The University

Catalog description

What is a university? You have dedicated the next four years of your life to learning and living in the context of a university. What IS this place, this institution? What is its history and what is its future? What is the mission of a university and what is your place in it? This course will explore such questions by probing broadly and deeply what the university has been, what it has become, and what it might yet be. We will start with classical cultures, which did not have universities as such; note the rise of the influential medieval university; then trace the expansions of the modern university, including its efforts at diversity and confronting and questioning its core mission. Students will be exposed to an array of readings and films that span the disciplines of philosophy, sociology, law, arts, and humanities. The university is an interdisciplinary enterprise. Among the authors you will encounter are Plato, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Martha Nussbaum. We will find patterns and continuities in the ideas and practices of the university, changes to its core values and vision, and vigorous debates over what we as students and faculty in the university are here to do and become. By the end of the course, students should see NYU, and themselves, in an entirely new light.