Theme '08-'09: Connections
UT Arlington’s OneBook selection for 2008-2009 is The History of Love, a novel by Nicole Krauss. Of the themes that inform this novel – identity, survival, imagination, language, loneliness, love – we have chosen connections as the focus of the Conversations ‘08 – ‘09. A book that tells several separate stories using multiple narrators, History ultimately argues for an inter-connected world, as the lives of very different people converge in unexpected ways.
Throughout the academic year, curricular and co-curricular activities and events will examine different kinds of connections and the issues associated with them. For example:
- Personal/psychological:
- How are our identities shaped by our connections to family, friends, communities, jobs?
- What happens when those connections break down?
- Societal:
- How are societies connected by government, politics, customs, laws?
- What connects different regions, countries, and continents: common interests? commerce? religions? economic practices? environmental issues?
- How can we connect with people and groups different from ourselves? What prevents us from doing so?
- How can houses, offices, and public spaces be designed to promote connections among people? Between people and nature?
- Intellectual and creative connections:
- How is the process of making connections in the arts different from that in science? Do engineers think differently than poets? Make differnt kinds of connections?
- How do stories connect us? How do the arts – music, film, dance, theatre, the visual arts – function to break down the barries that separate us?
- Scientific applications:
- How are connections mapped in the brain?
- How do infants (children, adults) learn to make connections – linguistically? physically? conceptually?
- University life:
- What does it mean to be connected to the university?
- Where are connections most likely to occur – in classes? residence halls? social spaces?
- How can those connections be fostered?