Questions for a Thriving Planet:

Course Descriptions

Meeting the Universe Halfway:

This course derives its name from a text by Feminist Philosopher and Quantum Physicist, Karen Barad. Professor Barad focuses on radical entanglements of matter and meaning while leading minds through the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Steeped in Barad’s ethos and fundamental to this course is the cultivation of a curious hunger that encourages students to view their life-long education as never fully being finished. We will explore human and non-human perspectives of interdisciplinary topics ranging from historic geologic timescales, pertinent climate crisis initiatives, and speculative philosophic questions that dance between science fiction and science fact. Students employ reading, writing, and visual communication strategies, including hands-on art projects, film viewings, and field trips to help them discover and relate their own position within the context of these conversations.  

Threshold & Encounters:

A threshold is what you step across when you enter a room. A threshold takes you from one place into another, and when you're about to start something new, you're also on a threshold. 

Consider the multiplicities found within the following definition: 

a :  gate, door 

b :  end, boundary 

c :  the place or point of entering or beginning 

d :  a point of departure or transition

e :  the smallest detectable sensation

The origins of this Old English word are not known, though it is believed to be related to Old English threscan, from which we get the word thresh, meaning "to separate seed from a plant." In its way, learning might resemble this process, wherein the kernel of knowledge is revealed when the husk of what we think we know falls away. The seed that remains holds both promise and potential, if only we learn to tend to its transformation. In this course, we will devote ourselves to creating the conditions for such growth to transpire. 

In this course, we will consider how a thought may be a threshold that invites us into the room of another’s experience. How might we begin to understand words as thresholds that grant us passage into the world? How might art represent a threshold that ushers us from thought into feeling? How might engaging in the process of making invite us into a newfound threshold of experience? 

We will grow curious about how these various thresholds, entryways into our innermost selves, take shape and form, change, evolve, and grow as we turn our attention towards humanity’s most enduring questions. How do we open ourselves to the world around us, and in turn, how does it open towards us? How is it that we extend ourselves to the more-than-human world, and what traditions and bodies of knowledge inform our approach? 

The scope of these questions will require us to be expansive in the genres and disciplines towards which we turn. We will draw from ancient and modern literary, philosophical, artistic, and ecological traditions to support our inquiry. We will do our best not to theorize about the world, but rather learn to better live in it. As such, we will often find ourselves outside the traditional classroom and involved in the material processes of making.

CSU Green & Gold Initiative:

This course is part of a larger initiative funded by the Teagle Foundation that focuses on the transformative nature of humanity’s most enduring questions. For all seminars, the texts range from the ancient to the contemporary and spread across the spectrum of humanities-based disciplines. The seminars are taught in Socratic-style focusing on fundamental human concerns with “gold” courses focused on questions of human flourishing (such as truth, beauty, and justice) and “green” courses focused on the environment and sustainability.