Our Programs

Partner: Art History

This summer collaboration engages students in organizing, digitizing, and interpreting the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum’s archival materials as part of its centennial celebration. Through training in archival research, stadial architecture, and experiential design, students develop thematic narratives and visitor experience concepts for the upcoming “Coliseum Forever” exhibition. The project serves as the foundation for a long-term USC–Coliseum partnership culminating in a public-facing experiential exhibition for the 2028 Olympic Games.

Partner: History

Part I: Histories of Race and Migration in the Panama Canal (Maymester)

This immersive Maymester course examines the racial, political, and migratory histories surrounding the construction of the Panama Canal through on-site study in Panama and archival research. Students investigate U.S. imperialism, West Indian labor, and community memory while visiting historically significant locations and archival institutions. The course concludes with a collaborative digital mapping project visualizing the social and spatial histories of the former Canal Zone.

Part II: Black Spartacus – The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture

This course explores the Haitian Revolution by examining the life, leadership, and philosophy of Toussaint Louverture in dialogue with other Enlightenment thinkers. Students analyze Toussaint’s unique synthesis of political ideals, military strategy, and ethical commitments, culminating in a collaborative creative project inspired by his legacy. The final narrative or performance-based project is presented to the USC community.

Partner: English

This interdisciplinary course situates Darwin’s theory of natural selection within the intellectual, experiential, and scientific contexts that shaped his evolutionary thinking. Students engage directly with Darwin’s writings and the major scientific movements that have interpreted and expanded his work, culminating in either a scientific or narrative design project. The course cultivates fluency in Darwinian thought while encouraging critical and creative engagement with its contemporary implications.

Partner: Classics

In collaboration with Dr. Lucas Herchenroeder, this course traces the Olympic Games from their origins in ancient Greece to their modern global manifestation. Combining historical scholarship with experiential learning, the course integrates lectures and readings alongside embodied mind-body practices that re-enact ancient mythic traditions. The program culminates in a final project connected to the LA28 Olympic Games, encouraging students to examine the cultural, symbolic, and performative dimensions of sport across time.

Partner: Marshall

This interdisciplinary collaboration with Nik Bhatia examines the nature of money through its historical evolution, functional role, and symbolic imagination. Students engage with economic theory, philosophical inquiry, and contemporary financial innovations through guest speakers and experiential learning activities. The course culminates in a final project focused on the emergence of Bitcoin as a transformative form of monetary expression in the digital age.

Partner: History, Spatial Sciences, Peaks & Professors

This urban hiking series is grounded in recent USC faculty research and spatial history methodologies, uncovering the layered Indigenous, ecological, and historical landscapes that lie beneath modern Los Angeles. The inaugural hike in Spring 2025, Jouney to Yaanga, followed The Old Salt Road (an ancient Kizh–Gabrieleño trade route) walking from USC to the historical village site of Yaanga, with guided interpretation from historian Philip Ethington. Along the way, students engaged directly with the “Mapping Los Angeles Landscape History” project to explore how buried geographies continue to shape the region’s present-day terrain and cultural memory.

Partner: Office of Religious & Spiritual Life

1. Reclaiming Curiosity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Fall, 2025)

This program invites students to critically examine what it means to be human in an era increasingly shaped by non-biological intelligence. Drawing upon ancient human practices and epistemologies—including Socratic dialogue, contemplative traditions, and mythic systems—students explore the tension between technological automation and human agency. Participants culminate the experience by developing a human-centered project that thoughtfully integrates artificial intelligence, foregrounding ethical reflection, creativity, and intellectual autonomy in the design process.

Partner: Office of Religious & Spiritual Life

1. The Quest for Sanctuary: Faery Tales, Fantasy, & the Language of Imagination (Fall, 2023)
This program investigates faery tales as emotionally resonant spaces of refuge, transformation, and self-discovery. Through storytelling sessions, author visits, and reflective exercises, students explore how fantasy functions as a universal imaginative language and a tool for psychological healing.

2. Paracosm: Surviving the Trials of Reality by Creating Worlds of Fantasy (Spring, 2024)
This six-week program explores paracosms—self-created fantasy worlds—as sources of resilience, identity formation, and creative insight. Students study the imaginative worlds of major authors and build their own internal landscapes, learning to use world-building as a practice of sanctuary, renewal, and personal meaning.

3. The Power of Myth: Reimagining Our Unifying Narratives for Transformation (Spring, 2025)
This six-week workshop examines how myths and collective stories shape meaning, identity, and social possibility during times of upheaval. Through collaborative inquiry and creative projects, students explore how transformative narratives emerge, decline, and can be reimagined to address contemporary challenges.

Partner: Office of Religious & Spiritual Life

1. PART I — Gratitude (Fall, 2022)
This experiential program investigates gratitude as a generative force for purpose, connection, and personal fulfillment. Through dialogue, shared experiences, and a final maker project, students activate gratitude as a transformative practice in their daily lives.

2. PART II — Empathy (Spring, 2023)
This program explores empathy as a biological capacity, aesthetic experience, and cultural practice essential to human connection. Students engage with film, literature, science, and creative exercises to understand empathy’s power, complexity, and role in shaping relationships and communities.

3. PART III — Humility (Fall, 2023)
This six-week journey reframes humility not as self-negation but as a powerful catalyst for curiosity, connection, and insight. Through experiential activities and guest speakers, students encounter humility as a transformative practice that deepens awareness of self and others.

4. PART IV — Acceptance (Spring, 2024)
Focused on radical acceptance, this program examines how accepting oneself, others, and the conditions of life can dissolve internal barriers to freedom and growth. Students practice acceptance as an intentional action that fosters calm, clarity, and meaningful connection.

5. PART V — Joy (Fall, 2024)
This program studies joy as an illuminating and sustaining force connected to purpose, creativity, and communal life. Through shared meals, nature-based engagement, and reflective practices, students learn to access and cultivate joy as both an inner resource and a relational practice.

6. PART VI — Love (Spring, 2025)
This six-week experience explores Love as the most expansive and transformative of the activating forces, encompassing vulnerability, presence, and relational depth. Students examine Love’s many forms and develop practices for integrating Love into their daily lives as a source of meaning, resilience, and ethical action.