By Saige Heitman
How often do you hear someone say that they “don’t have a science brain,” or someone else claim that “humanities don’t interest them”? These assumptions are quite common, yet it is rare for people to try and reverse this pidgeon-holed way of thinking.
But English professor Sowon Park and neuroscience professor Kenneth Kosik merged these divergent fields in their class “Literature and the Human Mind” which they taught at UC Santa Barbara this past winter.
A conceptual divide between science and humanities in our current education system may allow for students to better focus on their singular field of work, but it doesn’t leave much room for exploration into new realms of knowledge.
So when Kosik and Park worked together to combine their subjects of neuroscience and literature, it attracted students from a wide spectrum of majors — 25 to be exact, from biochemists to dance majors, and everything in-between. The class content was seen through many perspectives, creating a diverse learning environment.
As a Film and Media Studies major, I was not accustomed to learning this type of content, but Kosik and Sowon made sure the information they taught was broad enough for all majors to understand.
Sowon Park is an English professor and co-instructor of the interdisciplinary course, “Literature and the Human Mind.“
The course began by defining the difference between scientific knowledge and non-scientific knowledge, shedding light on the benefits of each before showing how they can help one another.
Kosik explained that although poetry may not be able to prove anything, it was not designed to, just as science was not designed to provoke imagination or emotion. Yet when looked at together, these forms of knowledge can inspire questions that may have never been asked before.
Kosik taught the first couple lectures, giving the class basic knowledge in neuroscience and the anatomy of the brain, and asking unsolved questions such as: Are persons their brain? Can we locate memories? Then Park took charge, providing the class with pieces of literature that could be analyzed using this new knowledge about the brain.
The literature consisted mainly of fictional stories, pinpointing concepts such as memory, language, habits, the unconscious mind, and emotions. We read a variety of stories, including Innocence by Penelope Fitzgerald, Look at Me by Anita Brookner, and Tony Takitani by Haruki Murakami. These pieces of literature allowed us to examine unique behaviors and in turn apply them to our own lives.
One especially interesting topic, that stuck with me, was about the power of language. We discussed that in reference to a biography of Shin-Dong-hyuk who escaped from working in North Korean labor camps. The labor camps never taught their prisoners words such as happiness, joy, love and friendship, and because they didn’t have words to describe these emotions, the prisoners never experienced them at all.
In class, we then discussed the importance of language, and its influence on our psyches. We asked questions like: Does language shape our reality, or vice versa? How does language influence our actions and emotions? Shin’s story stuck with me because it proved how strongly our brains are impacted by our environment, and the limitations of language. There were many other stories like this — some fiction, and some fact — but they all facilitated deep thinking about the human brain and its connection to our behavior.
Kenneth Kosik is a neuroscience professor and co-instructor of the interdisciplinary course, “Literature and the Human Mind.”
Innocence by Penelope Fitzgerald especially resonated with me. It is about a dwarf in Ridolfi, Italy who is sheltered from the real world. Her parents ensure her disillusionment about the world by forbidding her to leave the house, and only allowing other dwarfs inside to play with her. One day her friend begins to grow into a normal sized human, and the Ridolfi girl’s parents decide it is best to sever the friend’s legs so that she fits in with the rest of the dwarfs. This horrific story portrays the consequences of sheltered learning, and how reality can be warped based on our upbringing in the world.
This story proves the importance of interdisciplinary learning, showing us that when we are unaware of knowledge outside our experience, our whole reality is altered because of the absence of this additional knowledge of which we are unaware.
Every other piece of literature in the course had a similar effect, forcing those in the class to look introspectively into our own behaviors and why we might act the way we do. This benefited me not only as a student, but as a human being, and provided me with useful knowledge about myself and others.
Saige Heitman is a third-year transfer student at UC Santa Barbara who is majoring in Film and Media Studies. He wrote this article for his Writing Program class, Journalism for Web and Social Media.