For my hack I hacked my philosophy lecture by using hermeneutics. As a sustainability major I tend to look at history through a environmentally minded lens. These pictures demonstrate how westward expansion and the seemingly endless supply of resources that are for our use are in fact ethically ingrained into the American way of thinking. In my philosophy class Professor Atterton called to our attention the fact that when the dustbowl hit people just figured they could continue to move west and use the resources available there. This mentality posses a problem in modern day society, we must rethink the anthropocentric ethics we hold if we hope to sustain human life on earth.  Jeff Hoyos

Today, I was reading a book for my literature class titled, Ways of Seeing by John Berger. Whenever I read a book, I never can really focus, and I always get distracted. On this page, there is a paragraph that is talking about a painting that says, “Now it hangs in a room by itself. The room is like a chapel. The drawing is behind a bullet-proof perspex” (Berger 23). This part was what got me distracted, and I started to think about history. I started to think about how weird it is that people like looking at paintings and drawings that were made years and centuries ago and how people treat art with care and basically like royalty. I also started to think about museums and how they are filled with things from the past. This reminded me of how Professor Blum was saying that we are haunted by history, which we are! I think it is really funny that we are surrounded by so much history that we do not really notice until we actually stop and think about it.

As I was listening to a playlist my friend made me, I happened to look at the album cover for the song Fernando Pando by The Virgins. Located in the bottom right of the cover is the “Parental Advisory – Explicit Content” sign. Obviously this relates to our discussion on what explicit content is and if censorship should exist in a modern world. Should I not be able to listen to a great song because someone else has deemed the content explicit?

As I walked to class a few days ago, I stopped right in front of this building and I took a good look at it. I reflected on what Professor Blum had said about history haunting us in our every day lives and this couldn’t be a better example. Every day we walk around campus and we pride ourselves on the design of our buildings. SDSU is known for its Spanish Colonial style of its buildings. We pride ourselves on and exploit the styles and ideas of people from another country! Think about it, how many times have you ever heard anyone say “I love American architecture!” ?

this was my way of taking what we learned in the classroom and sharing it with someone else. That person was my mom. We have been Hellogoodbye fans for years but the other day I showed her what we did in class and we were able to talk about ways we want to think more critically about the world around us.

The 20th Century was the birth of modern America: Electrification, highways, agriculture, and War. Electricity changed the American workplace forever, employees could now work longer hours due to the soft yellow glow of light-bulbs. The times of quite evenings vanished and a flourishing night-life of leisure and relaxation took place. An influx of (more) affordable cars/trucks spurred the need for public highways and government infrastructure. Commercial agriculture exploded onto the scene, changing the way Americans fed themselves. World War I and World War II proved to the world the growing might of America.

The 20th century was a time of explosive change and growth. Twenty-first century America has slowed down considerably, life has become too complex and cumbersome. What if we brought back the attitude of the 20th century, that innovative drive and passion? (Leave out the sexist, racist, and other negative-ists)

As I walking out of class the other day, I noticed these tiles on the ground outside the library. Some were in memory of loved ones and some were of graduates and people who contributed to SDSU. It hit me then that even through the architecture of my own school I am being haunted by the past, just as Prof. Blum lectured on. Though I do not know any of these people, myself as well as thousands of other students and faculty, walk over their names not realizing that they are essentially stepping onto pieces of history everyday.

I remember how Professor Blum was talking about how we were haunted by history. As a music major I am constantly haunted and harassed by history because I have to practice pieces by dudes that have been long dead, such as Johann Sebastian Bach. He made these cello suites between 1717 and 1729. Pretty much this whole department echoes with the sound of dead people music.
#stillhaunted2015

Hermeneutics is defined during Professor Blum’s lecture as “Acknowledging interpretive frameworks; theories of how we make sense of the world.” Through my lenses, technology has rapidly advanced to modern day society. It has consumed our lives forcing us to use it everyday just to get by. For example, to contact people, I had to email them using my laptop and to submit my hack, I had to take a photo with my phone. It is now becoming a life where we are relying on technology excessively.