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IDST-010 Ignatius Seminar
Fall only
Faculty:
Carse, Alisa
Charles, Peter
Connor-Linton, Jeffrey
Deneen, Patrick
Durmelat, Sylvie
Leonard, Amy
Murphy, G. Ronald
Paranjape, Makarand
Weiss, Martha
Wickham-Crowley, Kelley
Wickham-Crowley, Timothy
Drawing on the educational insights of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, these courses seek to cultivate the Ignatian ideal of cura personalis: care for each person's individuality and care for his or her integral wholeness. Like other Renaissance educators, Jesuits sought to educate the whole person--mind, body and spirit--a tradition alive at Georgetown College today. The Ignatius Seminars focus not only on conveying information and intellectual content, but also on building a home for wisdom and enriching all dimensions of our students' lives.
Designed for the intellectually curious student interested in an integrative and personal approach to learning, the small class setting of these first-year seminars enables students to get to know their professors and each other well. In this atmosphere, the faculty can recognize the strengths and educational needs of each student, creating a teaching and mentoring environment. Each professor's expression of his or her particular scholarly pursuit provides students with a tangible example of the interplay of mind and spirit, of disciplined work and intellectual excitement, of academic rigor and creative play.
The Ignatius Seminars initiate opportunities early in your time at Georgetown to cultivate basic skills that faculty identify as important: reading a text with thought and insight, speaking clearly and persuasively in an academic discussion, and writing a structured and sustained argument. This is a chance to experience Georgetown College and university learning at its best.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
Course syllabi
The following syllabi may help you learn more about this course (login required):
Fall '09:
Deneen, P.
(file download)
Fall '09:
Leonard A
(file download)
Additional syllabi may be available in prior academic years.
Sections:
IDST-010-01 Ignatius Seminar: Indexicality: Reading Between the Lines
Fall only
Language is not only the medium through which we communicate, but the material with which we construct representations of our world. Most obviously, we can make claims about our world (It is flat/round/neither), but the ways in which we use language also index aspects of our identity and the roles we are playing at a given moment. Our language use also indexes the identities and roles we perceive and project on our interlocutors. Our language use doesn’t just reflect these roles and identities passively; we construct and negotiate our social realities dynamically through our language choices. I may talk to my daughter like a father, but she may respond as an independent adult, not my child. A boss talks differently to an employee than to his/her spouse (I hope). Even my choice of ‘his/her’ says something about the identity I seek to project.
Our ways with words have social consequences. Social class dialects help to maintain social class stratification across generations; gender roles are negotiated through patterns of language use; ethnic identities and boundaries are marked and contended through language choices. One’s language use not only communicates volumes about the speaker (or writer), but about his or her perceptions of and assumptions about the world. Is your glass half empty or half full? In a political argument, who are ‘we’ and who are ‘they’? Did John kill the cat or was the cat hit by a car?
In this course, after an introduction to the functional relation between language use and indexical meaning, we will study language use in several domains, using a quantitative ‘multi-feature/multi-dimensional’ method of discourse analysis. We’ll investigate how authors mark their own ethnicity and gender, how medical knowledge is represented to different users (lay users, med students and researchers), and how face-to-face conversation differs from email, chat and texting. In each case, students will work in groups to design the study, motivate a relevant sample, and collect and analyze the data. For the final project, each student will construct several versions of a text (of his or her own choosing), each indexing a different set of identities, roles, contexts, and purposes.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
IDST-010-02 Ignatius Seminar: Food For Thought
Fall only
You are what you eat, says the proverb. But are we?… Are we also, then, where, when, and how we eat?
In this class, we will question the assumptions and unpack the implications underlying this bit of popular wisdom. While cooking shows on TV popularize star chefs glowing with a romantic culinary mystique, the daily work of preparing food remains arduous and poorly paid. Despite their repetition, culinary practices are often overlooked, if not trivialized. Until rather recently, food rarely became the subject of theoretical and philosophical examinations. However, the interdisciplinary field of food studies is fast gaining a name and academic recognition.
This course proposes to explore the complex relationships among food, culture, and society through the study of texts from various disciplines and genres in the humanities and the social sciences: journalistic investigations, documentaries, novels, blogs, visual arts, advertisements, films, sociological studies, cultural studies, and philosophical essays.
