Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241

According to the LA Times, homelessness was up by 12 percent over last year in the county and up 16 percent in the City of Los Angeles.  That puts L.A. County’s homeless population at 58,936 and the city’s at 36,300. Last year, citizens passed measures that funded, among other strategies, intensive data collection among the homeless population.  How might insights garnered from large datasets be productive in addressing and ameliorating the myriad challenges and factors surrounding the homelessness crisis in our city? Does turning to data collecting strengthen or...

QUADRANT SERIES with EDWIN McCANN, Professor of Philosophy and English

The ACADEMY FOR POLYMATHIC STUDY guides its inquiries through four flexible pathways or QUADRANTS: (1) critical and integrative thinking; (2) study of the polymaths; (3) the tapestry of knowledge; and (4) communication. In order to explicate these quadrants more fully, USC professor EDWIN McCANN conducts conversational workshops from a philosophical, historical, and practical point of view. Attendance at sessions covering all four quadrants is required for certification as an Academy fellow.

 

This session is...

QUADRANT SERIES with EDWIN McCANN, Professor of Philosophy and English

The ACADEMY FOR POLYMATHIC STUDY guides its inquiries through four flexible pathways or QUADRANTS: (1) critical and integrative thinking; (2) study of the polymaths; (3) the tapestry of knowledge; and (4) communication. In order to explicate these quadrants more fully, USC professor EDWIN McCANN conducts conversational workshops from a philosophical, historical, and practical point of view. Attendance at sessions covering all four quadrants is required for certification as an Academy fellow.

 

This session is...

“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

Albert Einstein

 

The velocity of technological developments during Einstein’s lifetime was of grave concern to him. The promise of atomic energy had turned into a nightmare of annihilation.  The speed at which technology changes and advances today is staggering and should cause us pause as well.  Einstein cautioned us to align and inform tech innovations with our values, our humanity, and our wisdom: “The human spirit must prevail over technology,” he said...

A Special Family Trojan Weekend Event [parents, siblings, grandparents--everyone is welcome!]

 

“Nothing happens until something moves.”

--Albert Einstein

 

Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change…

Imagine the great polymaths--Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein—each wrestling with the property of inertia.  They observed its existence, investigated its origin, and sought its action in the universe.  Galileo, inspired by Copernicus' findings, modified Aristotle’s initial...

“While the technologies of estrangement have produced a long history of violence to personhood, relationality, and intimacy [for queer and trans people of color], they have never been totalizing.  Estrangement has also inspired strategies of survival, coping, and belonging.”

--Nayan Shah

 

Gender variant and sexually non-normative people of color have historically been forcefully marginalized and estranged from what we call “normative” society. “For those [queer] people marked by non-white racialization,” writes Professor Nayan...

“Our lives today are unimaginable without databases.” 

--Andreas Kratky

 

“Processed data is information. Processed information is knowledge. Processed knowledge is Wisdom.” 

--Ankala V. Subbarao

 

Databases pervade our world—from the macro to the micro—underpinning the functions of global governance to the minuteness of our personal lives, and everything in between.  “The complex of computers and databases,” says Andreas Kratky, “embodies the way modern society thinks and acts.”...

“One of the lessons I’ve learned from the study of law “from below” is that we can get a sense of when “subaltern” people are shaping the law from how much anxiety they provoke in the master class.”

--Ariela Gross

 

How did Africans in the Americas change into Black Americans?  In her forthcoming book, Becoming Free, Becoming Black, Professor Ariela Gross transforms how we look at the legal history and legacies of manumission, citizenship, and black identity. Gross reveals that as free persons of color challenged slaveholders...

After the 2016 election, pundits and commentators questioned aloud: How did Trump win the rural, white poor? Why did they (seemingly) vote against their own economic interests? To many, the answer was anger, fueled by unemployment, identity politics, and bigotry. To others, it was due to a campaign of misinformation decades in the making, formed by an intense, right-wing "fake news" media bubble. But either way, it was difficult, perhaps impossible, for those on the outside to understand those within these communities--yet it is our ethical...

“As long as the grass shall grow and rivers flow, you can have your land.” 

These were the empty promises issued by the United States government to Indigenous peoples as they were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands during the 19th century. 

 

“Protect Sacred Places.”

These words inform the political actions of present day Indigenous leaders to reclaim and protect their rightful, sacred lands.

 

For our second session in the 4Ps series, we are thrilled to have Angela Mooney D’Arcy, (Juaneno Band of Mission Indians...