Brain Mind and Culture
HUMN 301/BMEG 461 grew out of the Brain Mind Culture Faculty Reading Group and is co-taught with John Hunter (Comparative Humanities). The purpose of the course is to explore the intersection between Brains, Minds and Cultures. Students join us from every division at Bucknell. The course is driven forward by readings, discussion and individual student projects. Readings are from historical and contemporary philosophy, science, engineering, film, art, and architecture as well as current headlines from both local and international sources. In addition a fourth hour is offered during which I introduce a number of technical topics that are often skipped in more traditional curricula. These included: agent based modeling, game theory, non-linear dynamics and chaos, network dynamics, open systems and self-organized criticality. Projects range from computation and mathematical models to qualitative (interview-base) research and epidemiological studies to formal research papers. The course will be featured in an upcoming admissions brochure that will go to all prospective students.