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Proposal Number: 814
Date: 2012-01-31
Proposal Title: Walt Whitman as a Key to Understanding Nature
Core Text:
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Abstract:
In his Leaves of Grass (rewritten many times during his life) Walt Whitman expresses much of what it means to be alive in America in the latter half of the 19th century, when like his contemporaries, Emerson and Thoreau, he asks us to glory in nature. The spirituality with which Whitman addresses nature, that he invites us to share with him the joy of nature, calls to each of us to accept the responsibility to protect nature and to preserve it for generations to come. His writing on nature influenced many other writers, including Miguel de Unamuno who quotes him from Leaves of Grass: To breathe the air, how delicious! To speakto walkto sieze something by the hand! is truly inspired by his passion for nature. Today we can use Whitman as a key for us to connect with nature once again as he did.
Proposal Number: 529
Date: 2012-01-31
Proposal Title: Arguing from Scripture in Communications Courses: A Phenomenological Theory and Pedagogy
Core Text:
Holy Bible
Abstract:
The author applies principles from Husserlian phenomenology to the teaching of argumentation in general and specifically to the use of the Bible as an authority. Both fields, rhetoric in combination with dialectic and Biblical hermeneutics, address the issue of the pursuit of truth and yet acknowledge the limits to that pursuit. The phenomenological principle of epoche provides a framework of openness to knowledge and truth that enables students to argue dialectically and to take a sophisticated approach to using interpretations of the Bible as evidence in support of the moral component of their argument. The principle of intersubjectivity offers a vehicle for community and consensus building in argumentation as it should be practiced in today\'s complex global society.
Proposal Number: 809
Date: 2012-01-27
Proposal Title: Aristotle's in Business
Core Text:
Nichomachean Ethics
Abstract:
Aristotles virtue ethics provides a model for understanding not only how to respond to situations in business requiring ethical discernment, but also for understanding how to create an ethical business culture within organizations. Through the understanding first of Aristotles notion of virtue as a mean, to the development of ethical virtues through practice (craft) and habit, to the development of mature and practically wise ethical leaders, we can understand the development and nature of ethical character in individuals and in organizations.
Title of panel: Theoria and Praxis Intertwined For Life: Core Texts Preparing Us and Preparing Informed Leaders in the Next Generation
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Core Texts have much to say about how humans organize themselves, how they choose to govern themselves, how they select their leaders, and the moral principles by which they live. Given the increased technological, political, and even environmental changes in the world, it is as important as ever to train future generations to think in the liberal spirit represented by many of our institutions and the core texts they assign. That core, however, remains fluid as people seek the guidance they need from the core that speaks to their needs. This session primarily represents an exploration of the conference theme. Secondarily, it explores what that core ought to look like when thinking about core texts and leadership.
Proposal Number: 806
Date: 2012-01-25
Proposal Title: What Profit a Prophet
Core Text:
Amos
Abstract:
This paper explores the use of the 8th century BC Hebrew prophet Amos critique of cash crop economy, latifundalization and international trade as a means to stimulate consideration of the relationship of business practices and cultural values. The flowering of a new economic situation wrought changes to society that led to new wealth, but also altered social relationships and challenged theological values. The relevance of this text for students from an analogous economic context in California agri-business will be discussed.
Proposal Number: 803
Date: 2012-01-24
Proposal Title: Fioretti and Monkey: Pre-Industrial Tales for a Post-Industrial World
Core Text:
'Fioretti' and 'Monkey'
Abstract:
A core texts course that examines both Western and Asian traditions might consider comparing and contrasting 'Fioretti' and 'Monkey', two historically based folk tales that popularized the spiritual traditions out of which they sprang. 'Fioretti', a series of vignettes dating from the 14th c., illustrates the Christian gospels as lived by St. Francis of Assisi. 'Monkey', the 16th c. tale of religious quest and picaresque adventure, narrates the life of Buddhist pilgrim Hsan-tsang. My paper considers ways of teaching these texts in an Asian university dedicated to fostering global views of culture and technology.
Proposal Number: 802
Date: 2012-01-23
Proposal Title: Reading Homer Anachronistically with Michael Longley
Core Text:
The Odyssey
Abstract:
This paper describes how, in my Honors seminars, I use contemporary poet Michael Longleys poem "The Butchers" to open up questions about Homer's moral stance toward the slaughter of the suitors in Odyssey 22. My paper goes on to discuss more generally the pedagogical benefits of such anachronistic readingof using a later work as a means to pry open an earlier one. Rather than struggle futilely against having our reading of an ancient text be contaminated by our familiarity with later works influenced by it, we should welcome such contamination and in fact rethink it as a form of enrichment. Once we do that, productive new avenues are opened for the teaching of ancient texts to todays students.
Proposal Number: 800
Date: 2012-01-23
Proposal Title: Franciscan Values and the Good Life
Core Text:
Life of Francis
Abstract:
I present a strategy for integrating the thought and practice of Francis into a core curriculum ethics course in a way that does not require or presuppose the acceptance of any religious perspective. The key idea is inclusivity, an idea that Francis put into practice in his life. As documented by Thomas of Celano in his First Life of Francis, numerous actions by Francis demonstrate his belief that all belong within the circle of moral consideration. Taking this perspective seriously can challenge students to think and act differently about the other.
Proposal Number: 799
Date: 2012-01-21
Proposal Title: Transcendental Deduction of the iPad: How Use of the iPad Resuscitated Core Texts
Core Text:
Hume's Natural Religion and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
Abstract:
This would be a demonstration of successful projects done with the iPad in my proof of concept Modern Philosophy course where all students had iPads. Their final paper was done through iMovie and iThoughts HD which resulted in more engaging editing procedures and therefore better text - not to mention exciting videos on a variety of core modern philosophy texts (Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Hume's Enquiry). Various collaborative efforts were successful as well such as building mind maps of Hume's Natural Religion and another one on 17th C. Holland. Voice Thread was used as a collaboration method on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. There was no text book - we used free core texts offered on Project Gutenberg and downloaded them as pubs to iBooks.
Proposal Number: 798
Date: 2012-01-19
Proposal Title: "Wait, wait...don't tell me!": Parenting Advice from Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Core Text:
mile
Abstract:
As university teachers, we train students in academic disciplines. But can we/should we help young people prepare for parenthood? This paper examines the parenting/educational "revolution" introduced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in mile. It focuses on the connections (and differences) between Rousseau's "modern" approach to education and our own parenting practices.
Proposal Number: 795
Date: 2012-01-19
Proposal Title: Is The World Still Split Apart
Core Text:
Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Commencement Address
Abstract:
In 1978 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn identified core religious and philosophic principles as the defining source of the division of the globe into cultural islands. Samuel Huntington extended Solzhenitsyn's proposition into The Clash of Cultures's as a counter proposition to the End of History and the benefits of globalization. This paper will explore the uses, for contemporary students, of thinking through the cultural propositions of a World Split Apart. Of particular interest is Solzhenitsyn's withdrawal from the secularism of modern Western thought--both in its collectivist and individualist phases.
Proposal Number: 794
Date: 2012-01-18
Proposal Title: The origins and impact of the principle of least action of de Maupertuis
Core Text:
Essai de cosmologie
Abstract:
Pierre Louis de Maupertuis was arguably the first modern scientist to seek and find a mathematical principle that could unify optical and mechanical phenomena. Variations and reinterpretations of his principle of least action indeed lie at the core of contemporary efforts to marry quantum mechanics and relativity theory. In fact, the implications and associated controversies associated with these attempts are no less striking than what we witness in the Enlightenment world of de Maupertuis.
Proposal Number: 793
Date: 2012-01-18
Proposal Title: Andrey Tarkovsky's film Stalker as Canonical Journey and Reflection on the Life Worth Living
Core Text:
Stalker (1979 film by Andrei Tarkovsky)
Abstract:
Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker is a cinematic masterpiece--and a very rich and challenging on at that. This paper will show why this film is worth setting side by side in a syllabus with great core texts involving journeys, such as The Odyssey, The Inferno, New Atlantis, Dead Souls and of course many others. The film also explores and contrasts the arenas of life represented by the figures of the characters referred to as the Stalker, the Writer, and the Professor in ways that are of great interest and very relevant for our students. Some attention will be paid to the book on which the film is based (Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky) but the vast bulk of this paper's discussion will be devoted to Tarkovsky's cinematic expression and presentation of these themes.
Proposal Number: 792
Date: 2012-01-18
Proposal Title: Teaching Kierkegaard and Avoiding Religion: Perhaps Disingenuous, but Not Impossible
Core Text:
Fear and Trembling
Abstract:
Teaching Fear and Trembling for the first time, I was faced with three very polite and extremely unconvinced students. One was a Muslim that needed to correct the story, one was an athiest that saw it as useless, and the third was a Catholic that had explained away child sacrifice with cultural relativism. I proceeded with faith and found fear and trembling even more valuable to the next generation than I thought.
Proposal Number: 791
Date: 2012-01-18
Proposal Title: Care of Self in Alcibiades I
Core Text:
Plato's Alcibiades I
Abstract:
Everyone is familiar with Socrates' exhortation to "know thyself". Â What is less often considered is that Socrates interprets this Delphic dictum as a "care of the self". Â Plato articulates the connection between knowledge and care of oneself most explicitly in the context of a conversation between Socrates and one of most notorious characters in ancient politics: Alcibiades, the great leader and betrayer of Athens. Â We will read Alcibiades I in the hope of understanding what it means to view philosophy as a practice of caring for oneself in relation to the question of justice, the great concern for which Alcibiades expresses in his last lines of the dialogue.
Title of panel: Concepts of Self: East and West
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Proposal Number: 790
Date: 2012-01-18
Proposal Title: Burning the Great Books: Don Quixote's Library
Core Text:
Don Quixote
Abstract:
The burning of Don Quixote's books early in the novel echoes many real world book-burnings, both literal and metaphorical. The "inquisition" of these books is presented as an attempt to cure Don Quixote of his madness, but I argue that the priest and the barber are motivated by fear: what they are afraid of is the maddening power of literature. I argue that our aim as teachers of core texts should be that of resisting the role of inquisitor: our aim, risky as this might be, is that of inducing a kind of heresy, and guiding our students through the madness that inevitably arises in the proper reading of "great texts."
Proposal Number: 789
Date: 2012-01-18
Proposal Title: Democracy on Trial: Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil Rights, and Natural Law
Core Text:
Letter From a Birmingham Jail
Abstract:
This paper will explore Martin Luther King's "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" and its reliance on natural law sources and arguments. The "Letter" highlights King's liberal education which allowed him to draw deeply from the wellsprings of the western tradition of natural law as well as the American tradition of natural rights as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Kings appropriation and familiarity with these traditions allowed him to marshal support for the broader civil rights movement and gave a means of calling fellow citizens to live up to their own highest ideals.
Proposal Number: 788
Date: 2012-01-18
Proposal Title: Transcendence to Reality in Plato and Dante
Core Text:
Republic and Divine Comedy
Abstract:
This paper compares the prisoner's exit from the cave in Plato's Republic to Dante's exit from Earth in the Commedia. Both ascents apparently leave behind the "real world" for a higher, transcendent world. Both, however, also mandate a return to Earth and show a concern for this world, although somewhat problematically. I suggest that for both Plato and Dante the "real world" must be understood in relation to the ideal world and vice-versa, and that the simultaneously real and idealized characters of Socrates and Beatrice are key to understanding this message.
Proposal Number: 786
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Adam Smith on the Co-incidence of Individual and Common Good
Core Text:
The Wealth of Nations
Abstract:
Is greed good? In the wake of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, public discourse is roiled by conflicting theories about the relationship between the individual pursuit of wealth and the common good. Given current concerns and conversations, this is a particularly interesting time in which to engage students in a deep, contextualized reading of selections from Adam Smithâ
Proposal Number: 783
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Divisible vs. Indivisible Contructions of the Singular Being; Implications for Homo-Economicus
Core Text:
The Tower and the Abyss by Eric Kahler
Abstract:
With "individual" and "atom" being fundamentally the same word, Cicero led us to understand that the literal meaning of both is "indivisible." To say a human is an individual is to imply that to divide him/her is to destroy that which makes him/her a human. To remain human is to maintain his/her indivisiblility. However, both the atom and the individual (arguably) no longer prove to be "unsplittable." Atomistic homo economicus is currently being revisited by the economic profession under the spotlights of psychology and biology, all in an attempt to expand the field of economics understanding of human economic behavior. Will this boundary expansion in economics simply expand the definition/explanation of "rational maximization, or will more normative treatments be needed from other disciplines, e.g., literature?
Proposal Number: 782
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Autobiographical memory as revealed in Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home
Core Text:
Alison Bechdel's Fun Home
Abstract:
From Augustineâ
Proposal Number: 781
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Augustine’s Confessions as Avenue to the Real World
Core Text:
Saint Augustine, Confessions
Abstract:
In the translatorâ
Proposal Number: 780
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Becoming a Warrior of Peace
Core Text:
Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior
Abstract:
It is time that we become warriors of peace. I use Chogyam Trungpa's Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior as a way of opening the conversaton regarding how to wage peace and I connect this to Aikido, a Japanese martial art that emphasizes non-violence. I teach a seminar called Aikido as Contemplation in which students spend one day in the classroom discussing texts and the other day in my dojo where I teach them Aikido, giving them an experiential way of understanding the texts in an incarnated way.
Proposal Number: 779
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Gorgeous Horror: Addressing Homer's Iliad in Terms of Beauty.
Core Text:
The Iliad
Abstract:
For two years now, I have taught Homer
Proposal Number: 778
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: The Critique of Modernity within Modernity: Benedict XVI, Leo XIII, and Sokolowski
Core Text:
Benedict XVI's Regensburg Address
Abstract:
Benedict XVI, Leo XIII, and Sokolowski have worked to overcome the narrowness of Enlightenment modernity, not by a reactionary dismissal, but rather by understanding that modern values are most fruitfully pursued by bringing them into dialogue with contemporary world thought and the classical and medieval traditions. Versus an either/or approach, that is, either that we must accept modernity's "sola ratio" and reject the grand tradition of the dialogue of faith and reason, or vice-versa--approaches which would purport to offer a historical fragment of human thought as if it could be substituted for the whole worth of conscious activity itself--I will discuss how these three thinkers point to a synthetic, creative, and valuable middle path allowing for ongoing dialogue among the core texts of human civilization in the service of the creation of new core texts of use to future human civilization.
Title of panel: Proposal 692: Regensburg at Five: a “critique of modern reason”
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Submitted as proposal 692 by Molly Flynn
Proposal Number: 777
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: "(Real) Life as a Story:" Integrated Course Design, Team-Based Learning, and the Value of Literature
Core Text:
Gifts, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Abstract:
"Seeing your life as a story is perhaps a key to living it well." -Orrec Caspro (Gifts, Ursula K. Le Guin)
In a Freshman Seminar devoted to the study of "the self," we read Le Guin's young adult novel to explore how the stories told about, for and by ourselves shape our identity and our experience of the world. This paper explains how I employ the principles of Integrated Course Design and Team-Based Learning to guide students' reading of Le Guin's book. Our main objective: to re-evaluate both story and literature and their "use" in students' lives beyond the classroom.
Proposal Number: 775
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Encountering Suffering through Classic Texts and Civic Engagement: Oedipus, Job and King Lear
Core Text:
Book of Job
Abstract:
Senior year in college is a time for firming up connections between one's undergraduate studies and one's upcoming role in "the real world." This paper describes a senior capstone course that helps students reflect on the meaning of tragedy, suffering and hope in literature while also enabling them to encounter these themes in real life. Studying the global refugee crisis in tandem with core texts while involving students in direct service to resettled refugees in Chicago expands students' global awareness, engages them directly with victims of persecution, and enables them to experience being agents of hope in profound and personal ways.
Proposal Number: 774
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Introducing Philosophy with "The Death of Ivan Ilyich": Living Reflectively in the Real World
Core Text:
Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich"
Abstract:
As we all know, college students often find courses in philosophy and the other liberal arts to be too abstract and not applicable to "the real world" issues they face. I have found that Tolstoy's short story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" is a useful way to make philosophy relevant to these practical students. Although the story is over 125 years old, the social pressures in Ivan
Proposal Number: 773
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Daodejing and the Why be moral question
Core Text:
Daodejing
Abstract:
The Daodejing is one of the foundational core texts of Chinese thought. Laozi gives stories with many insights, and they are all open to interpretation. I shall discuss an interpretative attempt at allowing Laozi to answer the perennial ethical question, â
Proposal Number: 772
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Wonhyo and the problem of evil
Core Text:
The Treatise on the Harmonization of all Disputes in Ten Aspects
Abstract:
Wonhyo, an innovative Korean Buddhist thinker, witnessed a golden age of Buddhism as texts written in Sanskrit had finally been translated into Chinese, and 13 different schools of Buddhism blossomed during his time. All but Châ
Proposal Number: 771
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Aristotle on Pleasure in the Good Life
Core Text:
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Abstract:
My presentation will examine Aristotle's account of the place of pleasure in the good life with an eye to illustrating how well his discussion of this subject in the Nicomachean Ethics illustrates some of his main moral, physical, and metaphysical ideas.
Proposal Number: 770
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Establishing the parameters of the Self in 20th century intellectual thought.
