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ESF 8: Education as Self-Fashioning: Recognizing the Self and Its Possibilities

Some philosophers have argued that we have privileged and direct access to our inner selves. If this were true, it would make self-knowledge perhaps the easiest sort of knowledge to obtain. But there are many considerations that mitigate against this view of self-knowledge. Consider, for example, the slave who is so oppressed that he fully accepts his slavery and cannot even imagine the possibility of freedom for himself. Such a slave fails to recognize his own capacity for freedom and autonomous self-governance. Though the slave is perhaps the extreme case, many people, it seems, fail to recognize the full range of possibilities open to them. In this course, we shall examine both some of the ways in which one¿s capacity for self-recognition may be distorted and undermined and the role of education in enabling a person to fully recognize the self and its possibilities. What constrains the range of possibilities we see as really open to us? Contrary to the Cartesian, we shall argue that full self-recognition is an often a hard-won achievement. And we shall ask how education might function to give us a less constricted and more liberating sense of the self and its possibilities. We will consider such questions through the lens of philosophy, literature and psychology.nFriday lectures will be held 9:30am-10:50am in Bishop Auditorium.
Terms: Aut | Units: 7 | UG Reqs: College, THINK, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER, Writing 1

ESF 8A: Education as Self-Fashioning: Recognizing the Self and Its Possibilities

Some philosophers have argued that we have privileged and direct access to our inner selves. If this were true, it would make self-knowledge perhaps the easiest sort of knowledge to obtain. But there are many considerations that mitigate against this view of self-knowledge. Consider, for example, the slave who is so oppressed that he fully accepts his slavery and cannot even imagine the possibility of freedom for himself. Such a slave fails to recognize his own capacity for freedom and autonomous self-governance. Though the slave is perhaps the extreme case, many people, it seems, fail to recognize the full range of possibilities open to them. In this course, we shall examine both some of the ways in which one¿s capacity for self-recognition may be distorted and undermined and the role of education in enabling a person to fully recognize the self and its possibilities. What constrains the range of possibilities we see as really open to us? Contrary to the Cartesian, we shall argue that full self-recognition is an often a hard-won achievement. And we shall ask how education might function to give us a less constricted and more liberating sense of the self and its possibilities. We will consider such questions through the lens of philosophy, literature and psychology.
Terms: Aut | Units: 7 | UG Reqs: College, THINK, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER, Writing 1

ESF 9: Education as Self-Fashioning: Chinese Traditions of the Self

In this class we explore thinking about the self and its cultivation that took root and flourished in China. Chinese civilization was centrally concerned with issues of the self, but it developed methods and ideals of cultivation that have no obvious parallel in the European tradition. We will be concerned primarily with two clusters of Chinese thought and expression. First, we will look at major philosophical traditions (Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism) to see how they structured thinking about education and self-cultivation. The three ¿schools¿ of thought staked out different ideals for the self that provided China with range and flexibility in concepts of personhood. Second, we will examine Chinese aesthetic traditions, especially those of qin music, calligraphy and painting, to understand how the arts were used as a platform for self-cultivation and to communicate the artist¿s essential nature to others. The course also gives attention to the gendering of concepts of the self and to the tradition of martial arts as self-discipline and self-strengthening. Students should emerge from the course with an understanding of how a major civilization located outside Western traditions developed its own answers to these questions of universal human concern.
Last offered: Autumn 2016 | UG Reqs: College, THINK, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 1

ESF 9A: Education as Self-Fashioning: Chinese Traditions of the Self

In this class we explore thinking about the self and its cultivation that took root and flourished in China. Chinese civilization was centrally concerned with issues of the self, but it developed methods and ideals of cultivation that have no obvious parallel in the European tradition. We will be concerned primarily with two clusters of Chinese thought and expression. First, we will look at major philosophical traditions (Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism) to see how they structured thinking about education and self-cultivation. The three ¿schools¿ of thought staked out different ideals for the self that provided China with range and flexibility in concepts of personhood. Second, we will examine Chinese aesthetic traditions, especially those of qin music, calligraphy and painting, to understand how the arts were used as a platform for self-cultivation and to communicate the artist¿s essential nature to others. The course also gives attention to the gendering of concepts of the self and to the tradition of martial arts as self-discipline and self-strengthening. Students should emerge from the course with an understanding of how a major civilization located outside Western traditions developed its own answers to these questions of universal human concern.
Last offered: Autumn 2016 | UG Reqs: College, THINK, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 1

