“The emphasis will be on how to think, rather than what to think” – Sidney Harman
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Special Events and Series
The POLYMATHIC PANELS, and SPECIAL EVENTS SERIES features collaborative exchanges with institutes and scholars from USC and around the globe, including a conference organized and directed by students, with professors and students engaging one another on selected topics.
The GOETHE SOCIETY, an undergraduate organization affiliated with the USC Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, explores the cultural resources of the USC campus and greater Los Angeles. Each session will be accompanied by an academic presentation and discussion keyed to a specific artistic or scholarly focus.
POLYMATHIC PRACTICUM is a Sidney Center workshop that hold regular meetings over the fall 2021 and spring 2022 semesters, where dedicated Academy students will explore together the practice of integrating multiple disciplines in their own scholarship.
When: 4:30 PM - 6:30 PM Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241 Event Type: Special Events and Series
Is the Shoah a black hole at the center of the human universe, so evil that it cannot be understood? Or if it is necessary to confront this evil, how can we interpret that which defies comprehension? With Norman Lear Professor of Entertainment, Media, and Society Marty Kaplan acting as moderator, a panel of Holocaust scholars – Stephen D. Smith, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation; Wolf Gruner, Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies; and Varun Soni, dean of Religious Life at USC – explore the role of Holocaust studies in the modern university.
When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241 Event Type: Special Events and Series
Without engineering, there is no future, and an engineer will be the first to tell you that. Join in conversation engineers Shrikanth Narayanan, Andrew Viterbi Professor of Engineering, and Maja Mataric, Professor of Computer Science, Neuroscience, and Pediatrics, Viterbi School of Engineering, as they assess the ongoing invention of the future by – who else? – engineers. University Professor Kevin Starr will moderate.
When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241 Event Type: Special Events and Series
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.
When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241 Event Type: Special Events and Series
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.
When: 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241 Event Type: Special Events and Series
Margaret Wertheim is one of the finest science writers at work today. It’s a complicated cosmos, that’s for sure, but Margaret Wertheim can help you understand it better. What does crocheting have to do with polynomials? What is the Pangaea Theory, and why is everybody talking about it?
When: 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241 Event Type: Special Events and Series
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, pharmacology emerged as a cutting edge branch of chemistry aligned with medical practice. In recent decades, pharmacological research has expanded its methodology to encompass a comprehensive range of molecular, chemical, and biological perspectives, while at the same time becoming increasingly integrated into medical research and practice. In the same period, pharmacology has branched out into psychotropic research as a crucial element not only of medical practice, but also as a pathway towards an understanding of the relation between...
When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Where: Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, DML 241 Event Type: Special Events and Series
Renaissance painting was vitalized by learning, social purpose, politics, history, and—above all else—art for its own sake. How and why did the artists of the Renaissance manage to fuse so many perspectives into one art form? And how does any art historian go about the task of deciphering these multiple levels of meaning?
