UNIV 104XHow to Live in Time of Crisis

Catalog

HOW TO LIVE IN A TIME OF CRISIS - - - The UNIV 101 & UNIV 104 courses offer a blended course format which includes two primary components, one focusing on the academic topic, taught by a faculty member with the second component devoted to new student transition topics, taught by a professional staff partner instructor. This freshmen seminar course will explore an intriguing intellectual topic, help freshmen hone critical thinking and writing skills, and assist students in making a successful transition to university life. - - - Political turmoil, mounting economic uncertainty, unsettling environmental change. Though a description of how things today can feel, these words also describe the later sixteenth century, when Michel de Montaigne wrote a series of searching essays about how to live and think in a time of crisis. Writing over the last three decades of his life (1533-1592), Montaigne reflects on his times and his own feelings about them, on social issues ranging from racism, cultural relativism, and religious violence to very personal ones like self-doubt, the nature of friendship, and the value of our emotions. Montaigne's startlingly honest and frankly personal manner of writing speaks to us, inviting us to respond-to Montaigne's ideas, to our own feelings, to the reactions of our peers and contemporaries. In our class together, we will read and discuss several of Montaigne's essays, as frankly and honestly and self-searchingly as Montaigne wrote about them. We will agree and we will disagree. We will engage in ongoing discussions about how to best live life with ourselves and with others especially at a time when the conditions of life can feel so difficult. NOTE: All UNIV 101 and UNIV 104 courses are restricted to students in their FIRST SEMESTER at the University. Students MAY NOT register for more than one UNIV 101 or UNIV 104 course.