Are you interested in how consciousness is understood and portrayed in psychoanalysis, philosophy, literature, film, poetry and fiction?

Is consciousness limited to humans?

Would you like to understand how dreams, altered consciousness, and personal and social trauma affect and relate to consciousness?

Charlie Chubb
Professor of Cognitive Sciences

Dr. Chubb's main research interest is in understanding the processes by which the visible world is constructed by the brain. In collaboration with UCI colleagues, he is developing new experimental and statistical methods for analyzing the functional architecture of human perception and cognition.

Dr. Terada's research and writings are on the history of philosophy, psychoanalysis and 19th and 20th century lyric. Dr. Terada's book Feeling in Theory (2001) was awarded the Rene Wellek Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association for 2001-2. She is currently working onher third book: Looking Away: Phenomenality and Dissatisfaction, Kant to Adorno and also posts frequently to her blog "Work Without Dread: Critical Theory B-sides and Small Pieces".

Carrie Noland
Associate Professor of French and Italian

Dr. Noland's field of interest is European and American avant-garde literary and artistic production. She is co-editor of a new book, Migrations of Gesture, that examines the cultural significance of gestures as human expression. The book is an interdisciplinary collection of essays. Her first book, Poetry at Stake: Lyric Aesthetics and the Challenge of Technology, is a study of the lyric poetry of the French avant-garde. Dr. Noland teaches French literature and critical theory.

Michelle Cho
Teaching Assistant from Comparative Literature

Michelle Cho's UCI home base is the Department of Comparative  Literature, but she also  researches and writes about film and the  impact of modernization in East Asia. She is especially interested in  the ways that films can help us think about identity, time, emotion,  perception, and culture.  She is a big fan of cats, the ocean, and  Freud.

Course codes:

Click here for WebSOC

Course times:

• Lectures on MWF 2-2:50 pm
• Discussions on Tuesdays at 8 am, 10 am, 1 pm or 3 pm (sign up for one)

Course websites:

• check back later

Enrollment requirements:

• Freshman year student
• Satisfactory completion of the UC Entry Level Writing Requirement
• Concurrent enrollment in Writing 39B for fall or winter quarter
• Commitment to the three-quarter sequence of courses


Breadth fulfilled:

• Category III (1 course)
• Category IV (2 courses)
• Category I (equivalent of Writing 39C - must take all three quarters to earn Writing credit)

Quarterly themes:

Fall - Dr. Chubb
• Consciousness

Winter - Dr. Terada
• Consciouness and Uncounsciousness

Spring - Dr. Noland
• Consciousness in Literature and Art

Selected topics:

Fall
• Is consciousness "hardware" or "software in the brain?
• How did consciousness evolve?
• Consciousness and Free Will

Winter
• Freud's view of consciousness
• Dreams
• Unconsciousness
• Trauma
• Modern models of consciousness

Spring
• How poets and philosophers depict consciousness
• Stream of consciousness
• Altered consciousness
• Hallucination, fantasy, obsession
• Meditation