Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241

“A polymath is one who not only mastered one or several disciplines, but one who synthesizes them, integrates them.”  Sidney Harman

Integrate:  Combine (one thing) with another so that they become a whole. Oxford Dictionary

Dr. Bonnie Ruberg integrates. Her research explores gender and sexuality in contemporary digital cultures, with a focus on LGBTQ issues in video games.  A genuine polymathic practitioner, Ruberg utilizes integration to create, educate, reimagine, and challenge our gendered world.   For our opening session of the spring 2017...

Caring is not an idea one typically couples with polymathy.  The polymath is simply defined as a person who has mastered multiple areas of expertise and integrates them to innovate and problem solve.  But what if caring was added as fundamental principle of polymathy?  Dr. Pamela Schaff fits this more complete polymathic model, who, while serving as associate professor of clinical pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine, is also in her spare time working on her Ph.D. in English and creative writing.  Her motivation is simple:  she believes exposure to the arts and...

These days when we hear the term sustaining, we typically think of the environment and the science of climate change. Rates of carbon emissions; renewable energy; food scarcity; pollution, etc. are the variables that come to mind.  But how people from diverse populations and from different countries come together to sustain the environment and their social worlds is the cultural-sociological approach missing in the sustainability equation above.  Professor of Sociology Pierrette Hongadneu-Sotelo has been studying, thinking, and writing about the relationship between migration and...

In a world that with sharp divisions, landscape architecture is a powerful tool to marry social and ecological justice.  It has the capacity to address the most pressing and fundamental problems facing the world today, amongst which are climate change, water and food security and deforestation.  Landscape architecture must set the boundaries for policy makers and orient social movements. Bold and inspired projects can lead policy and point the way for future developments. The political agency of the profession must be forcibly reactivated and the power of landscape architecture...

PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE TO THURSDAY

“Tinkering is fooling around with phenomena, tools, and materials. It’s whimsical, enjoyable, fraught with dead ends, and ultimately about inquiry.” The Art of Tinkering

Fiddling, playfulness, and tinkering.  These approaches, attitudes, and instruments of inquiry are fundamental to polymathic praxis. As professor of electrical engineering, professor of computer science, professor of linguistics, professor of pediatrics, and professor of psychology, Shri Narayanan is a paragon polymath who tinkers across his multiple fields of...

Translating is an essential skill for the polymath.  To traverse disciplinary languages, to find the common parlances that can speak across scholarly divides—this is an essential art that polymaths of the past have mastered.  Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Sherry Velasco is just this sort of linguistic polymath, and she practices translating through multiple modalities.  In her research, Velasco translates and interprets languages in the traditional sense, but she also translates and interprets across the esoteric languages of various disciplines such as gender...

The Academy for Polymathic Study guides its enquiries 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, Edwin McCann, professor of philosophy and English, will conduct four conversational workshops over the fall and spring terms from a philosophical, historical, and practical point of view.  Attendance at all four quadrants is required for Harman Fellow certification.

Quadrants (3) the tapestry of knowledge;...

The Academy for Polymathic Study guides its enquiries 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, Edwin McCann, professor of philosophy and English, will conduct four conversational workshops over the fall and spring terms from a philosophical, historical, and practical point of view.  Attendance at these two sessions covering all four quadrants is required for Academy certification.

Quadrants (1)...

HEALING ARTS: The Polymathic Collection of Dr. Eugene Rogolsky

From Chicano street art to gay inspired photographs, prints, paintings and sculptures, the polymathic collection of Dr. Eugene Rogolsky, on exhibit at the USC Fisher Museum of Art, is "complex and introspective, and range from sacred to profane." Please join us in a Trojan Family Weekend special event co-sponsored by the Harman Academy for Polymathic Study and Fisher Museum of Art featuring a discussion with noted physician, art collector, Keck Medical professor and practitioner Dr. ...

The Academy for Polymathic Study guides its enquiries 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, Edwin McCann, professor of philosophy and English, will conduct four conversational workshops over the fall and spring terms from a philosophical, historical, and practical point of view.  Attendance at these two sessions covering all four quadrants is required for Academy certification. 

Quadrants (3)...