaped by her experiences —as well as about who she is still becoming. Like Beyoncé, this course explores how we become who we are, albeit a bit more analytically and systematically!
Over the course of seven weeks, we will identify and interrogate the complex, multi-faceted relationships between social contexts and factors, identities, and ethical approaches and actions. What social, cultural, and historical factors shape us? How do these factors shape us— how do they impact how we relate to others, what we see as good or successful, the decisions we make and the ways we organize and order and live our lives? How, then, do we shape the world around us as we’re being shaped by it? Drawing on resources from across the humanities and social sciences, we will reflect on and evaluate meta-ethical theories of identity and formation, ethical inquiries that arise in both theories and processes of formation, and ethical implications and applications of various accounts.
As one distinctive part of a broader framework of scholarly engagements, this course will aid us in cultivating an approach to ethical reflection and practice that can serve as a basis for critical inquiry and civic participation. Put another way, in asking how we become who we are, this course (and the Engagements program it is a part of) is also saying something about who we could (should?) become and how we might get there. (Given this, we’ll even actually turn to this very course as a site of inquiry! #meta.) In exploring approaches and questions around how we become who we are, through close reading, class discussions, and course assignments, students will reflect critically, constructively, and creatively about who they want to be as individuals and/in community, why, and what the processes of becoming might look like.
- EGMT 1540: The Ethics of Piracy, from the High Seas to TorrentsHeadshot:
Josh White
EGMT 1540: The Ethics of Piracy, from the High Seas to Torrents
“…an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized…when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, ‘What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.’”
—Augustine, City of God
What is piracy? Can piracy, or theft, ever be ethical? What connects torrent sites like “The Pirate Bay” to the eighteenth-century pirates of the Caribbean or the present-day pirates active off the Horn of Africa and in the Malacca Straits? This course explores the full range of activities that have been described, or denounced, as piracy, from maritime seizures to copyright violations and intellectual property theft, from antiquity to the present day. Whereas some would have (or did) reject the label of pirate, situating their activities within the legal context of warfare and service to faith or state, others have embraced the term—and are celebrated for it in popular culture. Regardless of whether its practitioners have been publicly lauded or criticized, piracy has frequently been deployed in service of empire, whether by England in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Caribbean or by China in the intellectual property realm in more recent years. The phenomenon of piracy raises questions about who gets to decide what is legal or ethical and whether those are indeed the same thing: Do the ends always justify the means? Who has the jurisdiction to prosecute pirates, and who actually should? If we acquire stolen property, music or movies, are we pirates too?
- EGMT 1540: The Examined LifeHeadshot:
Sarah Teets
EGMT 1540: The Examined Life
The unexamined life is not worth living. At least, that is what Socrates thought. According to Plato, Socrates uttered these words while defending his practice of philosophy as self examination during the trial that would cost him his life. It’s a bold claim to make when thestakes are high. Was Socrates right? In this course, we’ll explore self examination as an ethical practice. We’ll dive into questions such as: what does it mean to examine and thereby know ourselves when we are beings who live in flux? What is the role of honesty in the act of self-knowledge? What do we do when we examine ourselves and don’t like what we find? Is the truth always good, and are lies always bad? What is the role of self-knowledge in ethical behavior and decision-making? Do we even have a self that we can know? Does self examination really make life better, or in Socrates’ terms, more worth living, and how?
We will approach these questions by exploring different approaches and representations from fields in the arts and social sciences. We will begin with how ancient Greek thinkers theorized and dramatized the ethical vocation of self-knowledge. While Plato represents Socrates as the paragon of the ethical life through his commitment to self examination, the pursuit of truth, and to the communal pursuit of better thinking, the poet Sophocles staged a gripping drama of self-discovery and the disastrous consequences of self-deception in his play Oedipus Rex. We’ll turn to the field of psychology to examine the limits of introspection. Finally, we’ll explore themindfulness movement and how awareness of the present moment is represented as awareness of the self.
