Full-Year Programs w/ Residential Option
- Integrated Fine Arts Program
- Integrated Humanities Program
- Integrated Social Sciences Program
- Integrated Study of Earth and the Environment Program
Instructor: Tom Simone Professor of English More . . .
This course is a multidisciplinary survey of seminal Greek and Latin texts and their reception in later periods. It is presented in conjunction with IHP courses in Religion and History. The primary emphasis is on the literary genres and subgenres that were invented by the Greeks and later reworked by the Romans (epic, lyric, drama, philosophical treatise, biography, novel, etc.) and the major authors and works that are representative of each category. A second but equally important emphasis will be placed on the influence and adaptation of the Greek and Latin Classics over the centuries (= "reception"), for which we will consider works in many media, including literature, criticism, philosophy, music, theater, television, and film. The purpose of the course is to give you a solid grounding in the texts and values of a liberal education, and to underscore the pervasiveness of Classical (and "anti-Classical") forms and ideas up to the present day.
Requirements Satisfied: one Literature course
Meets: TR 1:00pm-2:15pm
Instructor: Patrick Hutton Professor Emeritus of History More . . .
Our course surveys masterworks of literature, philosophy, and religion in the historical context of the ancient Greco/Roman world. We shall study the role of epic in oral tradition; the cultural effects of the rise of manuscript literacy; the values espoused in Greek tragedy; the rise and fall of democracy in the Greek city-states; the appeal of Hellenistic religions with particular attention to Judaism and Christianity; ancient conceptions of time, tradition, and history; the civic ideals of the Roman Republic; and the Christian culture of the late Roman Empire. Readings include the epic of Gilgamesh, Greek tragedies by Sophocles and by Euripides, Aristotle's poetics, the Socratic dialogues of Plato, the history by Thucydides, essays by Seneca and by Augustine of Hippo. We shall also read selections from some modern interpretative studies: Nicholas Wade on human origins, Walter Ong on oral tradition, Elaine Pagels on Gnostic Christianity, the conversations of the Bill Moyers's seminar on Genesis, the work of the Jesus seminar on the historical Jesus, and Paul Veyne and Peter Brown on the popular culture of the Roman Empire.
Requirements Satisfied: one Humanities course
Meets: MWF 1:55pm-2:45pm
Instructor: Richard Sugarman Professor of Religion and Director of IHP More . . .
This course is an introduction to the study of religious and philosophical thought in Western culture from the formative perspective of the Greek and Hebraic worlds. As such, it focuses on their continuing implications in dealing with ultimate questions about the meaning of human existence. We will emphasize the search for human happiness, responses to human suffering, justice, love, law, and holiness, in dialogue with some of the great thinkers and texts of the Humanities. Our purpose is to bring some of the most important thinkers and texts to bear upon our experience of the contemporary world. This class is a combination of lecture and discussion.
Requirements Satisfied: one Humanities course
Meets: TR 10:00am-11:15am
Instructor: Tom Simone Professor of English More . . .
This course offers students the opportunity to read major authors and great books in the Western literary tradition, focusing on the modern and contemporary period. By way of transition from the Classical world, we will begin with Dante's Inferno, and explore imaging of the formation of the modern world in Shakespeare. The focus, however, will be on works from the Enlightenment to the 20th century, including authors such as Moliere, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Mann, Kafka, Dante, Joyce, and Woolf.
Requirements Satisfied: one Literature course
Meets: TBD
Instructor: Richard Sugarman Professor of Religion More . . .
Some practices (e.g., slavery, genocide) seem so profoundly wrong that anyone--regardless of personal attitude or social expectation--would be wrong to engage in such practices. On the more positive side of life, there are ways for people to try to relate to another (e.g., humanely, fairly, respectfully) that seem so plainly right that no one could reasonably claim to have a right to behave otherwise. But can we ever really know, and not merely believe, that there are such universally appropriate standards of right and wrong? If so, what must we do in order to acquire the relevant moral knowledge and insight? By engaging in scientific inquiry? By appealing to what God has commanded? In yet some other way? In this course, we will consider what leading philosophers have had to say about: the objectivity and universality of (at least) some moral requirements; the relationship between morality and science; and the relationship between morality and religion. The course will emphasize close and careful reading and analysis of philosophical texts and lively (but of course always respectful) in-class discussion.
Requirements Satisfied: one Humanities course
Meets: TBD