IU174B.003 (75085) MW 11:00-12:15, Nat Res 112, Andrew Meyer

The author and scholar Joseph Campbell wrote, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are,” and understanding, examining, knowing, and learning how to be-in-the-world is a constant unraveling of adventure and contemplation. Putting oneself in accordance with the journey of self-discovery through the lens of creativity is a vital step in understanding what it means to be and to live. Venturing through forms of creativity both old and new, we will watch, read, listen, write, and investigate substantial creative endeavors and create our own to help us understand how various subject matters within creativity can foster self-examination and personal discovery. Each day of our existence all the gods, all the characters, all the heavens, and all the hells, are within each of us and we must figure out how this can nurture, stifle, or encourage our paths forward. This course will investigate how lived experience in conjunction with the personal creative investigation could unlock newfound understandings of personal meaning, creative purpose, and having a vision for life. We will investigate questions of truth, beauty, love, malice, conflict, tribulation, meaning, atonement, revelation, and many more to help foster a better understanding of what it means to be-in-the-world.

IU174B.002 (75084) – MWF, 10-10:50 in MICRO A114, Cookie Egret

Cookie Egret: Framing our Stories; future-oriented readings of past and present narratives on journey and refuge.

You see the sails billowing on your horizon. The boat beckons. Will you board? In this journey, we'll play with the questions; How does one of the oldest pre-written stories inform our present context? What travels across time, space and place? Can we draw lines of flight from Homer's The Odyssey to inform present global crises and local resiliencies?  and can we hold softly the generative paradoxes between travel, belonging, refuge and suffering? Weaving aspects of The Odyssey with the graphic novel Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen, along with diverse perspectives from other writers, we'll look at the gains and remains of this pre-democratic epic classic in a time when domestic democracy is critically under threat. Although the decks are rickety and worn, we'll work to imbue this ancient story with contemporary perspectives and our own prior knowledges to find lofty ways to write (sail) ourselves into our own stories, that may one day also enable others to journey wide and enact care to both human and more-than-human kin. This class will focus on mostly written texts, while you are encouraged to experiment and create reflective works in multiple modalities that you want to experiment with.

IU174B.380 (75094) – TR, 2-3:15 in Education 7, Todd Mitchell 

The Map and the Journey: Creative Explorations of Models, Modes, and Methods for Life-Long Personal Development

“Your level of consciousness determines the quality of your experience. Raise your consciousness, and you raise your life,” stated author and philosopher Ken Wilbur. The work of developing consciousness is often fundamental to education and having a growth mindset. However, exactly how we develop consciousness is a subject that’s rarely discussed and examined directly. In this class we’ll explore various models of consciousness development, such as Loevinger’s Nine Stages of Ego Development, Clare and Beck’s Spiral Dynamics, and Wilbur’s Integral Theory. We’ll also examine how different states and stages of consciousness are represented in works of art, literature, film, and philosophical and spiritual texts. Throughout our explorations, we’ll apply a practitioner’s approach by examining how different models relate to our own development. Central to this approach will be the ongoing engagement of a creative practice as a method for life-long personal development. The course will culminate with students developing a creative project that relates to their personal and professional interests.