[10] IDS220RW ORDER Seminar: What Does it Mean to be Human?

Instructors: Mark Risjord, Cheng Liu, Laura Varela Mejia, Ekram Towsif

Course Description: Through an interdisciplinary exploration combining social sciences, sciences, and humanities disciplines and methodologies, we will engage in creative and intellectually rigorous conversation about the human experience. This course will progress through topical units centered around three core questions: 1. How do we understand ourselves? Why is it difficult to define what is human? Why do we need to think of humanity as a problem? 2. Human compared to what? What is a human compared to an animal, a robot, or even, considering our strange relationship to the nation-state, a citizen? In doing this, we will think deeply about how humanity defines itself through and against its own narratives of power and dominance. 3. Where are we going? In addressing this question, we will attempt to work through some of the largest existential threats to humankind and determine two things: How do different disciplines tackle these issues? and Can these disciplines work together to solve them? This course will be a LINC course with Film 301, Film Theory. We will view three movies over the course of the semester and the classes will meet jointly three times. Each class will bring their different expertise to the discussion of shared topics.

My role: My responsibilities as the co-instructor of record include: 1) meeting students 2 days per week for 75 minutes each (2.5 hours total a week); 2) holding office hours by appointment; 3) preparing the syllabus, slides, in-class activities, as well as grading rubrics; 4) grading in-class activities and final projects.