Week 1: Know thyself first
Opening lecture, why the course starts with you, not with the people around you
22 February 2027
An old idea, dressed in a lot of different clothes over the centuries: you cannot reliably read other people’s state, intentions or needs while you’re not tracking your own. Presence, emotional discipline and empathy aren’t separate skills stacked on top of each other; the first is what makes the other two possible.
Outline#
- what the course is for, and why it isn’t a soft-skills or etiquette class
- presence: noticing your own attention before it’s gone
- emotional discipline: the gap between feeling something and acting on it
- empathy and resilience as things you practise, not traits you have
- a first preview of what’s coming: Goffman’s civil inattention, Hall’s proxemics, Oldenburg’s third place: all of them ask you to read someone else’s state, which is exactly why this week is about your own first
- what to bring to next week
Why start here#
Every framework this semester gets glossed properly on the readings page the week it’s introduced. None of it works as a checklist applied cold; it works as something you notice happening, which depends on your own attention actually being available to notice with. That’s the entire argument for Week 1.
Teaching team
- Marisol Quaye, convenor