Encompassing Nature

Course Description

What is Nature? Does it even exist? And if so, how and why is it that we humans have increasingly come to think of ourselves as beings excluded from it? Beings ever in search of various forms of reunion with Nature? Are consciousness and the singular ability to name the inhabitants of the "natural" world the very things that distance and separate us from that world? Can we come to appreciate how simultaneously significant and small our place in that world is? The fact that we are at once a mighty force and a mere mote on the very biology that begat us and all life? What do we, "the namers", do about our seemingly singular place in Nature? Such questions are as old as consciousness itself but now more urgent than ever, and in this course, we will be looking at the multivarious ways in which human beings across time and different cultures have addressed them. Have tried - be it through mythology, religion, philosophy, poetry, music, the visual arts, fiction, or non-fiction - to "encompass nature", and thus reunite with something we know ourselves, deep down, to be a part. Prerequisites: Must be at least Sophomore Standing.

Code

CCOL-UH 1113

Credits

4

Subject

Core: Colloquium