This course is as much an exploration of thehistory of self examination as it is a practicum in self examination. Accordingly, we will engage in practices of self-knowledge, including journaling and reflective writing, mindfulness meditation, and dialogue. Throughout this course, we will explore our relationship with digital media as a test case for practicing self examination. Much research connects the use of digital media to problems with mental health and other forms of suffering. Acting on the premise that it is worth knowing whether this is true of ourselves, will explore the ethical implications of various dimensions of our digital media use. We will engage in a digital detox, or a break from all digital media, which students will process in writing and in dialogue with a small group of classmates. For our final project, students will work with their groups to co-author their best practices for using digital media and their ethical justifications of their best practices. These best practices should incorporate and further practices of self-knowledge.
- EGMT 1540: What is Authority?Headshot:
Isaac Ariail Reed
EGMT 1540: What is Authority?
What is authority? Why do we follow the instructions of certain persons and sources (pilots, lifestyle bloggers, WebMD, religious texts)? Merely to question or merely to follow authority does not, on its own, make us good. Rather, to navigate a complex world ethically, we must be able to discern who should be trusted with authority and who should be ignored or resisted, judge which directives for action are good and which are bad, and debate why some statements should be accepted as authoritative and others rejected. Authority, whether respected or reviled, inflects and influences the behaviors, habits and dispositions that constitute a good or successful life.
In this class we will examine authority as a special kind of human relationship with deep implications for what it means to be a good person. We will read about a wide variety of types of authority—for example, professional, parental, religious, scientific, political—and ask how they interact with each other and change over time. We will study how authority is different from, but often becomes entwined with, power. Finally, we will build a better understanding of the conditions under which people are willing to accept, resist, and/or reformulate authority.
- EGMT 1540: What is Engaged CitizenshipHeadshot:
Laura Goldblatt
EGMT 1540: What is Engaged Citizenship
If citizenship gives us rights, can it also make demands of us? What would it mean to acquiesce to these demands, if so, and what to refuse them? Such questions about the ethics and requirements of engaged citizenship were central to the founding of the University of Virginia and increasingly serve as a rallying cry for the importance of the liberal arts tradition. But what is engaged citizenship and what does it require of us? In this class, we will consider varying frameworks for the ethics of engaged citizenship—education, self-reflection, presence (or showing up)—to struggle with the relationship of the self to society within the University community and beyond. Why do we increasingly know more about certain aspects of our food supply and so little about others? What are the implications of this visibility and invisibility for our behavior towards each other? Does citizenship require us to confront those who we perceive as challenging our values, and, if so, can that ever be anything other than a coercive and oppressive act? Is citizenship a communal agreement or an individual one? Does it bind us together or separate us? When is violence justified, if ever? Under what circumstances should we bend or discard our citizenly duty? Through class excursions, readings, journaling activities, viewings, and course presentations we will experiment with the ethical implications of the various positions we take—including inaction—when we respond to the world around and inside of us.
- EGMT 1540: What Isn't For Sale? And What Shouldn't Be?Headshot:
Rebecca Stangl
EGMT 1540: What Isn't For Sale? And What Shouldn't Be?
There are many things in life we value, and which it seems unproblematic to buy or sell: houses, sweaters, and ice cream, for example. But there are other things we value, which it seems impossible to buy or sell: love, moral goodness, or happiness, for example. And there are still others which we can buy or sell, but might think we should not: kidneys, sexual or reproductive labor, ideas, or spiritual goods, for example.
Students in this engagement will consider whether there is anything that it is either impossible or wrong to sell. We will focus on examples from a wide variety of domains and draw on readings from philosophy, religious studies, and fiction. Our aim throughout will be to understand more clearly the value of the particular goods in question and the role such goods might play in making our own lives good and meaningful.
- EGMT 1540: Who Wants to Save the World, and Why? The Ethics of Global CitizenshipHeadshot:
Charles Mathewes
EGMT 1540: Who Wants to Save the World, and Why? The Ethics of Global Citizenship
This class seeks to ask one simple question: why do we care about the ethical state of the world? Once upon a time, people thought about ethics as it pertained primarily to their immediate local context; to be a “good person” meant being “good” relative to those closest to you—family, friends, and neighbors. Now, people increasingly care about ethics globally, and assume that to be good we must be ethically thoughtful as regards a wide range of global issues. What does it mean to be a “global citizen”? Why do we increasingly think this way? What is good about this? What is bad about it? And finally, why did this whole issue arise—that is, what makes this question interesting and important to us?