Courses of Study 2012-2013 
    
    Mar 28, 2024  
Courses of Study 2012-2013 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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FREN 3540 - On Paying Attention

(crosslisted)
(also RELST 3540 ) (LA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.

Conducted in English.

C. Howie.

In the age of smartphones and Facebook, the competing claims made on our attention only seem to be multiplying.  This course is an opportunity to think about and to enact certain practices of attentiveness and concentration, drawing largely from religious, literary, artistic, philosophical and anthropological sources.  We’ll be trying various kinds of exercises - from reading poems and looking at paintings to eating more slowly - as we read about the ways in which our seneses reach out to the world, and as we think together about how technology may be used in ways that are not, strictly speaking, technological.  This course is for students at all levels, from all backgrounds, graduate and undergraduate, with the  understanding that we all need an excuse to slow down and observe the world - and ourselves - a little more carefully.



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