Timely seminar?
Aug. 15th, 2007 09:04 pmI'd been sort of procrastinating talking to MT about my supporting area thoughts. She's our imagination expert, and I'm thinking about individual differences in imaginativeness. I say "sort of" procrastinating because fall term doesn't start for nearly six weeks, so it doesn't much matter. Anyway, out of the blue today I got this department-wide e-mail from her:
Fall term I'm paying for out of pocket. This class would be about $2000; if I add Mark Johnson's that would bring me up to $3500, which seems like too much. Unless, hmm, could I figure out how to relate his class to imagination as well?
This Fall I will be teaching a graduate seminar in which we will be discussing new research investigating the relations between mind wandering, fictional worlds, creativity, working memory, and inhibition. This set of topics crosscuts traditional areas of psychology. Our readings will include work in cognitive, developmental and social psychology by Smallwood & Schooler, Suddendorf & Corballis, Wilson & Gilbert, Mason & McCrae, Harris, and Bristol & Viskontas, among others. There will be an emphasis on evaluating methodologies used to address questions in the study of imagination; for example we will explore the possibilities for using Second Life as a vehicle for research.How timely! I'm all excited. I'm going to talk with her about it on Friday. It sounds more technical than I was thinking about, but I suppose that's not a bad thing.
Fall term I'm paying for out of pocket. This class would be about $2000; if I add Mark Johnson's that would bring me up to $3500, which seems like too much. Unless, hmm, could I figure out how to relate his class to imagination as well?