Humanities 411
Senior Symposium
The senior symposium provides a common core of study for seniors of all divisions and promotes an exchange of experience in an effort to understand critical problems of our age. Each section of the course is limited to 15 students and is guided by three faculty members representing different divisions. Basing discussion on significant works written in recent years by such people as W.G. Sebald, Susan Sontag, Derek Walcott, Lani Guinier, Alice Munro, and Edward Said, as well as on film and art, the course considers interpretations of current artistic, social, economic, and political issues; the problem of the relation of science to society; and the nature of science and the limits of knowledge. Ultimately the course is concerned with basic diagnoses of our age made in terms of differing fundamental points of view.