Evolution and Literature Web Paper 4

For my final paper, I collaborated with themword to create a dialogue in which we explored our understanding of the social and natural sciences. As a natural science major, I first a wrote about my opinions and current understanding of the social sciences which is included below. themword wrote to the same prompt only she substituted natural for social. We then exchanged papers and videotaped the conversation on social and natural sciences that followed. Please check out themword's 4th webpaper and visit the link to our video to learn more about the discoveries we made in the course of this final web "event."

 The Story of Evolution and the Evolution of Stories

5/1/2011

Krishnan Raghavan

Deus Ex Serendip: A “Heavenly” New Perspective on Some Familiar Issues

Hello classmates, professors, and visitors!

As the culmination of The Story of Evolution and the Evolution of Stories, I have created a comic in dialogue with Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics that is meant to complement his work by both demonstrating how his ideas are useful and also highlighting some things that he left out of his theory of comics as a revolutionary medium.

Audrey Johnston
Evolution/Stories/Diversity
Professor Dalke & Professor Grobstein
Web Project #4

A Creative Conversation Between Three Texts

 One of the most significant ways in which I have learned from our class this semester is through its manifestation in other realms of my life.  As new themes evolved in our discussions, their appearance in my life outside of class has progressed into my social life, other class discussions, and I have even noticed their presence frequently in the newspaper.  I think it speaks to the nature of the course that almost every conversation we have had has followed me outside of the classroom and I know others feel the same way.  Even though, at first, I thought it was just a random coincidence that all of my classes were connecting and every day when I ope

In this course, The Story of Evolution and the Evolution of Stories, I’ve learned about what could be considered the three main types of stories: there are non-narrative foundational stories, which are static, hierarchical in nature, eternal, and have no segmentation. There are narrative foundational stories, which are time sensitive, segmented, and there is a sense of movement away from the past towards the future. Third, there are emergent stories, which lack a hierarchy, have no segmentation, and are more explanatory. Each type mirrors the ways in which we have attempted to explain our presence on this earth. The Great Chain of Being closely resembles a non-narrative foundational story telling while the tree of life is similar to a narrative foundational one.

 The Evolution Tibetan Sand Mandala:

Perspectives on the Evolution of Life and Artistic Expression

For this project I worked with rachelr, ckosarek and ewashburn on a collaborative tumblr/facebook page wherein we explored the role of fiction in science.

Our Facebook page (start here!)

Our Tumblr