ESF 13: Education as Self-Fashioning: The Discovery of The Mind

The struggle to know began long before you entered the university. The university as an institution has its origins in the late Middle Ages; it has been reinvented repeatedly as our ideas about education have changed. People have been rebelling against how institutions define learning (and for whom) ever since. This course introduces you to some of the most thoughtful and interesting reflections on the nature and purpose of an education, on knowledge and ignorance, at the birth of the modern world. Understanding the quest to discover the mind and to embrace learning as a lifelong endeavor is a starting point to reflect on the goals of your own education, as an engaged intellectual citizen of the world.nFriday lectures will be held 9:30am-10:50am in Bishop Auditorium.
Terms: Aut | Units: 7 | UG Reqs: College, THINK, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI, Writing 1

ESF 13A: Education as Self-Fashioning: The Discovery of the Mind

The struggle to know began long before you entered the university. The university as an institution has its origins in the late Middle Ages; it has been reinvented repeatedly as our ideas about education have changed. People have been rebelling against how institutions define learning (and for whom) ever since. This course introduces you to some of the most thoughtful and interesting reflections on the nature and purpose of an education, on knowledge and ignorance, at the birth of the modern world. Understanding the quest to discover the mind and to embrace learning as a lifelong endeavor is a starting point to reflect on the goals of your own education, as an engaged intellectual citizen of the world.
Terms: Aut | Units: 7 | UG Reqs: College, THINK, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI, Writing 1

ESF 14: Education as Self-Fashioning: The Challenge of Choice

The Challenge of Choice addresses these questions by engaging key texts from the liberal arts tradition that explore decisions and their consequences, exposing the multi-faceted nature of choice. By representing characters with whom we sympathize, as well as those whose experience seems worlds away from our own, artists (novelists, playwrights, filmmakers) ask us to consider the web of circumstance that influences a character to choose one course over another. Distance from our own subjectivity the stories are not ours, but they could be allows these works to shed light on the dilemmas that face us as we go about `choosing the life we think we would like to live. Confronting these works, we find that the kinds of choices we make grow in depth, magnitude, and significance.nFriday lectures will be held 9:30am-10:50am in Bishop Auditorium.
Terms: Aut | Units: 7 | UG Reqs: College, THINK, WAY-A-II, Writing 1

ESF 14A: Education as Self-Fashioning: The Challenge of Choice

The Challenge of Choice addresses these questions by engaging key texts from the liberal arts tradition that explore decisions and their consequences, exposing the multi-faceted nature of choice. By representing characters with whom we sympathize, as well as those whose experience seems worlds away from our own, artists (novelists, playwrights, filmmakers) ask us to consider the web of circumstance that influences a character to choose one course over another. Distance from our own subjectivity the stories are not ours, but they could be allows these works to shed light on the dilemmas that face us as we go about `choosing the life we think we would like to live. Confronting these works, we find that the kinds of choices we make grow in depth, magnitude, and significance.
Terms: Aut | Units: 7 | UG Reqs: College, THINK, WAY-A-II, Writing 1

ESF 15: Education as Self-Fashioning: College and the Good Life

Academic study was once concerned with one overriding question: what is the best way to live our lives? What are the ultimate goals and values we should privilege over others? Today we often assume that value choices are personal. But many teachers in Antiquity (and beyond) thought that these choices needed to be debated, and that education demanded that we debate and think them through. In this class, we ask questions about the good life, but we also consider whether college is still designed to raise such questions. We will read thought-provoking, influential texts from Antiquity and modern times, by such writers as Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, Voltaire, DuBois, and Martha Nussbaum.nFriday lectures will be held 9:30am-10:50am in Bishop Auditorium.
Terms: Aut | Units: 7 | UG Reqs: College, THINK, WAY-A-II, Writing 1

ESF 15A: Education as Self-Fashioning: College and The Good Life

Academic study was once concerned with one overriding question: what is the best way to live our lives? What are the ultimate goals and values we should privilege over others? Today we often assume that value choices are personal. But many teachers in Antiquity (and beyond) thought that these choices needed to be debated, and that education demanded that we debate and think them through. In this class, we ask questions about the good life, but we also consider whether college is still designed to raise such questions. We will read thought-provoking, influential texts from Antiquity and modern times, by such writers as Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, Voltaire, DuBois, and Martha Nussbaum.
Terms: Aut | Units: 7 | UG Reqs: College, THINK, WAY-A-II, Writing 1
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