Core Course
Introduction to the Core Course
The Core Course must be important: It is the only course that everyone has to take at the University of Richmond. And it must be fundamental: Everyone has to take it in his or her first year. What job does this course do that is so important and fundamental?
The Core Course has three major aims:
- To expand knowledge and understanding of different ways in which thinkers and writers have interpreted human experience
- To develop the ability to engage and compare texts critically through reading, thinking, writing and discussing
- To establish a foundation for conversations on serious questions, among both students and faculty, that extend beyond the Core Course itself
How does it endeavor to achieve these aims?
It pursues the first aim by having students do hard thinking about hard books. The guiding assumption for this is that one of the best ways to learn to read, think and express oneself well is to study the works of proven good readers, thinkers and writers. By analyzing how gifted people think through tough problems on paper—by getting into conversation with very smart men and women—one gets better at the job oneself. So instead of asking students to master a specific body of information, this course asks them to read and interpret a series of complex literary and philosophical texts.
The point is not to learn facts and formulas (although students will learn many new things), but to develop the following skills: how to absorb difficult material relatively quickly; how to see the way a text works; and how to fashion clear, subtle, persuasive arguments for a position. To those ends, the course requires that each student do considerable reading, conversing and writing. Classes are kept small so that students will feel free to join in discussion and enjoy the close attention of each instructor to each student’s intellectual growth.
The course pursues the second aim by assigning texts that display a wide array of perspectives on the meaning of life. The guiding assumption for this is that the examination of a variety of approaches to common human problems will offer students a more sophisticated understanding of what is involved in making thoughtful sense out of experience. All the texts in the course tend to focus on similar basic questions: Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why do people behave the way they do? To whom or to what do we owe responsibility?
Since the writers of these texts look at these questions from varying vantage points (they live in different times and places, occupy different social positions, have different physical constitutions), they do not treat the questions in the same way. In trying to work out why this writer sees the world this way, while that writer sees it that way, Richmond students should not only discover new possibilities for interpreting experience, but also develop a sensitivity to the challenges interpretation must confront.
Through the exercise of thinking through various writers’ visions of the world—whether they agree with them or not—students gain a better understanding of the grounds for, and implications of, their own views.
The course pursues the third aim by maintaining a common syllabus for all sections and drawing its instructors from the entire University faculty. Because every first-year student is reading the same book at the same time (and more than likely a lot of upperclass students have read the same book), there is always something substantial out there for students to talk about, not just in class, but in the dining hall or residence hall. Should we buy this argument for political reform? Should we love or hate this character? What exactly is this writer trying to say? And because the course is not the property of one department—the instructors come from a variety of departments in the School of Arts and Sciences, as well as from the Richmond School of Law, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, E. Claiborne Robins School of Business and the School of Continuing Studies—there are faculty all over the University who are in on the conversation.
By nourishing this common conversation, the course provides an important undergirding for all other courses at the University. No matter what course a student is taking, the instructor knows that the members of the class have read certain books and discussed certain issues that can serve as a common point of reference for what he or she has to say.
This is a demanding course but it is also a rewarding and enjoyable one. It is designed to stretch each student intellectually and conceptually and thus provide all students with a solid foundation both for further study at the University and for reflective living after graduation. What could be more important?
Books Assigned Fall Semester 2007 - Spring 2008
Knowledge, Culture, and Society:
- Orhan Pamuk, The White Castle (Turkey, 1975)
- Plato, The Trial and Death of Socrates (includes Euthyphro, The Apology, and Crito), and as a separate text, Phaedo (Greece, 4th century B.C.E.)
- Charles Darwin, selections from On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man (Britain,1859, 1874)
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, trans. Stephen Addiss (China ca. 600 B.C.E.)
Re-Imagining Society:
- Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (selections) (Germany, 1887)
- Mahatma Gandhi, selected essays, The Penguin Gandhi Reader, 2nd ed., 1996, Ed. Rudrangshu Mukherjee (India, 1909-1947)
- Karl Marx, selections from The German Ideology, The Communist Manifesto, and Capital(Europe, 1846-1894)
- Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (U.S.A., 1905)
Desire and Human Possibility:
- Augustine, Confessions (selections) (North Africa and Italy, circa 400)
- William Shakespeare, Othello (England, 1604, first printed 1622)
- Adrienne Rich, Adrienne Rich’s Poetry and Prose (U.S.A., 1951-1991)
- Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart (Japan, 2001)
Living within Limits:
- W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (U.S.A., 1903)
- J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron (South Africa, 1990)
- Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (Austria, 1930)
- James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (U.S.A., 1956)
Fields Represented by Core Course Faculty
- Anthropology
- Art
- Biology
- Business
- Chemistry
- Classical Studies
- Economics
- Education
- English
- French
- German
- History
- Journalism
- Law
- Leadership Studies
- Library
- Mathematics
- Music
- Philosophy
- Political Science
- Psychology
- Religion
- Rhetoric and Communication Studies
- Russian
- Sociology
- Spanish
- Theatre
David E. Leary, Core Course Coordinator
(804) 289-8302
dleary@richmond.edu
Office of Admission
(800) 700-1662
(804) 289-8640