Professor: Dare Baldwin

4.00 credits

• CRN 12414: Tuesday & Thursday, 2:00-3:20am @ CHA 301

Taking a “deep dive” means allowing curiosity to guide one on an extended, semi-unpredictable journey of exploration and learning. But what is this thing we call curiosity? A simple Google-search on “curiosity” reveals that thousands have pondered this question across the ages, with strikingly diverse results. To sample a few luminaries on the topic: apparently curiosity is dangerous (it kills cats!), vulnerable to death-by-education (Albert Einstein), virtuous (Anatole France), immoral (Yukio Mishima), a gift (Eleanor Roosevelt), the root of intelligence (Samuel Johnson), an engine of innovation (Liggy Webb) and achievement (Ken Robinson), and one of the great secrets of happiness (Bryant H. McGill). But how can curiosity be all these things? What precisely does it do for us? Can we cultivate it in ourselves and/or others? Does it take a unique form in humans? Does it change over our life spans? To what extent do we, as individuals, differ in it, and what might be the implications of such differences, for good and/or ill? In this course, we’ll deep dive on curiosity: we’ll explore what it is, how it works, how it varies, and how to harness it to enrich our own and others’ lives. Assignments will include a range of activities/exercises, reading, and exploratory projects both solo and collective.