CUNY Research Foundation, John Jay College (New York, NY 10019-1007)
Olivera Jokic (Project Director: September 2013 to May 2016)
AQ-51033-14
Enduring Questions: Pilot Course Grants
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$22,000 (approved)
$21,994 (awarded)
Grant period:
5/1/2014 – 12/31/2015
|
|
NEH Enduring Questions Course on the Nature of Friendship
The development of an undergraduate course on friendship.
The development of an undergraduate course on friendship. Olivera Jokic, an assistant professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, develops and teaches a course that examines the nature of friendship from a variety of perspectives. The course begins by looking at how writers from several time periods and cultures have represented friendship and then considers whether friendships are a function of culture. Next, the course turns to the question of whether friendship is a common good or is motivated by self-interest, and examines the ways that gender and gender roles might influence friendship. The final section of the course investigates the relationship between friendship, difference and equality, and distance, including the role that technologies like Facebook play in developing and maintaining friendships. Course readings include Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Plato's Phaedrus and Lysis, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Jane Austen's Persuasion, Zadie Smith's White Teeth, Oscar Wilde's De Profundis; essays by Vine Deloria, John Stuart Mill, and Michel de Montaigne; and poetry by Sappho, Li Bai and Du Fu, William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Langston Hughes. Readings are supplemented by the viewing and discussion of such films as Some Like it Hot, 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days (from Romania), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Thelma and Louise, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Throughout the course, students keep a journal of their reactions to the readings, produce midterm analytical projects related to course readings and discussions, and create final exhibits about friendships that are displayed on campus.
|
|
Boston College (Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3858)
Alice Behnegar (Project Director: September 2011 to September 2014)
AQ-50646-12
Enduring Questions: Pilot Course Grants
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$22,432 (approved)
$22,378 (awarded)
Grant period:
6/1/2012 – 5/31/2014
|
|
NEH Enduring Questions Course on "Thinking About Law: What Is It and What Are Its Claims on Us?"
The development of an upper-level undergraduate seminar on the question, What is law and what are its claims on us?
Since 1996, Alice Behnegar has taught introductory and survey courses at Boston College as a non-tenure track instructor, advancing to her current status as full-time adjunct associate professor in the honors program and the political science department. She develops a three-part, upper-level seminar that "confronts and clarifies our perplexity regarding the law." The project director observes that "Students see the diversity of laws in the world and believe it means that there is no single, true standard of justice." They ask, is law "impossible to disobey, usual to disobey, bad to disobey, or good to disobey?" In order to offer a more complex response to the question, What is Law?, the first section probes the traditional premise that the law reflects truth, with readings from the Bible, Thomas Aquinas, Aeschylus, Chinua Achebe, John Locke, and the "disturbing" trials narrated in Plato's Apology and Camus' novel, The Stranger. Skepticism about the law is explored in the writings of Montaigne, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Richard Rorty. In the concluding section, students bring multiple perspectives to bear on their work in preparing for a historical case study and reenactment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony trial and conviction of Anne Hutchinson. The role-playing exercise is supported by core readings and web-based materials from Barnard College's "Reacting to the Past" series. Situated within the Arts and Sciences Honors Program, the new course is open to any student who has completed the humanities and social sciences core required of all Boston College students. Professor Behnegar uses course development time to go beyond her academic training as a political scientist and earlier professional experience as a practicing lawyer to engage with literary texts, contemporary theory, and philosophy.
|
|
Emory University (Atlanta, GA 30322-1018)
Ann Hartle (Project Director: September 2011 to August 2015)
AQ-50761-12
Enduring Questions: Pilot Course Grants
Education Programs
|
[Grant products][Media coverage]
Totals:
$25,000 (approved)
$24,883 (awarded)
Grant period:
5/1/2012 – 4/30/2015
|
|
NEH Enduring Questions Course on "What Is Civility?"
The development of an undergraduate philosophy course on the question, What is civility?
