As students finalize their schedules for the spring semester, some may decide to take larger introductory courses in chemistry or economics.
But others may decide they want to explore philosophical inquiries into humanity’s long-term survival, study the cultural impact of languages from the future or read about femmes who refuse to behave.
The Herald spoke to three professors teaching these one-of-a-kind classes that embody the Open Curriculum at Brown.
PHIL 1561: “Are We Doomed? Ethics, Economics and the Future”
When Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Political Economy Ryan Doody first taught a version of PHIL 1561: “Are We Doomed? Ethics, Economics and the Future,” in 2021, he was already thinking about existential risks as they were central to his research. But the COVID-19 pandemic sharpened the urgency of the course, according to Doody.
“Doom was — and continues to be — in the air,” he wrote in an email to The Herald.
Doody, whose work spans population ethics, risk and expected value theory, designed the course around questions that involve both his scholarship and contemporary public debate. These questions address uncertainty and what the living owe to future generations.
In the course, students read texts such as “The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity” by Toby Ord to inform conversations about existential risk, Doody said. Students also discuss recent developments in AI policy and technology to investigate the complications of ethical decision-making, he added.
The course also investigates the framework of longtermism, or the idea that shaping the far future is one of the most important moral priorities, Doody said. “We don’t often think about the long-term … consequences of our actions,” he wrote. But Doody said he isn’t concerned with whether students will leave the course believing in longtermism. Instead, he wants students to consider “what one’s priorities are and should be.”
Doody added that many of the topics covered in the course align with his research interests, such as incommensurability — the idea that some values cannot be cleanly measured against one another — and risk-sensitive decision-making.
While the course does not aim to “solve” the future, Doody hopes it equips students with the ability to understand the moral factors in making decisions about the future.
COLT 0812Z: “From Cuneiform to Klingon: Writing Systems and the Worlds They Make”
Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Joshua Freeman has “always been fascinated by languages and scripts,” he said in an interview with The Herald. A scholar of Uyghur literature and canon formation, Freeman has spent years thinking about the cultural impact of scripts.
COLT 0812Z: “From Cuneiform to Klingon: Writing Systems and the Worlds They Make” traces writing systems from ancient scripts to science fiction alphabets, investigating how they shape thought, memory and social organization. The course draws from history, psychology, anthropology and even neuroscience, Freeman said.
The course addresses questions about how scripts can change people, their thinking and their perspective on the world, he said. It also explores scripts from both the past and invented languages of the future, including Klingon, a language from the “Star Trek” universe.
Freeman said his own research and experience with Uyghur literature inspired the course. He added that Uyghur, a language that has cycled through Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic scripts over the last century, offers a living case study of both how scripts change over time and the consequences of these changes.
Through taking the course, Freeman hopes that students will be able to take away the “incredible diversity of ways that humans and human societies have figured out how to express themselves in writing” while also reflecting on “their own relationship with writing.”
“We’re not the first generations to go through social and cultural and linguistic change as a result of different communications technologies,” he added.
ENGL 1761J: “Bad, Mad and Sad: Literatures of Misbehaving Femmes”
For Associate Professor of English Dixa Ramirez-D’Oleo, teaching ENGL 1761J: “Bad, Mad and Sad: Literatures of Misbehaving Femmes” has reminded her of what motivated her decision to teach literature, she wrote.
“What inspired me to become a professor wasn’t research,” she wrote in an email to The Herald. “It was stories about people grappling with this beautiful, complicated world.”
The seminar examines femmes in novels and films who are labeled “irrational” when they refuse social conformity, Ramirez-D’Oleo wrote. Throughout the course, students read works like “Quicksand” by Nella Larsen and watch films like “Black Girl” by Ousmane Sembène.
The course is deeply shaped by her work as a novelist, Ramirez-D’Oleo wrote. Teaching the course while also writing novels has reinforced her interest in reading about characters who misbehave, she added.
“I want students to think about the masks characters wear,” Ramirez-D’Oleo wrote, “and then turn that mirror back on themselves.”