Core Text:
Nietzsche, Freud and early 20th century visual art, architecture and music.
Abstract:
In this paper I will outline the new views of the Self and its relationship to matter and psyche and to reality and appearance in the context of early 20th century philosophy, art, architecture, literature, music, and the new science of psychology. The paper will aim at demonstrating the importance of discussing interdisciplinary topics in core courses, an approach that helps students in conceptualizing the goals of studying core texts.
Proposal Number: 769
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: The Early Spin-Doctors The Troubadours: Touting Love, Lamenting Loss, and "Spinning" Songs
Core Text:
eowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Sir Gawain and the Green Night
Abstract:
The troubadours "spun" verses addressing the deepest emotions of "satire, love, and politics"--that is, topics that spoke to their audiences' strongest desires; in turn, they hoped to persuade their audiences to "buy" their point of view--much like today's public relations professionals do as they "spin" their messages in the hope we will "buy" what they are promoting. Also, like the today's public relations specialists, the troubadours used carefully chosen phrases that melodically spoke to their audiences needs for love, acceptance, and even self preservation
Proposal Number: 768
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Life as a Core Text: "The American Scholar" and American Democracy
Core Text:
"The American Scholar," and Essays: First Series
Abstract:
This year it will be 175 years since Emerson delivered his famous address on
Proposal Number: 745
Date: 2012-01-17
Proposal Title: Notes on the State of Virginia, Notes on the United States: Interpreting National Life through One Text’s Historical and Literary Dimensions
Core Text:
Notes on the State of Virginia (1787)
Abstract:
In addition to Thomas Jefferson's formidable influence in his own time as a politician and a diplomat, his legacy remains visible in the nation's education system (including free universal elementary education), its laws (especially the Act for Establishing Religious Freedom), and its people's pride as champions of democratic principles. Moreover, Jefferson's beliefs contributed to some of the fateful paradoxes whose heritage still troubles the United States, especially its tragic history of race relations. Teaching Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (1787) can help students not only understand colonial American history and literature, but can also help them understand the sources of many of the cultural values and the social conflicts that shape their lives today. Experiences from joint Honors sections of American History and Literature at Longwood University will be referred to as examples of how this canonical text remains as relevant for preparing students for interpreting today's real world as it did for those in Jefferson's own time.
Proposal Number: 767
Date: 2012-01-16
Proposal Title: Public Duties and Private Self-Fashioning: How Marlowe’s Edward II Prepares us for Living in the Real World
Core Text:
Edward II
Abstract:
Conceptions of Self and Identity in any period necessarily involve the intersections and divergences of the private and public self, individual wishes and social constraints, or personal freedom and various institutional imperatives to maintain power, control, or order. In Elizabethan times, these discourses have recently been perceived as being much more diverse and dialogic as had been thought. In Marlowe
Proposal Number: 766
Date: 2012-01-16
Proposal Title: Thoughts and Details on Scarcity: The Non-Burkean Edmund Burke
Core Text:
Reflections on the Revolution in France & Thoughts and Details on Scarcity
Abstract:
Edmund Burke
Proposal Number: 765
Date: 2012-01-16
Proposal Title: Plato's Republic in Plutarch's Life of Numa
Core Text:
Plutarch's Life of Numa
Abstract:
Plutarch suggests that Numa
Proposal Number: 764
Date: 2012-01-16
Proposal Title: Emptiness upon Emptiness: Rami Shapiro's Interpretation of Ecclesiastes
Core Text:
The Book of Ecclesiastes
Abstract:
Rami Shapiro's interpretation and retranslation of Ecclesiastes (The Way of Solomon, HarperCollins, 2000) seems to make the text more applicable to the 'real world'
Proposal Number: 763
Date: 2012-01-16
Proposal Title: Plato, Culture, and Cognitive Development
Core Text:
Meno; The Republic
Abstract:
I will show that Plato
Proposal Number: 762
Date: 2012-01-16
Proposal Title: Beowulf as Equipment for Living in an Inner-City High School English Class
Core Text:
Beowulf
Abstract:
Through a program at my university I visit, one day a week, the high school English classes at a deeply underfunded school to assist the teacher as she sees fit. This year I was fortunate to be in class when the students were discussing Beowulf, one of the state
Proposal Number: 761
Date: 2012-01-16
Proposal Title:
Core Text:
Abstract:
Proposal Number: 760
Date: 2012-01-16
Proposal Title: Freud in the 21st Century
Core Text:
Beyond the pleasure principle
Abstract:
On the heels of revolutionary methods in brain imaging technology and a recognition of the limits to cognitive psychology, researchers are developing new models of brain functioning. Paramount to this project is the incorporation of non-conscious mental functions into models of decision making and emotional experience. Freud proposed a "drive theory" model fulfilling both these aspects of mental life; furthermore, his work is beginning to find new support from neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. As such, any undergraduate student interest in the mind, consciousness, individuality, autonomy, etc., should understand beyond a cursory glance the core tenets of Freud's theory: tension-reduction; repetition compulsion; libido; and aggression.
Proposal Number: 759
Date: 2012-01-15
Proposal Title: "Some Progress toward Settling in the World": Reflections from Walden on Really Living and Living in Reality
Core Text:
Walden
Abstract:
The opening paragraphs of Walden
Proposal Number: 758
Date: 2012-01-15
Proposal Title: Shakespeare's Religion in the Winter's Tale
Core Text:
Shakespeare The Winter's Tale
Abstract:
Shakespeare's own religious views have been a matter of considerable controversy, attributing to him standpoints from atheism to crypto-Catholicism. This paper will consider the interplay of nature and grace as this appears in his late play, The Winter's Tale and argues that while the terms are generally those that can tolerate a wide array of interpretations, these interpretations themselves fall into a logic of grace and nature as is found in classic Anglicanism. In particular the doctrine of the eucharist in Cranmer, The Book of common Prayer and Richard Hooker will be used to interpret the play. The aim of this reading is to challenge both the atheistical or naturalist readings of Shakespeare together with the Catholic transubstantial readings to find an Anglican via media that is able to give weight to both sides.
Proposal Number: 756
Date: 2012-01-15
Proposal Title: Ego and Atman: Hindu Concepts of the Self in the Upanishads
Core Text:
The Upanishads
Abstract:
The Sanskrit word atman (
Title of panel: Concepts of Self, East and West
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Proposal Number: 755
Date: 2012-01-15
Proposal Title: Construction of the Self in Works of Charles S. Peirce
Core Text:
C. S. Peirce, "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities"
Abstract:
Charles S. Peirce
Title of panel: Concepts of Self, East and West
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Proposal Number: 754
Date: 2012-01-14
Proposal Title:
Core Text:
Abstract:
Proposal Number: 752
Date: 2012-01-14
Proposal Title: Plato’s Theory of Forms as a Guide to Living in the “Real World”
Core Text:
Plato's Republic
Abstract:
Plato offers a glimpse of his conception of the
Proposal Number: 751
Date: 2012-01-13
Proposal Title: Antinomies, Synthetic Thinking, and Today’s Job Skills
Core Text:
J.G. Fichte, Foundation of the Entire Doctrine of Scientific Knowledge
Abstract:
In addition to experience and the ability to work collaboratively, today
Proposal Number: 750
Date: 2012-01-13
Proposal Title: Living out of Books
Core Text:
Notes From Underground, Dostoevsky
Abstract:
In Dostoevsky
Proposal Number: 749
Date: 2012-01-13
Proposal Title: "Is Aristotle's Good Aquinas's Good--and Is Either One of Them Our Good?"
Core Text:
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics; Aquinas, Commentary on Nicomachean Ethics
Abstract:
Aquinas sets out a clear commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, helping us understand Aristotle's text. A comparison of Aquinas's commentary and Aristotle's text, however, also helps us to understand the differences between the ethics of Christianity and the ethics of classical Greece. The virtues of munificence and magnanimity will be the focus of this paper.
Title of panel: “Truth, Justice, and the Good in Classical and Christian Thought”
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
This panel is being organized by Frank Rohmer. Please see his description.
Proposal Number: 748
Date: 2012-01-13
Proposal Title: Can Theology Still be the Queen?
Core Text:
John Henry Cardinal Newman, "The Idea of a University"
Abstract:
Newman argued that since universities profess to teach universal knowledge and theology is a branch of knowledge, universities should teach theology as knowledge. Unsurprisingly, those responsible for the curricula of secular universities today deny the conclusion of this syllogism (and so must also reject at least one of its premises). What is surprising is that though Christian colleges and universities should be able to affirm both the premises and conclusion of Newman's argument, many of them do not teach theology as a source of knowledge, but rather as a basis for mere faith or belief. This paper will examine the philosophical, cultural, and political reasons for this failure of many Christian institutions to conform to Newman's ideal university.
Proposal Number: 747
Date: 2012-01-12
Proposal Title: The Good in Teaching Plato Through Service Learning
Core Text:
Plato's Crito
Abstract:
Service learning emphasizes the interplay between theory in the classroom and practice in the local community. This paper examines the strengths and challenges of service learning in teaching core texts in philosophy, with a particular emphasis on Plato. It centers on Socrates
Proposal Number: 744
Date: 2012-01-12
Proposal Title:
Core Text:
Abstract:
Proposal Number: 743
Date: 2012-01-10
Proposal Title: I Can’t Get No Satisfaction without Epictetus: Toward an Understand of a More Satisfied Workforce with Stoic Philosophy.
Core Text:
Epictetus' Discourses
Abstract:
This presentation suggests that business leaders need to read the text of a Stoic Philosopher
Title of panel: Theoria and Praxis Intertwined For Life: Core Texts Preparing Us and Preparing Informed Leaders in the Next Generation
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Core Texts have much to say about how humans organize themselves, how they choose to govern themselves, how they select their leaders, and the moral principles by which they live. Given the increased technological, political, and even environmental changes in the world, it is as important as ever to train future generations to think in the “liberal spirit” represented by many of our institutions and the core texts they assign. That core, however, remains fluid as people seek the guidance they need from the core that speaks to their needs. This session primarily represents an exploration of the conference theme. Secondarily, it explores what that core ought to look like when thinking about core texts and leadership.
Proposal Number: 742
Date: 2012-01-10
Proposal Title: If He can govern an empire, he can inform our leaders: Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations as insight into leadership.
Core Text:
Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations"
Abstract:
This paper explores the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius for guidance on leadership. Scholars frequently mine Marcus Aurelius
Title of panel: Theoria and Praxis Intertwined For Life: Core Texts Preparing Us and Preparing Informed Leaders in the Next Generation
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Core Texts have much to say about how humans organize themselves, how they choose to govern themselves, how they select their leaders, and the moral principles by which they live. Given the increased technological, political, and even environmental changes in the world, it is as important as ever to train future generations to think in the “liberal spirit” represented by many of our institutions and the core texts they assign. That core, however, remains fluid as people seek the guidance they need from the core that speaks to their needs. This session primarily represents an exploration of the conference theme. Secondarily, it explores what that core ought to look like when thinking about core texts and leadership.
Proposal Number: 730
Date: 2012-01-10
Proposal Title: War As A Lens For Social and Technological Change
Core Text:
Red Badge of Courage, All Quiet on the Western Front, Hiroshima, The Things They Carried
Abstract:
Four iconic war novels are used as a sharp lens to examine the profound social and technological changes that transformed Western society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries foreshadowing the technologies, conflicts and expectations of the present. Comparing and contrasting the experiences of the soldiers and civilians in each of the conflicts portrayed within the context in which they occurred reveals on one hand how dramatically and rapidly technology transformed warfare, society and the human experience in these centuries and sheds light on the ways or society and experiences are shaped, if not driven, by technology. On the other hand, the same process of comparison also reveals many elements of our common humanity and the universality of human experience regardless of time or place. Students with a great diversity of background, age and experience, including recent veterans, can not only easily identify with the characters in the novels and thereby more4 fully grasp the sweeping changes and major events of these centuries but can also reflect on how present conflicts and technology, which continues to evolve at lightning speed, shapes their lives, society and futures.
Proposal Number: 741
Date: 2012-01-09
Proposal Title: OccupyTocqueville: A Primer for Our Time
Core Text:
Democracy In America
Abstract:
This paper explores how senior students from a wide variety of major fields come to understand certain of Tocqueville's observations as a critical tool to comprehension of, and functioning in, contemporary American culture. Approaching Tocqueville's DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA through a technique of naming foundational characteristics allows students to juxtapose current cultural phenomena with a - for them - novel historical context. The clear hope is that such an experience results in a more multifaceted and realistic grasp of how our society evolved to its current state. Armed with such knowledge, students leave the academy more prepared to address the issues facing our society.
Proposal Number: 740
Date: 2012-01-09
Proposal Title: The Core Text in the Creative Writing Classroom
Core Text:
Madame Bovary
Abstract:
Although creative writing courses engage many texts, they usually focus on the text's form and structure.This paper will look at ways that faculty might use core texts to teach students about plot development and narrative structure. Through looking at Flaubert's novel, Madame Bovary, the paper will demonstrate the ways in which core text education might help students incorporate different structural techniques in their own writing. The paper will also look at ways in which the study of form in core texts might encourage experimentation with different forms of fiction.
Proposal Number: 739
Date: 2012-01-09
Proposal Title: Creating Bridges among Classical Core Texts and Minority/Underrepresented Texts
Core Text:
Seneca on Liberal Arts, Dubois and Washington on Education
Abstract:
In this paper I will address how one might attempt to bring a broader reach to Core Texts approaches. Grounding the project in the rationale of Core Text and Liberal Arts Education, I will advance considerations that will allow instructors and researchers to create minimal justification for a widening. Ultimately, the rationale for the inclusion for certain texts over others is historico-political and must take into account a wide variety of factors including institutional mission, history, current events and the interests of the program and instructor.
Title of panel: Inclusivity and Core Texts and Courses
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
This panel will bring together a number of participants to discuss the content, arguments and importance of a variety of other works that may be considered "core" but not typically thought of as part of a traditional "core" or Liberal Arts program.
Proposal Number: 738
Date: 2012-01-09
Proposal Title: The Vizier and the Vicar: Benedict XVI and Judge Holden on Will
Core Text:
Benedict XVI’s ‘Faith, Reason, and the University,’ Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian"
Abstract:
The character of Judge Holden declares himself vizier of the world, unwilling to admit the value of anything to which he has not granted existence. His voluntaristic nominalism could be seen as symbolic of contemporary Western life, a life diagnosed with some exactness by Benedict XVI in his controversial address.
Proposal Number: 737
Date: 2012-01-06
Proposal Title: Seeing in Literature, Art, and Nature: Tying Thoreau into the Aesthetics of Environmental Issues
Core Text:
Thoreau's Walden
Abstract:
Thoreau
Proposal Number: 736
Date: 2012-01-06
Proposal Title: Teaching Edith Stein on Community to Undergraduates
Core Text:
Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities
Abstract:
Teaching Stein's work in a core course, or in a core women's studies course, can be difficult. How is one to present her essentialist views on women within the context of scholars who have moved beyond her or simply disagree with her? On the other hand, how is one to continue to present her ongoing relevance to discussions of gender, personhood, and community? I argue that focusing on this text on psychology and the humanities allows for students to see how prescient and how provocative Stein is when it comes to discussing what it takes to have a good community. From there, taking on her views on women and her views on personhood make more sense.
Proposal Number: 728
Date: 2012-01-06
Proposal Title: Idle and Serious Desire for Knowledge in Dante
Core Text:
Divine Comedy
Abstract:
The talk will look at Dante.
Proposal Number: 734
Date: 2012-01-05
Proposal Title: Introducing Kant: Reading "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent"
Core Text:
"Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent"
Abstract:
Immanuel Kant is one of the most difficult Western philosophers for undergraduates to read, and this difficulty can often leave students with a caricatured picture of Kant
Proposal Number: 733
Date: 2012-01-05
Proposal Title: Using Luther's "On the Freedom of a Christian" in a Core Philosophy Class
Core Text:
Luther's "On the Freedom of a Christian"
Abstract:
Luther's "On the Freedom of a Christian" is an unusual text to use in Marquette University's core class on Philosophy of Human Nature. Taking off from some scattered remarks in the writings of Stanley Cavell on Luther, I discuss how Luther represents a break from the Classical/Medieval tradition and how this writing can set the stage effectively for the discussion of subjectivity that follows in my class as we read Descartes, Nietzsche, and Freud.
Proposal Number: 731
Date: 2012-01-05
Proposal Title:
Core Text:
Abstract:
Proposal Number: 729
Date: 2012-01-04
Proposal Title: Wagner's Ring cycle and the formation of modern memory
Core Text:
Wagner's Ring operas
Abstract:
Wagner's Ring cycle is notable both for its elevation of the concept of myth and for the establishing of patterns of memory for the modern world. The associations of memory in Modernism and film were and are deeply influenced by Wagner's use of both plot and musical themes that are open to variation and the power of recall and reformulation. This is a precis of a project on Wagner's influence.
Title of panel: The revolution of electronic texts
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
What is the future of core texts in the world wide environment of electronic texts? How can traditional texts be presented and give serious treatment in our new era of electronic texts?
Proposal Number: 727
Date: 2012-01-04
Proposal Title: Cormac McCarthy's "The Sunset Limited:" Reflections on the Decline of the West
Core Text:
Cormac McCarthy, "The Sunset Limited."