Ann Hartle, a professor of philosophy with a specialty in the early modern period, develops an introductory course on the idea of civility, "placing it within the context of the social bond in modern liberal societies." Recognizing that the concept was "presupposed in pre-modern life," Professor Hartle argues that civility became a fully articulated problem "with the advent of liberal society, that is, with the origins of the freedom of the individual to pursue the good life in his own way." She also notes that the "meaning of civility depends upon the kind of unity and the level of diversity that a given society seeks to enjoy." The course addresses the problem through a series of related questions about the nature of the social bond, especially in democratic societies; the difficulties of civility in a multicultural and religiously plural society; the role of education in fostering civility; and the relationship between citizenship and civility. The first unit of the course, on pre-modern forms of civility, is based on close readings of Aristotle's Politics and Josef Pieper's Leisure, the Basis of Culture; the latter focuses on the importance of education, study, and contemplation for civilized life in ancient and Christian cultures. The second unit, on civility in early modern philosophy, considers essays by Montaigne and Rousseau's The Social Contract, which provide classic formulations about the roles of individual freedom and religion in social and civil life. Professor Hartle states that she will probably add recent works on religion and civility to this unit during the course development phase. The third unit, on contemporary problems of civility, utilizes Michael Oakeshott, On Human Conduct, and Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, Solidarity, which address distinctions between varieties of human association and propose alternative conceptions of liberal society. In addition to standard classroom activities and assignments, the students plan and conduct discussion sessions for the university community.
|
|
Shimer College (Chicago, IL 60616)
Stuart Patterson (Project Director: September 2011 to February 2017)
AQ-50786-12
Enduring Questions: Pilot Course Grants
Education Programs
|
[Grant products]
Totals:
$24,752 (approved)
$24,193 (awarded)
Grant period:
9/1/2012 – 8/31/2016
|
|
NEH Enduring Questions Course on "What Is the Role of Reading in Human Life?"
The development of a course that explores the question of what we should read and why.
Stuart Patterson, associate professor of liberal arts at Shimer College, develops a course that explores why and what people should read. Designed both to engage and to critique Shimer College's Great Books curriculum, the course provides a structured venue for students to consider the intellectual, personal, and ethical dimensions of reading and thus, the foundation of a liberal arts education. Divided into six thematic units, it begins with Plato's Phaedrus, where Socrates queries the relationship between reading, writing, and conversation. The next section considers debates over canonicity - what we should read and how that is determined. Students first examine Shimer's own canon by reading The Great Conversation, whose author, Robert Maynard Hutchins, laid the groundwork for the college's curriculum. This is set alongside a larger discussion in Lee Morrissey's reader, Debating the Canon. Students then compare the four New Testament gospels to apocryphal texts, the latter supported by secondary sources. Thirdly, beginning with Montaigne and Cervantes, students explore the early modern phenomena of book ownership and reading as a private enterprise. In the fourth section, students revisit works and concepts encountered earlier in the course through the lens of contemporary theorists who have questioned the relationship between author, text, and reader: Mikhail Bakhtin and Jorge Luis Borges (both of whom discuss Don Quixote) and Jacques Derrida, who discusses Phaedrus. Finally, Marshall McLuhan's The Gutenberg Galaxy allows students to ask if, in his words, "the medium [really] is the message." In visits to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Newberry Library, students compare the activity of reading with the viewing of art and consider the materiality of books in light of a digital future.
|
|
Newberry Library (Chicago, IL 60610-3380)
Carla Zecher (Project Director: March 2004 to October 2006)
FS-50025-04
Seminars for Higher Education Faculty
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$107,618 (approved)
$107,618 (awarded)
Grant period:
10/1/2004 – 9/30/2005
|
|
Travel Writing, Skepticism, and Religious Belief in Renaissance France
A four-week summer seminar for college teachers to examine French Renaissance travel writing and the effect of the encounter with the peoples of the Americas on religious debates in sixteenth-century Europe.
This seminar will examine the intersection between travel writing, skepticism, and religious belief in Renaissance France, so as to reintegrate the religious consequences of early European/Amerindian encounters into our view of the cultural transformations initiated by the Age of Exploration. Attitudes adopted to deal with the religious status of Amerindians assumed a polemical role in the dissensions of the Reformation. Pseudo-travel texts by writers such as Rabelais and Montaigne applied exotic description to French culture, stripping meaning from familiar customs, making readers feel like foreigners at home. The disorientation effected by this literature framed the problem of religious doubt within a larger cross-cultural context.
