Trivial Pursuits: What is an intellectual community?

Professor Aarthi Vadde’s, English 490 course “Trivial Pursuits” from Fall 2016 explored theories of reading and knowledge production.  This course was created to help students answer naysayers who question how certain majors will lead to employment and to explain why the majors in question should be taken seriously. 

Professor Vadde introduced her students to theories of reading and knowledge production, which took both amateur pleasures and professional aspirations seriously.  The works featured throughout the course explored how trivial pursuits become entangled in serious projects for educating oneself, learning how to live with others, and making sense of dominant cultural values.

The class culminated in a group project organized around:

“What is an intellectual community?  What roles do work, play, study, passion, and exchange play in the formation of an intellectual community?”

Take a few moments to review the digital dialogue from “Trivial Pursuits”:

In Conversation