Abstract:
In "The Sunset Limited," Cormac McCarthy provides a parable of the decline of the West. A modern intellectual - a man of science - has tried to commit suicide but is saved by a Christian ex-con who has turned his life around. In the passionate debate between the two men that takes place in the ex-con's apartment later) (the work is a two-man play), McCarthy explores the question of whether the cultural resources of the West have finally been exhausted. Can the ex-con's version of Christianity save the intellectual - and even the ex-con - from the grave doubts and pessimism of the intellectual?
Proposal Number: 726
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Tertullian's Prescription Against the Heretics and Liberal Learning
Core Text:
Prescription Against the Heretics
Abstract:
Tertullian saw an inherent contradiction between the supposed wisdom of pagan philosophers, as demonstrated in the writings of Plato or Zeno, versus the wisdom of God, as exhibited in the sacred books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Therefore, since Athens and Jerusalem did not seem compatible, Tertullian cautioned Christians about the inherent dangers of roaming the streets of both cities. And yet, Tertullian himself was the recipient of a liberal arts education, and he would not have been the great theologian of the Trinity if it were not for his classical studies. To the Christian church's benefit, Tertullian was not an anti-intellectual, as some believe, but a rational thinker who gained clarity of thought by drawing upon ideas contrary to his own faith.
Proposal Number: 725
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title:
Core Text:
Abstract:
Title of panel: Reading Darwin in the Real World
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Already submitted by Patrick Flynn
Proposal Number: 724
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Thomas and the Mystics
Core Text:
Thomas Aquinas Summa
Abstract:
Sprinkled around the continent and period from Thomas Aquinas, mystics wrote and performed their theology in various vernaculars and genres. What does it mean to read Thomas in their company rather than in other scholastics'? Beyond a reductionist "popular" versus "elite" assessment, we can find the deep parallels of human striving for the divine across cultures, languages, and institutions.
Proposal Number: 723
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Freedom and Constraint in Paradise Lost
Core Text:
Paradise Lost
Abstract:
In Paradise Lost, Milton, though primarily concerned with religious topics, shows a deep awareness of man as a free being. He illustrates and dramatizes this understanding in the characterization, plot, and formal poetic properties of the poem. This freedom is not, however, simply an ontological property: it reflects man's political nature as well.
Proposal Number: 722
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: "What I do is me": John the Baptist and the Essential Human Bond
Core Text:
Hopkins' "As kingfishers catch fire" & portraits of JB
Abstract:
Whatever his historical reality, the biblical, poetic, artistic, and other portrayals of St. John the Baptist firmly underline and epitomize human loyalty and bonding. All heroes have supporters, \"side-kicks\"--but none other reaches the poignant and powerful full extent of John\'s existential support (from womb to platter) for Jesus. Perhaps particularly in our contemporary culture of subjectivity and apparent isolation, it\'s worth examining with our students the role of loyalty and friendship in attaining goals--and the possibility of having identity completely absorbed in that role.
Proposal Number: 721
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: The Classic Text in Science
Core Text:
Chamberlain\\\'s The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses
Abstract:
Students in the liberal arts are exposed to many \"classic works\" in literature, philosophy, history, and the arts. However, these same students are typically presented only with a textbook as their college introduction to the sciences; these textbooks are often factually dense and difficult for the student to understand. However, one text, Chamberlain\'s The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses, provides the philosophical framework within which all modern sciences are conducted today. We use this text as a core component of our introductory science course and thereby challenge our students to unlearn practices from high school science courses that lead them to believe the sole purpose of science is to prove a specific hypothesis, rather than to test and falsify as many hypotheses as possible. Our approach leads to engagement of student investigators on projects of their own design.
Proposal Number: 719
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Labor Relations in Robert Frost
Core Text:
Mending Wall
Abstract:
No one has worked harder to debunk the myth of the poet as idle dreamer than Robert Frost. His lyrics of agricultural labor repeatedly connect the work done by poets with other kinds of work--mowing, planting, woodcutting--undertaken by farmers (including Frost himself). These poems give unique insight into the challenges and value of collective labor; they bridge the apparent gap between the human as mind worker (trained in the liberal arts) and as hand worker. A close reading of Frost
Title of panel: Poetry and the Real World
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Those who view the liberal arts as an impractical leisure pursuit might point to poetry as the least practical pursuit of all. Yet poets\' hyper-attention to the details of lived experience, and to language as an imperfect medium for that experience, offers an invaluable perspective on humanity’s real-world needs and struggles. Focusing on texts that explore this perspective, our panel seeks to answer the question, what makes poetry worth studying for the practical-minded student?
Proposal Number: 718
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Medieval Conceptions of Evil and the Modern World
Core Text:
Aquinas\' On Evil
Abstract:
The paper examines the challenge that Aquinas\' conception of what evil is and how people can choose to do evil presents to modern assumptions about evil.
Proposal Number: 717
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Derek Walcott's Omeros, the End of Great Books, and Labor in the Real World
Core Text:
Omeros in light of Homer, Vergil, Dante, Milton
Abstract:
In Omeros, Derek Walcott recasts the West's great epics--Homer's, Vergil's, Dante's and Milton's--as a heptameron praising ordinary people: theirs, Walcott affirms, is the "epical splendour." In celebrating the work of fisherman, waitresses, historians, soldiers, spouses, and parents, Walcott elevates the ordinary. A challenging and uplifting choice for the end of a western great books program, Omeros affirms the struggles we all face in the real world.
Proposal Number: 716
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Home and Vilem Flusser’s “Challenge of the Migrant”
Core Text:
Flusser's "Challenge of the Migrant" and Plato's Crito
Abstract:
For a first-year, core-text course centered on the theme of home, Vilem Flusser's short essay "The Challenge of the Migrant" can serve effectively as a framing text. Focusing on the concept of heimat, Flusser contrasts the unconsciously absorbed values and prejudices that make up our attachment to our original heimats with the conscious choices that can be made only after these prejudices are brought into the open. The migrant, by confronting us with a different set of values, forces these prejudices into consciousness. Flusser's text can be used as en entrance into classic texts such as Plato's Crito as well as contemporary fiction such as Tim Winton's short story "The Turning."
Proposal Number: 715
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Using Hard Times to Teach Social Justice
Core Text:
Hard Times
Abstract:
By examining Charles Dickens's educational and economic critiques in Hard Times, students are able to think critically about their own educational experiences and their views on economics. Dickens critiques a utilitarian teaching philosophy by juxtaposing the infuriating Mr. M'Choakumchild with the compassionate Sissy Jupe, who thinks outside the box to see the other side of facts and demonstrates a sense of social justice. Further, the text exposes the drawbacks of laissez-faire economics, a relatable topic for our students. Teaching Hard Times helps highlight the importance of giving our students a liberal arts education and encouraging them to consider more than just facts but alternative and creative ways of thinking.
Proposal Number: 713
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: China Classical Ceremony Literature The Book of Rites
Core Text:
The Book of Rites: its main contents, importance in today\'s society
Abstract:
Firstly, describing the overall current status of General Education in China simply;
Secondly, introducing core text The Book of Rites; its main content, far-reaching influence and important status in china history;
Then , discussing on how to use The Book of Rites in some universities;
Finally, summarizing the teaching effectiveness on students.
Proposal Number: 711
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: The Promethean Turn and Socrates’ Refutation of Cephelus
Core Text:
Prometheus Bound and Plato\'s Republic
Abstract:
In the central exchange of Prometheus Bound, Prometheus reveals the full extent of his involvement with mankind. No longer do people know the exact date of their death; instead, people face the many adversities unleashed from Pandora's Jar and, driven by hope, they use reason and the arts to improve their conditions. From this one discovers two orders of existence and morality: one, a fated existence with a morality grounded in the awareness of death, and the other not fated with a morality grounded in right actions. This paper will examine the Promethean turn in morality, noting that Socrates confronts a similar situation in his brief conversation with Cephelus in Republic, Book I.
Proposal Number: 709
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Philosophobia, BS, and Student Prejudices for and against Reason
Core Text:
Texts: Benedict XVI’s ‘Faith, Reason, and the University,’ Plato’s Phaedo, Descartes’ Discourse on The Method, Jacob Klein ‘The Problem of Freedom’
Abstract:
Many students suffer from an apathy, fear, or even hatred of philosophy; perhaps it seems odd to think carefully when truth and reason seem inapplicable and so the apparent goal is to bullshit best. Partly motivating this set of student prejudices is the self-limitation of modern reason critiqued by Benedict in 'Faith, Reason, and the University.' This paper elaborates the connection of the Regensburg Address to two texts alluded to in it, Plato's Phaedo and Descartes' Discourse, in discussing how we might foster in our students a proper "hopeful, diligent, but not naive" attitude toward reason. Our culture is lame in any cross-cultural dialogue because these assumptions about reason prejudge our own and others' fundamental beliefs as BS, as at best 'true to' but never really true.
Proposal Number: 708
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Monotheism and its Loneliness
Core Text:
Genesis, Chapters 1-3
Abstract:
Genesis offers two creation accounts. In the first, God completes his project by creating an image of himself in the human form, "both male and female." In the other, God responds to Adam's aloneness by creating Eve, a being who is very much like Adam -- "bone of my bone / flesh of my flesh." When considered together, the two creation accounts present a meditation on the solitary condition both of a monotheistic god and the man who is made in his image.
Proposal Number: 707
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Faith, Reason, and Authority in Martin Luther King\'s \
Core Text:
M. L. King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail"
Abstract:
While defending his actions against the public criticisms of local clergy, King provides in this text a theoretical account of the place democratic authority should hold in the moral reasoning of those who share a Judeo-Christian faith tradition. This account is congruent with a long tradition in American political thought. King's use of reason in this context presents an interesting case study of the practical use of reason to address moral issues. But the case study presents problems for Benedict's vision of the use of reason, since for King reasoning appeals specifically to the Judeo-Christian tradition and does not appear to be able to be made relevant to relativists or to some adherents of Islam. Texts: Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," George Washington's "Farewell Address," James Madison's "Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments," Pope Benedict XVI's "Faith, Reason, and the University."
Proposal Number: 706
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Hannah Arendt and Love of the World
Core Text:
The Crisis in Education
Abstract:
Arendt asserts that education, higher and otherwise, is a litmus test for a society's love of the world. Through a reading of "The Crisis in Education" and her exposition of love in her dissertation on Augustine, "Love and Saint Augustine," we can invigorate our own understanding of the role of the liberal arts in readying our entrance into the world. As contemporary public debate increasingly demands that the liberal arts justify itself, Arendt's work serves as an eloquent reminder of the purpose of the liberal arts--to bring adults into the world ready to shape a society that it loves. This is the beginning of any response to public rhetoric about higher education.
Proposal Number: 703
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: “No Hugging, No Learning”: The Injustice of the Juste Milieu
Core Text:
Moliere's Tartuffe and School for Wives
Abstract:
If tragedy is universalistic while comedy is particularistic; if tragedy is fundamentally "moral" and comedy fundamentally amoral; if tragedy depends on identification with the subject and comedy depends on "detachment" is comedy of any use to us? While Moliere's controversial warning to beware of "faux devot" in Tartuffe, and his teeth-gritted advice on how to suffer cuckoldry with equanimity in L'ecole des femmes were both prickly and potentially useful in seventeenth-century France, those specific aspects of the plays require considerable unpacking for consumption by contemporary undergraduates. As for his frequently repeated endorsement of moderation, did Moliere even believe it himself, and if not, should we? This paper proposes to explore Moliere's "dark side" in hopes of finding enlightenment at the end of that tunnel...
Proposal Number: 702
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Lysistrata and Praying the Devil Back to Hell
Core Text:
Lysistrata
Abstract:
"We succeeded when no one thought we would, we were the conscience of the ones who had lost their consciences in their quest for power and political positions." "We represented the soul of the nation." These words spoken by Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee are a testament that she and her country women turned the fantastical prescriptions within Aristophanes play, Lysistrata into a reality. Through unconventional and non-violent strategies, the seemingly powerless "turned their world right side up". Use of this ancient core text highlights the intemporal issues of citizenship, war and peace as rubrics for cultural production and hegemony, the complicated manifestations of freedom within a democracy or (pretend -democracy), and facilitates the venerable study of gender and class constructs. Such inquiry encourages self-reflexivity, relevance to lived lives and an enhanced appreciation of the universality of the humanistic tradition. "Leymah Gbowee - Nobel Lecture" Nobelprize.org. 31 Dec 2011
Proposal Number: 700
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Reading About Reading Gatsby in Tehran
Core Text:
Azar Nafisi: Reading Lolita in Tehran (and F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)
Abstract:
While teaching her Western Literature class at an Iranian university, Azar Nafisi realized that the value she placed on reading "The Great Gatsby" was not shared by the fundamentalist students in her class, who preferred the reality of post-revolutionary Iran to any fictional world, even the rich tradition of their own Persian past. Frustrated with their dismissal of the characters as immoral and therefore dangerous, Nafisi set up a mock trial at which she attempted to defend her decision to have them read the novel. Witnessing the passion with which these readers both attack and defend the right to read a work of fiction can go a long way towards opening our students' eyes to the reading behavior of their own culture.
Title of panel: Texts Read through the Lenses/Blinders of Faith
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
See submission by Lynn Tatum
Proposal Number: 699
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: The Quran and Osama Bin Laden’s Fatwa “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders”:
Core Text:
Quran
Abstract:
Osama Bin Laden's fatwa "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders" quotes the so-called "Verse of the Sword" from the Quran (9:5) as he calls for the mass killing of Jews (Israelis) and Crusaders (Americans). He takes a Quranic passage, cuts it off at mid-verse, and quotes it out of context and thus twists it into a call for mass murder and a justification for "9-11". His a-contextual interpretive strategies are essentially identical to those often used by Christian fundamentalists when they quote the Bible. By introducing students from a Christian background to the dangers of fundamentalist hermeneutical strategies in a Muslim context, we can help them to recognize those same strategies when used in their own religious tradition.
Title of panel: Texts Read Through the Lenses & Blinders of Faith
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Examining how “other” traditions interpret texts through their own religious lenses/blinders can help illuminate and elucidate how our own culture reads texts through our own cultural lenses. Reading strategies in an Islamic fundamentalist context, for example, show surprising parallels to reading strategies used by Christian fundamentalists. Religious motivations and hermeneutical strategies are amazingly cross-cultural. Iranian students read Lolita in Tehran very much like American students read the Quran in Texarkana.
Proposal Number: 698
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Real World Encounters with Liberal Nationalism and Liberal Internationalism: Achebe’s Okonkwo and Shange’s Betsey Brown
Core Text:
Achebe's Okonkwo and Shange's Betsey Brown
Abstract:
The efficacy of a once widely-recognized framework for narrative-based accounts of human history in the period since the American and French Revolutions that centered on the ideals of liberal nationalism and liberal internationalism has been challenged in the past several decades by developments as diverse as the "post-modern/post-structuralist" critique of modernity, the collapse of the Soviet Union and a promised "end of history," the so-called "war on terrorism" of the first decade of the twentieth-first century, and the various economic crises of the past few years. My presentation focuses then on how I am now using two twentieth century works of fiction, Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" (1959) and Ntozake Shange's "Betsey Brown" (1985), to provide students in a core text-based general education humanities course covering the period "from the American Revolution to the present" with real-world life experience of the ways in which these eighteenth century European ideals have significantly impacted the lives of "ordinary" human beings. Shange's novel, which conveys the experience of a middle-class African-American family living in St. Louis in the 1950s, sets the stage for recognition of the ways in which post-war American acceptance of these ideals helped make possible the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s; Achebe's more well-known work, which famously depicts the initial consequences of British colonization upon the indigenous African peoples of present-day Nigeria in the 1890s, similarly sets the stage for discussion of the various ways in which these modern European ideals have both positively and negatively impacted African and other "non-Western" peoples. Further, my brief discussions of these two works will include some comments on how reading them at the end of the term facilitates constructive discussions contrasting the ideals of liberal nationalism and liberal internationalism with those of two other influential narrative-based belief systems of the past couple centuries, dialectical materialism and Social Darwinism.
Proposal Number: 697
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Confronting the World through Büchner\'s Woyzeck
Core Text:
Woyzeck by Georg Buchner
Abstract:
In America Georg Buchner's Woyzeck is known best through Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck. An incomplete work that becomes the basis for an expressionist opera hardly seems like a candidate for a core text that prepares students for the "real" world, but the text not only develops themes that are fundamental to a liberal education and an engagement with the real world but in effect forces them to take sides on these issues. The paper will highlight three of these issues: the extent of individual freedom and responsibility available with a society, conflicting understandings of the Bible, and competing moral standards. It will then argue that the incomplete nature of the text opens a space for students to move beyond engaging with the themes to explore the construction of meaning in texts and their own lives.
