April 22, 2013
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Who Are We?
Project 6, that my students are working on right now (well, my Eng110 students anyway), is all about answering the question “Who Am I?” with one answer and many genres (5+) to back up that answer with. To me, this connects to Existentialism. I want to find videos to show while they work on this project this week (it’s due Friday; I’m giving ‘em a week to dive in and complete it)…
So, here are my first attempts. If anyone’s reading this, and they know of a cool one, shoot it my way. Gracias.Video #1 from TED.com:“Oxford philosopher and transhumanist Nick Bostrom examines the future of humankind and asks whether we might alter the fundamental nature of humanity to solve our most intrinsic problems.Nick Bostrom, director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, specializes in the big questions: What does it mean to be human? If we could live forever, would we choose to? Can we improve our human nature with technological enhancements?”It’s quite lofty and full of statistics. Might lose students’ attention with this one?Video #2 from YouTube:This guy is much more the speed of my students, I think.Video #3 from TED: The idea behind this one is cool:
I could have the students watch it and then sum up their lives, or themselves, in 6 words. Whoa!Video #4 from Youtube: AND then there is the female student version that I could show:
Comments (1)
I love the idea of existentialism. It’s like Yoga for the mind. It
simply means, like you said existence over essence. To see more info please visit It doesn’t deny the
existence of a god from what I understand it simply states that if
there be one he has no concerns in mans lives and does not intervene in
the universe and it’s absurdity.