Current Theme (2026-27)
There are limits to human perception. Our eyes can only see a tiny fraction of wavelengths in the visible spectrum, which neuroscientist David Eagleman equates with seeing 0.0035% of reality. Astronomers agree there is a "future visibility limit" beyond which objects will never enter the observable universe. While technology allows humans to perceive beyond the naked eye’s limitations, making ultraviolet, gamma rays, radio waves, infrared radiation, and other wavelengths accessible, we still cannot and do not see much of existence.
Over centuries, though, we have sought additional modes of “sight” and made space for the unseen. Spirituality is rooted in faith, trusting beyond the visible world. Psychedelic drugs have been used to alter perception or consciousness, with potential for what writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley dubbed “sacramental vision.” Economists debate the metaphor of the “invisible hand” where free markets are self-regulating systems destined to create economically optimal outcomes for the public good. We accept that people put forth public faces while also possessing unseen private lives. We interact without wholly knowing each other’s motivations, instead forced to trust what can be observed through evidence, experience, or…vibes.
This year’s Symposium will approach the unseen from a variety of disciplines and approaches. The discourse generated will tackle the topic expansively, interrogating how the unseen informs our understanding of our individual and collective experiences and gives shape to the universe as we know it.
Courses & Faculty
Instructors: Jen Britton, Drexel Climate & Sustainability, and Magdalena Mączyńska, English & Philosophy
When you walk down a city block, you can observe many things: buildings, store fronts, people, cars, maybe the occasional tree. But cities contain a multitude of systems, both physical and social, that are not immediately visible to us: underground infrastructure, paved-over waterways, urban ecosystems, cultural rules and taboos, human workers whose labor makes the city possible. This course looks at the multiple "invisible cities" we traverse every day. We will look at current and historical examples of urban invisibility and consider how boundaries between the visible and the "invisible" — whether physical, political, or cultural — are constructed, enforced, and dismantled. To help us understand the social practices of "unseeing," we will read China Mieville's speculative detective novel The City & The City which portrays two fictional cities whose residents are forbidden from "seeing" each other, even though they occupy the same geographical space. Finally, we will engage in practices of "re-seeing" to bring back into visibility the invisible cities around us.
Instructors: JT Thazhathel, Accounting, and William Rees, Graphic Design
This interdisciplinary course examines how data visualization and graphic design shape what is seen, what is obscured, and what is accepted as truth. Students explore visibility and invisibility as aesthetic, political, cultural, technological, and algorithmic constructs through critical readings, case studies, and hands-on creative work. Through a series of applied projects, students work with real-world datasets to develop both technical fluency and design sophistication. They learn to clean and structure data, build interactive dashboards, and create layered, narrative-driven visualizations. At the same time, the course emphasizes the persuasive power of design, how typography, color, hierarchy, layout, and visual detail influence interpretation, guide attention, and shape meaning. Students analyze how visual choices encode bias, authority, and omission, while also learning to intentionally use these same elements to construct compelling, ethically grounded visual arguments in their own work.
Instructors: Greg Probst, English & Philosophy, and Jessica Creane, Design
Why is it, when we're building something or embarking on a new endeavor, that there always comes a time when it all feels wrong? It's the middle of a project, self-doubt creeps in, and self-criticism flies. How do we keep ourselves from panicking too soon or stalling out? Just as our passions magnetically pull us toward an idea, our good ideas become clouded beyond recognition. This course shines a soft, bright light on this dark night of the soul, inviting students to sit with their resistance to the unknown, naming, investigating, and befriending these unseen forces that play a crucial role in guiding creators down previously hidden pathways. What we lack in self-doubt-killing silver bullets, we make up for in reps, working our creative muscles through intentionally playful and ambiguous creative writing prompts, rapid iteration, and personal reflections.
Instructors: Amanda McMillan Lequieu, Sociology, and Rebecca Clothey, Global Studies & Modern Languages
How do we make ourselves at home in a new place? What does the process of creating - or erasing -community look like? Place, home, and community are core to the human experience but are too often taken for granted…until stability is upended. Crisis, be it a planned move to a new city, a forced migration, or a threat to a long-established community, makes visible the typically invisible social, practical, and emotional labor required of people to renegotiate their own sense of belonging. This course will explore concepts of place attachment, community-building, and belonging for two groups of people: Drexel students and international migrants making their homes in Philadelphia. Students will link their own lived experiences of creating community and a sense of place while at Drexel with research and observations of migrant enclaves in the city. Through interactive assignments, discussions, and field visits, students will build skills of scholarly observation and reflexivity as they make visible the otherwise unseen processes of making oneself 'at home.'
