IU174B.003 (22367) MW 11:00-12:15, Education 8, 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.004 (23071) – T/TH 12:3-1:45 in Education 1, Robin Walter

In this course, we will consider the relation between the ancient Greek words for poetry: poesis, which means “to make,” and politics: politeia, which translates to “the conditions and rights of citizens.” When poesis & politeia are placed in conversation, a series of fundamental questions emerge:

How do we make a world we can live in? How do we build a mind we can live with? What governing bodies determine the conditions and rights of citizens—and in what ways can we meaningfully intervene when those conditions are denigrated and those rights oppressed? How do we create flourishing communities grounded in compassion, empathy, and care? What roles do art and politics play in imagining a more liveable, sustainable, and just future?

In this interinstitutional seminar, students will engage with questions of belonging and difference. While embracing divergent experiences and perspectives, students will situate themselves in the midst of exchange. How can thinking with each other collectively and creatively lend itself to new understandings of place and identity? How do we meaningfully respond to injustices that are unevenly distributed across human and more than human worlds? Through a decolonial lens, we will challenge each other to contemplate the function of borders and barriers as they appear in art, politics, and society. We will examine the intersections of space and the body, race and region, and gender, sexuality, and class. In so doing, we will aim to dismantle binary thinking that generates the constructs of self // other, civilization // wilderness, political // apolitical, and true//false. In its wake, we will build expansive and multicultural worldviews firmly rooted in radical attention, action, and care.

Creating a collaborative dialogue between two distinct university classrooms, we will cultivate opportunities for interconnection and the co-creation of knowledge. Such points of overlap will amplify the themes of the course and will encourage students to think and learn beyond the boundaries of their own positionalities. We will use the power of politics and poetry to deepen our sense of place and belonging. We will draw from our own stories and relevant media and texts to challenge our assumptions, generate empathy, and create community in a beautiful and precarious world.