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Coffee, Capitalism, and Consciousness

Course: 79-280
Instructors: Saurin Nanavati and John Soluri

Serving and drinking coffee is a practice of hospitality in many cultures. In this course, we consider the role that universities can play in making coffee more hospitable for the people and environments where coffee is cultivated, processed, and consumed.

We do this through sensory and analytical engagement with coffee and coffee systems—past, present, and future. We will strive to see coffee as a living network of interactions and identify leverage points for meaningful and regenerative change.

Hospitable Worlds: Migration and Settlement on Earth and in Space

Offered: Fall 2024
Course: 76-340
Instructors: Kathy Newman and James Wynn (English)

Are you an artist, writer, designer, science major or film major who has ever thought about living on Mars? Do you watch science-fiction movies and think, “Whoa, that looks cool,” or “No way—that’s not how it would work”? Do you worry about climate change on Earth and think about how to use your creativity to imagine a better future?

This class invites students in the visual and literary arts and the sciences to explore planetary hospitality. With each passing year, climate change makes our planet less hospitable for human life. As concerns about Earth’s climate grow and the costs of space travel shrink, there has been renewed interest in establishing settlements in outer space.

The course explores both the diminishing hospitability of our planet and the prospects for hospitality on others. Students investigate these themes through written, visual and auditory media, using the course’s questions as inspiration for collaborative artistic productions such as sketches, poems, paintings, videos and music.