What is Called Living?

Catalog description

We take the fact of living for granted, as we should. Why focus on each breath if it just comes and goes without thinking? Or so we think. But the same logic need not apply to the idea of "life" itself. For instance, we speak today of many lives: our love lives, our sex lives, the nightlife, the meaning of life, feeling alive, and so on and so forth. In this course, we will probe into these various facets of our lives today through a critical reflection on the ways we live today (and the ways we talk about life today). But we will also do so by considering how other societies, ancient and foreign (or just hidden in plain sight), have lived (and talked about life) in ways that challenge our very conception of what life entails. All of this will be facilitated through an eclectic array of activities: watching films together, reading poetry and novels, field trips (to an LSD museum or a scent shop), philosophical discussions, and collective writings/vlogging and self-examination. The purpose of this course, in short, is to introduce students to the life of the humanities--or, at the very least, what that life could be. Advance sign-up process and deadlines at https://exploreintrosems.stanford.edu/.