FYE 2200 HO/CS: Beauty through the Lens of Big History
Why is something–an idea, a building, a protozoan cell–beautiful? This seminar uses the scholarship of beauty, aesthetics, to examine the ways humanity has defined beauty and to ask questions. What in the universe–the past and the present of the Big History narrative–conforms to formal ideals of beauty? Who defines beauty? Is the re-engineering of natural beauty a good idea? Will our great grandchildren be beautiful beings in a beautiful universe? We will define our own ideas about beauty and then speculate on how our ideals of beauty might impact the future. Prerequisite:
FYE 2000.