UD SOC UT Extension (Evening) course

The following is a SOC course being offered through University Extension.

Keep in mind that this course can count towards your SOC major, full-time status for Financial Aid (if you contact fin aid to let them know) and your UT GPA, but it does NOT count as an in-residence course.

For more information on the course and how to sign up (you register and pay separately), go to http://www.utexas.edu/ce/uex/classroom/ .

____________________________________________________________

Creativity and Creative Sociology

SOC. 321K Spring 2009
Time: M W 6-8:30 p.m.

Mehdi Haghshenas, Ph.D.
Office Hours: MW 10-11 & by appt. (Burdine230A)
Phone: 232-6306

Course Description:

What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express! How admirable in action! How like an angel in apprehension! How like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
--Hamlet

Creative impulse within a society is the heartbeat. Most of us live and work in a functional world that leaves us little or no room for imagination, appreciation, and interconnection. And yet no one can deny that our society is driven by creativity. Creativity is an essential ingredient in science, business, the arts, and other dimensions of human life.

OBJECTIVES

This course will introduce you to different aspects of creative insights, human consciousness and perspectives, social processes, and invention of reality. We will bring the intellectual abilities and intuitive inclinations together as a complementary process. The course pursues and encourages elements of self-realization and creativity at the individual, organizational, societal, environmental, and cosmic levels. Artistic films, documentaries, and other media will be presented as technical methods of representation of "social reality" and sociocultural phenomena. During the course, students will learn critical thinking methods through diverse and interconnected perspectives, improvisations, visual materials, and student-focused activities. No technical aspects will be emphasized.

Reading Requirements

(1) A selection of articles has been prepared in a packet.
(2) Otis Carney. 2002. Wars R’ Us: Taking Action for Peace.
(3) Paulo Coelho.1995. The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream
(4) Joseph Campbell. 2004. Pathways to Bliss: Mythological and Personal Transformation