Reclusion: Ancient Strategies for Getting Away from It All

Catalog description

This experimental class draws on three distinct premodern cultural traditions to develop strategies for social disengagement. We meet for three six-hour sessions during which we read a book in silence together and discuss it, all devices stowed away. Our fourth and final session will meet for two hours, during which students will be asked to silently write a reflection essay in person, on paper. There will be no outside assignments: just read the books in class, discuss them, and write about them in our final session. By reading in community, we hope to cultivate the rapidly fading humanistic skills of deep focus, long attention, and slowness of lifestyle.