Tuesday Session 1   

Create your own vibrant blueprints using the 19th century alternative printing process known as the cyanotype. We will learn each step of the cyanotype process – from mixing the chemistry, to coating the paper, creating our design, and then exposing the images under UV light. This course will go over the history of the cyanotype process through brief lecture and then we will utilize the technique to produce our own pieces. We will make a photogram print, blueprint, and photographic print with this method.

This course explores the 15 most authoritarian regimes in the world: China, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Belarus, Eritrea, Iran, Yemen, Chad, Tajikistan, Syria, Central African Republic, North Korea, Myanmar, and Afghanistan. From geography to climate, to demographics, history, politics and government, economy and culture, each country will be analyzed according to a variety of indexes. The instructor welcomes a diversity of political thought.

Stupidity, although universally applied as a pejorative and self-flagellant, can be understood with psychology and humor. Introductory and humorous examples support definitions that consider context, foreseeability intelligence, and risk. We will review theories by Adorno, Bonhoeffer, Cipolla, and others. We will review models like biases of causal attribution and automatic or avoidable overconfidence to understand bad decisions. We will examine more insights into apophenia, scams, gullibility, and when trust is stupid. Lastly, we will aim to lessen bad decisions by examining confirmation bias, what you see is all there is (WYSIATI) rules, and Razors.