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Another FaCTS Mellon Project

Bringing Great Books Alive

Dr. Paul M. Schafer

by Dr. Paul M. Schafer

"Bringing Great Books to Life" proposes to restructure an existing introductory level philosophy course (PHIL 1030 "Great Books in Philosophy") in order to promote the active reading of several classic philosophical works that focus on personal and social responsibility. The restructuring is designed to promote active reading in two ways. First, it will provide students with a set of concrete reading skills that is designed to improve reading efficiency (speed, comprehension, and recall). This will equip students to successfully read all kinds of sophisticated works, but, specifically, to read works of philosophy well enough to engage them in a scholarly way. Second, it will utilize teaching and learning activities that provide students with multiple opportunities to transport the intellectual content of the course from the classroom to their own individual worldviews, and then to the world that we share together.

Start date: Monday, May 10, 2010
Finish date: Tuesday, May 10, 2011