Classes start tomorrow, so the time for tinkering has passed. I have posted the syllabi for my courses on the Teaching History and Sample Syllabi page. They are as follows:
- Integrative Studies: Ancient to Early Modern World: the first half of the Shimer Great Books School’s senior seminar, stretching from Gilgamesh to the present day. I have taught this a few times before, and it remains easily my favorite course to teach. (I will also be teaching the second half in the spring.)
- Natural Sciences: The Shape of the World: a Shimer Great Books seminar on cosmology and astronomy, from the Pre-Socratics through Galileo, with side trips into Chinese, Indian, and Arab scientific traditions.
- Cardinal Directions Senior Seminar: Utopia and Dystopia: a relatively unique requirement at North Central is a senior capstone course for their Gen Ed experience as well as their major. Professors get to pick their own topics, and I chose utopia and dystopia as a way of getting them thinking creatively about the future — both their own and that of society as a whole.
- Ethics: this will be my first offering in the philosophy department at North Central, hopefully the first of many!
Adam Kotsko 