Empathy

Catalog description

What is empathy? Is it a universal capacity or culturally conditioned? (Is it comparable, for example, to "compassion" or "sympathetic joy" in Buddhist practice?) Can empathy be taught? Socially engineered? Does it make you a better student or citizen? What is empathetic design? Can AI empathize? Does or should empathy have limits? Drawing on scientific, social scientific, and humanistic disciplines and comparative cultural traditions and historical situations, this Colloquium allows students to examine the components and outcomes of NYUAD's own academic programs, including the Core. Can universities like ours confront global challenges without actively fostering an empathetic imagination? Can curricular design really change the world? Should faculty have more empathy for students' experience - and what would that mean? Do the arts make us more empathetic? When might empathy devolve into condescension or "othering"? Why have far-right political actors taken to attacking empathy as "toxic"? These and other questions will be addressed through readings, classroom exercises, and fieldwork, culminating in individual student manifestoes and collaborative podcast conversations. This course will be offered in January-Term 2026.