|
|
Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)
Marcel Tetel (Project Director: March 1998 to March 2000)
FV-22299-98
Seminars for K-12 Educators
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$103,207 (approved)
$99,757 (awarded)
Grant period:
10/1/1998 – 9/30/1999
|
|
Montaigne and Our Times
No project description available
|
|
Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)
Marcel Tetel (Project Director: April 1994 to February 1996)
FV-21788-94
Seminars for K-12 Educators
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$90,130 (approved)
$90,130 (awarded)
Grant period:
10/1/1994 – 9/30/1995
|
|
Montaigne: Perspectives on His Times
No project description available
|
|
Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA 99362-2083)
Patrick G. Henry (Project Director: April 1993 to February 1995)
FV-21707-93
Seminars for K-12 Educators
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$60,585 (approved)
$58,596 (awarded)
Grant period:
10/1/1993 – 9/30/1994
|
|
Montaigne's ESSAYS
No project description available
|
|
Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA 99362-2083)
Patrick G. Henry (Project Director: April 1992 to January 1994)
FV-21498-92
Seminars for K-12 Educators
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$59,177 (approved)
$59,177 (awarded)
Grant period:
10/1/1992 – 9/30/1993
|
|
Montaigne's ESSAYS
No project description available
|
|
Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)
Marcel Tetel (Project Director: April 1992 to March 1994)
FV-21536-92
Seminars for K-12 Educators
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$89,705 (approved)
$89,705 (awarded)
Grant period:
10/1/1992 – 9/30/1993
|
|
Montaigne: Perspectives on His Times
No project description available
|
|
Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)
Marcel Tetel (Project Director: April 1991 to June 1993)
FV-21372-91
Seminars for K-12 Educators
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$92,416 (approved)
$92,416 (awarded)
Grant period:
10/1/1991 – 9/30/1992
|
|
Montaigne: Perspectives on His Times
No project description available
|
|
College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA 01610-2395)
David L. Schaefer (Project Director: March 1991 to August 1995)
ES-21553-88
Institutes for K-12 Educators
Education Programs
|
[Grant products]
Totals:
$569,023 (approved)
$564,696 (awarded)
Grant period:
1/1/1988 – 3/31/1994
Funding details:
Original grant (1991) $189,023
Supplement (1991) $190,000
Supplement (1993) $190,000
Supplement (1995) $-4,327
|
|
POLIS and RES PUBLICA: Classical Political Theory and the U.S. Constitution
To support a four-week national institute for 30 high school social studies and Latin teachers on the relationship between classical political thought and the U.S. Constitution.
|
|
Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA 99362-2083)
Patrick G. Henry (Project Director: April 1989 to February 1991)
FV-21020-89
Seminars for K-12 Educators
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$50,021 (approved)
$49,191 (awarded)
Grant period:
10/1/1989 – 9/30/1990
|
|
Montaigne's ESSAYS
No project description available
|
|
Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)
Marcel Tetel (Project Director: April 1989 to January 1991)
FV-21029-89
Seminars for K-12 Educators
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$75,740 (approved)
$75,740 (awarded)
Grant period:
10/1/1989 – 9/30/1990
|
|
French Renaissance Humanism: Rabelais, Marguerite of Navarre, Montaigne
No project description available
|
|
Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)
Marcel Tetel (Project Director: May 1987 to June 1989)
EH-20750-87
Institutes for Higher Education Faculty
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$163,623 (approved)
$161,304 (awarded)
Grant period:
9/1/1987 – 3/31/1989
|
|
Perspectives on Montaigne and His Time
To support an institute on the literary and historical contexts of the ESSAYS of Michel de Montaigne.
|
|
Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)
Marcel Tetel (Project Director: May 1985 to October 1990)
EH-20557-85
Institutes for Higher Education Faculty
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$129,361 (approved)
$102,710 (awarded)
Grant period:
10/1/1985 – 11/30/1986
|
|
Perspectives on Montaigne and His Time
To support a six-week institute for 25 college and university teachers on the literary and historical contexts of the ESSAYS of Michel de Montaigne.
|
|
Centenary College of Louisiana (Shreveport, LA 71104-3335)
Michael L. Hall (Project Director: March 1983 to October 1990)
FV-20009-83
Seminars for K-12 Educators
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$47,881 (approved)
$47,881 (awarded)
Grant period:
10/1/1983 – 9/30/1984
|
|
Montaigne, Bacon, Donne: Emergence of the Essay and the Idea of Discovery
No project description available
|
|
Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York (New York, NY 10027-7922)
Donald M. Frame (Project Director: July 1980 to October 1990)
FS-*0092-81
Seminars for Higher Education Faculty
Education Programs
|
Totals:
$70,000 (approved)
$52,571 (awarded)
Grant period:
1/1/1981 – 12/31/1981
|
|
Montaigne and the Essay
No project description available
|
|