| WRITING ASSIGNMENTS | DESCRIPTIONS |
|---|---|
1 | What is Good, (Phaedrus)? And What is Not Good? Do We Need Anyone to Tell Us These Things? (1-2 page "reaction paper") Before much more time passes and you begin to get too "contaminated" by the opinions of others, let's try to get a preliminary fix on your present view of those ancient and still abiding questions: "What is good? What is better? What is best? What is not good? What is quality? Who is to say? How do we know? What is an emotion? How do we know? Sez who? |
| 2 | What is quality? ... (1-2 page "reaction paper") Your paper will be collected on the bus to the MFA. We will read and comment on it during your time at the MFA and return it to you on the bus at the end of the Field Trip. |
| 3 | MFA Reaction Form Please do not fail to fill-out the form before you leave the MFA. We will collect it on the bus at the end of the trip. |
| 4 | Searching for Quality at the MFA (1-2 page "reaction paper") Bring a hard copy of your paper with you to class, and be prepared to read or refer to its contents as appropriate during the discussion. Reflect upon your Field Trip experience in a way that enables you to draw some conclusions about your own values. Compare/contrast facial expressions and postures or gestures of affective significance in artworks from different traditions/cultures. What similarities and differences are observed? Any evidence here either for or against the idea that there are cross-cultural "affective universals?" Feel free to discuss in some depth and detail any relevant cognitive and affective aspects of your encounter(s) with specific object(s). Bring a hard copy of your paper with you to class, and be prepared to read or refer to its contents as appropriate during the discussion. MFA Fieldtrip Guide and Workbook (PDF) |
| 5 | On the Experience of Reading ZAAMM ... in the Context of 9.68 (1-2 page "reaction paper") a) Relate form/content of book to form/content of the present learning situation. Which parts/aspects of the book/class have you been finding the most/least interesting? the easiest/hardest to get through/relate to? Which do you find the most challenging? The least/most credible, the least/most encouraging/disturbing, and why? What (if anything) of any immediate personal/social significance and value to you are you finding at this still relatively preliminary point in the process of undertaking this course of inquiry into affect? b) Discuss the fact that you've been reading the book at a particular point in your own life (and/or at a particular moment of world history -- if you want to take a broader and more long-term view). Have you learned anything of use to you in dealing with your present personal/social predicament? Quality: what is it? in art? in music? in movies? in words? in gestures? in worldviews, in valuesystems? in lifestyles? |
| 6 | Quality and My MIT Education (1-2 page "reaction paper") "Home is where one starts from." This is a topic regarding which all of you can unquestionably lay claim to equipotentially credible "expert"opinions! Thus, in your remarks, try to avoid the usual cliches as much as possible; be as precise and specifically detailed as you can about your own first-hand experience. For example, you might choose to identify and describe some aspect(s) of student life and learning during the freshman year; or focus on an activity or activities that you participated in and/or observed and which you regard as having been of spectacularly "high" or abysmally "low" educational quality. Consider (if you wish) your "homelife" experience with peers in living groups; your "real life"(sports, recreation, hobbies or other extracurricular activities), as well as your MIT "worklife." How mentally and behaviorally well prepared were you for your encounter with the first year science core curriculum? With this assignment, we're inviting you to begin making a serious effort to describe and to evaluate - in a scientifically informed and consensually credible way, insofar as you can in this context - quality - as an aspect of your own educational experience. |
| 7 | Summary and Evaluation of Kuhn’s Central Argument and of Snow’s "Two Cultures" (1-2 page "reaction paper") |
| 8 | The Quality of my Learning Experience in 9.68 Thus Far (1-2 page "reaction paper") |
| 9 | Three Key Ideas about the Neuropsychology of Affect (1-2 page "reaction paper") |
| 10 | Psychosurgery: The Key Issues as I See Them (1-2 page "reaction paper") |
| 11 | Ethics of Science in the Modern National Corporate State: Some Key Values in Conflict in Copenhagen, as I See Them (1-2 page "reaction paper") |
| 12 | Term Paper Proposals via email - Proposals will be reviewed and returned with comments on or before 6 pm, eleven days after lecture 10. |
| 13 | Sustainability and Environmental Crisis as Emotional Issues (1-2 page "reaction paper") |
| 14 | Main Argument(s) in Melucci/Chorover Article (1-2 page "reaction paper") Make comments on the main argument(s) - criticizing or supporting them, not summarizing! |
| 15 | Term Paper |