Proposal Number: 696
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Material and Moral Economies at Crossroads: Bankrupt Elites and Moralizing Populists in Chaucer’s The Pardoner’s Tale
Core Text:
"The Pardoner's Tale" in Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales"
Abstract:
In an era of corporate greed, "my way or the highway" politics or the glorification of bullying portrayed in YouTube videos ad nauseum, the moral compass of so-called free-market societies seems to be spinning uncontrollably in circles, this in the wake of today's outraged Tea Partyers and Ninety-Nine Per-Centers protesting in the streets. At a time when the health of a society's moral compass would seem as important as the health of its material economy, one might think that institutions of higher education would be in dogged pursuit of addressing these disparaging problems. Instead, one finds colleges and universities obsessively set on streamlining their curriculum, focusing their energies on developing more sophisticated, yet efficient degree-delivery systems that will lead to "real" jobs or career tracks for a student body who must now "graduate in four." As the more traditional liberal arts curriculum finds itself on the chopping block of university administrations across the nation, the need for core courses and texts capable of addressing many critical areas at once ”intellectual, practical, creative, moral, material” seems more important than ever. Chaucer's short and highly entertaining The Pardoner's Tale is one such text that offers students a variety of ways in which to examine the clash of material and moral economies in an age of polarized social and political groups. This talk will look at some of these questions: in particular, the tale of institutional greed and bankrupt leadership of the Pardoner in the face of the hapless penitent, which opens classroom discussion to examining the relationship between a society's material and moral economies and the attitudes of its elite and popular groups to questions of wealth, poverty, and charity.
Proposal Number: 691
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Teaching Visual Art in a Text-based Program
Core Text:
Abstract:
In this paper, I will discuss my strategies for helping to integrate visual art into St. Olaf's Great Conversation Program. My first goal was to help my co-teachers feel comfortable teaching our units on Roman art, Hildegard of Bingen, Chartres Cathedral and 17th-century Dutch art. In class discussions and lectures, my co-teachers and I strove to present the visual material not as ornament to our chosen texts but as rich material that provides insight into a specific time and place in the same way that our texts do. Our unit on 17th-century Dutch art will serve as my case study, or "core-text," for my discussion.
Proposal Number: 689
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Laying Down Life for God? Debates over Religious Violence and Martyrdom in 1 Maccabees
Core Text:
1 Maccabees
Abstract:
Does faithfulness to God require laying down of life? This question tore open the crisp, blue sky of lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001, forever changing life in the modern world. The question itself is an old one, and study of 1 Maccabees allows for a rich exploration of the debates and diverse answers given by early Jews in response to the question, as well as the conflicting scriptural paradigms undergirding each group's ideology. This paper will set forth the perspectives of accommodation, revolution, and non-violent resistance found in 1 Maccabees, and then will discuss a successful in-class debate and position paper assignment that asks students to adopt one of these positions and argue for its correctness in the historical context of 1 Maccabees.
Proposal Number: 688
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: What Dante’s Unreal World Teaches us about “The Real World”
Core Text:
Dante\'s Divine Comedy
Abstract:
This paper will use Dante's Commedia to develop a critique of the phrase "the real world"--a phrase that drastically oversimplifies any effort to understand the complexities of human society. Dante's poem creates a fictional (and, indeed, fantastical) world that was originally meant to provide instruction in what to his original audience were very real matters, both secular and divine. But the poem is even more "unreal" to a modern audience (even a Roman Catholic one) that is likely to disagree with Dante's social and theological assumptions. The paper will offer specific examples of student responses that suggest how Dante has guided their thinking about life after college in meaningful ways.
Proposal Number: 677
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: Preparing for a Life in the Natural Sciences: Medawar\'s Advice to a Young Scientist
Core Text:
Peter B. Medawar\'s Advice to a Young Scientist
Abstract:
It is not uncommon for students who enter college with the intent to pursue a career in the natural sciences to soon give up this dream when faced with the rigor of the required academic pursuits. In recent years there has been a call for improvements to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education with a predicted need for well prepared and educated students in the areas of medicine, research and related health sciences has arisen. In 1979, the Nobel laureate Peter B. Medawar published Advice to a Young Scientist as part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Series with the intent was to provide the novice natural scientist with advice, as Medawar wrote as part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Series with the intent was to provide the novice natural scientist with advice, as Medawar wrote "Any passage in this book that a reader may think especially apt and illuminating is that which was written for him or her." (pg. xiv). This work serves as an optimal core text to prepare students in developing a personal understanding of what is needed as they progress towards a life and career in the natural sciences.
Proposal Number: 664
Date: 2012-01-03
Proposal Title: We’re All ‘Others’ Now: Revisiting Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in the age of post-post-colonialism
Core Text:
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Abstract:
In 1977, Chinua Achebe, through his essay, “An Image of Africa” tried and sentenced Joseph Conrad for being a “bloody racist,” charging that his novel, Heart of Darkness, captured Western imagination at its worst. In light of post-colonial theory, every culture and nation affected by Empire, both colonized and colonizer, was then shackled to a shared and brutal past. Post-colonial theorists like Achebe sought retribution and used discourse as a means of justice. Now that we’ve woken from colonial dreams and post-colonial nightmares of imagined communities, how do we read and critique a text like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness? And, if “multiculturalism has failed,” or if we believe it is possible to “transcend race,” what comes after post-colonial theory?
Proposal Number: 720
Date: 2012-01-02
Proposal Title: Emily Dickinson and Social Networks
Core Text:
Emily Dickinson's poetry
Abstract:
In this age of information overload, twitter, soundbites and speed reading, what can Emily Dickinson's poetry offer the jaded student? Plenty. Through a discussion of teaching strategies and close readings of several poems, we will discover how Dickinson's work offers paradigm shifts for moment to moment experience
Title of panel: Poetry and The Real World
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Proposal Number: 712
Date: 2012-01-01
Proposal Title: Shakepeare's Tempest: Post-Colonial Possibilities
Core Text:
TheTempest & other Shakepeare plays
Abstract:
In The Tempest, Shakespeare seems at times to consider the status of the dominated subaltern class, from Ariel to Caliban, even the drunken sailors. Prospero, himself, represents a displaced class of scholar, actor, thinker--who has been excluded from the ranks of power. How do students today respond to the displaced classes vs. the power-brokers? To which class does Prospero belong for us?
Proposal Number: 705
Date: 2012-01-01
Proposal Title: The Man of Power and Liberal Studies for the Twenty-First Century
Core Text:
The Odyssey
Abstract:
The distinctive contribution of the Twentieth Century was to teach mankind a variety of lessons it never wanted to learn. The result has been a convulsive reaction and a retrenchment behind ancient ethnic, religious, and provincial walls. The human task for the century ahead is to educate as never before and build bridges of understanding, and in that task the great books have never been more important than they are now--witness one example, Homer's perennial hero Odysseus.
Proposal Number: 695
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: The Tears of Achilles
Core Text:
The Iliad
Abstract:
In most instances when he appears in the Iliad, Achilles cries. The cause of his tears, however, changes. Comparing the tears of Achilles to the tears of others shed in the Iliad leads to an object lesson in the qualities inherent in the human condition.
Proposal Number: 694
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: The view of Occupy Wall Street from uptown New York: reading Augustine and Machiavelli at Columbia College
Core Text:
Augustine's Confessions and Machiavelli's Prince and Discourses
Abstract:
In response to the conference instructive to consider
Proposal Number: 693
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Shadows in the Cave: Past and Present
Core Text:
The Republic
Abstract:
It is difficult to imagine a philosophical allegory that approaches, let alone matches, the profundity, beauty, and influence of Plato's Cave. This paper examines how Plato's allegory can help us, professors and undergraduates alike, make sense of our world today. Topics to be addressed in this work include the so-called "curriculum wars," mass media, and social media. Finally, the distinction between wonder and curiosity, both in the cave and without, will serve as an interpretative guide for this investigation.
Proposal Number: 692
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title:
Core Text:
Abstract:
Title of panel: Regensburg at Five: a “critique of modern reason”
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
On September 12, 2006 the former and accomplished academic Benedict XVI delivered, “Faith, Reason, and the University,” a short and accessible but deep and panoramic reflection on religion, knowledge, violence, cross-cultural dialogue, and the coherence of the university and of the “universe of reason.” He called it an “attempt at a critique of modern reason.” This panel explores its usefulness as a core text by connecting it to other core texts.
Proposal Number: 690
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Teaching the American Protest Novel: Meridel Le Sueur’s The Girl and Its Pedagogy of Protest
Core Text:
Meridel Le Sueur’s The Girl
Abstract:
In our ongoing classroom efforts to study literary expressions of
Proposal Number: 687
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Don Quixote and the Occupy Movement
Core Text:
Don Quixote
Abstract:
The perennial problem: Engaging the students in discussion. One solution: Conducting the class in silence.
Here, I will describe a passionate, silent discussion that began with one student's question: "Do you believe Don Quixote has too much knowledge from books and not enough from his own experience with reality. Can this be why he is "insane"?
For over an hour we grappled not only with what we thought Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were telling us, but also how our perception of knowledge affects our lives today. What can a "crazy knight" teach us about the right way to live in the real world today? Can we expand this to include the "crazies" of the Occupy Movement as well as those extremists entrenched in power? In short, can Don Quixote help us balance the practical with the idealistic and help us realize the power we have as individuals? After all, whose reality is real?
Proposal Number: 685
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Playing the "If Only" Game in George Eliot's Daniel Deronda
Core Text:
Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot
Abstract:
While getting students to read anything longer than text messages--much less lengthy Victorian novels--is one of the greatest challenges the twenty-first century educator faces, wading through George Eliot's often complicated plots and prose not only encourages students to examine the lives of her characters, but also invites self-introspection. This is no less true in Daniel Deronda, where Eliot engages the problem of pain and reconciling the past and the present (and the future) when she depicts the reunion between the title character and his mother, who is haunted by her past decision to abandon her son. In her last novel, Eliot raises questions regarding regret, the problem of control and personal agency, and the ethics of retrospection. Thus, through reading Eliot, students can realize that the questions she and other core writers explore are not mere intellectual exercises, but are also deeply personal, human inquiries, and therefore reading such texts is very worthwhile.
Proposal Number: 684
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Thrasymachus Blushing, or Why Knowledge Will Make us Just
Core Text:
Plato's Republic
Abstract:
In defending justice as wiser than injustice, Socrates not only wins reluctant agreement from Thrasymachus, but causes his interlocutor to blush. Socrates does not tell his audience exactly what prompts this striking response, but his argument appears to depend on the fundamental incompatibility between knowledge and the infinite desire of pleonexia. In recognizing this incompatibility, Thrasymachus must in turn face a fundamental incoherence in his own soul. By asking us to consider the relation between knowledge and desire, the passage invites us to explore the moral consequences of pursuing knowledge for its own sake.
Proposal Number: 683
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: The Value of Russell's "Why I Am Not a Christian" for Christian Schola
Core Text:
Why I Am Not A Christian by Bertrand Russell
Abstract:
Bertrand Russell
Proposal Number: 682
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Living in Translation: On Not Being Non-Roman Petronius’ Satyricon
Core Text:
Satyricon
Abstract:
The Satyricon is a famously complex, multi-layered, heteroglossic text, both in its depiction of the messy multiculturalism of early imperial Rome and in its own intertextual and generic multiplicity. On the one hand, given the fact that the names of the characters are almost exclusively Greek and Eastern, there is virtually no one who is properly a Roman in this Roman narrative while, on the other hand, the text is permeated and shaped by other, antecedent literature and history, both Roman and foreign, but especially, of course, Greek, which are incorporated, reworked and renewed in this innovatively composite genre. The Satyricon is a story about people transforming themselves
Proposal Number: 681
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Found In Translation: How Dai Sijie's Little Chinese Seamstress Escaped from Plato's Cave and Why She Didn't Turn Back
Core Text:
Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and Plato's Allegory of the Cave
Abstract:
Dai Sijie
Proposal Number: 680
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Freedom and Constraint in Paradise Lost
Core Text:
Paradise Lost
Abstract:
Milton's relationship to his sources in Paradise Lost serves as a model not only for the writer's relationship to the literary tradition but also for the reader's relationship to the world at large. In his complex relation to the constraints of form and the need for innovation, Milton provides a model for how one might and should lead a good life, not least in the realm of politics. His practice in composing the poem suggests that in a free society, we live the best lives when we give due heed both to the good order of society and to our identity as free individuals. Milton models such a complex understanding of the world in the form of the poem itself as well as in various episodes within it which, more or less explicitly, illustrate this idea.
Proposal Number: 679
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Dragons and Dragon Slayers: Core Texts in the Real World
Core Text:
Plato's Apology, Aeneid, Matthew's Gospel
Abstract:
G.K. Chesterton said that fairy tales don't tell us that there are dragons--everyone already knows this--but rather that there is the possibility of dragon killers. Similarly, the core texts in the liberal arts are not valuable because they tell us how the world is, but rather because they hint to us how the world might be. It is for this reason
that they have value in the real world, since they present teleological realities which, though unreal, guide the actions of real people. I will
show this point through the examples of Plato's Socrates, who may never have existed, the Aeneas of Vergil, who almost certainly never existed,
and the beatitudes of Matthew's gospel, which have almost certainly never been perfectly followed, but all of which have shaped the real world through the possibilities they present.
Proposal Number: 678
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Know Thyself (and the Other Too): Socrates' Evaluation of Pride and its Implications for Liberal Arts Education
Core Text:
Plato's Apology
Abstract:
In Plato's Apology, Socrates proposes a proportional relationship between the reputation for wisdom and its actual possession. Pride closes oneself off from the living source of wisdom and one from the living presence of the other person. From this basis, I will argue first that the interdisciplinary basis of a Liberal Arts education provides the particular disciplines with their living and life-giving foundations. Secondly, I will argue that Socrates envisions the formation of community, that is, the intersubjective unity of persons, as an intrinsic value of a Liberal Arts education.
Proposal Number: 676
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: The Nobility of Enobarbus in Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra
Core Text:
Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra
Abstract:
This paper will consider the some dimensions of the question of nobility in Shakespeare
Proposal Number: 675
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: *Mary, Don’t You Weep*: Understanding Exodus Through African American Cultural History
Core Text:
Exodus
Abstract:
In Exodus, God exercises the power to save as well as to punish. and students tend to see this god as capricious and oppressive. Yet African American slaves found the same text to be hopeful and useful in their struggle against the degradations of slavery. Spirituals such as *Mary, Don't You Weep* glorify the moment at which God saves the Israelites (and drowns Pharaoh
Proposal Number: 674
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Carl Schmitt's Misappropriation of Donoso Cortes's Critique of Rationalism
Core Text:
Carl Schmitt's Political Theology and Crisis of Parliamentarism, Donoso's Ensay, and Benedict XVI's Regensburg Address
Abstract:
Carl Schmitt is frequently mistaken for a Catholic political thinker or even a political theologian. However, contrasting his views to that of the traditionalist Spaniard Donoso Cortes, whom Schmitt claims to borrow freely from, reveals that Schmitt is truly a secular thinker. This paper will focus on contrasting their far different critiques of modern rationalism. Schmitt's is Nietzschean irrationalism while Donoso maintains a traditional Catholic respect for reason, which will also be demonstrated by comparison to Benedict XVI's Regensburg Address.
Proposal Number: 673
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: "I have swam through libraries and sailed through oceans"; Textual and Experiential Knowing in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick
Core Text:
Herman Melville's Moby-Dick
Abstract:
Ishmael, narrator and protagonist of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale, faced with the daunting task of constructing a systematized cetology, claims, "I have swam through libraries and sailed through oceans." This school-teacher-turned-whaler, self-educated (like Melville himself) directly addresses the place of core texts in "real life" through connecting his literary and cetological experiences in his narrative. My paper will consider, in particular, Ishmael's "reading of the whale" in books, in art, and in the flesh, as well as his conscious consideration of how the Western and non-Western traditions of whale-related studies should affect a thoughtful reader's attitude towards nature and civilization. Aware of what we now find to be an increasingly global (and trans-oceanic) culture, Melville directly treated America's place in the education of the world, but through physical and literary interactions, and there seems no better place than the ACTC Conference to consider and gather input on the Melville's insights, "ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of the leviathan," that is, before too late we are left unable to compare experiences gained from books with those gained from physical experience.
Proposal Number: 672
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Reading Livy's Readers
Core Text:
Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita
Abstract:
How do the early books of Livy
Proposal Number: 671
Date: 2011-12-31
Proposal Title: Pen Is Envy: Word Play and Freudian Slips in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
Core Text:
Freud, The Handmaid's Tale
Abstract:
This paper examines Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, emphasizing the semiotic structures and word play that Atwood dispatches to challenge phallocentric thinking. Part of the discussion addresses her dystopic vision of a nightmarish America ruled by religious fundamentalism. In this vision, Atwood challenges Freudian theory with a critique of Freud's notion of the Oedipal complex and patriarchal oppression.
Proposal Number: 670
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Virgilian fiction and Roman history: epic as stepping stone to the real world of the early empire
Core Text:
Virgil, Aeneid
Abstract:
Virgil's /Aeneid/ serves Concordia University's core curriculum as a shared core text across the linked second-year Literature and History pairing, providing an opportunity for examination from the perspective of both disciplines. While Virgil's place as a western literary icon informs a literature survey that may, among other avenues of study, analyze how the epic poet reaches back to Homeric and Hesiodic concerns, as well as forward to subsequent intertexts including Dante
Proposal Number: 669
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Reading Darwin in the Real World
Core Text:
Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" and "Descent of Man"
Abstract:
Title of panel: Reading Darwin in the Real World
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
What can we learn about contemporary biological evolutionary theory and its surrounding issues -- from reading Darwin? The theories of biological evolutionary science continue to generate controversy today as they have in years past, as they have from their first formulation. In our own times this has led to culture wars. On one side we have a scientific establishment and a court system determined to defend its position, as well as, its control of public education, against what it considers a fanatical mob of religious zealots. On the other side, we have an increasingly offended and alarmed conservative popular culture, which see their nation as consisting of two cultures, one of which is still guided by religious and moral precepts, while the other has abandoned itself to the decadent, overly intellectual indulgences initiated by "the Sixties." As part of these indulgences, this viewpoint often includes contemporary evolutionary biology. The supposed message and consequence of this allegedly educationally reinforced, contemporary science is that since we are merely animals, evolved from other primitive animals, and in no way part of a special Divine creation, everything then is permitted: every immorality, every lapse of discipline, every excess of passion, every legal loophole, and so forth.
