Splash Biography

Do you wonder who you are, how you are shaped by the places you have been or by the people you know, and why people act the way they do (in the many different ways they do!) in personal relationships, at school, and in everyday life? If so, this course is for you. Incorporating anthropological, philosophical and psychological perspectives, this course challenges the ways in which we typically think of identity, culture, personhood, and experience. While this course offers no definitive answers, it will give you a strong theoretical toolkit to explore and unpack perennial problems that interest you. A curious, inquisitive and open mind is a pre-requisite. I hope to see you in class!

In many ways, we have been thrown into this world. This discussion-based class aims to explain what this thought may mean and illustrate how we have become the people we are. We will discuss theoretical topics such as: the self, culture, knowing, religion, ethics, normalcy, time, desire and perspective. This course offers two things: (1) a taste-test of multiple social science and humanities disciplines (anthropology, history, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, sociology) and (2) a way to broaden your perspective of one’s place in the world. In essence, this course is about what it means to be a human in the world. You can find more information at http://thrownintoaworld.strikingly.com/

This course will investigate how we (and others) understand the concept of time. We will be using several different perspectives (e.g. philosophical, anthropological, economical, scientific) in order to illuminate the complexity of time. If you want to challenge your perceptions of the world, you will enjoy this class.

In this course, we will develop an understanding of causation. Some questions that will be asked in the course: What does it mean for one thing "to cause" another? Can there be different "causes" or does there have to be only one? What role does culture play in the way we perceive causation? Why is causation important to us?

In this course, we will be discussing different scenarios that challenge the way you view the world, others, and yourself. The goal is to see what underlying problem or question the examples have and to see what solutions we can have.

This course's focus will be on characterization in literature and in personal writing. We will initially discuss different types of characters (e.g. if a character is flat or round; directly or indirectly characterized) moving on to different categories of characters (e.g. archetypes; symbolism and characterization) to how a character appears within a narrative (e.g. analyzing the purpose of the character).

In this course, we will define what a psychopath is and isn't. By using psychological, anthropological, biological, and philosophical perspectives, we will try to understand what "went wrong" with the individuals who have psychopathic tendencies. We will also attempt to answer the question: What roles do psychopaths play in culture?