Course Description:
Thematic Colloquia are half credit courses addressing a topic of general concern, linked to events on campus.  Prior to registration for each term, the CIS identifies and announces a theme that integrates a sequence of public events on campus (such as lectures, recitals, demonstrations, films, performances, etc.).  Students meet once a week to discuss the theme as it is set forth in the public events, and from the several perspectives of individualized majors.

General Goals of Colloquia:
1. To enhance the coherence of students’ learning in each semester.
2. To support a learning community among students pursuing individualized majors.
3. To promote faculty discussions of important topics.
4. To provide for diverse integrations of learning.

“Pursuing the New”
Conversations exploring promises of, consequences of, and reactions to innovation in science, art, and society.  What's at stake when we seek innovation ? When we are presented with scientific, artistic, political or other advances that change how we are able to affect our world?  What happens to truth, justice, and other values when we "embrace the future" or, for that matter, "look to the past"?  What can we learn from the tension between the desire for novelty and the urge of nostalgia?  Is conservatism a bad thing?  Is invention a dangerous human trait?  How should we approach the "new" millenium?  Let’s choose three or four innovations that challenge us morally, aesthetically, economically, or politically, and study them together.

Course Requirements:
When it is your turn, you must inspire the day’s discussion.  You must choose a reading or other material, and make this available prior to the discussion.

• You must attend public events we all agree to.
• You must keep up with any periodical we all agree to.
• You must prepare a final project in some suitable medium (web portfolios encouraged).

Possible Topics:

• The internet
• New modes and subjects of political discourse (e.g., political correctness, affirmative action, “the environment,” animal rights, etc.)
• A new strata of political/economic organization—the supra-national entities (WTO, IMF, World Bank, NAFTA, FTAA, etc.)
• New understandings of mental health: shift from institution to client, advent of new pharmaceutical therapies, emergence of new “consumerist” paradigm of super-well-being through drugs
• City planning innovations like suburbs
• Innovations in reproductive technology

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