UST 210 - Crucial Question 2: Explorations & Encounters: What is the World (and how do we know it?)

Starting with depictions and narratives of concepts of the world, this course investigates the way in which the experience of exploration and encounter impacts our ideas of what the world is and where we are in the world. In looking at the ways in which others have explored, perceived, and mapped the world, the student will be encouraged to develop critical thinking skills to discern, analyze and assess information from a variety of sources from across the globe and from different time periods. Interrogating assumptions and ideas of how we think about and define the world (and the environment, people, and creatures in it), we move from the idea that a contemporary view of the world is “good” or “appropriate” or “normal, usual, and universal.” The course investigates two crucial, and related, questions: What is the world? How do we know it? And the final corollary, Does the way we view the world affect our actions within it?

Prerequisites: B.U.S. Students

Course Typically Offered: Spring

Credits: 3

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