Order and Chaos across Disciplines

 

Prof. Guy P. Raffa                                                                                        TC 357 (38415)

HRH 3.114B; 471-5531                                                                             TTH 11-12:15

guyr@uts.cc.utexas.edu                                                                             Calhoun 221

Office Hours: TTH 12:30-1:30, W 2-3,

and by appointment

 

"Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech that the First Amendment protects."

(a member of the three-judge panel in Philadelphia that struck down the Communications Decency Act)

 

 "One could sketch a history of civilizations according to the various ways in which they represent order and chaos to themselves."

(Cesare Segre)

 

            While the aims of this course are less ambitious than the historical project imagined by Cesare Segre, a prominent Italian intellectual, its focus will enable us to consider the evolution of ideas of order and chaos and their place in contemporary culture.  After examining the traditional chaos-order paradigm in the creation myths of antiquity and the Middle Ages (Hesiod, Cicero, Augustine, Bernardus Silvestris), we will study influential challenges to this tradition from the so-called "New Science" of Chaos Theory (Prigogine and Stengers, Lorenz).  We will then read a selection of interdisciplinary material on the creative opportunities offered by this (post)modern conception of chaos (and its relationship to order) as well as certain qualifications and objections that have been put forth.  In the final weeks of the semester, as you gather material for your research project, we will explore the aesthetic dimensions of chaos studies by discussing Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco's exhilarating romp through the centuries and across disciplinary boundaries.  The course will culminate with a mini-symposium, in which you will present your research; you will then use questions and comments from the other "participants" to make final revisions on your formal term paper (12-20 pp. with full documentation).  This research project--presentation and paper--will account for 40% of the final grade, with the remaining 60% evenly distributed between a short essay (4-6 pp.), a midterm exam, and class participation.

 

The following texts, as well as the course packet, are available in the bookstore:

 

Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days

Bernardus Silvestris, Cosmographia

N. Katherine Hayles, Chaos Bound

Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order out of Chaos

Edward Lorenz, The Essence of Chaos

Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum

 

The course packet contains: Italo Calvino, "Crystals"; Cicero, De inventione (2-11); Augustine, City of God (870-879); Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus ("Introduction: Rhizome"); René Girard, "Disorder and Order in Mythology"; Kenneth Arrow, "The Economy as Order and Disorder"; Paul Friedrich, The Language Parallax ("The Order-to-Chaos Continuum"); Stephen H. Kellert, In the Wake of Chaos (148-168); Alexander J. Argyros, A Blessed Rage for Order (307-322); William R. Paulson, The Noise of Culture (172-185)

Jan. 20: Controlling Chaos: Introductions

 

1. ANCIENT CHAOS: CREATION STORIES

 

Jan. 22: Primeval Chaos and the Post-industrial City: Italo Calvino's "Crystals" (packet)

 

Jan. 27: Chaos and Myth: Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days

 

Jan. 29: Foundational Order: Cosmogony, Civilization, Religion (Ovid on handout, Cicero and Augustine in packet)

 

Feb. 3: Chaotic Matter in the Middle Ages: Bernardus Silvestris, Cosmographia, 1-90

              (Intro and Megacosmos)

 

Feb. 5: Cosmographia, 91-127 (Microcosmos)

 

Feb. 10: Short essay due; Strategies for reading scientific texts in unit 2.

 

 

2. RETHINKING CHAOS IN SCIENCE AND NATURE

 

Feb. 12: Chaos and Order in Classical Science: Prigogine and Stengers, Order out of Chaos, 1-55

 

Feb. 17: Energy and Thermodynamics: Order out of Chaos, 57-176

 

Feb. 19: Fluctuations and Complexity: Order out of Chaos, 177-209

 

Feb. 24: Time and Irreversibility: Order out of Chaos, 213-313

 

Feb. 26: Possibilities and Limitations of "Chaos Theory": Hayles, Chaos Bound, 91-114

               Apparent Randomness: Lorenz, Essence of Chaos, 3-24

 

March 3: A Chaotic World: Essence of Chaos, 25-110

 

March 5: Chaos and Strange Attractors: Essence of Chaos, 111-160

 

March 10: Fractal Chaos: Essence of Chaos, 161-179; Hayles, Chaos Bound, 143-174

 

March 12: Midterm Examination

 

March 16-20: Spring Break (consider possible research topics; start Eco novel)

 

 

3. IMPLICATIONS AND APPLICATIONS OF CHAOS THEORIES

 

March 24: Literature and Critical Theory: Chaos Bound, 1-60.

 

March 26: Chaos in Religious Anthropology, Economics, and Linguistics (Girard, Arrow, and Friedrich in packet)

 

March 31: Gender Ideology and Narrative Theory (Kellert and Argyros in packet)

 

April 2: Chaos and Postmodernism: Chaos Bound, 265-295; Paulson (in packet)

 

 

4. AN ALLEGORY OF ORDER AND CHAOS: COMPUTER AND KABBALA

 

April 7: Eco, Foucault's Pendulum, 3-134

 

April 9: FP, 135-227

 

April 14: FP, 227-385

 

April 16: FP, 386-472

 

April 21: FP, 473-533; Deleuze and Guattari, "Rhizome" (packet)

 

 

5. CREATIVE CHAOS IN THE CLASSROOM

 

April 23: Organization of Symposium

 

April 28: Chaos / Order symposium I

 

April 30: Chaos / Order symposium II

 

May 5: Chaos / Order symposium III

 

May 7: Final papers due; evaluations.