Against such culture wars, it would be highly constructive, I/we believe, to go back and read Darwin in the original -- to go back to the source, so to speak. Perhaps, doing so could provide insight into many of the controversies that continue to surround evolution and evolutionary theory -- in our real contemporary world.
Proposal Number: 668
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Core Texts Abroad: Goethe’s Werther Goes Home
Core Text:
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Abstract:
In what ways does studying a core text abroad enhance a student
Proposal Number: 667
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Getting Real About Researching the Core
Core Text:
Summa Theologiae
Abstract:
Core text education too readily charges itself with a contempt for manuals and textbooks, taking these distillations of intellectual tradition to be essentially inimical to an authentic assimilation of this tradition. On the contrary, Aquinas dedicated his life to the production of a science of learning and teaching which would impose order on the scatter-shot education produced by the practice of teaching by commenting on texts: the ultimate manual. The governing principle of the Summa is a radical educational reform, demanding that initiation into a discipline order itself according to a proper sequence of learning, rather than the requirements of textual commentary. If the aim of a core text education is to build an indispensable contextual edifice for a life of thoughtful, meaningful inquiry and action, the building of this edifice must not be left to the idiosyncracies of individual commentators, but must be built by design according to a deliberately sequenced program of learning, methodically integrated with core readings. A curriculum governed by rampant "academic freedom" rather than a rigorously integrated sequence of learning--no matter how seminal, traditional, or transformative its core texts might be--is not a curriculum.
Proposal Number: 666
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Valuing the (Im)Practicality of the Liberal Arts: Reflections on Arendt and Thinking
Core Text:
The Life of the Mind (Hannah Arendt)
Abstract:
Recent works such as Martha Nussbaum's "Not for Profit" have emphasized the practical value of a liberal arts education. While it's clear that a liberal arts education has immense practical worth, however, in this essay I want to consider the proposition that one 'real world' value of the liberal arts is that it forces us to stop and think about whether our actions or even our lives are ethically praiseworthy. This kind of self-reflection is not generally welcomed in societies which are increasingly dominated by consumer demand, technical efficiency and utilitarian values, yet this is precisely one of the most important functions of a liberal arts education: it provides us with the (im)practical ability to engage in critical self-reflection. In this essay, I would like to pursue this line of inquiry through an examination of Hannah Arendt's "The Life of the Mind", in which she not only explores the importance of thinking but also contends that it can prevent us from engaging in the worst forms of behavior (here I will briefly discuss her contention that Eichmann was complicit in mass murder precisely because he failed to think about his actions).
Proposal Number: 665
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Captain Vere and the Artful Use of Forms for the sake of Justice in Herman Melville’s Billy Budd
Core Text:
Herman Melville, Billy Budd
Abstract:
In Billy Budd, Herman Melville takes up the themes of goodness and evil, innocence and malignant intent, and law and justice, but also those of appearance and reality, and meaning and the forms through which it comes to expression. In the story, Melville has placed Captain Vere as witness, judge and executer in the seemingly intractable case in which to convict Billy of murdering Claggart seems to be, at one and the same time, both a fulfillment and an abrogation of justice. Vere
Proposal Number: 663
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Study and Knowledge in Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent
Core Text:
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
Abstract:
In this paper I examine the notion of studium
Proposal Number: 662
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: The Book of Books: Reading and the Well-Ordered Soul in Persuasion
Core Text:
Republic and Persuasion
Abstract:
Taking as a starting point the city-soul analogy of Republic, the paper will argue for an inextricable connection, in Persuasion, between reading rightly and self-rule. I will consider two instances of reading within the novel: Anne Elliot
Proposal Number: 661
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Plato and Studium in the Renaissance
Core Text:
Plato\'s Laws and Phaedrus; Erasmus\'s Praise of Folly
Abstract:
Drawing from examples in the Laws and the Phaedrus, this paper discusses how Plato
Title of panel: Considerations on Studium and its Relationship to Philosophy and the Liberal Arts.
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
What is meant by studium? The word is one of the two legs on which the common expression for the liberal arts, studia humanitatis, stands. The concept is certainly a fruitful and varied terrain in which students, scholars, philosophers, and other keen minds have gained their firm footing. In the present panel, the participants will engage three significant moments in the history of studium in order to bring philosophy and the liberal arts into focus under its light. Bernd Goehring examines the notion of studium in the works of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and Henry of Ghent (ca. 1217-1293); discussing Plato’s principal Renaissance interlocutor, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499); Denis Robichaud inquires into the Platonic roots of studium in the Renaissance; and Felicitas Munzel observes Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) engagement with seventeenth and eighteenth century debates on the liberal arts and education. Looking at certain key reflections on education and the acquisition of knowledge from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, the panel presents scholarly studies on specific works as it also invites current considerations on the liberal arts, philosophy, and education.
Proposal Number: 660
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Power, Violence, and Technology: Reading Arendt in an Age of Drone Warfare
Core Text:
Hannah Arendt, On Violence
Abstract:
In a profound and far-sighted meditation on the nature of modern warfare, Hannah Arendt argued that political actors often confuse violence with power, either assuming power to be based on the capacity for violence, or conceptualizing violence as an extreme manifestation of power. In fact, they are conceptually and practically distinct: power consists in collective action, and relies primarily on speech to establish and maintain institutions to bring about collective ends; violence depends on instruments to inflict damage and destruction on people and things. From Arendt
Proposal Number: 659
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Darwinian Wonder and Meditative Thought
Core Text:
Darwin's "Origin of Species" and Aristotle's "Metaphysics"
Abstract:
Amidst his critique of the modern technological worldview in the Discourse on Thinking, Martin Heidegger distinguishes between two types of thinking: the calculative thinking that has come to pervade the modern mindset and the meditative thinking that Heidegger looks to in some way recover. Though Heidegger gives us little indication in this address as to how to separate the two, the general idea seems to be that calculative thinking, with its focus on data, measurability, and results, fuels science and technology, while meditative thinking falls to what we typically classify as the humanities, most notably philosophy, theology, and art. Presently I would like to problematize this view with Charles Darwin
Proposal Number: 658
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: "Civil Religion and the Critique of Glory: Scipio's Dream in Cicero's 'On the Commonwealth'"
Core Text:
Cicero, "On the Commonwealth"
Abstract:
In this paper, I will examine the "Scipio's Dream" passage in Cicero's "On the Commonwealth," showing how the religious vision articulated in it is a response to the defects of glory as an end for citizens. According to the dream, the human longing for glory is so powerful and so all-encompassing that it cannot be satisfied by ordinary means. States are too limited geographically and historical renown is too limited temporally to satisfy it. To be intelligible as an end, it has to point beyond the merely political to some sort of "heavenly" reward.
Proposal Number: 657
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: The real world in the Republic
Core Text:
Plato, Republic
Abstract:
The real world, the world of our mundane existence, appears in many passages in the Republic, as background to the dialogue itself and as the subject under discussion. Sometimes it is described in plain speech and at other times in images. Sometimes it is viewed from a vastly elevated perspective, at other times close up. This paper will attempt to put these different views together to see how this text tries to change its readers' view of our everyday life.
Proposal Number: 656
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: “another original of political authority”: The (Hidden) Dialectic of Reason and Revelation in Legitimating John Locke’s Second Treatise
Core Text:
John Locke, Second Treatise
Abstract:
How do consenting members of a civil society acknowledge both specific political authority and the legitimate grounds for political authority in general? For a work dedicated to establishing the legitimacy of civil society and its potentially formulated governments (and dissent and rebellion from same), John Locke
Proposal Number: 655
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: The Liberal Arts as Arts of Learning: Kant and the Eighteenth-Century Debate
Core Text:
Kant's Critique of Practical Reason
Abstract:
By the seventeenth- and eigthteenth-centuries, in connection with explicit efforts to revive the artes liberales, especially the trivium, the question of studium took a practical turn. It focused on the question of the education needed for judging well in the affairs of life. These efforts were part of the dissatisfaction with and opposition to the increasing dominance of the methodologies of the natural sciences in all areas of study. The debate was carried out in manuals for the instruction of reason (Vernunftlehren). Kant engaged this debate, agreeing with the goal of the reformers, but critical of much of the educational practices. One of his specific questions was how the mind (that is, practical reason) would best be prepared to adopt the moral law as its highest criterion of judgment. What exactly is meant by this question? What is at stake? What answer does Kant give? How do the liberal arts function in this effort?
Proposal Number: 654
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: The Self-Limitation of Reason and the Hope of Philosophy: Benedict & Pieper
Core Text:
Benedict XVI’s “Faith, Reason, and the University"; Pieper, Leisure
Abstract:
This paper will explore some connections between the Regensburg Address, some texts referenced in the address, and Joseph Pieper
Proposal Number: 653
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Churchill's critique of Macaulay: The Paradoxes of Late Whig Historiography
Core Text:
Winston Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times; Thomas Babington Macaualay's History of England
Abstract:
Commentators have long puzzled at the reasons for which Winston Churchill framed his major work of the 1930s, Marlborough: His Life and Times, in terms of a critique of the treatment of John Churchill in Macaulay's century-old History of England. The paper explores Churchill's reasons. The manner in which Macaualay combined an idealization of the natural progress of British liberty with a deningration of the political and military career of the duke of Marlborough tended to disarm British political culture before the challenges of the 1930s. Paradoxically, Churchill's own more "disenchanted" view of the British past vindicated the possibility that liberal societies might generate the creative statesmanship to confront the rise of Nazi totalitarianism.
Proposal Number: 652
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Teaching the Gospel of Mark to Chinese Students – on Cultural Barriers and Cross Cultural Understanding
Core Text:
Gospel of Mark
Abstract:
The Gospel of Mark is one of the twelve texts in the syllabus of In Dialogue with Humanity, a theme-based seminar course guided by the reading of classic texts of long lasting influence on human societies. The teaching of the text proves to be extremely challenging because of the disparate degree of exposure to Christianity among our student population. The first challenge is to help students without any knowledge of the Bible to overcome barriers which may hinder their basic understanding of the text, and at the same time to draw the line between teaching and preaching for those who are Christians. How to lead all students to discover and reflect on some common concerns of human existence across very different cultures is another major challenge for our teachers.
Proposal Number: 651
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: The Prince of Tao
Core Text:
The Prince, the Tao Te Ching
Abstract:
Within the Tao Te Ching runs a counterpart to The Prince, guiding the sage to rule by rooting himself within the Tao. Obvious contrasts between these two manuals on power abound, along with unexpected similarities in their prescriptions. For example, each in its own way removes the self from the role of ruler, but one places the maneuvers of rule into a compartment separate from other aspects of the human endeavor while the other integrates governance into the seamless whole of existence. Such a comparison invites considerations of how each is to be read most productively and what the underlying purposes of the writers might be.
Proposal Number: 603
Date: 2011-12-30
Proposal Title: Significance of a Knight in the Game of Chess: A Game Piece or a Masterpiece?
Core Text:
Book I of Euclid's Elements, Apollonius' Eight-Book series on Conics, and A History of Chess by Murray, H.J.R. (1913)
Abstract:
The accomplishments of giant Greek mathematicians, Euclid and Apollonius, influenced the every day life of mathematicians in the territories of India and the rest of Persian Empire and China in the 6th century AD. The applications of Apollonius’ work in Conics and Euclid’s elements are seen in much of their structural designs of that period. But, could the work of Apollonius and Euclid have also aided in the design of the remarkable game of chess? The game’s designers danced with the mathematical work documented some three to four hundred years earlier by Apollonius and Euclid when signing their creation; a signature to reveal the origin of the game and to pay tribute to their homeland is evident to all interested eyes. To view their signature, one needs to ride the knights on the game board to convenient destinations influenced by Euclid’s 47th proposition, along paths discussed by Apollonius. This paper is intended to resolve the one major disagreement among historians in the past several centuries: was the game of chess invented in China, India, or Persia?
Proposal Number: 650
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: "The Most Lamentable Tragedy of Aristagoras: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Book Five of Herodotus' _The Histories_"
Core Text:
_The Histories_ by Herodotus
Abstract:
In _The Histories,_ Herodotus attributes the failure of the Ionian Revolt of 499-94 BCE, in which the Greeks of Asia Minor rose up against their Persian overlords, in large part to the shortcomings of the revolt's architect, Aristagoras of Miletus. One way to help students understand the interdisciplinary nature of liberal arts study is to show how Herodotus structures Book Five of _The Histories_ as a kind of five-act tragedy centering on the rise and fall of this ambitious and gifted, but fatally flawed, leader. Thus, rather than faulting Herodotus for paying unwarranted attention to Aristagoras' frequent pettiness and equivocations, as many modern historians have done, an interdisciplinary approach creates greater appreciation of the resolve of Herodotus, which he announces in the first sentence of his great work, that "human events ... not fade with time." My "dramatic" approach to Herodotus' portrayal of Aristagoras will pay special attention to the rhetorical devices employed by Aristagoras in his speeches to Spartan and Athenians and the effects that they produced on these audiences.
Proposal Number: 649
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: "A Fabrication but not a Fiction"- Virtue and Vice Vasari's Lives
Core Text:
The Lives of the Artists- Giorgio Vasari
Abstract:
Can (and should) history and great texts serve a didactic tool? Following the model of Plutarch, Giorgio Vasari sought to record the lives of illustrious artists to commemorate the grandeur of both Renaissance men and their art. While many of the anecdotes are fabrications, the purpose and value of the Lives is not diminished. The reader was (and is) to read the text actively- that is, to recognize virtue and vice in the lives and works of the great artists. This text reveals not only the mindset of an Early Modern biographer and his self imposed responsibility for posterity, but also the nature of writing history to serve as a tool to cultivate virtue.
Proposal Number: 648
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: Reclaiming Adam Smith
Core Text:
Wealth of Nations + Theory of Moral Sentiments
Abstract:
Adam Smith is widely, though mistakenly, regarded by many as the philosophical progenitor of the theories of laissez-faire capitalism, small government, and the homo economicus account of rational persons. One source of these misconceived views of Smith may be attributed to the (all too frequent) neglect of his great moral psychological work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. This paper argues for the importance of returning to Smith's moral writings as a way both of recovering Smith's genuine philosophical and economic views and of reclaiming Smith from the neoconservative camp. Moreover, the paper claims that the historical neglect of the 'moral-Smith' in favor of the 'purely-economic-Smith' is part and parcel of the current devaluation of the liberal arts--a movement with calamitous effects for the future of our human community.
Proposal Number: 647
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: Piety and Love in Plato's Euthyphro
Core Text:
Plato's Euthyphro
Abstract:
My paper articulates some of the key challenges one faces when teaching Plato's Euthyphro. I include some thoughts on how to address these challenges, especially questions regarding Socrates' motive for talking to Euthyphro, and what their conversation might teach us about Socrates' approach to piety.
Proposal Number: 646
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: A New 'In Cold Blood" for the Core: Realizing Popular Culture with the Liberal Arts
Core Text:
"In Cold Blood," by Truman Capote
Abstract:
An academy that connects to the
Proposal Number: 645
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: Logos in the 21st century
Core Text:
Philo Judaeus of Alexandria: De Opificio Mundi and Legum Allegoria (books I, II, III)
Abstract:
An acknowledged Platonist and deeply committed to his Jewish heritage, Philo describes logos as the creative and transformative divine power that brings order and harmony to everything that it touches; known as man
Proposal Number: 644
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: Augustine and the re-invention of natural philosophy
Core Text:
Confessions, City of God
Abstract:
St. Augustine, in both his Confessions and City of God struggles with the problem of reconciling human reasoning with revealed truth. This is especially critical as he addresses issues in what we now call the natural sciences, whether he attacks the Manichees or defends Christianity against the arguments of more serious philosophers. Here I argue that Augustine
Proposal Number: 642
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: Cicero's On Duties and Liberal Arts Education: Ancient Lessons for Our Predicaments
Core Text:
On Duties
Abstract:
Cicero
Proposal Number: 641
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: Can Comedy Change the World?: Reflections on Boccaccio's Tale of Revolution in Prato
Core Text:
Boccaccio's Decameron
Abstract:
An examination of the overt political intention of Boccaccio's Decameron through an analysis of a single story about a witty woman who effects lasting political change through public satire.
Title of panel: Workshop on Teaching Deep Reading to Undergraduates
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
If others can be found to co-present with regard to proven instructional techniques, I would like to share my observations on the use and evaluation of journaling as a technique to deepen reflective reading, by displaying examples of student work and reviewing evaluation rubrics.