Instructors: Steven P. Weber, Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Brian Daly, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Social media is both seen and unseen. It is seen through the content that consumes our untold hours while the algorithm that deliberately chooses that content to maximize our engagement with (addiction to?) the platform remains unseen. It is seen as content we post and share that we often select as an aspirational version of ourselves while our true feelings, reactions, and mental health challenges often remain unseen. This course will explore the seen and unseen in social media through the dual lenses of technology and psychology.
Instructors: Kathleen Volk Miller, English & Philosophy, and Matthew Kaufhold, Screenwriting
What makes a good ghost story? What elements of story make some ghost tales capture our imaginations for generations? This class will discuss archetypes, recurring themes, the psychological appeal of ghost stories. Through oral and literary texts as well as a film studies approach to various film/television portrayals, we will examine genre/subgenre considerations (horror, comedy, romance, etc.), narrative positioning (are ghosts the main point or just part of the operative world?), what ghosts represent (fear, wish fulfillment, unleashed id, etc.), and the differences between various mediums. Students will tell a ghost story and complete a project that allows focus on an aspect of the genre that most captures their imagination.
Instructors: Sarah Napoli, Sport Business, and Greg Probst, English & Philosophy
We will explore the “unseen” dimensions of sport by examining the lives and institutions that exist beyond the public spotlight. While fans encounter sports and athletes through legacy media, social media content, highlight reels, merchandising, and carefully constructed narratives, those who operate inside of sports experience a more complex reality. Through media analysis, sports documentaries, academic research, and firsthand accounts, we will interrogate how mental health, identity, and performance are shaped by forces still not visible to the public. We will also consider fan psychology and media framing, and will question how perceptions of glamour, success, and fame are entrenched and how they diverge from actual experience. By analyzing what is still hidden, overlooked, or intentionally overlooked in sports, we’ll develop a more critical understanding of sport as a social institution.
Instructors: Ali Kenner, Politics, and Jen Britton, Drexel Climate & Sustainability
This course challenges students to engage with the question "Whose knowledge matters?" Who gets to practice science, and whose knowledge does science respect? The course draws on foundational scholarship in the field of Science and Technology Studies to explore how researchers investigate the unseen, including how researchers bring in unseen knowledge such as oral histories, self-reported symptoms, and noise pollution. Students will explore tensions around knowledge sources, from credentialed expertise to folk science and their own embodied experiences in the world. Some topics to be explored include indigenous knowledges inside and beyond academic institutions; oral histories of marginalized communities; contested illnesses; animal knowledge and its incorporation into scientific research; and sensory experiences of the environment. The course will be designed around collaborative, hands-on activities in the classroom (i.e. plant identification), investigative fieldwork out of the classroom (i.e. sound sketching), and a creative final project, six weeks in the making.
Instructors: Brandy-Joe Milliron, Health Sciences, and Jonathan M. Deutsch, Health Sciences
When Lisa Simpson asked Nelson Muntz, "What's inside you right now?" she was fishing for feelings. His response, "Guts. And black stuff," was literal but true. The unseen inner workings of our bodies contain complex mechanisms that professionals continue to struggle to understand. Including guts and black stuff. This course explores culinary medicine through the lens of “unseen:” the biological, social, and cultural forces shaping health that we cannot directly observe yet routinely act upon. Students will investigate hidden physiological processes influenced by food (e.g., inflammation, glycemic response, cardiometabolic risk, and symptom pathways in cancer care), alongside less visible drivers of eating behavior such as stress, caregiving burden, time scarcity, and food access. Building from core culinary medicine principles, students will translate evidence-based dietary patterns (e.g., anti-inflammatory diets) into practical meals and menus for prevention and management of chronic illness. Through hands-on cooking labs, critical discussion of research evidence, and applied menu development, students will practice “seeing beyond the plate,” evaluating how nutrition guidance is communicated, what assumptions it carries, and how to design culinary strategies that are feasible, culturally responsive, and clinically meaningful.
Instructors: Cyndi Rickards, Criminology & Justice Studies, and Maureen Gonzales, Nursing & Health Professions
This interdisciplinary course, co-facilitated by faculty from Women's Health Nursing and Criminology & Justice Studies departments, examines how what remains unseen in our women’s health care and carceral systems profoundly shapes our understanding of individual lives, collective responsibility, and larger social systems. A central focus of the course is the carceral system, which has been deliberately placed out of public view, arguably to obscure those confined within it and to distance society from its responsibility to incarcerated populations. In parallel, the course explores how women’s health, particularly the health of marginalized women, has historically been ignored, minimized, or rendered invisible within medical, legal, and social institutions.