Compact Seminar: "Work and Play: The Problem and Promise of Leisure" with Sneha Tharayil and Kirsten Hall

What is the role of leisure in a workaday world? How do we distinguish entertainment from leisure or play? How did people before us think about work and leisure? Humans are hardwired for play, but the lines between play, leisure, and entertainment are blurred at just the moment when entertainment is at an all-time high. In this seminar led by Ph.D. students and AI Graduate Fellows, Kirsten Hall and Sneha Tharayil, we will explore texts both new and old to rethink and reform our ideas of work and play.

Week One: The Paradox of Work and Leisure

Week Two: Free Time and Consumption

Week Three: Case Studies

RSVP today, and we hope to see you there! Snacks and refreshments are provided.

Kirsten Hall is a PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin studying eighteenth-century British literature. Her research looks at the way Enlightenment writers engage with the changing conditions of religious practice and belief and with the classical Roman and Greek past. More broadly, she is interested in how studying literature, especially what was written in the eighteenth century, illuminates what is happening to us right now. She has published on a range of literary topics, and you can read her work at The Weekly Standard, The New Atlantis, and Thinking in Public. In her leisure time, she enjoys playing flute and tennis and spending time with friends.

Sneha Tharayil is a PhD student in STEM Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Her past experiences as a Catholic school STEM and Language Arts teacher, as well as interning with NASA (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) led her to develop a keen interest in pre-college engineering education. Her primary research interests center around the use of socially-conscious pedagogies and curricula, like project-based service learning and community engagement, in K-12 engineering education. In her elusive spare time, she enjoys just spending time with her three wonderful siblings, playing board games, or occasionally dabbling in some (very) amateur painting.