Proposal Number: 640
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: Engaging The Souls of Black Folk
Core Text:
Souls of Black Folk
Abstract:
W. E. B. Du Bois opens Souls of Black Folk in a prophetic stance, addressing from his historical moment the long future beyond it on issues still far from settled in American life. As a living part of an ongoing conversation about race in America that is also a classic
Proposal Number: 639
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: The Master's Choices in "The Glass Bead Game"
Core Text:
"The Glass Bead Game" by Hermann Hesse
Abstract:
Hermann Hesse
Proposal Number: 638
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: James Wilson, the Common Law, and Popular Government
Core Text:
Lectures on Law
Abstract:
James Wilson, an influential yet curiously disregarded founder of the United States, energetically advocated ratification of the Constitution despite the Constitutional Convention
Proposal Number: 637
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: The Classic Text in Science
Core Text:
Chamberlain's The Method of Mutliple Working Hypotheses
Abstract:
Students in the liberal arts are exposed to many
Proposal Number: 636
Date: 2011-12-29
Proposal Title: Narrative Lenses and the Journey toward Self-Knowledge
Core Text:
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
Abstract:
With special focus on Joseph Conrad
Proposal Number: 635
Date: 2011-12-28
Proposal Title: Teaching Zhuangzi
Core Text:
Zhuangzi
Abstract:
Zhuangzi
Proposal Number: 634
Date: 2011-12-28
Proposal Title: Teaching science and mathematics classics with companion texts
Core Text:
Newton’s Principia and Euclid’s The Elements
Abstract:
Reading science and mathematics classics is challenging; reading texts the content, language and context of which are unfamiliar may post considerable difficulties to students. In view of this, the present paper attempts to explore how reading the classics with some companion texts may help students overcome this challenge. These companion texts serve as an introduction about the content, the genesis and the significance of the selected classics. Newton
Proposal Number: 633
Date: 2011-12-28
Proposal Title: Aeneid VI: the Descent into the Poet's Mind
Core Text:
Vergil, Aeneid
Abstract:
A poet
Proposal Number: 580
Date: 2011-12-28
Proposal Title: Theory of Knowledge: Is there a real distinction between Aristotle’s and Thomas Aquinas’s teachings?
Core Text:
Aristotle's De Anima Book III Chapters 3-5 and Thomas Aquinas's Commentaries of these.
Abstract:
I will explore Aristotle's and Aquinas's teachings on knowing by comparing and contrasting the faculties of imagination, the possible intellect, and the agent intellect as shown in Book III Chapters 3,4, and 5 of the De Anima and their commentaries. I will propose that Thomas Aquinas had more fully developed Aristotle's descriptions of these faculties, and thus corrected their operations to help clarify the process of intellection within the unified human soul by discovering and elucidating the all decisive reality which he calls the obiectum of the knowing faculty.
Proposal Number: 631
Date: 2011-12-27
Proposal Title: Love's Own Language: reading Plato's Phaedrus with Roland Barthes' A Lover's Discourse
Core Text:
Plato's Phaedrus, Barthes' A Lover's Discourse
Abstract:
Phaedrus
Proposal Number: 630
Date: 2011-12-27
Proposal Title: Knock-knock-knockin' on Heaven's Door: Understanding the Unanswered, Unanswering ‘Himn’ of Sonnet 29
Core Text:
Shakespeare's Sonnet 29
Abstract:
Even in his ecstasy in Sonnet 29, the speaker of Shakespeare
Proposal Number: 629
Date: 2011-12-26
Proposal Title: “Aristotle for Athletes”: Bringing the Great Books Where They’re Needed Most
Core Text:
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Abstract:
This paper describes a first-year seminar organized around a single core text
Proposal Number: 628
Date: 2011-12-26
Proposal Title: "More on the 'Idea of a University': Newman's Less Known Educational Writings
Core Text:
"The Idea of a University" by John Henry Newman
Abstract:
Most people, including those who know of John Henry Newman
Proposal Number: 627
Date: 2011-12-26
Proposal Title: Lessons on the Liberal Arts from Mill's On Liberty
Core Text:
Mill On Liberty
Abstract:
In his classic 'On Liberty,' J.S. Mill lays out the case for liberty, including first, the "liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological" and second, the "liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow; without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong." First year students in our 'Great Works' courses experience a unparalleled increase in liberty in their intellectual and personal lives, yet this liberty is rarely subject to scrutiny by the students themselves. By considering Mill's work in the context of the complexities of a first year student--choosing a major, dealing with dorm life, forming and expressing ideas contrary to one's peers, etc--students not only gain a deeper appreciation of the core text, but may also learn better the lessons of personal responsibility required for success the collegiate environment of almost unparalleled personal and intellectual liberty.
Proposal Number: 626
Date: 2011-12-26
Proposal Title: Literature as science: A Baconian analysis of blindness in Oedipus the King
Core Text:
Bacon's New Organon, Sophocles' Oedipus the King
Abstract:
In literature classes, students are often asked to pull out themes from texts and figure out what they mean. This is very similar to the inductive process that Francis Bacon uses to determine the nature of heat in his New Organon. To show the extent of the similarity, I apply Bacon's methods to the question of the nature of blindness in Oedipus the King. The applicability of Bacon's scientific method to a literary problem shows that the studies of literature and nature are not fundamentally different, even though they are often taught from opposite directions.
Proposal Number: 625
Date: 2011-12-25
Proposal Title: Service and Charity in
Core Text:
Dostoevsky's
Abstract:
Dostoevsky
Proposal Number: 624
Date: 2011-12-25
Proposal Title: The Teaching of Innocence and Experience
Core Text:
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Abstract:
Blake
Proposal Number: 623
Date: 2011-12-24
Proposal Title: Teaching Liberal Arts in an Environment of Prescribed Values
Core Text:
Aristotle, Oakeschott
Abstract:
If the Liberal Arts consist in their ability to transcend the practical arts, what role do they play in an eminently practical institution such as a military academy? More generally, how may one instruct the liberal arts in a way that is consistent with Oakeschott's vision in any academic setting that explicitly promotes a specific set of values in its instructional program? The paper will explore lessons from teaching Political Thought and Ideas at the United States Military Academy in West Point.
Proposal Number: 622
Date: 2011-12-24
Proposal Title: "Shining" Choices in Homer and Tolstoy
Core Text:
Iliad, Odyssey, and War and Peace; All Things Shining
Abstract:
In All Things Shining, Dreyfus and Kelly call for a new polytheism, using various
Proposal Number: 621
Date: 2011-12-23
Proposal Title: “Live with it”: How Learning Becomes Wisdom
Core Text:
The Reivers. William Faulkner
Abstract:
At the conclusion of Faulkner
Proposal Number: 620
Date: 2011-12-23
Proposal Title: Why, pedagogically, Voltaire's *Philosophical Dictionary* is a better Core text than his *Candide*
Core Text:
Voltaire, *The Philosophical Dictionary*
Abstract:
Today's undergraduates, if they read any of Voltaire's works, are likely to read his *Candide*. They would do better, however, to read his *Philosophical Dictionary*. This paper will discuss the pedagogical advantages of the latter as a Core text, arguing that it surpasses the former both as an introduction to Voltaire's thought particularly and as an introduction to the 18th-century Enlightenment generally.
Proposal Number: 619
Date: 2011-12-23
Proposal Title: Emending the canon: The case of Alexis De Tocqueville and Harriet Martineau
Core Text:
De Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Abstract:
In his Democracy in America (1840), Alexis De Tocqueville infamously claimed that
Proposal Number: 618
Date: 2011-12-22
Proposal Title: Enjoying the Fruits of the Earth Without Pain: Philosophy as Mastery of Nature
Core Text:
Descartes, Discourse on Method
Abstract:
In keeping with the 2012 conference theme,
Proposal Number: 617
Date: 2011-12-22
Proposal Title: Skepticism Destroyed Their Paradise: Generative Thinking and "Believing" in the Text
Core Text:
The Aeneid of Virgil
Abstract:
In a real world in which masses of jobs are being automated, outsourced, and eliminated, we face a growing need for thinkers who are innovative and creative. Generative thinking and
Proposal Number: 616
Date: 2011-12-22
Proposal Title: Phronesis, Theoria, and Literary Wisdom
Core Text:
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Abstract:
This presentation looks at the contribution of studying literature to a liberal arts education as preparation for living in the
Proposal Number: 615
Date: 2011-12-22
Proposal Title: Learning Logic for Real World Sparring: Plato’s “Ion” and Honors Pedagogy
Core Text:
Plato's "Ion"
Abstract:
Plato
Proposal Number: 613
Date: 2011-12-22
Proposal Title: Subversive “Lessons for Women:” The Tao of Pan Chao
Core Text:
Pan Chao's (Ban Zhao's) Lessons for Women
Abstract:
Pan Chao (45-114 C.E.), an important figure in the Latter Han Dynasty, served as tutor and advisor to Empress Teng, became a renowned historian and writer, and increased harmony and prosperity in the Empire. In her
Proposal Number: 612
Date: 2011-12-22
Proposal Title: Grooves of expertise and questions of wisdom
Core Text:
Science and the Modern World, by A. N. Whitehead
Abstract:
In his 1925 book Science and the Modern World, A. N. Whitehead discusses two consequences of the
Proposal Number: 611
Date: 2011-12-21
Proposal Title: Plato's Cave and Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed: A Happy Marraige
Core Text:
Plato, Allegory of the Cave (from Republic, Book VII, 514a-521a); Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (chapter 2)
Abstract:
Plato's Allegory of the Cave is a rich and meaningful metaphor for education. However, it is so abstract that it can be difficult for students, especially freshmen, to connect with it. Introducing Paulo Friere's banking concept of education helps students link the cave metaphor directly to educational experiences that they are familiar with.
Proposal Number: 610
Date: 2011-12-21
Proposal Title: John Stuart Mill's Enduring Case for Freedom of Expression
Core Text:
On Liberty
Abstract:
In JS Mill's On Liberty (1859), he set out a compelling and eloquent case for freedom of self-regarding conduct, in particular freedom of speech and expression, in the face of, in his own words, "the tyranny of prevailing opinion and feeling." In spite of objections levelled since at his case, involving the citation of limits to freedom of action besides his "harm principle", I argue that Mill's arguments remain powerful and crucially important for Western, and more broadly, international politics and society.
Proposal Number: 609
Date: 2011-12-21
Proposal Title: The Problem of the Points: Core Texts in Probability
Core Text:
Pacioli, Cardano, Tartaglia, Pascal and Fermat
Abstract:
While playing a game in which the first to score 10 points wins the
whole pot, we must quit when the score is 7 to 4. How should we
fairly divide the pot? Pacioli, Cardano and Tartaglia each published
an intuitively reasonable solution to this `Problem of the Points,'
but each was incorrect. We will discuss their work and the eventual different (but equivalent) solutions by Pascal and Fermat, which provide intriguing examples of the development of mathematics, and are the foundations of probability.
Proposal Number: 608
Date: 2011-12-21
Proposal Title: Shylock's Language
Core Text:
The Merchant of Venice
Abstract:
In The Merchant of Venice nearly every character can work a metaphor and play with words in a nonliteral manner. The profusion of so many uses of figurative language gently taxes the audience who are often sorting out the metaphors, remembering some Biblical or mythological or historical allusion, recalling multiple meanings of common words, and imagining possible symbolic representations. But Shylock's unwillingness to engage in the imaginative use of language that others fall into without thinking indicts him more subtly, but just as surely, as his religion or his profession in Shakespeare's eyes and the eyes of Shakespeare's intended audience.
Proposal Number: 607
Date: 2011-12-21
Proposal Title: Charting a Change in Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk
Core Text:
The Souls of Black Folk
Abstract:
Many chapters in W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk are largely unaltered, previously published essays. By considering a moment in the text when Du Bois inserts new material among the previously published, the reader gains clearer understanding of the author's creative process and the development of his thought.
Proposal Number: 606
Date: 2011-12-21
Proposal Title: Pledging Allegiance in Paradise Lost
Core Text:
Milton, Paradise Lost
Abstract:
In Paradise Lost the apple functions as something like a state-mandated loyalty oath, and the Fall constitutes a withdrawal of the first couple's fealty from God. The fact that the Fall is, in fact, two Falls (Adam's and Eve's) significantly grants Eve an independence not obvious in Genesis. The fact that she possesses the autonomy to break her oath of obedience to God on her own constitutes Milton's argument for women to become full participants in the political process, centuries before Mrs. Pankhurst.
Proposal Number: 605
Date: 2011-12-21
Proposal Title: Psychopaths, Sociopaths and students - Discussing Dostoevsky with First Year Students
Core Text:
F.M. Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment
Abstract:
Crime and Punishment is, among other things, a novel about the motivation of a crime and about its consequences for the murderer. It is a long and difficult text to read in a core programm but in many ways it speaks to students today, who struggle with the same issues, Raskolnikov struggles with (just not as extreme). The paper deals with the impact this text can have on class discussions, comparing my experiences of teaching it in the context of the Columbia Core Programm and of the Freshman program and Leuphana College, a public college in Germany that is developing a core programm as part of a General Studies programm that is unique in Germany.
Proposal Number: 604
Date: 2011-12-21
Proposal Title: The Unconventional Tragic Figure in Sophocles' Philoctetes
Core Text:
Philoctetes, by Sophocles
Abstract:
Philoctetes is an unconventional character in tragedy, as he is spared a tragic end and denied the chance to emerge from a distorted perception of the world. Although the suffering of his isolation and his wound is forced upon him, he nevertheless has a hand in his altered view of the world, ignoring the lessons that his encounters with the Atridae and Odysseus should have instilled in him. Just as Philoctetes is lost in the piteousness of his suffering, we can also become lost in the piteousness of our own circumstances. If we can learn to view the world clearly without distortion from our circumstances, we will avoid becoming tragic figures.
Proposal Number: 602
Date: 2011-12-21
Proposal Title: Love and Freedom in John Wintrop's America
Core Text:
Model of Christian Charity
Abstract:
John Winthrop
Proposal Number: 583
Date: 2011-12-21
Proposal Title: Koestler’s Darkness at Noon and the Remaking of Humanity
Core Text:
Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon
Abstract:
Koestler’s 1940 classic is a study in the political technology of Communism at perhaps its darkest hour – Stalin’s purges. Weaving Christian themes of redemption, martyrdom, suffering, and historical regeneration into an account of the Communist regime’s crude, relentless consolidation of power, Koestler offers his readers a sense of the ideological cast of the purges as well as the technologies deployed by the regime to manufacture socialist humanity. This is a searing account of a frequently ignored chapter in twentieth-century brutality. It also invites important questions. Why did the Communist experiment fail? Was the political technology incompletely developed, poorly used, tainted by atavistic human shortcomings like corruption, fear, and irresolution? Or did nature, specifically human nature, take its revenge against political hubris?
Title of panel: Technology and Political Vision in the Twentieth Century: Key texts
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
This panel gathers together papers on texts that explore technology in twentieth-century politics, literature, and philosophy. Technology encompasses not only deepening industrialization, Taylorism, and the development of communications tools. It concerns the unfolding politics of control, mastery, domination, and the conquest of nature. Ulitmately it implies the very union of knowing and making.
Proposal Number: 578
Date: 2011-12-21
Proposal Title: Seeking Pre-Eminence: Living in the Real World with Cicero’s On Duties
Core Text:
Cicero\'s On Duties
Abstract:
Cicero's On Duties was a core texts of a gentleman's education for centuries, and yet modern students are barely familiar with it. One could argue that On Duties was written for young aristocrats and that the text has become redundant in modern, egalitarian societies where the notion of honor plays less of a role. This paper argues the opposite. It argues that Cicero's On Duties is especially relevant in modern, individualized societies, where the context that gives meaning to individual choices is increasingly diffuse and where role-models are increasingly absent. The paper argues that the young still seek to distinguish themselves, and that On Duties provides them with arguments about the natural foundation of what is honorable and dishonorable, thereby providing them with a context in which their choices and actions become meaningful.
Proposal Number: 601
Date: 2011-12-20
Proposal Title: Heidegger's Discourse on Thinking as a Core Text for Liberal Education
Core Text:
Martin Heidegger's Discourse on Thinking
Abstract:
Heidegger
Proposal Number: 600
Date: 2011-12-20
Proposal Title: The Most Hated Thing: The Lie in the Soul
Core Text:
Plato's Republic
Abstract:
In Book II of Plato's Republic, Socrates introduces the topic of the true lie: that which, according to him, is most hated by all gods and humans, the lie in the soul which no one voluntarily accepts. What is this true lie in the soul, and what is it about human beings that makes them susceptible to getting it if it is so hated? This paper will comment on the psychology that underlies the possibility of the true lie, contending that the desire to know that what one desires is truly good opens one to the possibility of giving oneself the lie, in response to which Socratic rhetoric is an exercise of philosophical justice.
Title of panel: Truth, Justice, and the Good in Classical and Christian Thought
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Proposal Number: 599
Date: 2011-12-20
Proposal Title: Nobility (and Comedy) under Julius Caesar: Alternatives to Assassination
Core Text:
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
Abstract:
Cassisus and Brutus are convinced that life in Rome will be intolerable under Julius Caesar, and their conviction leads them to kill him. But in several places we see men who find ways to laugh at Caesar--and in one case to manipulate him while laughing at him. Even more importantly, we see in Antony a man who truly accepts Caesar's superior nobility and is willing to submit to him without becoming diminished, losing his talents, or losing the enjoyment of life. Shakespeare shows, then, fully plausible ways of accepting life under Julius Caesar.