Food is a perennial cause of anxiety. One needs only think about the recurrence of hunger, food safety issues, food rules and etiquette, diets and obesity rates. At the same time, it paradoxically provides us with one of our deepest sources of satisfaction and excitement. It anchors us in family lore while it also provides us with a sense of everyday adventure and the means to (re)define who we are. These paradoxes will be examined this semester, as well as the following major issues, including but not limited to:
• Food production, industrialization, and responsibility: What to eat?
• Food as self and other: food rules and morality; food, gender, family and class (do feminists like to cook?); food and ethnicity.
• Food and power: Eating the other/Eating to become other; culinary tourism and colonialism; food and national identity; migration, acculturation and resistance through food.
• The poetics and politics of recipes: magical food, the power of culinary discourses, food films.
WARNING: This course is neither a nutrition class, nor a hands-on cooking class (though we will have a few opportunities to exercise our taste buds), and will require going beyond a mere celebration of the pleasures of food.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
IDST-010-03 Ignatius Seminar: Navigating the Moral Terrain
Fall only
Living morally requires artful, and sometimes arduous, navigation of a “messy” and complex range of challenges. There are few tidy rules and algorithms to serve as guides;
those we have are often too vague or general to yield clear moral direction in the face of real-life conflicts, pressures and aspirations. In this course, we will explore the art of moral navigation. Our exploration will be organized around four basic questions: What personal strengths and capacities support us in making wise
moral judgments? How are the strengths and capacities called on by moral
agency diminished, obstructed, or challenged? How are they developed, supported and sustained? What is the relationship between “moral wisdom” and personal thriving?
We will examine these questions through the critical study of a range of topics: moral relativism and moral “isolationism;” personal autonomy and the challenge of moral authenticity; moral responsibility and the specter of “moral luck”; sources of moral resilience and “repair” – esp. empathy, trust, forgiveness, and hope; the ethics of love and sexuality; and the nature and value of self-respect. In addressing these themes, we’ll study and reflect together on great philosophical writings, bringing them into conversation with real-life and fictional dramas(e.g., in film, fiction, and poetry).
Our working assumption will be one rooted in Aristotle’s ethical theory, namely, that there is an essential connection between living a moral life (and thus being a “good moral navigator”) and thriving as a human being. Just how we should understand this connection is, of course, a Big Question. It is a question we will grapple with together, sharing our quandaries, insights, and discoveries.
The classroom is, I believe, a privileged space – one that can be made safe for the exploration of “dangerous” issues, and in which we can engage peacefully and together in thinking morally about complex and often difficult questions. In this way, we can create a kind of oasis in a world too often torn by social and moral discord, division, and misunderstanding. Philosophy is an inherently reflective discipline – it engages us in “art” of asking questions and is at its heart driven by dialogue and debate.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
IDST-010-04 Ignatius Seminar: A Plant's Eye View of Human Civilization
Fall only
Human beings depend on plants not only for food and oxygen, but also as sources of fuel, clothing, shelter, drugs, adornments, and more. Indeed, we often don’t even recognize the botanical origins of many of the products we use every day. Plants have also had an enormous influence on the course of human history. Consider, for example, that the origin of agriculture paved the way for the development of civilization itself, and that the great sea voyages of the ‘Age of Exploration’ were motivated by a search for tropical spices such as pepper, cinnamon, and cloves!
Our discussions will necessarily lead us into the realms of history, economics, politics, religion, and language, as human uses of plants weave through all of these fields. We will also look to the future, and consider the possible implications of the loss of plant species and genetic diversity, and the increasing use of bio-fuels and genetically modified organisms.
An important goal of this seminar is to increase your awareness and appreciation of the plants in your lives. In ‘hands-on’ lab sessions we’ll make paper and twine, sample a range of exotic foods, and experiment with a variety of plants and plant materials. We will also take advantage of the abundant resources of D.C., with field trips to the U.S. Botanical Garden, the National Arboretum, a traditional medicine market, and a local artisanal chocolate shop.
Finally, we’ll work on developing fundamental skills that will be essential in your college career—careful and critical reading, clear and effective writing, engaging and persuasive argument.
Come join us to explore the scientific, historical and economic stories of plants in human history, including tales of piracy, discovery, trade, exploitation, craft, and culture!
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
IDST-010-05 Ignatius Seminar: Race, Color, Culture
Fall only
Some words and scenarios from U.S. History: “No Irish need apply” (1850s); black Americans being declared by our Supreme Court “so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his own benefit” (The Dred Scott decision, 1857); Congress passing a deeply restrictive immigration-quota law for the first time since independence, targeting and limiting some European and all East Asian immigrants (1921); our government refusing to allow a ship loaded with German Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany to dock at our ports (1939); by the 2050s, some demographic Cassandras tell (warn?) us, fully half of the U.S. population will be Latinos.
