Instructor: David Alvarez
Text: Michael J. Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
Course Description: This course will consider Sandel’s analysis of 1) the extent to which market norms and ways of thinking have shaped our approach to ethical problems and 2) the difference between having a market economy and being a market society. Sandel’s book poses simple but sharp questions that raise fundamental ethical issues about the proper role of markets in a democratic society. To what extent are market values crowding out civic practices and democratic norms? Can we protect the moral goods that markets do not value? When I taught this book in the spring of ’23, students were especially intrigued by Sandel’s “corruption” objection to applying market thinking to ethical questions. “Markets leave their mark on social norms,” Sandel claims. When something is commodified, its meaning and ethical significance can change. The course is inspired by our Strategic Plan’s vision to think business and leadership through the liberal arts.
Course Limit: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: The Prindle Institute
Meeting Time: The first 8 Wednesdays of the Spring 2024 Semester

Instructor: Kayla Flegal
Text: Miroslav Volv, Matthew Croasmun, Ryan McAnnally-Linz, Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most
Course Description: What makes life good? How have we (individuals, society) determined what is good, true, and right for our lives? These questions do not have answers, but are questions we must ask ourselves to determine where we are, where we are going, where we want to go, and how we might get there. Based on a course they teach at Yale, the three authors present evidence from various traditions and thinkers and leave the hard part, answering The Question, to the individual. This course will explore The Question(s) together as a community, not a group of like-minded individuals but as dynamic friends on varying journeys with different backgrounds and beliefs.
Course Limit: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: Campus
Meeting Time: The first 8 Mondays of the Spring 2024 Semester

Instructor: Yao Li
Text: Yu Hua, To Live
Course Description: Originally banned in China but now called “A Chinese Book of Job”, Yu Hua’s To Live presents a contemporary Chinese society, where after the dramatic highs and lows and all sorts of sufferings and protests, people are still determined to live humanely. The story of one person is the story of every person in China. We may gain a better understanding on how China’s social value system changes, and what could be the key factors in the changing process.
Course Limit: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: Campus
Meeting Time: The first 8 Thursdays of the Spring 2024 Semester

Instructor: Humberto Barreto
Text: John Early, Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund, The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate
Course Description: This course examines Gramm, Ekelund, and Early’s contrarian book, The Myth of American Inequality. They disagree with the general consensus and claim inequality in the distribution of income and wealth in the United States is misunderstood, mismeasured, and has not been rising. The book is grounded in numbers and data analyses, but we will also discuss philosophical arguments (e.g., Rawls and Nozick) and theories of inequality.
Course Limit: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: The Prindle Institute
Meeting Time: The first 8 Tuesdays of the Spring 2024 Semester

Instructor: Joseph Porter
Text: Jane Austen, Emma
Course Description: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a liberal arts college in possession of a Jane Austen novel must be in want of a book club. In this Prindle reading course, we will explore Emma—by many accounts, Austen’s most mature work—with a special focus on the ethical questions it raises about sex, social class, love, relationships, and much more.
Course Limit: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: The Prindle Institute
Meeting Time: The first 8 Tuesdays of the Spring 2024 Semester

Instructor: David Gellman
Text: Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
Course Description: How did Abraham Lincoln become the ‘great emancipator’? To answer that question, we have to remove Lincoln from his monumental perch and consider him as a human being. We have to trade hero-worship for history. Fortunately, we have Eric Foner, the greatest living historian of the U.S., and his multi-prize-winning book The Fiery Trial to guide our discussion of how slavery finally came to an end. This book is clear-eyed about how Lincoln came to play a leadership role in this enormously consequential, but painfully incomplete historical transformation. Foner writes that “Lincoln’s career was a process of moral and political education.” Confronting Lincoln’s flaws, shortcomings, contradictions, and blind-spots, as well as probing the sources of his unparalleled accomplishments, we will undertake a moral and political education of our own. We gain a deeper appreciation for the moral potential and moral limitations of political leadership. And in so doing, we become better equipped to battle the evils that plague our own times—from the continuing racist legacies of slavery to the climate crisis.
Course Limit: 10
Prerequisites: None
Pass/Fail Option: Yes
Eligibility: Anyone
Location: Campus
Meeting Time: The first 8 Thursdays of the Spring 2024 Semester

For meeting times and the most up-to-date information on these courses, please consult the University’s Schedule of Courses.