Proposal Number: 598
Date: 2011-12-20
Proposal Title: Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War as a Core Text of Grand Strategy
Core Text:
Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War
Abstract:
This paper offers a brief exploration of the basic lessons of grand strategy and some practical implications in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. I consider first the development of war policy from the distinctive ideas, institutions, and interests of the dominant rival city-states, Athens and Sparta. Turning from the origins of the war and the formation of policy, I discuss the legitimation and execution of these policies in the first year of the war. Second, the paper seeks to draw out first principles of grand strategy-making from Thucydides' history and apply them to cases of the Spartan activities at Acanthus, crafting the Peace of Nicias, and the tension between justice and power in the Melian dialogue.
Proposal Number: 597
Date: 2011-12-20
Proposal Title: MONTAIGNE, SCHOPENHAUER AND THE WISDOM OF LIVING WELL
Core Text:
Montaigne's Essays, Schopenhauer's World as Will & Representation
Abstract:
The greatest and most difficult task in life is self-knowledge: it allows us to direct our actions most meaningfully. If we live in conformity with our individual nature we might prevent the waste of looking back at our life with ineffectual regret and self-reproach. Though it would be hard to find two philosophers more different in almost every respect than Montaigne and Schopenhauer, in this one important conviction they are united; and this agreement between two such antithetical thinkers all the more highlights the fact that the call to self-knowledge is the greatest good that philosophy can give us.
Proposal Number: 596
Date: 2011-12-20
Proposal Title: The Abuses and Uses of Smith's 'Wealth of Nations'
Core Text:
Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations
Abstract:
A thorough reading of Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" raises interesting questions about the ethical benefits and drawbacks that follow from the the notions to which this core text is often reduced, i.e., the division of labor and the invisible hand. Reading the text itself rather than merely these selections, moreover, can create for students fruitful dialogues between Smith and Hobbes on human nature, Smith and Marx on the alienation of labor, and Smith and the ancients on moderation and education.
Proposal Number: 595
Date: 2011-12-20
Proposal Title: A Walking Personification of the Negative—Listening to Stories in Invisible Man
Core Text:
Invisible Man
Abstract:
The second paper,
Title of panel: “My hole is warm and full of light” Relating to the Real World Classroom through Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
While Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man enjoys a comfortable place in the canon of African American literature, it holds a more precarious position outside of this field. Scholars have brilliantly analyzed the ways in which this text articulates a black man’s struggle against racism in the early 20th Century, but students often dismiss this work as a cultural lesson in problems suffered by “other people” in “the past.” To challenge this assumption, this panel will explore the ways in which the novel can help readers of all backgrounds inquire into, prepare for, and live in the real world as engaged learners. To consider how Invisible Man can help readers relate to the world, this panel contains two papers that will analyze the novel through the lenses of philosophy and literature.
Proposal Number: 593
Date: 2011-12-19
Proposal Title: Core Texts and Teaching Social Theory at Ashesi University College: Personal Reflections from Ghana’s first Liberal Arts College.
Core Text:
The Writings of Cheik Anta Diop and Kwasi Wiredu
Abstract:
This paper is a reflective one which attempts to capture the intellectual necessity and the moral imperative of teaching historically accurate and culturally relevant social theory to African freshmen and women in Ghana
Proposal Number: 592
Date: 2011-12-19
Proposal Title: Roman Wisdom for the 'Real World': Lucretius and Seneca
Core Text:
Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," & Seneca, "On the Shortness of Life"
Abstract:
Part of successfully adjusting to the 'real world' in any century involves adopting a workable perspective about life's discontents, separating what is in one
Proposal Number: 591
Date: 2011-12-18
Proposal Title: Study Abroad and Core Texts: How the Experience of Rome Informs the Text
Core Text:
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and Henry James
Abstract:
Nineteenth-century American tourists often cited the elitist experience of the European Grand Tour; however the psychological effect of nation building along with the leveling effect of the American rags to riches dream evoked a distinctively different reaction from American travelers and writers. Americans like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and Henry James, among others, marked the transition from youth to adulthood and the evolution of American cultural awareness from national foundation to national identity through travel stories in Europe. They described an incongruous combination of social ambiguity and cultural awe that was felt by Americans encountering European traditions, which they sought to rationalize for popular audiences skeptical of Europe
Proposal Number: 590
Date: 2011-12-17
Proposal Title: Fear and Repression Under Franco's Regime in Spain: Analysis of Gaite's The Back Room
Core Text:
Abstract:
During Franco
Proposal Number: 589
Date: 2011-12-17
Proposal Title: Using (the) Three Brains to Read Machiavelli’s The Prince
Core Text:
The Prince
Abstract:
Determining whether one should study Machiavelli
Proposal Number: 588
Date: 2011-12-16
Proposal Title: Shakespeare's Use of Thomistic Philosophy in Hamlet
Core Text:
Hamlet
Abstract:
Things happen in Hamlet to encourage the suspicion that Shakespeare had Aquinas in mind when he wrote it. The intention here is to discuss some of these things in the light of Thomistic ethical theory.
Proposal Number: 587
Date: 2011-12-16
Proposal Title:
Core Text:
Abstract:
Proposal Number: 586
Date: 2011-12-15
Proposal Title: Justice and Justification in Franz Kafka’s The Trial
Core Text:
The Trial by Franz Kafka though I will discuss Aristotle and Plato as well.
Abstract:
In Franz Kafka
Proposal Number: 585
Date: 2011-12-15
Proposal Title: Marvell’s “Mower Against Gardens” and the Practical Side of Liberal Learning
Core Text:
Andrew Marvell's "The Mower Against Gardens"
Abstract:
Andrew Marvell
Proposal Number: 584
Date: 2011-12-15
Proposal Title: Quiet Nights and Quiet Star: How a Spanish mystic holds the secret to inner peace
Core Text:
Noche serena
Abstract:
If we were to meet Fray Luis de Leon today, he might be on a panel with Deepak Chopra as a 21st guru, extolling the virtues of contemplation, spiritual enlightenment and the necessity of communing with nature. My students have marveled at (even attempted to imitate) his "noche serena" under the stars. My paper will explore how amid the 21st century tumult of the real world this visionary poem by a Golden Age Spanish mystic who offers wise counsel and a possible path to inner peace.
Proposal Number: 582
Date: 2011-12-13
Proposal Title:
Core Text:
Abstract:
Proposal Number: 581
Date: 2011-12-12
Proposal Title: "Polyphemus and Postcolonialism: The Island of the Cyclopes in The Odyssey"
Core Text:
The Odyssey
Abstract:
Read through the lens of postcolonial theory, the encounter between Odysseus and Polyphemus raises issues of power. Odysseus's prideful treatment of Polyphemus and his contemptuous dismissal of the Cyclopes' culture clearly reveal not only his Hellenocentrism, but also his imperialist thought processes. Questioning Odysseus's first-person narration of this "adventure," I encourage my students to discuss the problematics of the binary paradigm of civilization vs. barbarism and the ethical treatment of the Other--particularly foreigners and minorities that more powerful nations or groups consider to be "inferior." Students are quick to pick up on these issues of imperialism, prejudice, and xenophobia, which have been relevant throughout history and are still of paramount significance today.
Proposal Number: 579
Date: 2011-12-08
Proposal Title: Authentic Self Existence for the Visibly Marginalized
Core Text:
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
Abstract:
Invisible Man initially accepts the ideal of authentic existence by having its protagonist lead a philosophically examined life as he comes to terms with the meaning and purpose of his life when confronted with a society and world that does not value him. As the novel progresses it reveals that as the narrator gains a greater sense of self-understanding, instead of becoming authentic, he becomes alienated and visibly marginalized. This marginalization can be read as a rejection of the possibility of having authentic existence, an assertion for confronting this impossibility, and a positive claim of the necessity for engaging the world by leaving our proverbial warm holes.
Title of panel: “My hole is warm and full of light.” Relating to the Real World Classroom through Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
While Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man enjoys a comfortable place in the canon of African American literature, it holds a more precarious position outside of this field. Scholars have brilliantly analyzed the ways in which this text articulates a black man’s struggle against racism in the early 20th Century, but students often dismiss this work as a cultural lesson in problems suffered by “other people” in “the past.” To challenge this assumption, this panel will explore the ways in which the novel can help readers of all backgrounds inquire into, prepare for, and live in the real world as engaged learners. To consider how Invisible Man can help readers relate to the world, this panel contains two papers that will analyze the novel through the lenses of philosophy and literature.
Proposal Number: 577
Date: 2011-12-05
Proposal Title: Back to the Future? Bell, Hofstadter, and the 2012 American Electoral Cycle
Core Text:
Daniel Bell, editor, The Radical Right: The New American Right (1964) and Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1965)
Abstract:
In keeping with the theme of the 2012 conference, this paper will compare and contrast two classics of intellectual political history, Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1965) and Daniel Bell, editor, The Radical Right: The New American Right (1964), and argue that as is the case with all core texts, both works are still relevant today and still make a contribution to the ideological and intellectual debate between Left and Right as we move into the 2012 electoral cycle in the United States.
Proposal Number: 576
Date: 2011-12-05
Proposal Title: Teaching the Song of Songs
Core Text:
Song of Songs
Abstract:
I will discuss the challenges inherent in teaching the Song of Songs in the context of a course on the Bible as Literature. I make clear to students at the start of the course, on the syllabus, and during the first several classes that we are not engaging in a theological discussion of biblical literature (except insofar as the theological outlook of its authors comes into play). My students, even those who self-identified as devout religious, were generally on board with this notion, and I was pleased to find that discussions of Genesis (for example) as myth and mythology proceeded with a clear focus on literary genres and structures. Much to my surprise, however, the Song of Songs proved the most awkward and least effective discussion of the semester. I
Proposal Number: 575
Date: 2011-12-03
Proposal Title: Is Wales a Golden or Brazen World? The Classical Rhetoric, Renaissance Poetics, and Virtue Ethics of Shakespeare’s _Cymbeline_
Core Text:
_Cymbeline_
Abstract:
Sir Philip Sidney
Proposal Number: 574
Date: 2011-12-01
Proposal Title: Aristotle on Distributive Justice
Core Text:
Aristotle - Politics
Abstract:
At the center of book three of the Politics, Aristotle examines the conflicting claims of distributive justice made by the rich and the poor as an introduction to the fundamental question of who should hold the ruling offices. In weighing the various claims that can be made on behalf of the many poor, the wealthy few, the virtuous, or even a single outstanding individual, Aristotle appeals to and articulates shared expectations concerning justice. To what extent does each claim secure the common good or render to each what is due? Aristotle's finding that all claims are partial and that no claim is simply just encourages a sober moderation of not merely contemporary but permanent importance.
Proposal Number: 573
Date: 2011-12-01
Proposal Title: The ideas of teaching core texts in general education – take The Book of Changes as a case
Core Text:
The Book of Changes
Abstract:
The general education of Fudan University attaches great significance to the reading of classics of humanities. And the core texts have played a very important role in general education. This paper has a deep thinking about what to choose to read in the utilitarian reading atmosphere of modern society. The Book of Changes which possesses representativeness is among the courses of the section
Proposal Number: 572
Date: 2011-12-01
Proposal Title: To Class, Dorm, Workplace, and the Ends of the Earth: Teaching Core Texts for Lifelong Impact
Core Text:
Acts of the Apostles
Abstract:
The characters in Acts of the Apostles show sensitivity to core texts by listening to, wrestling with, and staking their life on them. As these characters hold the stories of their tradition in tension with the experience they had with Jesus, they determine what action to take next. This paper will explore ways to foster communities of students who take core texts as seriously as these early Christians did, constructing a model that enables students to apply their learning both outside the classroom and upon graduation.
Proposal Number: 571
Date: 2011-11-29
Proposal Title: Whose IS the Real World? Kafka's or Nabokov's? Or?
Core Text:
Kafka's THE TRIAL and Nabokov's INVITATION TO A BEHEADING
Abstract:
Kafka's Joseph K. dies like a dog after a frustrating attempt to free himself from an unnamed guilt. Nabokov's Cincinnatus knows his crime, waits three frustrating weeks in a "jail" for his execution, and then surreally escapes his fate in triumph, as reality dissolves around him. The reader is left asking where in each of these works is reality, and of what is it composed? Is one reality more real than the other? What is the relationship between guilt and reality?
Proposal Number: 570
Date: 2011-11-28
Proposal Title: Of Candles and Gold: Truth, Proper Order, and The Good in De Libero Arbitrio
Core Text:
De Libero Arbitrio
Abstract:
In De Libero Arbitrio, St. Augustine asks whether or not God can be considered the author of evil. This brief discussion will focus on the final stages of St. Augustine
Proposal Number: 569
Date: 2011-11-27
Proposal Title: Xenophon's Conception of Virtue in the Education of Cyrus
Core Text:
Xenophon's Education of Cyrus
Abstract:
Xenophon's teaching on virtue in the Education of Cyrus is as ambiguous as the title of the book. his fictional Cyrus teaches and practices a violently hedonistic view of virtue, but other characters in the book practice more noble versions of moral virtue. Socrates, absent from the book, is the other pole of Xenophon's moral universe, and appears to be for Xenophon the better and happier man.
Proposal Number: 568
Date: 2011-11-23
Proposal Title: Preparing Leaders for the Real World
Core Text:
Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings, Khaldun’s The Muqaddimah, and Sophocles’ play Ajax
Abstract:
In recent decades, leadership studies have become more prominent in higher education curricula; faculty members, administrators, prospective employers of new graduates, parents, and most importantly, undergraduate students themselves can all see that students who have learned to apply leadership principles will play beneficial roles in the organizations they join for the rest of their lives. When reading key texts on leadership from the field of business organization together with other core texts, such as Musashi
Proposal Number: 554
Date: 2011-11-22
Proposal Title: Pieixoto’s “Problems of Authenticity in Reference to The Handmaid’s Tale” As Justification for the Novel as “Core Text”
Core Text:
Margaret Atwood\\\\\\\'s The Handmaid\\\\\\\'s Tale
Abstract:
The Historical Notes that conclude Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (1985) complicate the relationship between reader and text, calling into question such usually stable categories as authorial integrity, narrative coherence, and textual authenticity; in doing so, the Historical Notes foreground the act of reading as a politicized praxis existing at the interstices of multiple and conflicting points of view, biases, and personal (reading and writing) histories. More than a novel about the pervasiveness of certain forms of institutionalized (socio-religious, gender, sexual) oppression, and more than a commentary on the host of political struggles that gave shape and meaning to the American Sex and Culture Wars of the 1980s (from feminist anti-pornography initiatives to right wing attacks on women’s reproductive rights and radical feminist efforts to unsettle institutionalized patriarchy and misogyny in the media and government), The Handmaid’s Tale has cemented its place as a “core text” within the classic liberal arts curriculum precisely because its central premise (as revealed principally through the Historical Notes) is so deeply entrenched in the basic tenets of liberal education: namely, the production of \"persons who are open-minded and free from provincialism, dogma, preconception, and ideology; conscious of their opinions and judgments; reflective of their actions; and aware of their place in the social and natural worlds\" (American Association for the Advancement of Science). This paper presents a justification of The Handmaid’s Tale as a “core text” in the classic liberal arts tradition through a close reading of the ways in which the Historical Notes of the novel construct a self-conscious, reflective, and socially-aware reader.
Proposal Number: 567
Date: 2011-11-21
Proposal Title: Cultural Adaptation for Students: Prospero and Caliban
Core Text:
The Tempest
Abstract:
One would be hard-pressed to find a more topically diverse work of literature for scholars of secondary school or higher than William Shakespeare
Proposal Number: 559
Date: 2011-11-18
Proposal Title: T.S. Eliot and Canon Formation: Tradition and Originality for Today’s Undergraduate
Core Text:
Tradition and the Individual Talent
Abstract:
Wedded as they are to an unwitting and post-Wordsworthian view of poetic invention, students initially dismiss "Tradition and the Individual Talent"'s (1919) nuanced discussion of originality. However, Eliot's argument that the "conscious present is an awareness of the past" is crucial in teaching the relevance of the canon. By reading a commercially popular song ("Memories" from the 1981 rock-opera hit Cats), a high-modernist lyric (Eliot's 1915 "Rhapsody on a Windy Night"), and a Pre-Raphaelite sonnet (D.G. Rossetti's 1870 "A Match with the Moon") as linked texts, students practice the disciplined effort that Eliot claimed integral for a mature understanding of craft and tradition. Consequently, they arrive at a deeper appreciation of literary influence and an enriched sense that we know ourselves and our historical context when we best comprehend our predecessors and their works.
Proposal Number: 565
Date: 2011-11-17
Proposal Title: Teaching Carlyle's Sartor Resartus: A Victorian Model for our Times
Core Text:
Sartor Resartus
Abstract:
Among my undergraduates, there is general confusion when they are assigned readings from this influential work. Not only is his prose difficult to understand, but his
injunction to his readers that they seek not happiness but "blessedness" goes against the American grain. Doesn't the Declaration of Independence proclaim that we have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?
