About Making It Real
About the Seminars: Making It Real
Mediated Realities
Richard Lewis 10:30 TTh
When asked, most people say they want to know the truth about the world -- to know what is fact and what is fiction, what is genuine and what is fake, what is real and what is imaginary. But how do we make these distinctions? How easily can we be fooled? And how willing are we to be fooled, despite our insistence to the contrary? Those are the questions raised in this seminar. We will begin with a look at how philosophers have tackled these issues over the centuries, using the movie The Matrix as a starting point. We will then look at some specific ways in which others attempt to influence our beliefs about reality to serve their own ideological, political, or economic purposes. Topics will include the possible manipulation of historic "facts" and the daily "news"; the games played by the advertising industry; and our rapidly increasing ability to use technology to escape the bonds of "real" life. We also will want to try figure out where things like dreams and imagination fit into the picture. Course materials will include books, such as William Irwin's (ed.) The Matrix and Philosophy, and All the President's Spin by Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer, and Brendan Nyhan; articles, such as Edward J. Epstein's "Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?"; and other movies, such as The Truman Show and Wag the Dog. Interestingly enough, the American Dialect Society recently voted "truthiness" as the "Word of the Year" for 2005. The word was popularized on the Colbert Report, a satirical mock-news show on Comedy Central. "Truthiness" refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. This seminar wonders whether we can know the difference between "truth" and "truthiness," whether we really want to know, and the ethical and political implications of these questions in a free society.
The Language of Power and the Power of Language
Minglang Zhou 10:30 TTh
Language matters. From courtroom to classroom and from summit talks to small talk, what we say and how we say it influences every aspect of our lives. We need language as much as we need air and food, but we often overlook its essential importance.
This course examines the politics of language from two general perspectives. First, we investigate how language divides us and our communities. Specifically we want to find why the rich and the poor, the old and the young, whites and people of color, and men and women often do not understand each other. Second, we investigate how we can use language to achieve our goals every day. We explore what we say and what we do not say, when we say it, how we say it, and to whom we say it.
In the classroom we look into various theories and hypotheses about language use. Outside the classroom we will test these theories and hypotheses by observing what people say, how they say it, to whom they say it, and what goals they actually achieve through linguistic communication. In the end we want to be better language users, using language to unite us and our communities and to make ourselves clear and persuasive communicators.
[Making It Real LC Wiki Page (http://itech.dickinson.edu/wiki/index.php/Making_It_Real)]
