Speech

Design a poster whose primary goal is to start conversations rather than persuade people. It can be funny, provocative, weird, or beautiful. Display it in a public space where posters are permitted, and also post it online and wherever others are likely to encounter it. Find some way to discern whether people stop, react, comment, or talk about it. In your reflection, discuss what kinds of speech attract attention. Did people understand your ideas? What informed your choices about the design? Did you aim to attract or avoid controversy?

*Avoid profanity, threats, personal attacks, or anything that violates campus rules.

Create a piece of sidewalk chalk writing or art that is intended to make strangers think or talk or do something out of the ordinary (follow the campus rules for this) Then spend some time visiting your chalk site. If you see someone else's chalk, feel free to change or modify it, and they are free to do the same. Reflect on the ethics of temporary public speech, graffiti, and the value of public art. 

*Avoid profanity, threats, personal attacks, or anything that violates campus rules.

Interview someone with a substantial public online following. Ask them how they grew their following, whether they make enough to support themselves with this work, and why they chose to become an influencer. Record the interview as evidence. Try to engage the influencer in a generate genuine philosophical discussion, like the ones we have in class. Why do you think they decided to talk to you? 

Bonus: The student who interviews the person with the largest public audience receives one bonus point.

Create a piece of public communication related to one of the themes of the course. This can be a substack, short video, podcast, social media something, poster, whatever!  Your task is simply to reach as many people as possible. Document your audience using analytics, publication statistics, or some another reasonable measure of eyeballs and ears. In your reflection, consider what helped or hindered your ability to reach people. Did popularity require simplification? Humor? Controversy? Emotion? Did reaching more people require changing how you communicated? Do you think that censoring your speech would have made your audience worse off because they would have missed out on what you had to say? 

Bonus: The student whose project reaches the largest audience receives one bonus point.