Welcome to Introduction to the Liberal Arts.
Our course theme this year is "Exemplary Lives."
It is no surprise, then, that ILA texts will embody narratives
and themes that allow us to consider precisely
what might make a life exemplary, and how human flaws may contribute to,
rather than invalidate, an exemplary life. During its semester,
ILA moves intentionally through a number of ways we can discover
exemplarity; that is, it engages various modes of inquiry.
We begin with autobiography, a mode which looks
inward to find a life's meaning. We will then consider how others might view a life "from the outside" in a
biography. We will further investigate the discovery of lives in the past
via a history text, then explore
how individuals have dedicated and defined their exemplary lives in
terms of the pursuit of understanding within a discipline. To conclude the
course, we will discover how exemplary lives might be understood in
different cultures. This final text will also serve as a "bridge" to the
sophomore course that you will take, Global Perspectives.
The first text that all sections will read is
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama.
All students should read the first section of this book ("Origins") by
the time that they arrive on campus; we encourage everyone to read the
whole book before the semester starts, however.
Summer study questions for this
section can be found here.
