Foundation
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Culture: Cities, Makers of Modernity
In the eighteenth and increasingly in the nineteenth century, a curious thing happened: an age-old balance between large agrarian populations and small urban centers began to shift dramatically in favor of urban centers. Cities grew…
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Fate and Virtue
In this course—one of three in the Humanities foundation series—we will read one of the greatest poems ever written (Homer’s Iliad), excerpts from two writers who can lay claim to have created the discipline of…
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Identity and Perspective
That question underlies much of what we do in the humanities—in literature, philosophy, history, and the fine and performing arts. In this course, one of three in the interdisciplinary Humanities foundation sequence, we will investigate…
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Question
Welcome to your Question block. In the next few weeks, you will draw a blueprint for the rest of your Quest education. This may be exhilarating: having completed (or come close to completing) the requirements…
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Reason and Freedom
This course emphasizes the foundations of the modern world. Reason and Freedom explores the self-conscious nature of modernity and its belief in reason, and explores the paradoxes of our position in history. It examines the…
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Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, an art that has a long and noble tradition. Understanding the art of persuasion entails at least two things: one, understanding how the arguments made by others work; two,…