Extra Credit Blogging - Themester Public Lecture Series

Dear ENG W350 Class:

Given the growing number of public lectures in this year's Themester series, I would like to offer you an extra-credit opportunity for your class blog this semester. Select and attend in full one of the lectures listed below, then blog about the experience.

Your blog post can be reflective, but it must be substantive and it should make a significant critical offering to the rest of the class. In this case, “critical” means you are applying the terms, concepts, and theories of what we study in class to the public lecture, or vice versa. In other words, we'll be looking for you to make meaning from the experience, to describe its relevance, and to discuss how it provoked new areas of thinking for you (or should provoke new areas of thinking for us). As much as possible, you should strive to get beyond simply agreeing or disagreeing, being willing or being skeptical. For me--and I hope for you, too--"critical" describes a kind of empowered interpretation and use of someone else's text (whether that is print, digital, or visual) to do something new or interesting with it.

Please follow our "Blogging Guidelines" as you post, and be sure to reference the full title of the lecture and full name of the speaker, as well as other important context details. Submit your post and proof of attendance (in the form of an attendance slip, a program, or a handout that was distributed during the lecture) within 5 days of when you attend.

Themester Lectures

• Any lecture in the COLL-T 200 “Living a Sustainable Life” Lecture Series (Tuesdays and Thursdays, WH 100, 4:00-5:15 p.m.)
• Any lecture in the “Mercy, Mercy Me! : Black Environmental Thought Series” (held at variable times/locations)
• Robert Costanza’s lecture entitled “Ecological Economics of Sustainability: Moving Beyond Debate to Dialogue” (Monday, 10/4, IMU, 12:00-1:30 p.m.)
• Subhankar Banerjee’s lecture entitled “Resource Wars in the American Arctic” (Friday, 10/22, FA 015, 5:30 p.m.)
• Thomas Friedman's lecture (New York Times columnist and author of Hot, Flat and Crowded) (Thursday, 11/4, IU Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.)
• Panel Discussion between writer Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson of The Land Institute (Wednesday, 11/10, Maurer Law School, 7:30 p.m.)

You can find out more about events and locations by visiting http://themester.indiana.edu/calendar.shtml. As always, feel free to send your questions my way.

-Professor Graban