Faustian Bargain
“My Education Matter” by Caroline G.
Over this term, I took the class Faustian Bargain. In the course, we learned about many things, including Donut Economics, Project Drawdown, climate change, and of course the concept of the Faustian Bargain. The main inspiration in choosing this project was that in our Project Drawdown reading, we learned about the importance of educating girls globally, and how it would make a positive impact on climate change. Additionally, we learned that 62 million girls are denied schooling throughout the world. Project Drawdown ranks educating girls as the sixth most effective effort to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. When women are educated they tend to have less children and they take better care of the children they have, which in sum can reduce emissions. Additionally, women who are well educated can also help their economy in many ways. The impact I want my project to have on people is that currently, girls across the world are not getting enough education, and that's simply not okay. My artwork went pretty smoothly with a couple of mess-ups but they were easy to fix and I'm pleased with the final product. I am titling my art piece “My Education Matters.”
Dr. Frankenstein’s Ecology” by Kt H.
In the class Faustian Bargain we discussed ecology, economics, A.I., philosophy of science and technology, as well as reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Overshoot by William R. Catton. My project is about the Faustian Bargain of ecological issues, and I was inspired to do this project after we learned about Victor Frankenstein’s Creature and ecological issues. I hope that my audience takes away the true depth of our ecological issues, specifically deforestation, overfishing, poor agricultural practices and the story we are telling ourselves. Instead of living the story of Earth being a tool for our use, we can change by living the story of humans being a part of nature. The project was originally going to be about moral philosophy, but when we discussed ecology more and more in class I decided to make the project about ecological issues. I would say that the making of this project came out rather well, we didn’t run into any unexpected problems, and the whole thing overall went smoothly. For my project, I decided to make some of the pieces already out of the holes and some already in. for example, the horse piece symbolizes carbon emissions, and it is taken out of the board to be put in, so the board represents the Earth just as we putting carbon emissions into the atmosphere rather than taking them out.
“Unethical Medical Experiments that Shape Today’s World” by Giselle L.
Faustian Bargain is an English class where students studied relevant ecological issues, studied the writings of Mary Shelly, and were able to explore their interest in Faustian Bargains in today’s world and how many of those ‘bargains’ all are intertwined. This celebration project explains two unethical human experiments and how they shape today’s world. I specifically chose the Guatemalan STD experiments because they were just recently discovered in 2010, and there have been investigations and lawsuits on them. The head surgeon in the experiments, John C. Cutler, was a well-known surgeon for the U.S public health medical department and was also part of the unethical Tuskegee syphilis experiments. I also chose to focus on CRISPR- Case9 as it is still relevant in today’s world.
Leading to this project, I was inspired by one particular quote from Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds: “Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?” ( Page 39). At the bottom of the page, there is a footnote that asks if the ends ever justify the means in research. I want the audience to look at how these experiments directly affect them. I took the research from my Faust In Today’s World paper and turned it into a script for my video. Once I finished recording it I added videos that give more evidence to my video.
“Chemical Dependency” by Ryleigh K.
My class was about Faustian bargains, and we read Overshoot, about climate change, Frankenstein, and the story of the Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe.
For my C.O.L I am researching three types of dangerous unregulated chemicals in the United States First PFOA/C8, which is the chemical that the movie Dark Waters is based on, Polychlorinated biphenyls, and ethylene oxide. Watching Dark Waters at the beginning of this class inspired me to research these chemicals for my C.O.L. The interesting and terrifying part about this research is that there are so many chemicals as dangerous if not more dangerous than C8 in use in everyday products, and these chemicals are unregulated in the United States.
I want my audience to learn about these chemicals and be aware of the harm they can cause. Our government does not care enough to regulate them. As well, it’s alarming that people care more about the money they make than the harm they cause.
At first, I was planning on making a poster board, but since celebrations are going online this quarter, I had to change and make it an online presentation. Not really a big deal, but the website I am using can be a little frustrating. Other than that, the project was mainly researching these chemicals, which I find really interesting!
Insatiable Birds by Clara Y.
My class, Faustian bargain, asked the question, “What is a Faustian bargain?” We determined it was a bargain made to gain something substantial like wealth, glory, knowledge, etc. but at a price that was much steeper and not equal to the gain. We examined how Faustian bargains play out in literature like Frankenstein and in real-life issues like climate change. My project is about the Faustian bargain of “endless” consumerism and the resulting detrimental resource drawdown. I wanted to make a visual representation of these concepts in hopes of representing them in a new and abstract way. I used drinking birds as stand-ins for the nature of consumerism, though their symbolism is open to interpretation. I used a glass of water that is drained to the point of being empty to represent the finite resources of our earth. It is my hope that viewers will come away with food for thought and a better understanding of the consequences of our society’s current model.
“Gene Editing: A Dystopian Frontier” by Corban B.
The Faustian Bargain class read the books Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, and Overshoot by William R. Catton Jr., and connected these works to our current era. My project is a cautionary essay about the ethical problems and dilemmas of bioengineering as it relates to human beings. The topic of creation ethics was very prominent in Frankenstein, and I felt I could dive deeply into that as well as bioethics. I want the readers to take away a sense of caution, and a deeper understanding of the negative impacts bioengineering could have. I was inspired to write this essay when reading Frankenstein and first thinking about the topic of creation ethics. I then researched a few articles about gene editing and bioengineering. Finally, I incorporated the research into a cohesive paper. I hope that everyone who listens to my project will take wisdom and caution away from it.