This course focuses on societal thinking, exploring how knowledge and beliefs develop, circulate, and change in public spheres. The course examines ‘thinking societies’ and how they connect the individual with the world around them. The foundational theoretical concepts introduced in the course are utilized to understand key topics including 1) the role of stories and story-telling in development and sense-making, 2) the politics of knowledge production and cultural thinking, 3) the links between social representations, selfhood, identities and histories, 4) how we make sense of the unfamiliar and the implications of encountering difference, 5) the implications of the digital sphere for ‘thinking societies’, connectedness and cohesion, and 6) how societies establish links between common sense, knowledge and truth.