Course Catalog

In this intensive hands-on workshop, faculty from AUP, Arizona State University, Carnegie Mellon University, Goldsmiths, Sciences Po, University of Tasmania, University Paris I Sorbonne introduce design and performance methodologies such as ideation, role-playing, scenario design, future-casting, user-testing which students apply to their own design problems. The objective is to create and present a design proposition, whether blueprint, model, or performance.

The nature of reality changed in fundamental ways in the early part of the 20th century. Concepts of duration, length, sequential order, simultaneity, weight, energy, location, mass, substance and void became a matter of perspective or ‘reference frame’. Scientists had been trying to explain apparently ‘absurd’ results, such as Maxwell’s EM wave equations or the photovoltaic effect, within the framework of classical physics. Much like what Ptolemy did with Aristotle’s model of the dynamics of the heavens before Copernicus and Kepler got it right, or, at least, not so wrong. In this course, I will present the basic principles, and derive the implications, of the theory of Special Relativity, I will describe the concepts and equivalences underlying the theory of General Relativity and show you why we know them to be correct (or at least not very wrong), I will introduce quantum theory and the quantum model of the atom and explain why it is better than plum pudding (see J. J. Thomson’s 1904 “plum pudding” model for the atom). In this course, you will learn about time travel, e=mc², black holes and wormholes. Is it true that if you run straight towards a cement wall it is just possible that you will make it through to the other side unharmed? Yes.

In-depth study of Ancient Greek and Latin texts or authors of both literary and philosophical interest. Subjects may include, e.g., the comparison of a Greek and a Roman philosopher; close reading of the oeuvre, or part of an oeuvre, of one author; the literary and philosophical analysis of a collection of thematically and generically connected passages
“For the course description, please find this course in the respective semester on the public course browser: https://www.aup.edu/academics/course-catalog/by-term.”

The course discusses the pertinence or not of cosmopolitan thought to analysis of world politics. Born from a moral dis-course pitched against the power politics of empire (Greek stoicism), cosmopolitanism is today defined by a moral and legal culture of human rights and an ethical and political culture of global values and/or goods. Contemporary proponents and critics of cosmopolitanism are analyzed in this context.