Human Movement: The Journey From Here to There

This is a 32-week course divided into two semesters. This course has a heavy emphasis on writing along with weekly, online discussions that focus on human movement—the journeys traveled from here to there. This will include individual migration as well as mass migration. Students will read original works from ancient and modern authors, non-fiction as well as fiction. We will look at where humans move from and where they move towards. We will explore forced movement based on banishment as well as curious movement for exploration and leisure. We will consider the movement of the soul from points of ignorance to revelation. Students are expected to watch pre-recorded lectures and prepare to actively engage in live discussions via online sources by reading assigned material prior to class discussion. Students will also write short essay papers, as well as a longer, end of semester paper.

Course Objectives:

1. To allow students to personally investigated universal themes and participate in what Mortimer Adler calls “great conversations.”
2. To interrogate texts to develop interpretive questions designed to stimulate conversation
3. To engage in meaningful Socratic conversation
4. To develop parliamentary conversational skills to engage in respectful disagreement
5. To synthesize themes from varied texts
6. To recognize universal truths of literature as they relate to Christian thinking
7. To develop writing skills in shorter academic and a longer semester essay using Turabian formatting
8. To develop an academic writing style that incorporates literary present tense, mechanical skills that provide smooth flowing material, and text citation to support arguments.

Texts:

• Genesis
• Exodus
• Homer, The Odyssey
• Herodotus, The History of Herodotus
• Virgil, The Aeneid
• Augustine, Confessions
• Dante, Inferno
• Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo
• Isabella Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains
• Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Learn More About This Course