Such political fears and targeting of select, if changing, “suspect-groups” is a near-constant in U.S. history, and yet .... . In 1960, a wealthy Catholic of Irish descent wins the presidency; less than a half-century later, an African-American repeats the unlikely story; virtually all barriers to the social integration and mutual respect of Americans once hailing from Ireland, Italy, Poland, and Germany have been dissolved, a process now steadily expanding to include those from Asia and Latin America. Indeed, a spate of books now tells us how, over time, the Irish, the Italians, and the Jews each “became white,” and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents.
In this course we will explore the hues of our humanity, and how they may color our cultural perceptions. We too will be expansive, going beyond the U.S. to other nations where issues of race, color, and culture have been troublesome: for instance, where the paler skinned Peruvians once opined that “[t]he indian is the animal that most resembles man,” a few years ago the citizenry elected president a man of indigenous and peasant background; or Brazil and Japan, wherein half a million Japanese-descent Brazilians returned to their ancestral homeland, which finds it hard to accept the samba- and beach-loving returnees.
Sociology, anthropology, and history may be central to our venture, but we also will draw fruitfully from, and seek out, materials and studies ranging from population genetics all the way to visual and verbal symbolic representations, such as posters and ethnic jokes.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
IDST-010-06 Ignatius Seminar: Touching the Middle Ages: Contact with Physical and Intellectual Cultures
Fall only
What do we know about the European Middle Ages (500-1500) and how do we know it? Can we touch something of what that diverse period was with its many cultures, or are we simply constructing a version of the past that reflects more on who we ourselves are? This seminar takes those questions as the central work of the course and suggests that the neglected physical aspects of the medieval world open up the alterity we experience.
Different as medieval cultures were, we have pervasive influences from them even in postmodern America: the university itself is a medieval creation with physical and ideological implications. Here, we will look at translated texts in the main languages that impacted medieval Britain (Latin, Old English, Norse, French, and Middle English), looking for what both physical and textual cultures suggest we need to research. If we read a dream vision that entails walking through a church, what can we discover about architecture, spatial organization and its significance, beliefs about dreams, relics, pilgrimage? Looking at The Song of Roland, Beowulf, or the Norse sagas of exploration, what can we learn of cultural clashes, masculinity, armor and weapons, trade, navigation? Reading a tale of courtly chivalry, what can we discover about dress, feasting, class, sexuality and gender relations? We will also take advantage of what physical resources we have locally, visiting Dumbarton Oaks and the National Cathedral and creating a medieval feast after we have studied spices and cookbooks. The culmination of our intellectual explorations will be participation in an undergraduate medieval conference at Moravian College (PA) in early December. Students will learn to identify their questions, find the resources to research them, and contribute their share to the interdisciplinary project of understanding the medieval as an embodied past.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
IDST-010-07 Ignatius Seminar: Myth and Realization
Fall only
Love thy neighbor. This ancient command becomes almost impossible when thy neighbor is different or other than oneself. One of the things that the Arts and Sciences can do is to enable a student to ‘other’ him or herself enough to bridge the gap of difference. History travels to other people of other times, sociology to other cultures, foreign languages let you be at home with foreign patterns of communication and feeling, literature lets you befriend the world of others’ common human experiences; despite all differences. Astronomy takes the student to a vista from which differences melt.
This seminar is an explorer’s journey through the woods of myth with an eye to the realizations that myths contain. We begin with contemporary astronomy’s story of human location in time, and with ancient Greek myth, especially that of Oedipus. We continue through the blend of Germanic and Christian myth found in the 9th-Century Heliand gospel story and in the 13th-Century myth of Parzival and the Holy Grail. We end with the blending of the three mythic traditions, Greek, Germanic, and Christian, in the story of Snow White and four other tales of the Brothers Grimm, with a poem or two of Rilke added to balance the astronomy of the beginning
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
IDST-010-08 Ignatius Seminar: The End of Education
Fall only
One thing students presumably know most about is education—in all likelihood, entering first years will have been in school for more than a dozen years. One might think the last thing students would need to reflect upon is the purpose, goal, and end of education. Yet, no subject has been as fiercely debated in the course of human history as the purpose of education. A bit like fish’s experience of water, education surrounds us but we often don’t really see it.
