Teaching for Core Texts and Ideas
The Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas invites all faculty to propose new courses and cross-list existing courses with CTI. In preparing proposals, please consult the following guidelines, adapted from the those used by the National Endowment for the Humanities for its Enduring Questions pilot course grants.
We are looking for courses that:
We are looking for courses that:
- are based entirely or almost entirely on the close study of primary texts, including major works of philosophy, religion, and literature; seminal writings in the sciences and social sciences; works of art; or political documents and speeches;
- are built around a sustained engagement with one or more fundamental and enduring questions of profound philosophical, ethical, or political significance;
- reflect intellectual pluralism, exploring more than one answer to each of the questions examined; and
- enable the students to engage as directly as possible with the thought of the authors they are studying, with the goal of being challenged by and learning from the books and authors, not simply learning about them.
- the proportion of class time and assignments devoted to primary sources of significant artistic, intellectual, or historical importance should be at least one-third in general history courses and at least two-thirds in courses in intellectual history and the arts; and
- the relation between artistic and intellectual developments and the broader political, social, economic, and cultural context in which they arose and to which they spoke should be raised as a question. The class should be encouraged to consider more than one of the answers that have been offered to this question by serious thinkers over time.
