Feeling and imagination in art, science, and technology

Lectures: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

This course is a seminar on creativity in art, science, and technology. We discuss how these pursuits are jointly dependent on affective as well as cognitive elements in human nature. We study feeling and imagination in relation to principles of idealization, consummation, and the aesthetic values that give meaning to science and technology as well as literature and the other arts. Readings in philosophy, psychology, and literature are part of the course.

Students are encouraged to do original work based on their own experience and expertise in whatever field of science, technology, or humanities in which they specialize. Most of the students are undergraduates, but they and the graduate students are expected to treat the course as a graduate seminar.

There are no quizzes or exams, but students are required to attend every class (whether or not there are conflicting exams or study groups in other courses), arrive on time, and do the assigned reading for each weekly session. Attendance, lateness, class participation, will be a factor in the final grade. One long paper will be due at the end of the course. This paper will be at least 3500 words long (as indicated by the computer word-count on the first page). The paper will be double spaced (28 pts) and with a font of 14 pts.

Singer, Irving. Feeling and Imagination: The Vibrant Flux of Our Existence. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. ISBN: 0742512347.

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