Text: Rashad Shabazz, Spatializing Blackness: Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity in Chicago
Instructor: Aliyah Turner
Course Description: Ongoing debates around racial realism call for increasing our collective race consciousness. Still, there remains a gross and glaring underrepresentation of positive portrayals and depictions of Blackness in society, especially at the intersection of gender, class, and place. Blackness is more than a monolith or condemnable identity in society. From as early as the Transatlantic slave trade to the current overrepresentation of Black men in our carceral state, Black masculinity remains a contested identity that people still shy away from in discussions, conversations, and everyday interactions. The globalizing anti-Black sentiment is one that continues to stifle racial progress while promoting the illusion of a post-racial ideal – or that there is meritocracy within major institutions of power that remain pejorative. It’s important to reimagine Blackness and its intersection with masculinity as not only a racialized and gendered identity that we hold at the individual level, but as a worldview, a perspective of/on life, a history, a rich culture, and as something that uniquely constructs space in society for all peoples in and beyond the diaspora. The work of Rashad Shabazz examines how architectures of confinement, which represent a multitude of surveillance, coercion, and control tactics, intersect with Blackness, gender, and place. This course will offer students a new way of imagining Black masculinity while giving attention to its major construction sites, including history, politics, gender, and culture.
Meeting Time: First 8 Wednesday evenings of Fall 2023 semester

Text: Alvin E. Roth, Who Gets What–and Why
Instructor: Town Oh
Course Description: Much of what we buy and sell goes through commodity markets where prices connect sellers and buyers. There are other markets where prices cannot function and these are called “matching markets.” These are markets where a buyer is matched with a specific seller based on various preferences and monetary benefits are only secondary. The market for marriage, college admissions, and the organ donation market are few examples. In Who Gets What–and Why Dr. Alvin Roth discusses ways policy makers can design certain markets to function better by taking account of people’s incentives so that the “invisible hand” can do its work of allocating scarce resources. The book, although not heavily quantitative, shows how we can use game theory to solve many social problems.
Meeting Time: First 8 Thursday evenings of Fall 2023 semester

Text: Janet Yolen, Briar Rose
Instructor: Tamara Stasik
Course Description: Through a close reading of Janet Yolen’s banned and burned young adult novel Briar Rose (a rewriting of Sleeping Beauty in the context of the Holocaust), we will explore the ethical functions of fairy tales. Activities such as collaborative questioning, self-reflection, and creative writing will help us ask how a traditional fairy tale can be a tool for understanding not only our own lives but also the experiences of others, particularly when those experiences are painful or even untellable.
Meeting Time: First 8 Tuesday evenings of Fall 2023 semester

Text: Frans de Waal, The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates
Course Description: Do we need God to be good? In the absence of religious rules and precepts, is there something remaining in us to guide us toward moral choices? Or are we, at core, bad? This book considers if humans’ sense of morality comes from within rather than above–as a product of our evolution. Mixing ape studies with moral philosophy, the well-known primatologist Frans de Waal uses chimpanzees and bonobos to to gain insight into our sense of right and wrong now and in the past.
Meeting Time: First 8 Tuesday evenings of Fall 2023 semester

Text: Tricia Hersey, Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto
Instructor: Angela Castañeda
Course Description: What would it be like to live in a well-rested world? Does our worth reside in how much we produce? In Rest is Resistance, author Tricia Hersey suggests that we don’t have to be burned out or disconnected from ourselves or those around us – instead she invites us to consider how rest can be a form of justice. She approaches the notion of collective rest as a form of performance art, incorporating elements of Black liberation theology, Afrofuturism and poetry into her messaging. She asks us to consider the relationship between rest and privilege as well as legacies of exhaustion rooted in capitalism and white supremacy. Rest is a radical act, and Hersey’s work invites us to break free from “grind culture” by using rest as the starting point towards healing and justice.
Meeting Time: First 8 Tuesday evenings of Fall 2023 semester

Text: Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
Instructor: Dahee Yun
Course Description: Do you love animals? Do you care about your health? Have you ever thought about the foods you eat? If you love animals, are interested in food, and want to contribute to a safe and healthy environment for yourself and others, including animals, this class will help you explore your concerns and your everyday practice. In this course, we will explore ethical consumption and respect for different lives, including ourselves, while considering the dilemma of “eating animals.” We want to hear your voice and believe you can make a better world.
Meeting Time: First 8 Wednesday evenings of Fall 2023 semester

Text: Bryan Garston, Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment
Instructor: Andrew Allsup
Course Description: What role ought rhetoric play in a democratic society that values pluralism, freedom of expression, and consensus while simultaneously demanding truth, legitimacy, and expert solutions to emergent problems? This course explores the ethical dilemmas that arise from these often-conflicting commitments through careful consideration of the affordances and dangers that pertain to the widespread dissemination of persuasive and conflicting discourses. Guiding our discussion will be Bryan Garsten’s book, Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment. In surveying this text, will explore a variety of ethical problems that pertain to philosophical positions that have sought to exclude or limit the influence of rhetoric out of concerns that it encourages demagoguery, nationalism, and partisanship while also considering those that defend it as a necessary feature of democratic life as the vehicle for achieving flexible, exigent, and otherwise prudent decisions on problems of common concern.
Meeting Time: First 8 Thursday evenings of Fall 2023 semester