Academic Program

Santa Fe Preceptorials

Preceptorial Topics
Fall 2007

Supreme Court Cases: Civil Rights
Bartok, Phil
We'll read a series of fascinating and important Supreme Court decisions spanning nearly 150 years from the 1865 Dred Scott case to the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision.  Collectively, these 'civil rights' cases clarified (created? ) broad rights to non-discrimination on the basis of race, gender, or sexual orientation and rights to liberty and privacy in marriage, sexuality, and reproduction. 
*Pol/Soc, Hist

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Emily Dickinson's poems
Cassel, Monika
"A Word made Flesh is seldom/ And tremblingly partook/ Nor then perhaps reported" (F1715). To a dedicated reader, the language of Dickinson's poetry, which seems indeed to have a life of its own, can begin to reorder the world.  We will be reading Dickinson's poetry both in order to enter this world and with the broader goal of learning close reading.  Thus, we will be reading Dickinson's poems not simply thematically, but also studying other elements of her poetry, such as form, sound, punctuation, and use of poetic tropes.  To support the study of Dickinson's poetry, we will also be reading some of her letters and studying facsimiles of her manuscripts. 
4:00 p.m. precept

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Plato, Symposium
Davis, Matthew
We will read the dialogue with care.  Our main aim will be to discover its teaching about love, but we will also consider, among other things, its reflections on cosmology. 
*Pol/Soc, Phil/Theo

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Tolstoy, War and Peace
Engel, Elizabeth
*Pol/Soc, Phil/Theo, Hist

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Heidegger, Being and Time
Farin, Ingo
The aim of this precept is to read through Being and Time; given 16 meetings, we'll read about 30 pages for each meeting. 
*Pol/Soc, Phil/Theo, Hist

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Cantor, Introduction to the Theory of Transfinite Numbers
Franks, Grant

Aristotle claims that the Infinite exists only as a potential.  Galileo says that the ideas of greater and less do not apply to the infinite. 

Georg Cantor disagrees and sets out to construct a science of Transfinite Numbers, beginning with the number of all integers (aleph-null) and proceeding upward toward ever greater infinities whose mere definition is enough to make the head spin.   By the time we reach the epsilon numbers of the second number class, we will need sherpas to carry the backpacks and bottles of supplemental oxygen. 

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Homer,Odyssey
Freitas, Glenn
We know we can't go home again.  If this is problematic, then what is the poem about? What is Penelope waiting for?  What is Telemachus becoming? We will read slowly, carefully.  We may peek at the Greek occasionally. 
4:00 p.m. precept

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Plutarch, Life of Antony; Shakespeare, Antony & Cleopatra
Goldfarb, Barry
*Hist

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Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter, Thoreau, Walden
Harrison, Ewen
Both Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) and Thoreau's Walden (1854), in their own ways, teach us about the tenuous but essential relationship between the human/political and the wild/natural.  We shall be concerned with understanding this relationship, as well as with a deeper understanding of the formal and stylistic qualities of these books. Undoubtedly other points of intersection and departure will emerge. 

Hawthorne said of Thoreau: "[He] is a keen and delicate observer of nature - a genuine observer - which, I suspect, is almost as rare a character as even an original poet; and Nature, in return for his love, seems to adopt him as her especial child, and shows him secrets which few others are allowed to witness. "
*Pol/Soc

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Proust, Swann's Way, Recherché
Honeywell, Claudia
We will read the first volume of the 3-volume Moncrieff edition of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.  This volume contains Swann's Way as well as Within a Budding Grove.  We will read 50-70 pages for each meeting, and we will occasionally look at passages in French.  Please join us for this trip to the past. 
4:00 p.m. precept

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Darwin, Origin of Species
Houser, Stephen
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

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Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought
Hunt, Frank
The translator describes this book as follows: "The present volume is composed, with Heidegger's consent, of writings chosen because they fit together to bring out the main drift of his thinking that relates poetry, art, thought, and language to Being and to man's existing as the mortal he is. " We will also read other "late" Heidegger essays about language and poetry from the volume Basic Writings. 
*Pol/Soc, Phil/Theo