In this seminar, we will explore classical and contemporary ideas about the proper ends of education. Education has been alternatively conceived as the formation of virtuous character; as orienting us toward proper worship of the divine; as the means for extending humanity‘s control over nature; as an engine of social and moral progress; as equipping individuals for citizenship, whether of a nation or as cosmopolitans. What do we mean when we aspire to “liberal” education? Is liberal education compatible with civic education? Should students be expected to achieve knowledge of the core texts and ideas in their tradition, or should education mainly seek to expose us to other cultures? What is the role of the teacher, and how best to be a student?
We will explore works ranging from ancient Greek philosophers to Enlightenment authors to modern American novelists and essayists, with special emphasis on the purpose and aim of university education. This will not be merely an “academic” exercise, but an inquiry into the aspirations that will guide your next four years at Georgetown University, and, it is to be hoped, beyond.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
IDST-010-09 Ignatius Seminar: Sex and Gender in History Today
Fall only
From the very beginning of European history, the role of sex and gender in society has been highly contested. The development of a celibate clergy, the relationship between men and women, and the debate over what constitutes “proper” sexuality are just a few of the components that have formed a core part of Western culture. Through the analysis of religious, political, literary, and intellectual realms, we will examine the gender and sexual constructs of society at large. The course focuses particularly (although not exclusively) on the experiences of women during the early modern period (from the Renaissance to the French Revolution). Why were over 80% of all witches women? What effect did the Reformation have on marriage and the household? Did women have a Renaissance? How do those on the margins of society (prostitutes, witches, heretics, sexual “deviants”) navigate the early modern world and what lessons can we learn from that? Readings include personal memoirs, chronicles, Inquisition trials, plays, satires, and case studies. The course emphasizes both writing and discussion, with students giving class presentations, participating in a mock witch trial, and writing (and re-writing) a series of source-based papers. Students will also be asked to pay close attention to current (i.e., present-day) news reports and media stories to find examples of enduring conflicts over gender and sexuality. Through the close reading of both primary and secondary sources, supplemented by class trips to the National Gallery and a Shakespeare play, students will practice critical thinking and analysis and will learn to blend together the different voices, events, and influences of pre-modern Europe.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
IDST-010-10 Ignatius Seminar: The Art of Cooking: Practical Science in Action
Fall only
For many people, merely hearing the word
science invokes certain anxieties that are perhaps accompanied by images, thoughts, or even personal memories of complex mathematical formulas and equations, rigorous laboratory experimentation, seemingly obscure physical laws and principles, and of course, eccentric, labcoat-clad instructors. In reality, most people unwittingly use scientific principles and carry out scientific enquiry on a daily basis without even blinking an eye! Cooking is practical science in action, taking place in a “kitchen laboratory” where ingredients become the variables in a formula/recipe for reproducibly obtaining a delectable experimental result. Even relatively inexperienced cooks routinely exercise liberties in altering epicurean formulas to suit their own personal tastes, sometimes after several experimental attempts. Of course, once the experiment (dish) is finished, it needs to be tested (tasted), and the result needs to be further analyzed—did it taste good, and if not, how can it be improved?
Cooking is an iterative process of revision and result assessment, which is mainly the approach used in experimental science. Most people realize that obvious physical laws are used in everyday cooking but don’t necessarily think of them as being scientific. By understanding the basic theories, cooking experiments can be refined and one’s overall epicurean skills improved.
The aim of this course will be to understand and apply some basic scientific principles involved in the preparation of food—and in so doing, appreciate the art of cooking through science. Practical demonstrations will be an integral part of the course, as will be the development of a class cookbook and a cook-off competition between class participants.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
IDST-010-11 Ignatius Seminar: An Artist's Perspective: The Creative Process
Fall only
In today’s world, it is necessary to understand and communicate information visually. This seminar will explore the creative process from an artist’s perspective. Learning to think, create, and organize visually is an essential part of Georgetown’s mission to educate the whole person. We will explore ideas and concepts in the studio arts through a sequence of projects in the studio emphasizing “visual syntax.”
Projects will be conceived and developed in two and three dimensional mediums: paint on paper, photography, collage, and constructions. There will be slide talks, visits to artist’s studios including my studio and home, and to galleries and museums throughout the city. You will practice organizing your ideas, interests, or concerns in a coherent visual context. Projects conclude with discussions and critiques in which everyone can contribute their insights and opinions. No prior experience in the studio is necessary; it all starts here.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
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