Polymathic Pizza | USC Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study

Polymathic Pizza

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POLYMATHIC PIZZA SERIES Fall 2025–Spring 2026

META: A Companion to Polymathy

Meta: prefix; (from Ancient Greek μετα- (meta-), from μετά (metá), from Mycenaean Greek, meaning “after” or “beyond”); meanings related to change, transcendence, or something that is higher or beyond. “I derived a huge sense of value from the polymathic conversations because they enabled me to transcend my own isolated perspective and view the world in a more holistic fashion.” —Grace Chediak, Harman Fellow 2014

In ancient Mycenaean Greek, the prefix meta- is used to indicate a concept that is more comprehensive than the original concept it’s attached to. Think physics to metaphysics, narrative to metanarrative. Meta has other applications too; it can denote a change of state, and “beyond-ness.” It tells the story within the story.

Meta, as a mode of inquiry, hovers (giving a bird’s eye view); it transcends; it gives us a framework where we ask the bigger questions about the universe, about us, and about our place in it. Along these lines, meta guides us into deeper and, as our Harman Fellow mentions above, more holistic stories of ourselves and the world around us, teaching us that everything is more than the sum of its parts. Meta, in its truest meaning, is quantum; it is a companion to polymathy.

For this year’s Polymathic Pizza series, we will apply meta to all sorts of inquiries: from metaphysics to the metaverse; from metanarrative to metamorphosis. To broaden our meta-exploration, we invite students and faculty from every corner of the university, to bring their expertise and curiosities to the conversation. The fields of physics and metaphysics tell us that the universe is ever expanding; join us as we expand our own explorations in infinite and quantum ways.

Current Semester

Jan 22 2014

War

When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241
Event Type: Polymathic Pizza

Historian Lewis Mumford, among others, has argued that warfare as an ongoing and necessary expression of the state originated with the rise of urbanism in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley thousands of years before the Common Era. The twentieth century witnessed global, regional, and local war on a near-continuous basis. For ten of the first fourteen years of the twenty-first century the United States has been at war in the Middle East. The threat of terrorism, meanwhile, remains continuous and has altered the social psychology of these United States in ways that we have only...

Dec 4 2013

Ethics

When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241
Event Type: Polymathic Pizza

A philosophy of ethics implies an effort to discern the good in a specific situation and to choose it as a matter of right conduct. Easier said than done! How do we form our own ethical standards? What are the roles played in this process by religion, family, ethnicity, society, and law? How does one deal with the cacophony of opposed positions on so many ethical points? Is the search for ethics in our contemporary society of necessity a highly personalized struggle: energized by tradition, perhaps, but made real, made functional, by experience, hard knocks, and choice...

Nov 20 2013

The Common Good

When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241
Event Type: Polymathic Pizza

Ours is an age that prizes privacy. Yet we also inherit a tradition, dating from ancient times, East and West, that sees the good life in terms of promoting the common good, or at the least, not detracting from it. Politics or some form of public career has proven a time-honored pathway to such fulfillment. Of late, however, philanthropy and other forms of non-profit public service have come to the fore as important constituents of civic value. In this discussion, Professor Paul Lichterman will challenge students to examine from a variety of perspectives and...

Oct 16 2013

Civility

When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241
Event Type: Polymathic Pizza

Inimicus inimici mei amicus meus est, (the enemy of my enemy is my friend). This ancient proverb proves most powerful when alliances between assumed adversaries form and contribute to social justice. In 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention, men joined forces with women to challenge patriarchy; in the 1920s, elite, conservative, Protestant white women allied with Pueblo Indians to fight for Native American religious freedom; and in the 1950s and 60s, privileged whites marched hand in hand with blacks to end racial discrimination. In this Polymathic Pizza session on Civility...

Oct 2 2013

Family

When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241
Event Type: Polymathic Pizza

Man is a sexual and procreative creature as well as a social animal. From sexuality, tradition holds, came children and family formation to protect child development. Until recently, most political philosophers began their treatise on the nature of the commonwealth or the state with a consideration of the family. But what does the family mean today? Have the old relationships of family, kinship, and tribe disappeared or have they been merely transmogrified? Are new types of families being formed? And how does a growing population of single people fit into...

Sep 25 2013

Friendship

When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241
Event Type: Polymathic Pizza

Man is a social animal. Thus Aristotle postulates friendship as a fundamental requirement for the good life. By friendship Aristotle suggested what we moderns might call social adjustment, social connection, self-esteem in a social context, as well as just plain friends. But what about friendship in an age of social media? Can someone on Facebook actually list hundreds of friends and meet Aristotle’s requirements? What, in short, does friendship mean in an age of hook ups, social media, and fiscalized relationships? And what did the Anglican C.S....

Sep 18 2013

Wealth

When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241
Event Type: Polymathic Pizza

Aristotle did not glorify riches, but he did note that dire poverty or other significant scarcity of means had a way of making the achievement of the good life more than a little bit difficult. Some of the great religious traditions have endorsed a renunciation of wealth as a high virtue. Enlightenment philosophers have praised the achievement of sufficient wealth as essential to the sustaining of personal sovereignty. In the film Wall Street (1987), Gordon Gekko tells us that greed is good, and look where that left him and the country in 2008! Under the guidance of...

Sep 4 2013

Health

When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241
Event Type: Polymathic Pizza

Following the Greek notion that “in health alone is victory,” Aristotle lists this requirement as fundamental to the conduct of life. Under the guidance of Assistant Professor Carlin Daley, students – fortified with a healthy serving of healthy pizza – will examine the health requirement from a variety of perspectives, including those threats to emotional and mental health intrinsic to life in these United States in the 21st century.

Nov 28 2012

Libraries

When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241
Event Type: Polymathic Pizza

The organization and retrievability of information in a variety of formats has been a preoccupation -- and a profession -- since time immemorial. For centuries, archives and libraries served this purpose. The late twentieth century witnessed a translation of information to digital formats. By the early twenty-first century, information management was addressing itself to a global information environment stored digitally and transferred at electronic speed. Drawing upon her academic preparation and long career in library, archival, and information management, Catherine...

Nov 7 2012

Scientific Narrative

When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241
Event Type: Polymathic Pizza

Carol Muske-Dukes, USC Dornsife professor of English and Creative Writing and California Poet Laureate, will discuss the meaning of her current interest in Scientific Narrative. Professor Muske-Dukes locates literary intersections in science/medical narrative and creativity. She sees, for instance, the heart as symbol, (a la Valentine's Day), and as "stress" and emotion. Students will join Professor Muske-Dukes in conversation to explore other possible intersections between the realm of science and the realm of words.

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