Two new Slow Reads have been added to our amazing spring line up! The two new “reads” both promise to be powerful, fascinating deep, deep dives into important texts. Take a one-credit Slow Read and experience the joy of learning!
All About Love - bell hooks. “The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet we would all love better if we used it as a verb,” writes activist, author, and healer bell hooks. What is 'love'? Is it just something intimate, personal, and individual? Is it the basis for constructing societal 'freedom dreams,' as Robin D.G. Kelley might say? In this slow read, we will linger over hooks's arguments, poetries, and care-full prose to think together about social futures based in love and connection.
R. Plante - SOCI 29400 - Wednesday 4:00 - 5:15
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Zhuangzi. Immerse yourself in the profound, and profoundly entertaining, Daoist treasure. The Zhuangzi, a delightful collection of fables, parables, anecdotes, poems, and highly fanciful conversations, is a classic of Chinese religious literature and one of the most influential texts of all time. If you are interested in dreams, butterflies, good jokes, nature, or the secret to a more carefree existence, then this course is for you!
Eric Steinschneider - RLST 11500 – Mondays 10:00-10:50
Below please find a list of all the great Slow Reads on offer this spring. No pre-reqs, open to all!
Laudato Si. This Slow Read will work deliberately through Pope Francis’ greatly influential and complex encyclical on the environment, inviting students to respond critically to a major environmental text that advances its positions from a theological perspective.
Juan Arroyo - POLT 21000 - Monday 4:00-4:50
Middlemarch. Middlemarch, by George Eliot, is thought by many to be among the very greatest novels written in English. It is considered a classic of literary realism, examining the details of provincial English life in the fictional town of Middlemarch during a period of extraordinary social and technological change. It teems with marvelously drawn characters, compelling situations, and no small amount of humor.
Kasia Bartoszynska - ENGL 29400-01 – Friday 2:00-3:15
All About Love - bell hooks. “The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet we would all love better if we used it as a verb,” writes activist, author, and healer bell hooks. What is 'love'? Is it just something intimate, personal, and individual? Is it the basis for constructing societal 'freedom dreams,' as Robin D.G. Kelley might say? In this slow read, we will linger over hooks's arguments, poetries, and care-full prose to think together about social futures based in love and connection.
R. Plante - SOCI 29400 - Wednesday 4:00 - 5:15
Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power. Jefferson Cowie won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for this compelling history of resistance to the Civil Rights Movement as a foreshadowing of our current political polarization. Cowie describes how resistance to the granting of full citizenship to Native Americans, enslaved people, and Black people has long been justified by appeals to the concept of ‘freedom.’ Professor Cowie will be meeting personally with the seminar during a visit to campus this spring.
Michael Smith - HIST 20001 – Thursday 2:35-3:50
Zhuangzi. Immerse yourself in the profound, and profoundly entertaining, Daoist treasure. The Zhuangzi, a delightful collection of fables, parables, anecdotes, poems, and highly fanciful conversations, is a classic of Chinese religious literature and one of the most influential texts of all time. If you are interested in dreams, butterflies, good jokes, nature, or the secret to a more carefree existence, then this course is for you!
Eric Steinschneider - RLST 11500 – Mondays 10:00-10:50
The Aeneid. Virgil’s Aeneid is the great Roman epic. In 9,896 lines of dactylic hexameter, it tells the legendary tale of the flight of the survivors of the Trojan War to their founding of the city of Rome. The story abounds in adventure, romance, cruelty, and violence, as well as powerful meditations on destiny, love, and duty. The Aeneid was written in imitation of the Greek epic masterpieces, Iliad and Odyssey and this seminar concludes a cycle of Slow Reads of the Classical epics.
Robert Sullivan - ENGL 29400-02 – Wednesday 4:00-5:15