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Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens
Kingston, Andy
In both Coriolanus and Timon of Athens, Shakespeare's protagonists are irredeemable failures who challenge the very notion of the tragic.  Along with the plays, we will consider Beethoven's Coriolan overture, Duke Ellington's music for Timon of Athens, and relevant passages from Plutarch's Lives. 
*Pol/Soc, Hist

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Plato, Laws
LeCuyer, Phil
This late and mysterious dialogue begins with the question: "Is it a god or some human being, stranger, who is the origin of your laws? " We will use the translation by Thomas Pangle, who writes in his notes about the Laws (which he characterizes as Plato's presentation of "the art whose business it is to care for souls - the art of politics"): "On first perusing this longest Platonic dialogue, the reader will almost inevitably be filled with a mixture of wonder and repugnance; if he has imagination, he may feel as one cast upon a strange land, of alien language, foreign categories of thought, and sometimes distasteful criteria of moral judgment.  

This feeling should be the continuing focus of our attention because it is the symptom of our liberation.   It is the first blaze on a trail that may lead us out of the cave of our contemporary culture to a vantage point from which we might begin freely to understand and judge the profound and hidden presuppositions of our age. "
*Pol/Soc, Phil/Theo

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Rhetoric: Plato and Aristotle
Levine, David
In the Gorgias, Plato attacks rhetoric as a form of sophistry, manipulating our passions and indistinguishable from pandering (cp. as "bakers feeding sweets to young children"). At its worst, rhetoric is a use of force by other means. 

Is there a mode of speech that is responsible, not guided or manipulated for ulterior gain, a mode of public (political) speech above all? Is persuasion simply a matter of rational argument? Is truth simply a matter of persuasion? Can we become reflective about conversation and communication? Is there an "art" of persuasion? Aristotle tries to make the case for such a responsible "art of rhetoric. "

Along the way, we will see the other side of Aristotle (Heidegger: Aristotle's treatment of "everydayness"), his consideration of the emotions, other modes of speech than demonstration, and the role of character in the speaker and his or her audience. In short, many humanly important questions will be asked in the process of our reflective discussions. 

We too live in a world of managed speech (advertising, marketing, spin, talking heads, pandering). Can we become critical listeners? 
*Pol/Soc, Phil/Theo

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Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death, Practice in Christianity
McCombs, Richard
We will discuss, among other things, the following themes of our two books: the relation of psychology and philosophy to faith, the character and causes of health and sickness of soul, faith as the cure of the sickness unto death, "indirect communication" as the appropriate way of writing so as to promote health of soul. We will also devote 5 meetings to discussing treatments of indirect communications in the writings of Kierkegaard. 
*Pol/Soc, Phil/Theo

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Comedies - Rabelais, Sterne
McDonald, David
We'll read Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, and Sterne's Tristan Shandy, with an eye toward discerning the fundamental concerns and aims of these two great comic novels. Note that these are demanding books, and there is nothing frivolous about the best comedy. 

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Woolf, Jacob's Room, To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway
Miller, Basia
Britain before and immediately after World War I provides the historical context for these short novels. Through Virginia Woolf's radical meaning rendering of what might elsewhere be inconsequential matters, she exposes the reader to the characters' immediate consciousness of events. This perspective will lead us to inquire about consciousness, time, and the discovery of meaning. 
*Pol/Soc, Hist

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Twain, Huckleberry Finn; Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Myers, Lynda
We will begin with a slow reading of Twain's Huckleberry Finn and then look at selected passages from Tocqueville's Democracy in America for further consideration of the world Twain has presented. 
*Pol/Soc, Hist

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Hobbes, Leviathan
Perry, Bruce
The precept will consist in the main of a slow, careful reading of the Leviathan. Select passages from some of Hobbes' other works (most notably, On Body) will be brought in for illustrative purposes on occasion. Only the first half or so of the Leviathan is read in the Junior Seminar, and the precept aims to look at the whole. 
*Pol/Soc, Phil/Theo, Hist

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Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Reahard, Julie
Despite being composed in the eighth and fourteenth centuries respectively, Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight have never lost their power to stimulate the minds and imaginations of readers. This is perhaps because both works came from the ferment of changing times. In the eighth century, the Anglo Saxons were not far removed from the tribal life out of which they had emerged. They had not achieved political unity, and they still felt and acted according to instincts that were the result of racial experience from time immemorial. They had, however, recently accepted Christianity. This combination of cultures stimulated the production of a literature of two fold tradition, with Beowulf as its strongest representative. 

