Looking Back On Looking Back

This week, consider your history with history. Identify a moment in which, to perform an analysis (perhaps academically, perhaps in order to make a decision on how to act, perhaps...), you have drawn on both your own personal experience and on your knowledge of history. Which ways of knowing do you employ in applying the lessons of these histories to a present quandary? To go a step further, how was your understanding of the historical event influenced by your perspective as a knower, and how did this contribute to your problem solving? I look forward to reading your perspectives on history by the end of the day on Sunday 3 July.

What Are You Watching?

Let's veer into the Arts this week. I'm curious about the intersections of your identity as a knower (particularly with regard to gender), language, and anything you've recently watched. Choose a movie, an episode of something, a video, etc. that you've seen and examine the ways language function in the video. How are your perceptions shaped, both by your gender and by the assumptions the creator of the video makes regarding expected audience. In other words, do you think you were the target audience for what you watched? Explain and explore your and their assumptions. Keep your analysis focused on the nature of the knowledge at work. Your writing is due by the end of Sunday 26 June.

With Great Science Comes Great Responsibility (and sometimes great goggles)

Ah, summer, when birds sing, breezes ripple the pool, and the gentle aroma of EEs wafts through the trees. As I plan your schedules for next year, my thoughts turn to the responsibilities that come with the knowledge and skills you develop. For your first post, please write about one moment in your science studies when you felt the burden (actual or potential) of the responsibility inherent to what you were doing and learning. Consider the bases for the ethical implications of that moment. What ways of knowing were at play? How did they interact? If there was an ethical decision to be made, on what grounds did you make it? This writing is due on Sunday 19 June by 11:59 EDT (no matter what time zone you are currently in). Enjoy, and wear your goggles.