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NRLN 2000: Constructions of Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in the Academy and Beyond

  • When: Fall and Spring - T/TH, 9:30-10:45 am
  • Where:  Norlin S421 
  • Credits: 3
  • Required: 4-year Norlin Scholars must take this in their first year

A course for incoming first-year students, Constructions of Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in the Academy and Beyond asks students to interrogate what their natural learning tendencies are, how they know what they know, and how to cultivate other ways of knowing beyond the intellectual. Students work individually and collaboratively analyzing how knowledge is created, discovered, and interpreted. They’ll explore such questions as: What human faculties are involved in learning, seeing, understanding and knowing? What conditions are present when revolutions in human knowledge arise? What is the relationship between knowledge and power? What is wisdom? Discussion and assignments encourage students to draw on many different ways of expressing knowledge, including the intellect, intuition, and others. This class fulfills a College of Arts & Sciences General Education Arts & Humanities requirement and Engineering lower division Humanities credit. Our office will pre-enroll you. Taught by Norlin Faculty.

NRLN 3500: Constructions of Knowledge in the Fields

  • When: Fall  and Spring - T/TH 12:30 – 1:45 pm
  • Where: Norlin S421
  • Credits: 3
  • Required: 2-year Norlin Scholars must take this course in their first semester as a Norlin Scholar; 4-year Norlin Scholars must take this course in their third year.

Constructions of Knowledge in the Fields supports students’ professional development by offering them an opportunity to investigate both how their prospective fields construct knowledge, and how the fields themselves are constructed. The course’s multidisciplinary approach encourages students to think critically and creatively about all dimensions of a particular field, from its breaking news to its ancient history; from its working theories to its working conditions; from its major controversies to the politics and passions that fuel them. Through a kaleidoscope of theory, literature, case study, film, history, and creative nonfiction, students come to see and celebrate their fields as more than just bodies of knowledge, but as ways of knowing, living, working, and engaging in the world. This class fulfills a College of Arts & Sciences General Education Arts & Humanities requirement and may be approved for Engineering upper-division Humanities credit. Our office will pre-enroll you. Taught by Norlin Faculty.