The University of Texas at Austin now has an exciting new option for students who wish to further their academic pursuits: DemTex.

DemTex, short for “Democratic Education at Texas,” is a Senate of College Councils pilot program coordinated through the School of Undergraduate Studies. Through this program, undergraduate students have the opportunity to facilitate their own regularly scheduled, for-credit courses with the approval and supervision of a faculty sponsor. Students are able to create their own syllabus to explore a topic which interests them, and share that with other students at the University.

For the fall 2010 semester, DemTex will offer two courses exploring topics of current interest, Power, Ethics and Destiny in LOST (Mondays at 5pm), andThe Postmodern City (Tuesdays at 5pm). Students will meet one hour per week and receive credit for UGS 122 on a pass/fail basis. (DemTex courses will not count toward degrees.)

Below are the course descriptions:

Power, Ethics and Destiny in LOST: This course provides an introduction to opposing values in the television drama series Lost. It will examine the complex philosophical concepts that take play in the pursuit of a greater understanding of the world in which we live. The course will focus on three different macro-level concepts: (1) power, (2) ethics, and (3) destiny. The examination of power will consist of understanding different power structures, the liquid nature of power and how power is used on the show. The examination of ethics will include a discussion of deontology vs. consequentialism and will focus on how different characters make decisions in dilemmas. The examination of destiny will focus on the constant free will vs. fate theme of the show and will bring together the aforementioned concepts as well.

The Postmodern City: Cities have held many roles throughout the course of history. They began as little huts where furs and spices were traded and have since become centers of imperial bureaucracy and flourishing centers of human activity. Many cities and the people who live in them are metonyms for self-standing ideas and even the entire civilization of which they are a part. Since the end of World War II, life in the world has changed drastically and the inhabitants of these cities which house an increasingly larger percent of the world’s population have changed sympathetically. We will explore through specific examples the ways in which cities (and the people connected to them) view themselves, deal with themselves, and develop themselves as palimpsests and as blank slates of ubiquitous urban experiences in the postmodern world.

Seats are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. To find out more about the courses, availability, and registration, please contact DemTex at utdemtex@gmail.com.