[lit-ideas] Re: Great Books Programs
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 08:24:04 -0700
on 6/1/05 7:20 AM, Ursula Stange at Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I'd be interested in people's experience with Great Books Programs in
> universities. They go by a variety of names and seem to be coming back
> into fashion My little school is considering such and I'd be interested
> in hearing about your experiences/impressions from either a consumer or
> provider perspective. I seem to remember reading a charming piece here
> once about Stephen Straker's involvement in such a program in
> Vancouver. Perhaps it was even his baby.
Stephen taught in a program called "Arts One." Michael Chase wrote about
being a student in that program. I may have written about being a T.A. in a
similar program at UCSD, "Revelle Humanities." What the two programs shared
(still share?) is the idea of having faculty from many disciplines team
teach. In Arts One they divide lecturing within terms; UCSD has faculty
lecture for a term each (for term read quarter or semester). Clearly Arts
One is the more expensive model. UCSD tackled books in roughly
chronological order, but the lecturer was free to choose works according to
themes or just as he or she pleased. The works in Arts One are settled on
in advance by the committee of those who are teaching the course. I think
they (always? usually?) choose a thematic arrangement.
As a foreigner, new to the system, I remember thinking that this was an
excellent beginning to university studies, but not without its personal
irony. Of all the texts that I read as an undergraduate in Britain, among
my least favorites were the three volumes of the "Divine Comedy." "Thank
goodness," I said, as I finished my study of literature, "I'll never have to
crack one of those again." Sure enough, one of my first jobs as a T.A. was
to try to explain what makes the Divine Comedy great.
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
