New Interdisciplinary Epistomology Course Approved for 2014-2015

How do we know what we know? How do you know what you can be certain of? What are the different forms of knowing? These are some of the questions students will inquire about and discuss in the newly added religion course of epistemology for the 2014-2015 academic year.Titled “REL 490 Epistemology: The Question of Knowledge,” the course is an interdisciplinary course, meaning three departments: religion, science and theater, will be collectively contributing to the curriculum. Taught in winter term, the course will be open for uppers and seniors.“The breadth of talent and depth of interest in our student body will make this an intriguing experiment in learning,” science instructor Tanya Waterman said. “We hope to have an enrollment of 24 students, meeting in different configurations—occasionally all together, sometimes in two groups and sometimes in three, with all three teachers present.”Joining Waterman, religion instructor Kathleen Brownback and Theater Department Chair Sarah Ream will be teaching the course in its flagship year.Brownback said that a group of faculty members, including herself, was interested in creating a course that deals with the similarities, differences and connections between different kinds of knowledge.“The inspiration for design was prompted by student questions about how to integrate what you’ve learned in different classes—[such as] ‘How does the objective study of science connect with the subjective narrative in English class?’” Brownback said.Efforts to create more interdisciplinary courses have been discussed by department heads this year, and was discussed at the faculty meeting this week.Waterman also shared how she got involved in the planning of the course.“Through conversations, I discovered I had a mutual interest with Ms. Brownback regarding the connections between knowledge of the physical world, knowledge of self, and the place of humans in the physical world; these are common questions between science and religion,” Waterman said.Brownback added that the decision to create a collectively instructed course was due to the specific contributions each department is capable to offer for the course.“We realized that the best way to have this conversation was to have the full perspective of all three areas,” Brownback said. “There’s no way I can speak of science in the same way as someone who has spent her life devoted to studying it—yet there’s more to the question of knowledge than science. A theater teacher has more in-depth and embodied knowledge of dramatic literature and philosophy of art than I do.”The course material and the curriculum were developed by all three departments collectively, and the course will cover a multidisciplinary perspective on a work of literature. Students will be asked to explore concepts such as the pros and cons of cyber technology advances and their influence on the sense of self. “Epistemology is a major branch of philosophy—how we know what we know. Religion comes from the Latin word religare—to tie together, as a ligament does. It’s about the overall questions of values, ethics, purpose, meaning,” Brownback said. “We’ll read material from traditional and modern sources in religion and philosophy.”Reading material for the course is planned to be derived from reviewed journal articles and books, ranging from Marc Gafni’s The Unique Self, Michael Serres’s The Five Senses, Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man, to Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own.In terms of the role of each department in the course, Waterman outlined the science department’s planned contribution to the course.“The scientific aspect of the course is about the effects of scientific knowledge on individuals as well as the necessity of the coexistence of scientific knowledge and progress with morality and introspection,” Waterman said.“Our students know a lot of scientific content by the time they graduate—and I am very happy about and proud of this preparation,” Waterman added.“I hope this course will develop for our graduates blueprints for action, for lives and careers that will be top-notch knowledgeable and deliberately good.”In response to the news of the new addition of the course, students’ reactions consisted only of excitement, especially due to the multidisciplinary facet of the course.“It definitely sounds interesting and I think some of our seniors and uppers would benefit from an opportunity to broaden their understanding of knowledge,” lower Jun Park said. “I would probably be interested in taking it senior year because it is a rarity for voices of science, religion, and theatre to be in one coherent Harkness discussion.”Lower Chris Vazan agreed, and explained that the course descriptions are impressive especially because of the collective merging of three departments.“I am fascinated by the interdisciplinary nature of this material,” Vazan said.“I wish many more of my courses combined elements between disciplines,” he added.Brownback agreed with the students’ sentiments and noted that, although the course is categorized as a religion course and the categorization of a course is vital, the interdisciplinary aspect of the course will be a fresh yet enjoyable experiment.“Academic departments are important—there is a lot of depth to be achieved within each field,” Brownback said.“But at a certain point the academic discipline silos have to speak to each other, in order to move learning and knowledge forward. That’s what we’ll be doing. It’s exciting.”