Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241

Public Administration is an art, a science, a profession, and a mode of stewardship that can be traced back to the ancient kingdoms of the Middle East and China in the time of Confucius.   The rise of the modern state witnessed the further development in importance of a professional civil service.  In democracies, elected officials set policies, but it is professional civil servants who see that these policies are implemented.  Drawing upon the historical record of public, as well as his own long career as a public administrator, University Professor Kevin Starr will discuss...

Self identity, animal rights, moral responsibility, and social ethics for earthlings and others are just a few of the topics that will drive the conversation with Professor of Philosophy, Law, and Political Science Sharon Lloyd.  Professor Lloyd works in the history of political philosophy, with special attention to the moral and political theories of philosophers Hobbes, Machiavelli, Mill, Marx, and Rawls.  Students interested in discovering and experiencing the meaning of polymathy will not want to miss this session with Professor Lloyd.

Military Science in the 21st century is polymathic by definition.  Today, the US military is called upon in times of crisis to assist communities in all corners of the world hit by earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear disasters, and famine.  The modern ROTC student majors in such diverse and complex areas as physics and nuclear engineering, linguistics, civil and mechanical engineering, geospatial information science, environmental science, or comparative culture and politics.  Lt. Col. Kirkland, Ph.D. in history, will engage students in conversation about the truly interdisciplinary...

Critical Studies Professor Tara McPherson, a pop culture expert specializing in race, gender, film, and television, and digital media, is a genuine polymathic practitioner.  Professor McPherson is a leading force in our rapidly changing technologies and she utilizes her ever-expanding expertise to analyze how film and media affect popular ideas about race and gender.

How might the arts, music or poetry speak to economics, technology, science, or politics?  Dana Gioia, Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture and past Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, will explore with students the intersecting linguistic pathways of art with everything else.

Kate Flint, Provost Professor of Art History and English, will open her conversation on the polymathic approach as an inherent necessity in any field in the Humanities.  Professor Flint will discuss with students the interdisciplinary method she applies in her current work on the visuality of flash photography, where she explores the language, the associations, and the poetics of sudden, startling, flashes of light to illuminate and understand the human experience.

As Louis Brandeis emphasized, the more complicated society becomes, the more polymathic becomes the context of legal evidence.  Find out from a panel of experts – Robert K. Rasmussen, dean of the USC Gould School of Law and the Carl Mason Franklin Chair in Law; Alison Dundes Renteln, professor of political science, law, anthropology, and USC Sol Price School of Public Policy; and Rebecca Brown, Newton Professor of Constitutional Law – how law has once again become a universal science.


Reception: DML 241, 6:30-7:30 pm

Outsiders wishing to do business with two of the largest economies on the planet, China and India, are advised to take a polymathic approach to the art of the deal.  Join panelists Jim Ellis, dean of the USC Marshall School of Business; Nandini Rajagopalan, Capt. Henry W. Simonsen Chair in Strategic Entrepreneurship; and Dana Gioia, Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture (and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts) as they examine the nuances and necessities of commerce and civilization in the Subcontinent and Middle Kingdom.


Reception: DML 241, 6:30-7:...

Covering Quadrants (3) the tapestry of knowledge; (4) communication. 

Covering Quadrants (1) critical and integrative thinking; (2) study of the polymaths.