media
02/02/2020
Harvard Technology Review
The motivation for Curricle came out of a conversation we had with the previous Dean of Arts and Humanities, Diana Sorensen, regarding a kind of crisis in the humanities and the liberal arts: questions around their purpose and what value they have to society now. In the context of a world in which students feel very compelled by preparing for the private sector and industry, we wondered if it might be possible for us to reimagine a course selection experience that would prize a greater depth of curiosity, inquiry, and reflection; not only asking what needs they have to fulfill in the course of their educational career, but why those needs exist. As a historical case study, T.S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein, both alumni of the College, were two very different writers in the early 20th century. They had very different approaches to the courses they chose and the course of study that they ultimately undertook, and those rhyme in interesting ways with the cultural figures they became later on. Eliot’s course of study was very straight, down-the-line literature, with most courses lying in religion, language studies, and 19th-century literature. If you look at the courses that he decided to take, they look like really good preparation for writing like The Wasteland or the Four Quartets. Stein, on the other hand, took a more eclectic set of courses, studying with William James, George Santayana, and Josiah Royce. As a consequence, Gertrude Stein’s work appears in interesting places across the curriculum — psychology, philosophy, and even in theater and dance courses — while T.S. Eliot is typically concentrated in literature and religious curricula.
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