CSMN/SUM 

About the Course

(Download the syllabus here)

 

Course Decription

 

Can new interdisciplinary work at the intersection of evolutionary biology, the social sciences, and the humanities help to understand and manage global challenges? This PhD-level course aims to use an evolutionarily-informed and interdisciplinary lens to take a critical look at contemporary global challenges, or ”crises”—climate change, the economic and poverty crises, public health, as well as various forms of cultural-political upheavals. The central aim will be to discover ways in which the combined insights from various disciplines, including evolutionary biology, cultural history, philosophy, political science, systems theory, and economics, can provide a better understanding of why such crises emerge and how they can be managed.

 

Questions to be addressed will include the following: How can we explain the emergence of human society? Can individual self-interest be reconciled with collective interests, and work for the public good? How is large-scale cooperation possible? What makes human social groups function well?  What factors lead to breakdowns in cooperation? How can principles of well-functioning groups be used to understand and remedy failures of cooperation? What role should the sciences and humanities play in shaping public policy? 

 

 

Learning Outcome

 

This course is designed for students from any discipline who seek to enrich their work through interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of evolutionary biology, the social sciences, and the humanities.  It will give participants the opportunity to:

 

• Present  their own work and receive oral and written feedback from interdisciplinary scholars;

• Learn how to think critically and creatively at the intersection of various disciplines;

• Apply an interdisciplinary perspective to concrete contemporary issues; 

• Explore novel theoretical and methodological approaches to re-think and addresses contemporary global challenges.

 

 

Program

 

The course will be integrated with the 2015 Arne Næss Chair Symposium, which is titled “The Cultural Evolution and the Welfare of Nations.” Students enrolled in the course will also be required to attend the Symposium on Thursday, October 1, 17:30-20:00. More information about the symposium will be posted as soon as it is available. 

 

In addition to lectures, the course will involve a significant amount of class discussion. There will be time allocated for student group work, in which students will be assigned to a small group and asked to discuss a topic or case study from lecture and present the outcome of that discussion to the rest of the class.  The final two days of the course will be devoted primarily to student presentation on topics related to the final essay that will be due at end of the course.  During these presentations, students will receive feedback from their peers and lecturers on their chosen essay topics.

 

The language of instruction will be English.

 

Course Lecturers

 

The course will be based on the lectures of leading international scholars in evolutionary science and their dialogue with Norwegian cultural historians, philosophers, political scientists, systems theorists, and economists.  

 

Visiting Faculty:

 

David Sloan Wilson, Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University and Arne Næss Professor at the University of Oslo in 2015.  His latest publications include Does Altruism Exist? (2014). David Sloan Wilson will be in residence at the University of Oslo as Arne Næss Chair in Global Justice and the Environment.

 

Robert Frank, the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. Frank is known for his seminal study The Darwin Economy (2011) and for his columns in The New York Times. 

 

Peter Turchin, Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut. His publications include The War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires (2007).

Local Faculty:

 

Katharine Browne, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Novel Tech Ethics in the Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada and affiliated scholar at the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN) at the University of Oslo.

 

Dag Hessen, Professor of Biology at the University of Oslo, the author of many studies of ecosystems, especially in the Arctic regions.

 

Atle Midttun, Professor at the Institute of Economic Organization and Innovation at the Norwegian Business School (BI), Oslo. His latest publications include, Corporate Social Responsibility and Beyond (2013).

 

Ola T. Westengen, Associate Professor in agricultural development at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and an affiliated researcher at the Center for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo.

 

Nina Witoszek, cultural historian and Research Professor at the Center for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo. She is the author of, among others, The Origins of the Regime of Goodness: Remapping the Norwegian Cultural History (2012).
 

 

Credits

Policies regarding how credits are to be awarded vary across disciplines and institutions. As such, and because of the interdisciplinary nature of the course, the number of credits to be awarded for this course is to be determined by the student’s home institution. We advise prospective students to speak with their PhD coordinators about the issue of credits prior to their participation in the course.


Fees

 

No course fees apply. Lunches—and two light evening meals on October 1 and 2—will be provided to all participants. Course participants will have to cover the cost of their travel to, and accommodation in, Oslo.