Texts & Ideas
In Self and Service, Dr. Bonnie Brown and Dr. Arthur
Hochman's course, students explore aging through readings and
through service-learning with a child or senior citizen. The
course, Brown and Hochman explains, is aimed at answering the
question: "given my major or personal aspirations, how could I use
those talents and aspirations to serve, beyond simply going to work
or graduate school?" Students craft oral and written
histories of themselves and the person they serve; one student
remarked that "the overall experience of my service was really the
most powerful aspect of this class. "Getting to work with my
community partner have me something to look forward to."
Another student echoed that his community partner, "an older
gentleman. . . really taught me a lot" while another commented that
"this class has encouraged me to go above and beyond" in my
service.
Reel America is a course that focuses on a different kind of
narrative text. For many students, movies are a pervasive and
integral part of their entertainment lives. But this course
"offers students a chance to examine cultural artifacts," Dr.
Joseph Colavito explains, "and consider how they are products of
the time in which they are produced. The course functions as
a site of interdisciplinary investigation and interrogation at the
intersection of history and film." Collaborative engagement
also is developed among students as together they examine the role
that films play in their world.
For students in Dr. Harry van der Linden's course, Ethics,
the Good Life, and Society, the questions that confront students
are also personal. "What role should morality play in my
life? Is my pursuit of greater individual wealth just in a world of
so much poverty? Is factory farming cruel and unjust? When is
forgiveness appropriate? Are our wars justly executed?" The
course challenges students to examine some of the fundamental
issues of personal and social morality in both classical texts and
contemporary issues, including the "good life," van der Linden
suggests, and to "to discuss how morality is related to human
flourishing." Grounded in the belief that texts are vital to
challenging our perspectives, all three courses also suggest that
our worldview is made richer through the complications that
reflective engagement with the world offers.
Course Structure
A menu of three-hour courses to be taken from the first year
onward.
Learning Objectives
Some examples of courses currently being offered in
Texts & Ideas include:
Roman Perspectives
Roman Perspectives: Bread for the Masses - This course will examine
civic engagement in the Roman world, both as a pagan and Christian
capital for the West. We will undertake this investigation by
looking at a variety of original sources translated into English.
As we examine the texts of these authors, we will also have the
opportunity to think about how the ideas of the ancient Romans have
influenced cultures from Britain, France, and Spain in the West to
the shores of North Africa to the civilizations of the Eastern
Mediterranean.
Knowledge and Reality
Fundamental philosophical questions about knowledge and reality
will be studied through the analysis of classical and contemporary
texts. Topics may include skepticism, the relationship between
faith and reason, the nature of mind, free will, the nature and
existence of the external world, and the nature and existence of
God. Fundamental philosophical questions about knowledge and
reality will be studied through the analysis of classical and
contemporary texts. Topics may include skepticism, the relationship
between faith and reason, the nature of mind, free will, the nature
and existence of the external world, and the nature and existence
of God.
Ethics, The Good Life, & Society
Fundamental philosophical questions about right conduct, virtues
and vices, the good life and social policy will be examined on
the basis of classical and contemporary texts. Topics include
issues of personal and social ethics, such as forgiveness,
tolerance and hate speech, abortion, animal rights, and world
poverty. Theories of justice, human rights, and meta-ethical topics
may also be covered.
Inquiries in Am Literature and History
The Roots of American Identity: This course offers an introduction
to the field of American literature prior to 1860. We often
overlook the diversity and complexity of early literary and
cultural life in the "new world," forgetting that to speak of
American literature at this time is to imply a field that is not
only stylistically diverse but also radically multiethnic,
multilingual, and transatlantic. Focusing on writing in English,
this course will respect the variety of these perspectives while
bringing them into a provisional conversation with one another. We
will spend considerable time addressing the material practices of
reading and writing literature, the role of written texts in
forming communities, and the way that these texts shaped the
development of a specifically "American" identity.