My presentation will discuss the problems in teaching this important Victorian work to undergraduates--and then the realizations they have that Carlyle's injunction is an existential decision that they all must face in their lives: To renounce their own selfish egoism and instead to work for the benefit of the greater good, thereby discovering "blessedness."
Proposal Number: 558
Date: 2011-11-17
Proposal Title: Revising W. H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939”
Core Text:
\
Abstract:
While admirers such as Joseph Brodsky cite Auden's "September 1, 1939" as one of his seminal poems, Auden himself eventually renounced the work as "infected with an incurable dishonesty." The poem's odd fate -- dismissed by the author and celebrated by critics -- demonstrates our often uneasy relation to revision. We require our students to revise, for instance, but rarely teach what revision entails, and though we acknowledge the context of a poem, we less frequently analyze the poet's process. By examining Auden's alterations to "1939" and its critical reception, this talk explores fundamental questions about revision in both the modern definition of the term (to alter, modify, improve, correct) and its Latin root (to look back at, to revisit, to see again).
Proposal Number: 564
Date: 2011-11-14
Proposal Title:
Core Text:
Abstract:
Proposal Number: 563
Date: 2011-11-14
Proposal Title: “Living in the Real World through the Study of Core Texts: Three Applications -- and Perhaps Really Much More?”
Core Text:
Meditations (Descartes), The Aeneid (Virgil), Republic (Plato)
Abstract:
Independence of thought, sympathy, and love of (or desire for) the good and true -- each of these powers has relevance for the "real-world" as that is conventionally and uncritically understood. And, among many others, each emerges from close, careful study of (respectively) Descartes' Meditations, Virgil's Aeneid, and Plato's Republic. We may conclude with great assurance that engaging (well) with Core Texts is supportive of engaging (well) with the "real world". But perhaps it also has the capacity to take us beyond the conventional "real" into something really much more?
Proposal Number: 562
Date: 2011-11-11
Proposal Title: "The Iliad" as Ethical Textbook
Core Text:
Homer, "The Iliad"
Abstract:
The focus of "The Iliad" is the anger of Achilles. Homer provides a textbook examination of the psychological progress of this anger as it is fueled by Achilles' loss of honor, his disgust with the heroic code in general, the death of Patroclus, and the post-traumatic stress he feels after he kills Hector. The gods and especially his mother act as his therapists,and he is taught his final lesson, an ethical lesson in moderation.Hector also suffers a similar delusion wherein his anger is channeled into his stubborn offensive attitude on the battlefield, and he is taught a lesson similar to Achilles' before his death.
Proposal Number: 560
Date: 2011-11-09
Proposal Title: A Prostitute in the Company of Ladies: Pleasure and the Good in Cicero's "De Finibus"
Core Text:
Cicero, "De Finibus"
Abstract:
In De Finibus, Cicero argues that the question of the ultimate end is the greatest philosophic question. His investigation of that ultimate end in De Finibus leads to an investigation of the leading alternatives of his time, particularly Epicureanism and Stoicism. Cicero's search for the truth about the ultimate end attempts to reconcile the good as pleasure with the moral dignity of the human
Title of panel: Truth, Justice, and the Good in Classical and Christian Thought
Six sentence description or abstract of panel:
Five scholars will investigate how the great classical and Christian writers approached the question of the problematic foundation of justice and the human good as well as the alternatives about what justice and the good might be. Papers will address Plato, Aristotle/St. Thomas, Xenophon, Cicero, and St. Augustine.
Proposal Number: 557
Date: 2011-11-01
Proposal Title: "Many Fine Things": Intentionality, Interpretation and Plato's Ion in the Core Text Course
Core Text:
Plato's Ion
Abstract:
Critical approaches to Plato's Ion often subordinate his shortest dialogue to more popular ones. While Ion does shed light on Plato's other works, it also serves as both parallel and counterpoint for investigating salient issues in either poetical works, such as the Odyssey, Genesis and Exodus, or overtly philosophical treatises, like Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. In addition to treating of issues such as a foreigner's responsibility to his/her adopted (or imperial) homeland, the Ion offers a space for thinking through central concepts iterated by most ancient works: namely, the absolute epistemological and ontological status of knowledge, wisdom and divinity, and the relevance each bears on just action. Indeed, as a point of torsion that explicitly refers and alludes to writers both preceding Plato and contemporaneous to him, the Ion asks careful readers to interrogate the most fundamental of genre distinctions (and perhaps inadvertently foreshadows views brought forth in Laws) because of the emphasis it places on the role that authorial intention and intentionality more broadly play in the development of interpretations and subsequent judgments. I make this argument for deploying the Ion, once considered an insignificant dialogue, at least in part due to having used it in a Western Heritage course at Carthage College as a pragmatic tool for furthering discussion of other texts, which forced the whole class to re-consider the strains of inherited critical practice that both students and faculty carry forward as they attend to such texts.
Proposal Number: 556
Date: 2011-10-30
Proposal Title: Hephaestus: A Greek god with a Human Understanding
Core Text:
The Iliad
Abstract:
Hephaestus
Proposal Number: 555
Date: 2011-10-25
Proposal Title: Achilles and Moral Principles
Core Text:
Homer, Iliad
Abstract:
Achilles is often portrayed as selfish, emotionally-crazed, even childish--far from the moral example one would wish to set before one's students. Add to this the now almost traditional claim that Homeric values are conditioned by a cultural and religious worldview foreign to our own. The prospects for the Iliad being a source of real moral guidance look slim. However, I argue that Achilles in his principled stance against Agamemnon in Book I provides deep insights into the heart of moral obligation, as true for us today as for the ancient Greeks.
Proposal Number: 553
Date: 2011-10-19
Proposal Title: Three Perspectives on Liberal Education
Core Text:
The Miserable Ones
Abstract:
The study of liberal education is being increasingly attractive to researchers in Chinese higher education. Liberal education has been actively implemented in many Chinese universities in order to improve the overall quality of undergraduates over the past decade. Today there are a lot of misunderstandings about liberal education in theory and practice in China. The paper deals with my three perspectives on liberal education.
First, Liberal education is not only an educational ideal, but also a kind of curricular practice.
Second, there are still a lot of misunderstandings about liberal education in China. The paper elaborates the concept of liberal education and distinguishes it from other related ones, such as cultural quality education, humanistic education, and generalism education.
Third, in this paper liberal education is mainly discussed from the perspective of integration of formal curriculum and hidden curriculum, as well as integration of liberal education program and specialized course teaching.
Proposal Number: 552
Date: 2011-10-19
Proposal Title: Three Perspectives on Liberal education
Core Text:
Les Misérables
Abstract:
The study of liberal education is being increasingly attractive to researchers in Chinese higher education. Liberal education has been actively implemented in many Chinese universities in order to improve the overall quality of undergraduates over the past decade. Today there are a lot of misunderstandings about liberal education in theory and practice in China. The paper deals with my three perspectives on liberal education.
First, Liberal education is not only an educational ideal, but also a kind of curricular practice.
Second, there are still a lot of misunderstandings about liberal education in China. The paper elaborates the concept of liberal education and distinguishes it from other related ones, such as cultural quality education, humanistic education, and generalism education.
Third, in this paper liberal education is mainly discussed from the perspective of integration of formal curriculum and hidden curriculum, as well as integration of liberal education program and specialized course teaching.
Proposal Number: 551
Date: 2011-10-18
Proposal Title: "The Outward is Not the Inward": Kierkegaard's "Either/Or" as a Core Text
Core Text:
Kierkegaard, "Either/Or"
Abstract:
Søren Kierkegaard is clearly one of the important and influential writers of the modern West, but also one of the most complex even for well-schooled readers. I want to try to make a case for using an excerpted version of his first book, "Either/Or," as a core text. I believe that the experiment would fruitfully introduce students not only to Kierkegaard but also to important "real-life" philosophical and psychological issues. The lens through which I will examine those issues is a theme that is central to the book, enunciated in the Preface by Victor Eremita, the "accidental editor" of the papers of "A" the aesthete and "B" the ethicist: "the outward is not the inward"--there is a difference, often a dissonance, and sometimes an outright contradiction between a person's outward demeanor and behavior and her hidden private self. For Kierkegaard this difference had profound implications, both theological and moral, for the ways each of us understands what it is to be human and relates to other selves.
Proposal Number: 550
Date: 2011-10-16
Proposal Title: Recognizing the Longing for Virtue: A Note on Teaching Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Core Text:
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Abstract:
Students today are not unconcerned with virtue, but many of them lack the self-awareness to recognize just how deeply they long to be good human beings. This paper argues that Aristotle's discussion of virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics can help to further excite this desire, but also and perhaps more importantly, that it can help to illuminate this desire for students seeking self-awareness. It argues further that this self-awareness contributes to a life well lived. First, this kind of reflection can lead to significant improvements in the relationships that are so crucial to our happiness, and second, such reflection can influence the very ends by which we orient ourselves and all of our actions.
Proposal Number: 549
Date: 2011-10-13
Proposal Title: Account and Actuality in Aristotle's De Anima : Unearthing the Phenomenon of Soul
Core Text:
Aristotle's De Anima
Abstract:
My paper proposes to attempt to recover and bring to light the originary understanding of soul forming the foundation of Aristotle's discussions of actuality and sensation in the De Anima. In pursuing this aim, I explore what might be called the primordial phenomenon of soul, as far as it can be glimpsed from Aristotle's own thought, and his presentation of that of his philosophic and poetic predecessors. I then attempt to elucidate just what Aristotle means by calling soul an actuality, and how his language simultaneously takes up and modifies this primordial phenomenon of soul. The broad purpose of the paper is to put us, as modern men and women, into closer contact with the originary phenomena which stand at the very foundation of our most fundamental conceptual modes of access to reality.
Proposal Number: 545
Date: 2011-10-04
Proposal Title: Through the Looking Glass: The Impact of Area Studies on the Study of Core Texts
Core Text:
The Analects, The Bible, and Las Casas
Abstract:
The study of Core Texts on the global stage has been greatly influenced by area studies, and the way in which each area (Asian Studies; Latin American Studies) perceives and explains itself. This paper examines the way in which area studies influence interpretation of core texts and suggests possible new interpretations of these texts through interaction with other regions of the world. The author suggests that by doing this, core texts will reveal new layers of meaning while challenging traditional notions of "discipline" in the academy.
Proposal Number: 544
Date: 2011-09-29
Proposal Title: Paradise Aborted: Teaching Frankenstein as a Parable of Genesis Interruptus
Core Text:
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Abstract:
How can Mary Shelley's Frankenstein be taught as a core text rather than as a sensationalist pandering to current youthful fascinations with the living dead? How can it be taught in relation to other core texts such as Paradise Lost? How does the genesis of Frankenstein make it a parable of child birth and child death? These and like questions will be addressed in context of Mary Shelley's life and early critical reception.
Proposal Number: 541
Date: 2011-09-26
Proposal Title: Virgil's "Lacrimae Rerum" and Making Meaning of 9/11
Core Text:
Virgil's Aeneid
Abstract:
With its harrowing narration of the Trojan War's final moments, Virgil's Aeneid presents the aftermath of a violent event that at its heart fomented an enduring cultural and personal trauma. In the decade since 9/11, the meaning of a radically similar trauma has occupied the humanities, and my paper will explore how teaching Virgil's Aeneid can contend with what 9/11 means for students defined by its images as much as its reality. Whether it is Aeneas flight from Troy, or his lacrimae rerum at Juno's Carthaginian temple, several moments in Virgil's epic are templates for developing and challenging the notion of trauma's impact on American and global sensibilities, and the end result of the Aenean journey the establishment of empire suggests a lens though which to discuss how the American reaction to 9/11 has fashioned a generation's response to, and construction of, the real world.
Proposal Number: 539
Date: 2011-09-22
Proposal Title: Beyond Realism and Rationalism: the Darker Side of Hobbesian International Relations
Core Text:
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
Abstract:
In this essay I will attempt to reinterpret Hobbes's theory of international relations by synthesizing/redefining the realist and rationalist approaches to understanding the international community. I will show that there is a disconnect between what Hobbes explicitly says about the wisdom or unwisdom of imperialistic enterprises and what his anthropology and theory of the state logically entail. I demonstrate that notwithstanding his explicit denunciations of imperialism, it is, in principle, justified and even promoted by Hobbes.
Proposal Number: 538
Date: 2011-09-17
Proposal Title: Role of Women in the Classical School of Economics
Core Text:
Smith - Theory of Moral Sentiments and various other texts
Abstract:
The period 1760-1830 represents the period encompassing the rise of and period of prime influence of the Classical School of Economics. This article will attempt to define the changing role of women in the economic milieu of the period. We will first by review key core texts of economists such as Adam Smith, J.B. Say, David Ricardo, and J.S. Mill to ascertain the degree to which the role of women in the economy was discussed and then look at how the role of women was changing in other areas of society. We will specifically analyze the degree to which the evolving Inductrial Revolution impacted this changing role.
Proposal Number: 537
Date: 2011-09-14
Proposal Title: All About Evenness: Stoical Negotiation of Life's Bumpy Nights
Core Text:
Seneca's
Abstract:
Seneca's <Moral Essays> offer even the contemporary reader an accessible model of Stoic pragmatism and emotional balance, and in the careful reading of his works, notably, for this paper, "De Providentia" and "De Ira," Seneca suggests to his audience that a truly successful and appropriate negotiation of life's trials and difficulties only emerges from the interior life of the individual. In <De Providentia>, Seneca famously asserts that "those things which horrify us and make us tremble are for the good of any person to whom they come," and he then goes on to explore the truth of his contention that every day, people are presented opportunities to enrich and enhance one's inner self by regarding with equanimity "the calamities and terrors of life." Seneca asserts that "to pass through life without a disruption of the soul is to be ignorant of one-half of life," and his Stoical challenge to his audience to rethink-- even understand anew--the worst parts of life has echoes of an Eastern sensibility: Taoism would similarly claim that one cannot lead a meaningful life without the incorporation of every disposition. These are difficult teachings to absorb, especially for students who hav ebeen acculturated to understand normalcy only as the good and smooth and joyful: Seneca proposes to them a clear and conscious alternative of managing "real life's" troubles.
Proposal Number: 536
Date: 2011-09-14
Proposal Title: E Pluribus Unum
Core Text:
No one text
Abstract:
I'll talk about some of the implications of the meaning of our country's motto, e pluribus unum, for practical politics and philosophical outlook.
Proposal Number: 535
Date: 2011-09-14
Proposal Title: The Fourth Amendment as a Core Text: A Citizens' Interpretation
Core Text:
Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Abstract:
Despite its brevity, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is a core text of incredible power, profundity, and practical importance. At the most obvious level, it is a statement of moral doctrine: it prescribes inviolable respect for a specifically pre-legal right to security. At a subtler level, it points the reader in the direction of epistemological inquiry, reasonability being the implicit standard that governs the text as a whole. At a practical level, it is a legal text with far-reaching implications: it binds every U.S. government official in every search or seizure, criminal or civil, of any item over which any individual enjoys a right to security. In this paper, I offer what I call a citizens interpretation of the Amendment, one teachable in principle to any citizen, and intended to integrate all three dimensions of the Amendment's text without loss to any of the others.
Proposal Number: 534
Date: 2011-09-11
Proposal Title: Articulating Equivocal Matrixes of Meaning through Hesse
Core Text:
Siddhartha
Abstract:
While it has its critics, in general, Hesse's attempt to sensitively articulate his experience of Buddhism allows for an introduction to Eastern thought which is accessible to Western readers and, hopefully, a gateway to a deeper exploration of both Eastern and Western themes. The purpose of this essay is to explore one of these themes, particular as it has to do with the appropriation of Eastern terms and themes into Western spirituality in the new age movement. Upon critical examination, it can be seen that the equivocal use of terms like enlightenment, unity or oneness, detachment, and understanding fit into at least two distinct matrixes of meaning, both with radically different ethical and practical implications. Utilizing a close reading of the text, and some auxiliary comments from William Sloane Coffin, I illustrate these two matrixes and how some of the central insights might also be applied to modern Christianity.
Proposal Number: 532
Date: 2011-09-07
Proposal Title: Nowhere, Fast: The Ideal vs. the Real in Thomas More
Core Text:
Utopia (Thomas More)
Abstract:
The ongoing debate on higher education, pitting public and secular against private and religious streams, tends to emphasize an ideological and methodological break between the two in terms of particularism and universalism respectively. Each accuses the other of an over-emphasis on its philosophy of choice and a willful neglect of its opposite. More's Utopia addresses this dichotomy, providing a basis for the argument that, while there always will (and should) be tension between the universal and the particular, they need not (and should not) be mutually exclusive. As such, More's fictional essay offers a strong foundation for exploring the interaction of the conceivable with the achievable in the postmodern liberal arts curriculum, allowing the supposedly divergent streams of secular and religious education to unite, each enhancing the strengths and ameliorating the weaknesses of the other.
Proposal Number: 528
Date: 2011-08-31
Proposal Title: Life is Good -- or Is It?
Core Text:
Plato, Phaedo; Epictetus, Encheiridion; Epicurus;
Abstract:
Most of the major schools of ancient Greek philosophy argue that death is either good or at least indifferent. This clashes with our common-sense conviction that death is bad and life good. It is a strength of Aristotle's position that it seems to align with common sense more readily than the other schools of Greek thought.
Proposals for the 18th Annual Conference will begin with proposal numbers above 527.