In the second half of the fourteenth century the Middle Ages were drawing to a close. The feudal pattern of society, codes of chivalry and organization of learning and religion that had been worked out during the preceding centuries were still flourishing; but there was a new sense of national consciousness. Exploration and trade had tapped new sources of wealth, with a consequent rise to power of the merchants; unrest with old forms and old abuses was threatening as never before. Out of this energy came authors like Chaucer, and the anonymous author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. 

Both texts, then, shall show us something of the interest and beauty to be found in what was written during these two great eras. 
4:00 p.m. precept

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Levinas, Totality and Infinity
Smith, Jay
Levinas seeks to establish through a phenomenological examination ethics as first philosophy. The "face" of the other is the locus of transcendence in that it calls into question the "I" in its existence as a being for itself. This "experience" is the basis of a critique of Totality and it is in the overflowing of Totality, that is in a thought of infinity, that a basis for ethics is found. 
*Pol/Soc, Phil/Theo

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Hegel, Philosophy of History, Philosophy of Right
Sterling, Walter
Though more accessible than the Phenomenology or the Science of Logic, these works till present us with a formidable task.  Hegel is always difficult.  Our reward is a vision of Hegel's deep concern with politics, with history as a rational development, and with the meaning of modern life. Participants will have the opportunity to open discussions, and a substantial essay will be required. 
*Pol/Soc, Phil/Theo, Hist

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Herodotus, Histories
Stickney, Cary
Herodotus tells of Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians what he has heard, what he has seen for himself, and some of what he conjectures. He is especially interested in Xerxes' invasion of Greece. What can one learn from human events? 
*Pol/Soc, Hist

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Faulkner, Sanctuary, Light in August
Van Luchene, Stephen

William Faulkner may be America's greatest novelist. Sanctuary and Light in August, published in the early 1930's, probe the consciousness of postbellum Mississippi - Faulkner's elliptical approach to storytelling demands much of his readers, readers who are, however, well compensated for their efforts. 
*Pol/Soc

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Nietzsche and Music
Walpin, Ned
Nietzsche is perhaps the most musical philosopher. That is a common observation, but how are we best to understand it? There appear to be three ways: 1. He composed music. True, but we are not going to listen to any. 2. He writes about music. Indeed, we will consider some of his observations on music, as they are quite interesting. 3. His theoretical insights are themselves musical, and may best be grasped through music. 

To understand the second, and in particular, the third claim, I propose a precept that pairs the works of Nietzsche with two masterpieces that are closely related to his writing and thinking: The Birth of Tragedy with Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, and Human, All-Too Human with Mahler's Third Symphony. 

This preceptorial will require comfort working with, and even at times analyzing, a musical score. Indeed, while a piano reduction is available for Tristan, we have no such luck for Mahler's symphony. 
4:00 p.m. precept

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Italian Renaissance Art
Wolfe, Kenneth
We will study major works of Italian Renaissance painting, sculpture, and architecture by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and others. We will read some writings by Renaissance artists on art (e.g Alberti, Leonardo, Palladio, Vesari). There will be a practicum consisting of drawing from observed reality, and students will be asked to make sketchbook drawings of selected classical works of art studied. 
4:00 p.m. precept

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Eliot, Middlemarch
Zeitlin, Alan
George Eliot's Middlemarch explores the timeless question of how men and women can make morally and spiritually fulfilling lives for themselves in social and political circumstances that are far from nurturing. With its brilliant characterization and use of language, the novel is also a delight to read. We shall read it carefully, savoring its nuances. 
* Pol/Soc

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*For Graduate Institute students in History, Philosophy and Theology or Politics and Society segments as indicated.